A37045:488
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.
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.
For further prosecuting of this point, I shall, 1. show how persons may suppose, that they have a good Testimony of their Conscience without a ground, or upon seeming grounds, without any solidity, or reality. 2ly. I shall show what grounds will not bear this Testimony of a good Conscience. 3ly. I shall show what grounds may bear it, or what may be the characters of a warrantable and well-grounded testimony of a good Conscience; most of all which we will find to be in this Text; to our discourses on which we resolve at this time to put an end.
For further prosecuting of this point, I shall, 1. shew how persons may suppose, that they have a good Testimony of their Conscience without a ground, or upon seeming grounds, without any solidity, or reality. 2ly. I shall shew what grounds will not bear this Testimony of a good Conscience. 3ly. I shall shew what grounds may bear it, or what may be the characters of a warrantable and well-grounded testimony of a good Conscience; most of all which we will find to be in this Text; to our discourses on which we resolve at this time to put an end.
For the First, viz. That people may suppose that they have the Testimony of a good Conscience without a ground, or on but seeming grounds; which is incident not only to natural men, but even sometimes to Believers themselves in some respect; men may gather a conclusion of peace from unsound grounds, and speak peace to themselves, when God has not spoken peace to them; There is a generation, says Solomon, Prov. 30. v. 12. that are pure in their own eyes, and yet are not washed from their filthiness; a generation that foolishly fancy themselves to be right, when yet they are quite wrong: which we suppose comes to pass ordinarily, in these Four cases, or from these Four grounds. 1. When […] ⟨p. 264⟩have holiness, and do a piece, or part of their duty and work, but go not stitch-through with it, thinking they need not to be so full, so exact, and so precise, as the command calls for (which it may be they secretly judge to be too severe and rigd) as it was with King Saul, who, when Samuel came to him, after the slaughter of the Amalekites,