Selected quad for the lemma: conscience_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
conscience_n	bad_a	good_a	quiet_a	1,755	5	9.8229	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A85498	The saints hony-comb, full of divine truths, touching both Christian belief, and a Christians life, in two centuries. By Richard Gove.	Gove, R. (Richard), 1587-1668.	1652 (1652)	Wing G1454; Thomason E1313_1; ESTC R202241	83,389	226

one was to be killed and the other was to be let go and to be led into the wildernesse for a scape-goat The former of which say Divines prefigured the Humane Nature of Christ which was crucified and killed and the latter his Divine which though it gave vertue value and efficacy of merit to his Humane Nature and to the sufferings thereof yet suffered not with it but like the scape-goat escaped them and was free from them Expression LVII That there is not more sin now since the preaching of the Gospell is become so common than there was before in the time of Popish ignorance and darkness IT hath been an old and is still is a common complaint amongst ignorant people that the world was never so bad as it hath been since we have had so much preaching but it is a false charge and imputation as may be thus illustrated If a man come into a room in the night-time where there is no light all things may be out of their places and order and the room all dirty and dusty and yet he not see it nor take any notice of it but let the same man take a candle in his hand or come in thither at noon-day and he will quickly see and discover all that is thus amisse therein and yet we cannot say that his bringing in the candle or the day-light did make it so but only discovered that it was so And just so is it here For in the time of Popery and ignorance when the Scriptures were either wholly detained from men or lock'd up in an unknown tongue there were as many sins then if not more than are now but for want of the light of knowledge they were not known to be such or not such hainous sins many of them and those hainous ones too going under the name of Venials as now by the clear light of the Gospell they doe appear to be Or it is here as it is with an house into which the Sun doth not shine for there is as much dust flying up and down in the air then as there is when the Sun shineth into the room but it is not discerned so well as it is then for when the Sun doth shine in at a window or dore where the Sun-beams doe come you shall see moats in the Sun and much small dust which before you saw not nor took no notice of So in the time of blindnesse and ignorance there were many sins in men of which there was no notice taken but now since the Sun of righteousnesse is risen and doth begin to shine into mens hearts with the lightsome beams of his Word and Spirit there is not the least peccadilio but themselves or others will quickly discern it And this is the true reason why many think there is more sin now than there was in former times Expression LVIII That all quiet Consciences are not good Consciences TO make this appear Saint Bernard distinguisheth Consciences thus There be saith he four kinds of Consciences 1. There is a Conscience that is good but not quiet 2. There is a Conscience that is quiet but not good 3. There is a Conscience that is both good and quiet And 4. There is a Conscience that is neither good nor quiet The two good belong properly to the godly and the two bad to the wicked whose Conscience is either too too quiet or too too unquiet but in neither any true peace Others the better to expresse this make three sorts of quiet bad Consciences The 1. A blind and ignorant Conscience The 2. A secure Conscience And the 3. a seared Conscience 1. Blind and ignorant Consciences are such as speak peace or rather hold their peace because they have not skil enough to accuse and find fault and such most commonly are the consciences of the ignorant and vulgar sort whose consciences want mouths to speak because they want eyes to see their sins and their misery by reason of them but there will come a time and no man knows how soon it will come when these consciences shall have their eyes opened and then also shall their mouths be opened and these quiet consciences shall both bark and bite too 2. Secure Consciences are such as want not so much an eye to discover sin as a good tongue to tell of it and to find fault with it So that it many times sees his Master to doe evill and knows it to be evill but either cares not to speak unto him of it or if it doe it is quickly snibd and silenced again by being made to believe that either it is a small and veniall sin or if of a greater magnitude that they will cry God mercy for the present and find some time to repent of it hereafter But this is no true peace neither it may be a truce for a time wherein there may be a cessation of war for a season but yet so as that it is all that while making provision of arms and ammunition and is raising of more forces against the time that the truce shall be ended that then it may set upon them with more violence fury and fierceness than ever before The 3d and last is the seared Conscience of which mention is made 1 Tim. 4. 2. where the Apostle useth a metaphor borrowed from Chirurgery Now Chirurgions we know when they cut off a limb from any part of the body they use to sear with an hot iron that part from which it is cut and that part upon the searing will gather such a crusty brawninesse that prick it or cut it it feels nothing being alltogether insensible And thus it is with many mens consciences let them commit what sins they will yea sins never so hainous and yet they are never troubled at them they feel no stirrings nor stings of conscience for them but there will come a time when God will take off this seared crustinesse and so pare them to the quick that they shall feel to their everlasting horror in hell if not before what now they were not sensible of Expression LIX How far the Graces of Gods Spirit in the heart of his Child may decay ANd this may be illustrated thus there be in saving Graces three things considerable the habits the acts and operations and the degrees and measures of them All which how far they may decay this short Scholasticall Distinction shews Habitus non amittitur Actus intermittitur Gradus remittitur The plenary habits of saving Graces cannot be lost the Acts and Operations of them may admit though not an utter losse yet intermission as in sleep we lose not the faculty but the use of sense and as a man in his drink or over-carried with violent passion loseth not the faculty but the use of Reason Lastly The degrees and measures of saving Graces formerly attained to may be much abated as appears in the Angel of the Church of Ephesus Rev. 2. 4. who is there said to have