An expository comment, doctrinal, controversial, and practical upon the whole first chapter to the…An expository comment, doctrinal, controversal, and practical upon the whole first chapter to the…

First, There is necessarily required to a good and true testimony of our conscience, ¹That it take the word of God as a Rule to judge by, to witness by, to accuse by, and to acquit by. The conscience of a man is not the supreme rule, but an inferior; and therefore is Regula regulata, as well as Regula regulans, a rule to be ruled by an higher rule, which is the Scripture. To the Law, to the testimony, if they speak not according to this, it is because there is no light in them, Isa. 8. 20. If a man pretend to never so much light within, if he rejoiceth never so much in the light that he hath, yet if it be not from the light of the Word, if it be not examined, tried and judged to be according to that ⟨p. 386⟩it is but a false light, a light that will end in darkness. So then, though conscience be a testimony, yet you see that bath another testimony to be guided by; though it be a Law in a man, yet there is a superior Law to that, which is the word of God. By this you may see, what a rotten foundation they have to build their comforts upon, who take up other rules for their conscience, besides the Scripture. These joys are all but like the morning-dew. Some make their rule in Religion, to be the tradition of their Fathers. The Papist doth so extol tradition, that they think that alone without Scripture is star bright enough to guide us. Paul's zeal while a persecutor seemed to be grounded much upon this, because they were the traditions of his fathers. And truly tradition is the greatest reason of most mens faith, whether it be in a right way, or a true. But this is an improper foundation for thy faith. As thy faith is hereby a blind faith, so thy comfort is but a blind comfort. How greatly do the Popish Casuists perplex their people with such cases of conscience, and about such superstitious things, that they have only tradition for, and that it may be not many years neither, without any stamp or superscription of the Scripture? Have not they comfort in their Penances, in their Indulgences? Will not their Friars and Monks (not those slow beasts and idle bellies) who from deluded principles of conscience, do severely and austerely mortify themselves, say, They have the testimony of their consciences, and make a bulwark from thence? But where is the rule they go by? Is it not tradition?