Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	dead_a	open_v	stand_v	2,534	5	6.4062	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A29523	The Christians cabala, or, Sure tradition necessary to be known and believed by all that will be saved : a doctrine holding forth good tidings of great joy, to the greatest of penitent sinners : with a character of one that is by John Brinsley ...	Brinsley, John, fl. 1581-1624.	1662 (1662)	Wing B4710; ESTC R3986	117,145	225

avoid the looking and thinking of their sins no more than King Balshazzer could the beholding of the hand writing upon the wall Dan. 5. 5. 2. I and their own Book shall be opened the book of Conscience That may be shut and sealed up for a time but it shall be opened sooner or later Conscience though a sleep for a time it shall be awakened And then it shall do it's office bringing the most secret sins of wicked men to their remembrance setting their sins before them so as either to drive them to God by Repentance as it did David or to the Divel by Desperation as it did Cain and Iudas What a bootless thing is it then for men to study the Art of forgetfulness to decline the remembrance of their own sins when as they are so entred into both these Books which shall one day be thus Opened Q. But when when saith the prophane Wretch when shall this be A. Why either sooner or later soon enough and too soon to the cost of all secure sinners 1. It may be in this life Haply in time of Health and Prosperity in the mid'st of their greatest jollity when they least think of it So was it with Belshazzar when he was carrowzing in the mid'st of his cups and least dreamed of any such matter then did the hand-Writing appear to him And thus God can come unto men and sometimes doth in the midst of their outward prosperitie then awakening their Consciences then representing their sins unto them 2. But if not then yet in time of Affliction in time of Sickness at the hour of Death when the Judgments of God have seized upon them and Death his Sergeant hath laid hold upon them they being then under Arrest ready to be carried to the Prison of Hell to be brought before the Tribunal of Jesus Christ there to give an accompt of what they have done in the flesh then doth God often open the Book of Conscience and make men to see those Sins which before they had shut their eyes against setting them before them in the most hideous shapes calling to remembrance all those sins which they so long time had studied to forget 3. But if not so if the Book of Conscience be not opened in this life but men carry it closed and sealed out of the world with them as oft-times it falleth out yet both that and the other Book God's Book shall certainly be opened hereafter viz. at the Day of Iudgment At the day of Particular more fully at the day of the General Iudgment Then shall these Books be opened This St. Iohn tells us he saw in a Vision Rev. 20. 12. I saw saith he the dead small and great stand before God and the Books were opened And what books were these why even both these Books which I have spoken of God's Book and Man's Book the Book of God's Remembrance and man's Conscience Both shall be opened at that great Day And then shall all the sins that wicked and ungodly men have done be brought to their remembrance Those sins which here they cast behind their backs shall then be set before their faces Those sins which here they study to forget they shall then remember them Those sins which here they turned away their eyes from they shall then behold them yea and that with open face That which the Apostle saith of true Believers and of that clear Vision which they shall one day have of Divine and Heavenly Mysteries viz. at the last and great day 1 Cor. 13. 12. Now we see through a glass darkly but then face to face with open face beholding things as they are it may be said of all wicked and ungodly men and of their sins Now they behold them through a glass and that a false glass and they see them darkly Conniventibus oculis winking at them not willing to behold them in their true colours as they are to have a true sight and sense of them But they shall at that day that day of Wrath and Revelation of the Righteous Iudgment of God as the Apostle calleth it Rom. 2. 5. thus behold them with open face having a full sight of them Then shall all their sins be set before them and so set before them as that they shall for ever stare in their faces being unto them a matter of horrour and terrour to all Eternitie O consider this all you who are now so loath to look upon your sins to look upon them as truly penitent sinners do but account it your happiness to forget them Be you convinced of the greatness of your folly herein and withall of the wretchedness of your state and condition being hereby sufficiently discovered This by way of Conviction In the 2d place by way of Exhortation let all be excited herein to propound this our Apostle as a Pattern for their Imitation remembring their own sins as he did hi●… Which that it may take place the better let it be directed to two sorts of persons Such as never yet knew what it was to remember their sins aright and such as have remembred them and repented of them Begin with the former 1. Secure and impenitent sinners such whose Consciences were never yet throughly awakened let them be excited to reflect upon themselves upon their former sinful wayes and courses to call their sins to remembrance Which I beseech you lend an ear unto all you who are of this number of which I fear there are too many every where To excite you whereunto do but consider that this is the next nay the only way to have your sins forgotten For you to remember them is the only way to have God to forget them If you forget them he doth and will remember them If you remember them he will forget them Only see that you remember them in a right way seriously with sorrow and shame This is the right remembrance of sin when men remember their sinful wayes and are ashamed of them This is that which the Lord saith his people the people of the Jews should do Ezek. 16. 6. when he should make good his Covenant to them and establish it with them viz. upon their Conversion Then saith he thou shalt remember thy ways and be ashamed Vers. 61. Remember and be confounded as t●…e last verse there hath it Thus doth the tr●…y penitent sinner remember his sins he remembers them and is ashamed of them self-confounded for them loathing and abhorring them and himself for them So the Lord saith that his people Israel should do when he should bring them again into their own Land restoring them from their Captivity Then saith he ye shall remember your wayes and all your doings wherein ye have been defiled and ye shall loath your selves in your own sight for all the evils which ye have committed cap. 20. of that Prophecie vers 43. Repeated again cap. 36. vers 31. And thus see that

to her now she remembreth her Sin which she apprehended might have brought that threatned Judgement upon her and hers Art thou come unto me saith she to call my Sin to Remembrance But no sooner is the storm over but they cast their sins behind their backs again remembring them no more in times of Prosperity never so much as thinking of them In this like some bad Debtors who never think of what they Owe but when they are under Arrest or at least see the Sergeant To these yet adde another sort worse than all the former They it may be do look back and call their former sins to their remembrance but how not remembring them as they ought to do not looking upon them as Sins to repent of them and to be humbled for them to shame and condemn themselves for them but only it may be as tricks of youth as they call them and so making light of them Nay it may be remembring of them to Boast of them to Glory in them as those Idolaters are said to do of their Idols Psal. 97. 7. or pleasing and tickling themselves as it were with the thought and remembrance of those sins which now they want opportunity or ability to act over again Of all the rest these are the worst Now to speak a word or two to all of these in special to those secure sinners such as go on in a course of Sin never reflecting upon themselves and such as are so far from this frequent Remembrance that they as I said study the Art of forgetfulness accounting it their happiness to forget their Sins and consequently cannot endure to be put in minde of them Let all such but seriously consider these two things which will serve to convince them of the folly and madness of this their Course 1. That all their sins are Registred and put upon Record So they are and that both in Heaven and upon Earth In Heaven in Gods Book the book of his Remembrance Upon Earth in their own Book the book of Conscience In both these Books are their sinnes entred and recorded And that so as whilest they hold on this course they cannot be Blotted out they cannot be Forgotten 1. In Gods Book As David saith of the members of his Natural body In thy Book are all my members written Psal. 139. 16. so may a Wicked man say of his sins The members of that body of Sin in him they are all written in Gods Book the book of his Remembrance There are the Names of all Gods Saints entered as the Prophet Malachy tell us Mal. 3. 16. A book of Remembrance was written before him for them that feared the Lord and that thought upon his Name And there are the Names of all wicked ungodly men entred And as their Names so their Sinnes Every particular Act with every particular Circumstance being all come up into Remembrance before God So the Angel tells Cornelius concerning his Good works his works of Piety and Charity his Prayers and Almes Thy Prayers and thine Almes saith he are come up for a memorial before God Acts 10. 4. And so may it be said of the Wicked works of every wicked and ungodly man his Swearing his Drunkenness his Uncleanness c. they are all come in Remembrance before God all Entred into his Book and that so as they cannot by any means be blotted out save onely by the Blood of Christ and the Tears of true Repentance nor yet worn out This being a Record for Eternitie God's Remembrance is an everlasting Remembrance In this remembrance are the Righteous The Righteous shall be had in everlasting Remembrance Psal. 112. 6. Men may forget them but so will not God And in such a remembrance shall all wicked men and their wicked works be they shall be had in everlasting remembrance So they shall be with God however they themselves may forget their own sins and the world may forget them yet God whilest his Justice is not satisfied He will not He cannot What a folly then is it in them to go about to forget them so long as God remembers them Were it so that they could blot them out of their own Book the book of their Conscience yet as long as they stand upon Record in God's Book what will this avail them What will it advantage a Debtor to cross his own book so long as his Debts stand charged in his Creditor's 2. But in the 2d place the sins of wicked men as they are entered in God's Book so in theirs As in the book of his Remembrance so in the book of their Conscience In this book I say they are entered I and so entered as that they cannot blot them out Blur them they may but blot them out they cannot Conscience is a Record for Eternitie What is written there is written with indelible Characters such as none but God alone can blot out Thence it is that David maketh his prayer to God that he would blot out his Transgressions Psal. 51. 1. This David himself could not do as not out of God's Book so not out of his own not out of the book of his Conscience No do what he could still his sin was before him as he complaines vers 3. All that men can do in this case is but to keep this book shut which for a time haply they may but to blot out what is written in it this they cannot do They may do this for a time out of their memorie but not out of their Conscience What is written in the Memorie is written oft-times in Water but what is written in Conscience is written in Marble Thus are the sins of wicked men entered and Recorded in these two Books whereof the one is a true Counterpane of the other And being thus entered here these Books in the 2d place shall one day be opened However for a time they may be shut and closed up so as men do not take notice of what is written in them yet they shall not ever be so A time will come when they shall be both opened 1. God's Book shall be opened However for a time he may keep silence seeming to connive at wicked and ungodly men as if he took no notice of their sins or had forgotten them yet sooner or later he will open his Book and make them to read what is written there setting their sins in order before them This the Lord willeth every presumptuous sinner to take notice of Psal. 50. 21. These things hast thou done saith he and I kept silence thou thoughtest I was altogether such a one as thy self but I will reproove thee and set them in order before thine eyes Psal. 50. 21. This will God do sooner or later He will open his Book and opening it he will also open the eyes of all wicked and ungodly men so as they shall not but read what is there written They shall not then be able any longer to