Page:Black book of conscience, or, God's great and high court of justice in the soul (1).pdf/20

20 soul: When conscience speaks threatening language to many; for such and such sins, they seek to turn conscience out of doors. But because they cannot possibly do this, they strive to stop his mouth, by running wilfully into sins, like men that desperately give up their souls to the devil, and so make shipwreck of faith, conscience, soul, and all for ever. And then followeth (what we have seen by woeful experience) self-stabbing, self-hanging, drowning, or poisoning, or some such like accursed end. O consider this, all ye that forget God, and make no conscience of your ways; you undermine your own salvation. Men deal with conscience as Felix did with Paul, Acts xxiv. 15. They will hear conscience so long as he speaks gross; but when conscience tells them roughly of their sins, their darling sins; then they have enough of conscience, and so put him off till they be at better leisure.

When there was no king in Israel, every man did what was good in his own eyes; so, where there is no conscience alive in the soul, men live as they list. But yet for all this, conscience will speak home at last.

If thou art a drunkard, or an adulterer, or an unjust dealer, or whatsoever sin it is that thou art guilty of, conscience will