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

What may be the Causes of the trouble of Conscience, which yet are short of true saving Motives.

IN the third place take notice, of what may be the cause and motives which may make thy conscience awakened and troubled, which yet are not from true saving principles.

1. The commission of some gross and heinous sin against conscience; this may ⟨p. 244⟩work much terror. The very natural light of conscience in this particular is able to fill the soul with fears, Rom. 2. The Heathens had their consciences accusing of them. We read of Nero, that after he had killed his mother Agrippina, he was so terrified in his conscience, that he never dared to offer sacrifices to the Gods, because of the guilt upon him, yea, and as Tertullian (lib. de animâ cap. 44.) observeth from Suetonius, after this parricide, he who in his former times never used to dream (it's noted of him as a rare and strange thing) was constantly terrified in his dreams with sad imaginations. Thus you see natural conscience upon the committing of some gross sin, hath power of it self to recoil and with heavy terror to overwhelm a man. Some also do relate of Constantine, that having been the cause of the death of his eldest son Crispus, upon groundless suspicious, was greatly tormented in his conscience, not knowing what to do, and thereupon was advised to receive the Christian Religion, in which alone there could be found an expiation for so foul an offence.

1. The commission of some gross and hainous sinne against conscience; this may ⟨p. 244⟩