ignorance or neglect, we do not suffer our conscience to take any cognizance of several sins we commit.  There is another office likewise belonging to conscience, which is that of being our director and guide; and the wrong use of this hath been the occasion of more evils under the sun, than almost all other causes put together.  For, as conscience is nothing else but the knowledge we have of what we are thinking and doing; so it can guide us no farther than that knowledge reacheth.  And therefore God hath placed conscience in us to be our director only in those actions which Scripture and reason plainly tell us to be good or evil.  But in cases too difficult or doubtful for us to comprehend or determine, there conscience is not concerned; because it cannot advise in what it doth not understand, nor decide where it is itself in doubt:  but, by God’s great mercy, those difficult points are never of absolute necessity to our salvation.  There is likewise another evil, that men often say, a thing is against their conscience, when really it is not.  For instance:  Ask any of those who differ from the worship established, why they do not come to church?  They will say, they dislike the ceremonies, the prayers, the habits, and the like, and therefore it goes against their conscience:  But they are mistaken, their teacher hath put those words into their mouths; for a man’s conscience can go no higher than his knowledge; and therefore until he has thoroughly examined by Scripture, and the practice of the ancient church, whether those points are blameable or no, his conscience cannot possibly direct him to condemn them.  Hence have likewise arisen those mistakes about what is usually called “Liberty of Conscience”; which, properly speaking, is no more than a liberty of knowing our own thoughts; which liberty no one can take from us.  But those words have obtained quite different meanings:  Liberty of conscience is now-a-days not only understood to be the liberty of believing what men please, but also of endeavouring to propagate the belief as much as they can, and to overthrow the faith which the laws have already established, to be rewarded by the public for those wicked endeavours:  And this is the liberty of conscience which the fanatics are now openly in the face of the world endeavouring at with their utmost application.  At the same time it cannot but be observed, that those very persons, who under pretence of a public spirit and tenderness towards their Christian brethren, are so zealous for such a liberty of conscience as this, are of all others the least tender to those who differ from them in the smallest point relating to government; and I wish I could not say, that the Majesty of the living God may be offended with more security than the memory of a dead prince.  But the wisdom of the world at present seems to agree with that of the heathen Emperor, who said, if the gods were offended, it was their own concern, and they were able to vindicate themselves.[1]