3.  Much more, they should beware of thinking that the dictates of their conscience obligeth them, so as that always they must of necessity follow the same.  Conscience, being God’s deputy in the soul, is to be followed no further than it speaketh for God and according to truth.  An erring conscience, though it bind so far as that he who doth contrary to the dictates thereof sinneth against God, in that, knowing no other than that the dictates of conscience are right and consonant to the mind of God, yet dare counteract the same, and thus formally rebel against God’s authority; yet it doth not oblige us to believe and to do what it asserteth to be truth and duty.  It will not then be enough for them to say, my conscience and the light within me speaketh so, and instructeth me so; for that light may be darkness, and error, and delusion, and so no rule for them to walk by.  “To the law and to the testimony,” and if their conscience, mind, and light within them “speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them,” Isa. viii. 20.  I grant, as I said, they cannot without sin counteract the dictates even of an erring conscience, because they know no better but that these dictates are according to truth; and thus an erring conscience is a most dangerous thing, and bringeth people under a great dilemma, that whether they follow it or not, they sin; and there is no other remedy here, but to lay by the erring conscience, and get a conscience rightly informed by the word; putting it in Christ’s hand to be better formed and informed, that so it may do its office better.  This then should be especially guarded against, for if once they lay down this for a principle, that whatever their conscience and mind, or inward light (as some call it) dictate, must be followed, there is no delusion, how false, how abominable soever it be, but they may be at length in hazard to be drawn away with; and so the rule that they will walk by be nothing in effect but the spirit of lies and of delusion, and the motions and dictates of him who is the father of lies, that is, the devil.

4.  Such as pretend to walk so much by conscience, should take heed that they take not that for the dictate of conscience, which really is but the dictates of their own humours, inclinations, pre-occupied minds, and biassed wills.  When conscience speaketh, it groundeth on the authority of God, whether truly or falsely, and proposeth such a thing to be done, or to be refrained from, merely because God commandeth that, and forbiddeth this, though sometimes it mistaketh.  But though the dictates of men’s humours, inclinations, pre-occupied judgments, and wills, may pretend God’s authority for what they say, yet really some carnal respect, selfish end, and the like, lieth at the bottom, and is the chief spring of that motion.  And also the dictates of humour and biassed wills are usually more violent and fierce than the dictates of conscience; for wanting the authority of God to back their assertions