A37045:119
Heaven upon earth in the serene tranquillity and calm composure, in the sweet peace…
Heaven upon earth in the serene tranquillity and calm composure, in the sweet peace and solid joy of a good conscience sprinkled with the blood of Jesus and exercised always to be void of offence toward God and toward men : brought down and holden forth in XXII very searching sermons on several texts of Scripture ... / by James Durham.
Edinburgh: printed by the heir of Andrew Anderson, 1685
Title page typeset from the transcription.
HEAVEN upon EARTH in a Serene and Smiling good Conscience. › Sermons on acts n24.16 › Sermon 2
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
The following 3d, 4th, 5th, Sort of Conscience are degrees of one and the same kind, some whereof are incident to Believers, some not.
The 3d, Is a sleepy Conscience, such as was in David, in a great measure, when he •ell in Adultery, Murder, and in the Sin of vain numbering the people; opposite to this, is a wakened Conscience, that crieth loud, and knocketh hard, the more sleepy and drowsy that Conscience hath been, it rappeth the louder and harder when it is wakened; therefore men had need to be so much the more aware of the f•rmer gross Conscience, that it draw not on a sleepy Conscience; and when Conscience speaketh ⟨p. 31⟩not, but is silent now, know that for the time there is ground to fear its being fallen a sleep.
The 3d, Is a sleepy Conscience, such as was in David, in a great measure, when he •ell in Adultery, Murther, and in the Sin of vain numbering the people; opposite to this, is a wakened Conscience, that cryeth loud, and knocketh hard, the more sleepy and drousie that Conscience hath been, it rappeth the louder and harder when it is wakened; therefore men had need to be so much the more awar of the f•rmer gross Conscience, that it draw not on a sleepy Conscience; and when Conscience speaketh ⟨p. 31⟩not, but is silent now, know that for the time there is ground to fear its being fallen a sleep.
A 4th Sort is a hardened Conscience, which is when, not only the Conscience is sleeping, but the life is much put out of it by habitual sinning; And when men thus put out the light and life of their Conscience by sinning, God is provoked to put it out by judicial hardening (as we see in Pharaoh) that no challenge bits on them: There are lesser measures and lower degrees of this that are incident even to the godly, and not only to several reprobates which come not to Pharaoh his height.