A treatise of original sin ... proving that it is

That the consciences of all men by nature are polluted and defiled; Even their mind and conscience (saith the Text) signifying by that expression, that there remaineth no hope (as it were) for them, when the foundations are thus removed. ⟨p. 223⟩To this defiled conscience in Scripture is opposite [Greek or Hebrew], a good conscience, 1 Pet. 3. 16. [Greek or Hebrew], 1 Tim. 3. 9 a pure or clean, and that by the blood of Christ, Heb. 9. 14. [Greek or Hebrew], Heb. 13. 18, [Greek or Hebrew], Act. 24. 16. And this kind of conscience only those that are regenerate have: But an evil conscience is [Greek or Hebrew], as here in the Text [Greek or Hebrew], as Heb. 9. 22. [Greek or Hebrew], 1 Tim. 4. 2. There is also [Greek or Hebrew], a weak conscience, but that the godly may have. The conscience were are to treat upon is the defiled one, and that not so much as made more impure and sinful by voluntary impieties, as what it is by nature in every one; And before we come to demonstrate the pollution of it, it is good to take notice of the nature of it. The New Testament useth the word [Greek or Hebrew] about thirty times, and that for conscience. In the Old Testament the Hebrew word Madani is once rendered, Eccles. 10. by [Greek or Hebrew], but most commonly that which in the New Testament is called conscience in the old is called Leb, the heart of a man: So David's heart is said to smite him, apponere ad cor, and redire, and cor, are nothing, but the acts of conscience, and thus sometimes in the New Testament, 1 John 3. 20. If our heart condemn us. It's observed that the first signification of the word Leb, is a conspersion, or meal sprinkled with water: Thus the heart of a man is a lump (as it were) watered and sprinkled with some common principles and apprehensions about God, and what is good and evil: As for the nature of conscience it self, it is not good to be too nice in Scholastical Disputes about it, remembering that of Bernard, There was Multum seientiae, but param conscientiae in the world. It's disputed, Whether conscience be a power or an habit, or an act only? that it is not a power Aquinas proveth, because that can never be removed, or laid aside, or changed, whereas conscience may; Some say therefore it's an habit, others, as Aquinas and Dr Ames, answering Mr Perkins his Objection, Why it cannot be an act, that it is an act?