5. Since the very design of the evangelical covenant is, that our duty be demanded, and our sins accounted for, according to the measures of a man, and not by the proportions of an angel; and that all our infirmities and ignorances, and unavoidable prejudices, are taken into account, beside the infinite remissions on God's part,-it will follow that, by this goodness of God, and a moral diligence, and a good heart, we are secured, but we can never be secured by our own measures. For let us weigh never so exactly, we may miss grains or scruples; but to snatch greedily at the little over-running dust of the balance, and to throw away the massive ingots that sunk the scales down, is the greatest folly in the world.

6. The lines of duty are set down so clear and legible, are so agreeable to reason, so demonstrable upon their proper principles, are so easy and plain, that we need not run into corners, and sneaking by-lanes to find it out: if, by little undiscerned minutes, we were to stand or fall, though now there are but few that shall be saved, yet but a few of those few should escape eternal death. The counsels of God are not like the oracles of Apollo, double in their sense, intricate in their expression, secret in their meaning, deceitful in their measures, and otherwise in the event than they could be in their expectation. But the word of God, in the lines of duty, is open as the face of heaven, bright as the moon, healthful as the sun's influence; and this is certainly true, that when a thing becomes obscure, though it may oblige us to a prudent search, yet it binds us not under a guilt, but only so far as it is or may be plainly understood.

But in the case of a scrupulous conscience, it is not the thing so much that troubles the mind, as the indisposition of the part; the man hath a vicious tenderness; it is melancholy and fear and as every accident can trouble the miserable, so every fancy can affright the timorous; the chiefest. remedies, therefore, must be by applications to the man, to cure his distemper; and then the scruple will work no more than its own activity will enable it, and that is but little and inconsiderable.

Advices to the scrupulous Man.

1. The case of the scrupulous man is full of variety, or uncertainty; so that it is as easy to govern chance, and to give rules to contingency as to him. In all other cases there is a measure and a limit, and therefore a remedy can be proportioned to it; but in this, fear is the disease, and that alone is infinite; and as it commences oftentimes without cause, so it proceeds without limit. For by what reason it entered in, by the same it may grow; that is, without any cause at all it may increase for ever. But for the remedy, this is considerable; that the worse it is, the better it may be remedied, if we could consider. For when fear is grown so big that it is unreasonable, the cure is ready and plain, that it must be laid aside because it is intolerable, and it may because it is unreasonable. When it comes from a just cause, that just cause is usually the limit of it: but when it is vast and infinite, it hath no cause but weakness, and it appears enough in the instances; for the scrupulous man fears concerning those things where he ought to be most confident; he fears that God is angry with him for not doing his duty, and yet he does whatsoever he can learn to be his duty. This is a complication of evils, as melancholy is of diseases. The scrupulous man is timorous, and sad, and uneasy, and he knows not why. As the melancholy man muses long, and to no purpose, he thinks much, but thinks of nothing; so the scrupulous man fears exceedingly, but he knows not what nor why. It is a religious melancholy; and when it appears to be a disease and a temptation, there need no more argument against its entertainment. We must rudely throw it away.

2. He that is vexed with scruples, must fly to God by prayer and fasting, that this lunacy and spirit of illusion, which sometimes throws him into the fire, and sometimes into the water,a may be ejected; and the Spirit of God, and the Spirit of wisdom, may come in substitution, according to the promise so often recorded in the Holy Scriptures.

* Mark, ix. 22.

b

b James, i. 5.

3. Let the scrupulous man change the tremblings of his spirits to a more considerable object, and be sure if he fears little things, let him fear great things greatly; every known sin let him be sure to avoid, little or great; for by this purity he shall seek God, and the things of God, peace and truth, and the honesty of his heart will bear him out from the mischief, if not quit from the trouble of the scruple: at no hand let it be endured that he should think this disease or vicious tenderness in spirit is able to excuse him from his duty in greater things. Some scruple at an innocent ceremony, and against all conviction and armies of reason will be troubled and will not understand; this is very bad;-but it is worse that he should think himself the more godly man for being thus troubled and diseased, and that, upon this account, he shall fall out with government and despise it; this man nurses his scruple till it proves his death; and instead of curing a bile, dies with a cancer: and is like a man that hath strained his foot, and keeps his bed for ease; but by lying there long falls into a lipothymy, and that bears him to his grave.

4. Let the scrupulous man avoid all excess in mortifications and corporal austerities, because these are apt to trouble the body, and, consequently, to disorder the mind,—and by the prevailing fond persuasions of the world they usually produce great opinions of sanctity and ignorant confidences of God's favour; and, by spending the religion of the man in exterior significations, make him apt to take his measures from imperfect notices; and then his religion shall be scruple and impertinence, full of trouble, but good and profitable for little or nothing, "Admiratione digna sunt," saith Cardan, "quæ per jejunium hoc modo contingunt: somnia, superstitio, contemptus tormentorum, mortis desiderium, obstinata opinio, insania: jejunium naturaliter præparat ad hæc omnia; -It is wonderful to consider what strange products there are of fasting dreams, superstition, contempt of torments, desire of death, obstinacy in opinion, and madness; to all these fasting does naturally prepare us." And concerning St. Hilarion, it is reported by St. Jerome," Ita attenuatus fuit d Epist. lib. iii.

c De Rerum Varietate, lib. viii. c, 10.

jejunio et vigiliis, in tantum exeso corpore ut ossibus vix hærebat: unde nocte infantum vagitus, balatus pecorum, mugitus boum, voces et ludibria dæmonum," &c.—"That he was so lean and dried with fasting and watching, that his flesh did scarce cleave to his bones: then his desires and capacity of sleep went away, and for want of sleep he must needs grow light-headed, and then the illusions of the devil were prepared and certain to prevail; then his brains crowed, and he heard in the desert children crying, sheep bleating, bulls lowing, and rattling of chains, and all the fantastic noises raised by the devil." Much to the same purpose is, by St. Athanasius, reported of St. Anthony. It was this excess that made St. Jerome so scrupulous in reading of Tully's orations; it was not an angel, but his own dreams that whipped him from making and reading good Latin and good sense. After long fasting it was that St. Gulslach, of Crowald, fought with the devil; and such irregular austerities have been, in all ages of superstition, the great instrument of Satan, by which his illusions became oracles, and religion was changed into superstition, and the fear of God into timorousness, and inquiry into scruple.

5. Let the scrupulous man interest himself in as few questions of intricate dispute, and minute disquisition, as he can they that answer fewest, do commonly trouble themselves with most. Curious questions may puzzle every man, but they can profit no man; they are a certain disturbance, they are rebels in the kingdom of the inner man; they are just the same things in speculation which scruples are in practice, and therefore, because notice properly tends and directs to action, the increase of them will multiply these. Avoid them therefore; for not these, but things practical, are the hinges of immortality; but the other break the peace of the superior faculties, they trouble the understanding, and afflict the conscience, and profit or instruct

no man.

6. He that would cure his scrupulousness, must take care that his religion be as near as he can to the measures and usages of common life. When St. Anthony was troubled with a scrupulous conscience, which so amazed him, that he thought it was impossible for him ever to arrive at heaven,

an angel came to him in the likeness of a hermit, or rather a hermit spake to him like an angel, and said, "Nunc paululum laborando manibus, nunc genibus flexis orando, deinde corpus reficiendo, post quiescendo, et rursus iterum operando, Antoni, sic fac tu et salvus eris; - Sometimes labour with thy hands, then fall on thy knees and pray, then refresh thy body, then sometimes rest, and then labour again; and so thou shalt be saved." Let us take care that our religion be like our life, not done like pictures, taken when we are dressed curiously, but looking as the actions of our life are dressed, that is, so as things can be constantly done, that is, that it be dressed with the usual circumstances, imitating the examples, and following the usages of the best and the most prudent persons of his communion; striving in nothing to be singular, not doing violence to any thing of nature, unless it be an instrument or a temptation to a vice. For some men mortify their natures rather than their vicious inclinations or their evil habits, and so make religion to be a burden, a snare, and an enemy. For in scrupulous, that is, in melancholy persons, nature is to be cherished in every thing where there is no danger, that is, where she is not petulant and troublesome. Such men have more need of something to repair their house than to lessen it.

7. Let the scrupulous man take care, that he make no vows of any lasting employment. For the disease that is already within, and this new matter from without, will certainly make new cases of conscience, and new fears and scruples upon the manner, and degrees, and circumstances of performance. Therefore, whatever good thing they intend, let them do it when they can, when it is pleasant, when it is convenient, and always reserve their liberty. For besides that to do otherwise must needs multiply scruples, it is also more pleasing to God, that we make our services to be every day chosen, than after one general choice of them, to have the particulars done and hated.

8. But that I may sum up many particulars in one. The scrupulous man must avoid those companies, and those employments, and those books, from whence the clouds arise, especially the books of ineffective and fantastic notions, such