Heaven upon earth in the serene tranquillity and calm composure, in the sweet peace…

The Characters are these, 1. A really good Conscience is not easily attained nor maintained, it putteth a man to considerable exercise •re he come at it, and to no less how to keep it. Herein do I exercise my self, &c. saith the Apostle; security and negligence are no good tokens; there are these two things that a man of a good Conscience is exercised in. 1. To prevent the ground of a challenge from his Conscience, by endeavouring to give it no offence; against which the presumptuous hypocrite sinneth, who fancieth that he hath peace and it may be, thinketh much of it, and yet is not troubled nor taken up how to prevent the giving of offence to his Conscience, nor his meeting with a challenge from it; the legal hypocrite also sinneth here, in bounding and limiting his Holiness to such or such a small measure of it, without so much as aiming any further. 2. He is exercised to satisfy his Conscience when it is offended; hence is the application to the blood of sprinkling, the exercise of repentance, the self-loathing, and sharpness of challenges, that Conscience hath with it until it recover, even such exercise as will in a manner break the bones and turn the moisture into the drought of summer, as it is Psal. 51. and Psal. 32. this good Conscience cannot look on sin and not be troubled; and therefore they who ordinarily and habitually can look on sin without trouble or sorrow, and judge it a very easy business to quiet and stop the mouth of their Conscience, who speak peace to themselves when lying still under guilt unrepented of and unremoved, carry about with them a shrewd token of no good Conscience.

The Characters are these, 1. A really good Conscience is not easily attained nor maintained, it putteth a man to considerable exercise •re he come at it, and to no less how to keep it. Herein do I exercise my self, &c. saith the Apostle; security and negligence are no good toke•s; there are these two things that a man of a good Conscience is exercised in. 1. To prevent the ground of a challenge from his Conscience, by endeavouring to give it no offence; against which the presumptuous hypocrite sinneth, who fancieth that he hath peace and it may be, thinketh much of it, and yet is not troubled nor taken up how to prevent the giving of offence to his Conscience, nor his meeting with a challenge from it; the legal hypocrite also sinneth here, in bounding and limiting his Holiness to such or such a small measure of it, without so much as aiming any further. 2. He is exercised to satisfie his Conscience when it is offended; hence is the application to the blood of sprinkling, the exercise of repentance, the self-loathing, and sharpness of challenges, that Conscience hath with it until it recover, even such exercise as will in a manner break the bones and turn the moisture into the drought of summer, as it is