SECTION IV.

Enemies of inward Peace divided into their ranks.— The torment of an Evil Conscience.—The joy and peace of the Guilty but dissembled.

I FIND, on the one hand, two universal enemies of tranquillity-conscience of evil done, sense or fear of evil suffered. The former, in one word, we call sins; the latter, crosses: the first of these must be quite taken away, the second duly tempered, ere the heart can be at rest. For, first, how can that man be at peace that is at variance with God and himself? How should peace be God's gift, if it could be without him, if it could be against him? It is the profession of sin, although fair spoken at the first closing, to be a perpetual make-bait betwixt God and man, betwixt a man and him. self.

And this enmity, though it do not continually show itself, (as the mortalest enemies are not always in pitched fields one against the other; for that the conscience is not ever clamorous, but somewhile is silent, otherwhile with still murmurings bewrays his mislikes;) yet doth evermore work secret unquietness to the heart. The guilty man may have a seeming truce; a true peace he cannot have. Look upon the face of the guilty heart, and thou shalt see it pale and ghastly; the smiles and laughters, faint and heartless; the speeches, doubtful and full of abrupt stops and unseasonable turnings; the purposes and motions unsteady and savouring of much distraction, arguing plainly that sin is not

so smooth at her first motions, as turbulent afterwards: hence are those vain wearyings of places and companies, together with ourselves; that the galled soul doth, after the wont of sick patients, seek refreshing in variety, and, after many tossed and turned sides, complains of remediless and unabated torment. Nero, after so much innocent blood, may change his bed-chamber; but his fiends. ever attend him, ever are within him, and are as parts of himself. Alas! what avails it, to seek outward reliefs, when thou hast thine executioner within thee? If thou couldst shift from thyself, thou mightest have some hope of ease: now, thou shalt never want furies, so long as thou hast thyself. Yea, what if thou wouldst run from thyself? Thy soul may fly from thy body; thy conscience will not fly from thy soul, nor thy sin from thy conscience. Some men, indeed, in the bitterness of these pangs of sin, like unto those fondly impatient fishes that leap out of the pan into the flame, have leaped out of this private hell, that is in themselves, into the common pit; choosing to adventure upon the future pains that they have feared, rather than to endure the present horrors they have felt: wherein what have they gained, but to that hell which was within them, a second hell without ? The conscience leaves not, where the fiends begin; but both join together in torture.

But there are some firm and obdurate foreheads, ' whose resolution can laugh their sins out of countenance. There are so large and able gorges, as that they can swallow and digest bloody murders,

A proverbial Latin idiom: a person lost to shame is said to be duræ et perfricatæ frontis.-ED.

without complaint; who, with the same hands which they have since their last meal embrued in blood, can freely carve to themselves large morsels at the next sitting. Believest thou that such a man's heart laughs with his face? Will not he dare to be a hypocrite, that durst be a villain ? These glow-worms, when a night of sorrow encompasses them, make a lightsome and fiery show of joy; when, if thou press them, thou findest nothing but a cold and crude moisture. Knowest thou not, that there are those which count it no shame to sin, yet count it a shame to be checked with remorse, especially so as others' eyes may descry; to whom repentance seems base-mindedness, unworthy of him that professes wisdom and valour? Such a man can grieve, when none sees it; but himself ean laugh, when others see it, himself feels not. Assure thyself, that man's heart bleedeth when his face counterfeits a smile: he wears out many waking hours, when thou thinkest he resteth; yea, as his thoughts afford him not sleep, so his very sleep affords him not rest; but, while his senses are tied up his sin is loose; representing itself to him in the ugliest shape, and frightening him with horrible and hellish dreams. And if, perhaps, custom hath bred a carelessness in him, as we see that usual whipping makes the child not care for the rod; yet an unwonted extremity of the blow shall fetch blood of the soul; and make the back that is most hardened, sensible of smart; and the further the blow is fetched, through intermission of remorse, the harder it must needs alight. Therefore, I may confidently tell the careless sinner, as that bold tragedian said to his great Pompey: "The time shall come, wherein thou shalt fetch

deep sighs; and therefore shalt sorrow desperately, because thou sorrowedst not sooner." The fire of the conscience may lie, for a time, smothered with a pile of green wood, that it cannot be discerned ; whose moisture when once it hath mastered, it sends up so much greater flame, by how much it had greater resistance. Hope not then, to stop the mouth of thy conscience from exclaiming, while thy sin continues: that endeavour is both vain and hurtful. So I have seen them, that have stopped the nostril for bleeding, in hope to stay the issue; when the blood, hindered in his former course, hath broken out of the mouth, or found way down into the stomach. The conscience is not pacifiable, while sin is within to vex it; no more than an angry swelling can cease throbbing and aching, while the thorn or the corrupted matter lies rotting underneath. Time, that remedies all other evils of the mind, increaseth this; which, like to bodily diseases, proves worse with continuance, and grows upon us with our age.

SECTION V.

The Remedy of an unquiet Conscience. THERE can be, therefore, no peace, without reconciliation thou canst not be friends with thyself, till with God; for thy conscience, which is thy best friend while thou sinnest not, like an honest servant, takes his master's part against thee when thou hast sinned; and will not look straight upon thee, till thou upon God; not daring to be so kind to thee, as to be unfaithful to his Maker.

There can be no reconciliation without remis

sion. God can neither forget the injury of sin, nor dissemble hatred. It is for men and those of hollow hearts, to make pretences contrary to their affections; soothings, and smiles, and embracements, where we mean not love, are from weakness; either for that we fear our insufficiency of present revenge, or hope for a fitter opportunity afterwards; or for that we desire to make our further advantage of him to whom we mean evil. These courses are not incident into an almighty Power; who, having the command of all vengeance, can smite where he list, without all doubtings or delays.

There can be no remission without satisfaction. Neither dealeth God with us as we men with some desperate debtors; whom, after long dilations of payments and many days broken, we altogether let go for disability, or at least dismiss them upon an easy composition. All sins are debts: all God's debts must be discharged. It is a bold word, but a true, God would not be just if any of his debts should pass unsatisfied. The conceit of the profane vulgar makes him a God all of mercies; and, thereupon, hopes for pardon, without payment. Fond and ignorant presumption, to disjoin mercy and justice in him, to whom they are both essential; to make mercy exceed justice in him, in whom both are infinite! Darest thou hope God can be so kind to thee, as to be unjust to himself? God will be just go thou on to presume, and perish. There can be no satisfaction by any recompense of ours. An infinite justice is offended; an infinite punishment is deserved by every sin; and every man's sins are as near to infinite as number can make them. Our best endeavour is worse than finite, imperfect and faulty: if it could be perfect,