Page:Black book of conscience, or, God's great and high court of justice in the soul (2).pdf/7

me times and ſeaſons of grace and mercy, and many gracious opportunites, and ſoul-advantages, whereby I might have wrought out my own ſalvation with fear and trembling; and, as St. Peter ſaith, I might have ‘made my calling and election ſure’ to my own ſoul: But, inſtead of ‘working out my ſalvation with fear and trembling, and making my calling and election ſure,’ I have wrought out my own damnation without either fear or wit, and made myſelf ſure of eternal and everlaſting condemnation, ſaith the mere moral, formal, and profane Chriſtian’s conſcience. Ah! Lord, ſaith the diſſembling hypocrite’s conſcience, I have been but an outſide Chriſtian; I have gone to church, but only as dogs do, for faſhions’s ſake, and to be looked upon and eſteemed among my neighbours: I have made a fhew indeed, and pretence of religion and holineſs; but it hath been but a mere ſhow: I have altogether denied the power and practice of it by my life and converſation, as it is Tit. i. 16. ‘They profeſs that they know God, but in works, they deny him, being abominable and diſobedient, and to every good work reprobate.’ And why ſo? Becauſe, as he ſaith in verſe 15th, ‘their minds and conſciences are defiled.’