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A46895 The booke of conscience opened and read in a sermon preached at the Spittle on Easter-Tuesday, being April 12, 1642 / by John Jackson. Jackson, John. 1642 (1642) Wing J76; ESTC R36019 31,589 156

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practise patience and resolve with as little distemper as thou canst to wait on the Lord till light break forth and till he give thee the garments of joy for the spirit of heavinesse Thirdly practise fervent and frequent prayer that God will restore to thee the comfort of thy salvation againe and stablish thee with his free Spirit Fourthly the Sun may be risen and yet not seen because under a cloud there may bee fire for blowing so may there be the Comforter come and yet not perceived or felt for want of stirring up divine consolations by meditation and prayer and therefore 2 Tim. 1. 6. Stirre up the grace of God that is in thee Fifthly and lastly observe diligently whether the absence of divine consolations have befallen thee through divine dispensation onely to preserve thy humility and to try thee and which if it be so then thou canst doe no more but in the use of holy meanes and constant walking with God waite still for the season of his Grace not appointing a time for the mercy of the Lord nor setting downe a day when he should deliver thee as the holy widow Judith Chap. 8. If otherwise that thou hast been a cause thereof by provoking the Lord to anger then art thou to the former rules to adde the practise of true repentance 1. Seeking out as diligently as Joshua did for Achan that sin which did occasion thy woe and then washing that staine out of thy soule with the Fullers Sope of Contrition remembring ever to follow the streame up to the fountaines head that is to bewaile the generall corruption of thy nature as well as that particular sin Thus have I laboured to minister a word in due season to him that is ready to perish If I have been long in this point of the festivals of a good Conscience let this excuse me that men use not to eate feasts as the Israelites the Passeover with a staffe in their hand and shoes on their feet but to stay at them And so much concerning the third point viz. That a Conscience thus qualified with the goodnesse both of Integritie and tranquillitie is a Feast The fourth Point This feast of Conscience ☜ is a continuall feast AS Goodnesse was the Adjunct of Conscience so Continuance is the Adjunct of the FEAST Wherein this Feast excels all the sumptuous and prodigall feasts of Nero Heliogabalus Caesar Bargia Mark Anthony Cleopatra or whosoever else either divine or humane pennes have storyed on for their most prodigious and luxurious riots when they made both sea and land contribute their utmost to furnish their tables The longest feast that I find recorded any were is that of Ahasucrus which he made in the third yeare of his raigne to all his Princes and Servants a feast of an hundred and fourescore dayes but what 's that to a continuall feast how much short is that to him who like the rich glutton in the Gospell fareth deliciously every day Let us state the point The Theame to be spoken on is this that The testimony of a good Conscience comforteth and refresheth a man at all times and in all conditions of life A good Conscience is a Pillow if a man lye down a Cushion if a man sit a Staffe if a man walke an Arbour or Gourd if a man would shade himselfe If a man be sick 't is a Physician if in suit it is a Lawyer if wrongfully accused it is a true witnesse if unjustly condemned it is a righteous Judge If a man bee thirsty it is a refreshing river if hungry it is a plentifull feast In a word it is a mans Sun by day and his Moone by night There is no state or condition of life can befall a man either so prosperous or so adverse but in it a man shall find the joyes and delights of a good Conscience Consult the Oracle and you shall find instances in the severall stations and conditions of life as First in inward tentation by the Examples of Moses Exod. 14. 15. and of Hannah 1 Sam. 1. 17. Secondly in outward trouble by the Example of Job Chap. 27. ver. 5. and of Abimelech Gen. 20. 5. Thirdly in life by the Example of Saint Paul 2 Cor. 1. 12. Fourthly in death by the Example of Hezekiah 2 Kings 20. 3. Fifthly at judgment when Conscience shall be triumphant upon the word of admission Come good and faithfull Servant receive the prepared Kingdome Enter into thy Masters joy Lastly after judgement in heaven for then and there all imperfections of the Peace of Conscience shall be taken away all perfection thereof shall be added There shall be no more interruptions intermissions or intercisions of tranquillity of mind but as in hell to the wicked their ill Conscience shall be a most perfect and continuall worme so to the godly their good Conscience shall be a most perfect and continuall feast It was a good Conscience made the three Children rejoyce in their fiery fornace Daniel in the Lions den Paul and Silas in the stocks the Martyrs at the stake and those Primitive Worthies catalogued Heb. 11. 35. which would not be delivered That they might obtaine a better resurrection In summe if Conscience be truly good that is first honestly good and then peaceably good accordingly as was before distinguished it feasteth and banquetteth the heart at all places and at all times Contiguously and Continually Yet are there certaine speciall seasons of God's comfortable Visitation wherein hee doth more fully and largely dispense Divine Consolation then he doth at other times namely 1. At a Christians first Conversion unto God as we may see in both those famous Converts Lydia and the Jaylor Act. 16. And this God doth to set and knit the weake joynts of a Christian and to give him a taste and antepast that he shall not lose but only exchange joyes such as are dilute and grosse for such as are sincere and pure 2. After some good performed especially if it have come off well in regard of matter manner and end After a good worke so done God useth extraordinarily to cheere the Conscience which is both part of the Performers Merces and Reward and withall an earnest and pledge that the whole shal follow and be all paid in 3. Upon evill suffered also no lesse then upon good done for under the crosse God hath often after a very eminent manner shed his consolations into the heart Paul and Silas sung in the Jayle Philip Landgrave of Hess long a prisoner under Charles the fift for the cause of Religion being asked what had supported him during his whole trouble answered he had felt the divine consolations even of the Martyrs themselves all that while And a cloud of witnesses have said the like that under the crosse suffered for a good Conscience they have felt those sensible comforts which they were never partakers of all their life besides either before or after 4. After the brunt of some sore tentation
in the Old Testament and a Cauterized Conscience by Saint Paul in the New Testament The sick man is then in a deplorable condition when he feeles no pain and so is the Conscience of a sinner when it feeles not the worm Secondly I say Doe not a boast till the putting off thine armour No man b knowes what the evening of his life may bring forth I have seene the wicked flourish like a greene bay-tree both in outward prosperity and inward peace and I have seen him also ere he have gone off the stage not able to put to silence the voice of despaire Thirdly thou that with thy loud musick of carnall mirth canst deafe and out-voy Conscience tell me truly Is not sometimes even in laughter thy heart sorrowfull doth not the flea of Conscience sometime awaken thee yes I warrant thee If Democritus had but the anatomizing of thee he would find melancholy in thee too that is c Conscience Now these more light and seldome gnawings are but as a Prologue before a Tragedie or the first fruits before the whole or as some drops before a showre Fourthly if God deal so severely with thee mercifully thou callest it and laughest at me for thinking otherwise as to let thee have thine heaven here that thou maiest have thine hell hereafter know that as women which commonly breed the best beare the worst so conscience c. It is then in its owne sphere of activity of that place it is properly spoken the worme that never dyeth and the fire that never goeth out Fifthly and lastly I exhort thee with that holy Father Mordeat hic ut moriatur illic muzzle not the mouth of the oxe silence not the voice of Conscience either by the pleasures or employments of the world which as the fall of Nilus doth the adjacent inhabitants deafe●●● conscience but let it admonish here that it condemne not hereafter let it bite here that it devoure not hereafter let it live here that it may dye hereafter Thus have I according to Salomons counsell answered a fool according to his folly lest he were wise in his one conceit The second Case Secondly now to satisfie the godly mans complaint whose objection pincheth upon himselfe thus I endeavour my selfe constantly both to refuse the evill and choose the good I set before mine eyes ever the word of God the law of conscience There is no sinne so small but I account it to defile and none of Gods commandements so little but I hold necessary to be done I both desire and endeavour to sly the very appearances of evill and yet I find not these sugred joyes and divine consolations whereon conscience feasteth but goe on in a kind of drinesse of spirit and fear I shall doe so ever not knowing well what to think of mine own estate To him I say First that as before a conscience may be troubledly evill and yet honestly good A certaine man some years afflicted in conscience said his continuall agonie were as great as a mans ready to dye and then he felt such small comfort in Gods countenance that he would willingly have suffered his body to have lived in burning fire till the appearance of Christ so he might then be assured of Gods favour towards him yea his greatest comfort was that though God should condemne him yet he hoped therein of Gods favour to have his torments mitigated with those that suffered least in all which troubles notwithstanding no world of reward nor terrour of tyranny could cause him willingly doe the least thing displeasing God so there is a conscience most troubledly evill and yet vertuously good Secondly absence of sensiblenesse of devotion and wonted consolations is often without any fault of ours or at least may be so as no other cause may be assigned but divine dispensation which being an infinite vertue worketh not alwayes after the same manner but that his providence might the more appeare after very many sundry wayes I opened to my Beloved but my Beloved was gone I sought him but I could not find him I called him but he answered me not Cant. 5. 6. signifying as S. Gregory on that place that she did both what she could and what she ought and yet she found him not because God so often disposeth it and that for good and holy ends Thirdly Absence of spirituall consolations are to be referred to the evill of smart rather then of sin they are our crosses and afflictions not our sins and offences and the having of them is rather part of Gods reward then our duty Fourthly God doth this oftentimes to lead on his children to a further degree of perfection for spirituall consolations are the ●ood of infants and milke for babes by the sweetnesse whereof God calleth us from the pleasures and allurements of this world For such is our weaknesse that we could never be brought to renounce one love unlesse we found another more sweet for which cause we see often that the comforts of yong beginners and probationers in Religion are often greater and more sensible then greater proficients are but afterward God leaves us or rather promotes us from an estate more sweet to an esta●e more strong from one more fervent to one more stedfast from one greater after the flesh to another greater after the spirit And yet fifthly know it is dangerous to dis-esteem and contemn divine consolations for though for the sustaining of those that are religious and of scrupulous consciences it be said truly that Grace consists not in spirituall consolations but in vertue that they are rather part of our reward then of our duty yet if there be any that through negligence slo●h doe make small account of spirituall consolations to them be it as truly said That it is a miserable thing not to taste how sweet the Lord is and the Saints have thought more bitter then death these tedious absences of the Comforter And though Sanctity and Godlinesse consist not in them yet are both of them great encouragements to a reformed life great helps therein And therefore we are to walke betweene two extremes viz. when they are absent not to discourage our selves nor distrust God nor on the other hand to be too secure and carelesse This is to be knowne Now what is to be done or practised in the absence of spirituall consolations ● Thus First still be exercising thy self in keeping a good Conscience though thou finde no sweetnesse therein The sick man must eate though he find no savour take heed of crying at the gates of the flesh for ayde that is in the want of spirituall consolations to fly to the support of worldly and carnall as Saul to the witch and Cain to building of Cities It is easie to follow CHRIST for the Loaves it is easie to love a good Conscience for its good cheere but when it feasts nor then to exercise the keeping of it is truly praise-worthy Secondly