Selected quad for the lemma: conscience_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
conscience_n	accuse_v	bear_v	thought_n	1,179	5	6.2550	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A50672	A moral paradox maintaining, that it is much easier to be vertuous then vitious / by Sir George Mackeinzie.	Mackenzie, George, Sir, 1636-1691.	1667 (1667)	Wing M181; ESTC R19878	25,281	86

too ordinary encounters to excite compassion But to see the Wheel fatned with the marrow of tortured miscreants and the Rack pull to pieces these Receptacles of Vice are great instances how great an enemy Vice is to Nature under whose ill conduct and for whose errors it suffers torments which are much sooner felt then exprest Since then Nature is so oppos'd by Vice it cannot be it self so unwise in the meanest of these many degrees which we ascribe to many creatures whom it makes wise if it disposed not mankind to entertain an aversion for Vice which is so much its enemy Shall the Sheep the silliest of all Animals or the earth the dullest of all the elements flee from its oppressors And shall Nature which should be wiser then these because it bestowes these inclinations upon them which makes them pass for wise be so imprudent as not to mould men so as to incline them to hate Vice which so much hurts it Is there any Vice committed to which we may not find another impulsive cause then Nature And are not most Vices either committed by custome by being mistaken for good by interest or inadvertence as shall be shewed in the close of this Discourse And seing Nature designs to do nothing in vain it is not imaginable that it should prompt us to Vice wherein nothing but vanity can be expected or from which nothing else can be reapt These who are so injurious to Nature because it appears Nature hath been less liberal to them of understanding then to others as to fasten this reproach upon it of inclining men to Vice do contradict themselves when they say that Nature is satisfied with little and desires nothing that is superfluous whereas all these Vices which consist in excess do stretch themselves to superfluity whilst upon the other side these Vices which consist in defect are yet as unnatural because in these the committers deny themselves what is necessary for them and so are most unnatural Nature desiring to see every thing accomplish'd in its just proportions and satisfied in its just desires All Vices have their own peculiar diseases to which they inevitably lead Envy brings men to a leanness as if it were fed with its Masters flesh as well as with its enemies failings Lust the Pox and Consumptions Drunkenness Catarhes and Gouts and Rage Feavers and Phrensies which is a demonstration of their uneasiness and incommodiousness And I might almost say that those Vices are like Frogs Lice and other despicable and terrible insects generated and kneaded out of excrementious humors Lust is occasioned by the superfluity and heat of the Blood Drunkenness by a dryness of the Vessels and Rage by the corruption and exuberancy of Choler Consider how much the grimaces of anger disfigures the sweetest face how much rage discomposes our discourse and by these and its other postures ye will find Vice an enemy to Nature So that in all these Nature labours under some distemper and is distrest in its operations and acts them not out of choice but as sick men rise to hunt for what their Physitians deny them And from all this it follows that vice is neither natural in its productions nor in its tendencies not being designed by Nature in the one nor designing to preserve Nature in the other I confesse there is a rank of Vertues which are supernatural such as Faith Hope and Repentance but either there could be no contradistinction of these from such as I treat of else these of which I hear speak must be natural To deny our selves if we will follow Christ and that flesh and blood did not teach Peter to emit that noble confession of Christs being the Son of the Eternal GOD proves that some spiritual truths are above the reach of reason yet with relation to those other moral Vertues that same inspired Volumne assures us that the Gentiles who have no Law do by nature the things contained in the Law these not having the Law are a Law unto themselves which shew the work of the Law written in their hearts the Conscience also bearing witnesse and their Thoughts in the mean time accusing or else excusing one another and elsewhere the wicked are said to be without natural affection are not all sins even in the dialect of Philosophers and Law-givers as well as in the Language of Canaan termed unnatural What is Paricide Ingratitude Oppression Lying c. but the subversion of these Lawes whereof our own hearts are the Tables Doth not Nature by giving us Tongues to express our thoughts teach us that to disguise our thoughts or to contradict them is to be unnatural And seing the not acknowledgement of favours obstructs the future relief of our necessities it must be as unnatural to be ungrate as it is natural to provide supplies for our craving wants I will not fully exhaust the miseries that wait upon Vice by telling you that no man who is really vitious sinneth without reluctancy in the commission But I must likewise tell you that though all the preceeding disadvantages were salv'd yet the natural horrour which results from the commission of Vice is great enough to render it a miracle that any man should be vitious our Conscience can condemn us without Witnesses though we bribe off all Witnesses from without or though by Sophistry and Art we render their Depositions insuccessful And though Remissions can secure us against all external punishments yet the Arm of that Executioner cannot be stopt and if ye consider how men become thereby inconsolable by the attendance of friends and the advantage of all exterior pleasures ye cannot but conclude that Vice is to be pitied as well as shun'd and that this alone makes it more uneasie then Vertue whereby the greatest of misfortunes are sweetned and outward torments by having their Prospect turned upon future praise and rewards rendered pleasures to such as suffer them and are lookt upon as ornaments by such as see them inflicted and draw praises from succeeding ages Hic murus ahaeneus esto Nil conscire sibi nulla palesscere culpa was the determination of a Pagan who could derive no happinesse from these Divine Promises upon which we are obliged to rely for rewards which though they be too great to be understood by the Sons of Men yet are not so great but that they may be expected by us when we shall be adopted to be the Sons of that GOD whose power to bestow can be equal'd by nothing but by his desire to gratifie After successe hath crown'd vitious designs yet Vice meets with this uneasinesse of remorse wherein the souls of men are made to forget the pleasure of successe and are punished for having been successful And these will either not remember their successe in which case they want all pleasure or if they think upon them that thought will lead them back to consider the guilt and basenesse to which they owe it which will vex and