A learned and very useful commentary on the whole epistle to the Hebrews wherein every word and particle in the original is explained ... : being the substance of thirty years Wednesdayes lectures at Black-fryers, London / by that holy and learned divine Wiliam Gouge ... : before which is prefixed a narrative of his life and death : whereunto is added two alphabeticall tables ...

§. 86. Of the danger and dammage of hardnesse of heart.

IV. THe danger whereinto men fall by hardnesse of heart, and the dammage which they receive is greater then can be expressed. It brings a man into the most desperate case that in this world a man can be brought into by any other thing, except it be by the sinne against the holy Ghost; whereunto hardnesse of heart makes a great way. Shame, grief, fear may be means to keep men that are not hardened, from running on in their desperate courses: but hardnesse of heart is a spirituall senslesnesse, and keeps from such passions, as shame, grief and fear.

It makes men audacious in sinning: A troubled conscience casts a man into a 〈◊〉〈◊〉 wofull plight, But a hardened heart is farre worse then a perplexed soul. The troubled conscience may for the present seem more bitter, but if the issue of the one and the other be duely considered, we shall finde that there is no comparis•…•… betwixt them, but that the hard heart is far the worst. The troubled conscience by accusing, gauling, perplexing, and not suffering a man to be quiet, may so deje•…•… him as to restrain him from sinne, and bring him to repentance. But an hard he•…•… puts on a man more and more to sin, and that with greedinesse, Eph. 4. 18. where∣by his condemnation is encreased. In this respect it were better for a man to 〈◊〉〈◊〉 with a troubled conscience and despairing heart, then with a seared conscience and a hard heart.