Selected quad for the lemma: conscience_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
conscience_n	blood_n	purge_v	spot_n	1,305	5	9.8594	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A66712	Honest plain dealing, or, Meditations and advertisements offered to publick consideration by John Winter ...	Winter, John, 1621?-1698?	1663 (1663)	Wing W3080; ESTC R38147	25,168	35

is no power or jurisdiction above it but that of God himself Conscience is the Jury of life and death and there is small hope that the Judge will save them whom conscience smally casteth off Joh. 3.20 If our heart condemn us God is greater than our heart and knoweth all things If our heart condemn us not then have we confidence towards God doing those things that are pleasing in his sight Now there being nothing in this world better than a good conscience and nothing worse than a bad one it will be a mans great business to know how a good conscience is gotten and how kept Every one by nature and in the state of corruption hath an evill a deadly and a filthy conscience And therefore primarily a good conscience and a pure and lively is obtained by the bloud of Jesus Christ and by faith in his merits The bloud of Jesus Christ who through the eternal Spirit Heb. 9.14 offered himself without spot to God doth purge a mans conscience from dead works to serve the living God And these words To serve the living God as they denote the true end wherefore Christ by his bloud did make our consciences pure and good so they shew us the right means of keeping and preserving a pure and a good conscience namely by serving the living God His service is perfect freedome and his service is taught us in the Moral Law the Ten Commandments which set forth our duty towards God and towards man And beyond this holy Rule or contrary to it there cannot be any such thing as Christian liberty or liberty of conscience Herein did the Apostle exercise himself Act. 24.16 to Have alwayes a conscience void of offence towards God and towards men And he that is so exercised hath a tender conscience And whatsoever is not repugnant unto some part of the Law of God contained in the Ten Commandments though perhaps it may go against mens humours and fancies cannot be said to be against conscience and so neither against Christian liberty because the divine Commandment is a perfect Law of liberty Ja. 1.25 No question it is a great sin to tyrannize over poor souls and to impose upon mens consciences things to make them stumble to weaken their faith Rom. 14.21 1 Cor. 8.9 and to corrupt their judgements and manners And God forbid that any should do so But all persons pretending conscience before they profess publick dissent from the Injunctions Canons and Constitutions of Authority should do well to be of a sure ground that the things they dissent from their brethren in are demonstratively of such a nature otherwise their liberty will appear to be but a cloak of maliciousness and that they preferre their own private conceits and perverse humours before either the peace of the Church or Gods honour And surely as all sinne defiles the conscience so none more than a schismaticall uncharitablenesse I could never yet see nor any other man I believe by what analogy or rationall argumentation the discourse of St Paul to the Romanes perswading to indulge the weak brethren about dayes and meats or that of his to the Corinthians about eating things offered to idols could be made as many would have it a common place against all order and discipline in the Christian Churches For the Apostle in the one dealt about Judaisme and in the other concerning Gentilisme and Paganish Idolatry And either of those bear as little reference or likeness to our Worship of God and Orders in the Church as there is concord between Christ and Belial or as there is coherence in our adversaries discourses There were in those Churches Jews and Gentiles mixed and many of the new converts of the Jews did still retain some of the Mosaicall observations and could not suddenly be weaned from them and some of the Gentile converts also had some smacks and sentiments of their old superstitions And the Apostle advised and enjoyned the more perfect and well grounded Christians to favour the others as much as lawfully they might and not to be bitter against them for their infirmities But the Apostle dealt not so with Hymeneus and Alexander 1 Tim. 1. v. last Tit. 1.11 nor yet doth he advise Titus to deal so gently with the seducers in Crete who subverted whole houses And surely a gentler hand is to be carried toward new converts than to inveterate refractarians and wilfull Apostatas Let conscience in the Name of God have its liberty But then let that liberty have a conscience Men make much talk of tender consciences but it is for the most part but a talk Jacobs voice and Esaus hands Quid verba audio cùm facta video Men shew their conscience as well as their faith by their works I believe Abraham had a tender conscience Gen. 13. because for peace-sake he gave way to his inferiour But I cannot think so of Corah and his party Numb 16. because they opposed their betters Abrahams conscience could not vary from his oath to take from the King of Sodom Gen. 14. so much as a threed or a shoe-latchet But I remember who sware and forced others to swear hand over head by vertue of which oath they scarce left the King or his loyall Subjects the worth of a threed or a shoe-latchet I believe David had a tender conscience 1 Sam. 24.5 because his heart smote him for cutting off Sauls skirt But I dare say Baanah and Rechab had not so because they slew Ishbosheth and cut off his head at his own house 2 Sam. 4.4 I am fully perswaded Josiah had a tender heart and a good conscience 2 Chron. 34. Chap. 35. because be restored the worship of God wept at the reading of the Law and set the Priests and Levites in their places and charges But I am sure Jeroboam had an evil heart and a bad conscience because he corrupted the worship of God and made Priests of the basest of the people 1 King 13.33 The conscience of the Saints in Davids time led them to worship fall down and kneel before the Lord their maker Ps 95. Many tell us now their conscience will not suffer them to do so Then their conscience did prompt them unanimously to go up together into the house of the Lord Ps 122. Now conscience is pleaded against coming thither In St Pauls dayes conscience taught men to be subject to Magistrates Rom. 13.5 Tit. 3.1 1 Pet. 2.13 Heb. 13.17 and to be ready to every good work to submit themselves to every Ordinance of man for the Lords sake and to obey them that had the spiritual rule over them and watched for their souls Now conscience is only named by a great many to shift off all duty and to affront all Authority What an Antidote against Caesar Shall we have conscience against conscience Conscience against God Conscience against Godlinesse Conscience against publick worship Conscience against

Common-prayers Conscience against Baptism and the Lords Supper O tempora O mores And how long shall the world be deluded Is it not apparent that the chief sticklers for licentiousnesse under the name of Liberty of conscience when the power was in their hand did neither use conscience nor grant liberty to them that were truly conscientious By the liberty they then took we may know what liberty they now seek and by the conscience they did then use what indulgence they now deserve In Ecclesiastical as well as in martial Discipline it will hardly be granted to erre twice And surely that God who once delivered us into the hands of our enemies and in great mercy hath set us free will hardly do it the second time in case we wilfully suffer our selves to be again captivated by their feigned words of whom we have had so late and so wofull experience And I pray God guide his sacred Majesty that their serpentine charmes may never so far impose upon his gracious Lenity as that he should believe their consciences tender who strain at Gnat-scruples and swallow Camel-sins who stumble at strawceremonies and leap over block villanies When no conscience was practis'd then no plea was heard for it But now that God hath begun graciously to shine upon the Church and Kingdom now begins the clamour of tender conscience to play the second part There is no surer way to discover every mans diet manners and appetite than to make every man his own Carver And as I remember this course hath been once taken to purpose Alas poor weak brethren and tender consciences It is pity that ever a pair of Lawn-sleeves should hurt them who could well digest the soil of the Revenues of the Antichristian Bishopticks and make no bones of the Churches patrimony Alas that ever a Surplice and a hood should choke those pure Levites that have lately swallowed down Churches and Steeples Parsonages and Vicarages Glebes and Tythes and eat up man woman and child as fast as they did the Tythe-pigs Fie upon it who would be troubled with such a conscience What steal a Goose and scruple a feather Oh the tender conscience of a pack of Committees and a bundle of Sequestrators Oh the mercy and tender pity of a Wolf a Tyger and a Bear From all these kinds of beasts wild and tame Libera nos Domine Good Lord deliver us And let all the people say Amen Suppose I should go to a friends house and carry with me such a companion as Wood the great eater of Kent was and should desire my friend to take special care of him and let him have that which is pure and of light digestion for the man hath but a feeble stomack forsooth a very weak appetite and any thing that is grosse might endanger his life And my weak natur'd Guest shall call for and eat up a fat sheep of sixteen shillings price at a meal or thirty couple of Rabbets and so should do three or four meals and still I should desire my friend to have a great care of him telling him that the man hath a very poor stomack and is but weak and tender whatsoever he thinks on him Would not my friend think you be ready to kick me and my Guest out of doors Would he not tell me that I were either mad or worse And that I either went about to play the fool or the knave And as much may some body say to them who labour to perswade men of their tender consciences who have murder'd the innocent devoured the fatherlesse and widows drank the bloud of Nobles pickled upon the carcasse of a Church and made a merry meal of a Kings head He that loves God the King the Church the Countrey and himself let him never speak a word of these mens tender consciences It pitieth my heart to think into what strange Labyrinths many gangs of people were led by their admired Teachers who tickled their ears with a pleasing sound of conscience and tendernesse and self-denial and getting acquaintance with Christ and a glorious liberty and the like whilest by their omission connivence and palliation they lull'd them into a security and cast them into a deadly slumber of Rebellion and disobedience schism and uncharitablenesse Was not this to clap a plaister upon a festered place and never to search or cleanse the wound Miserable comforters are all such Oh let the righteous smite us friendly and reprove us but let not such precious balms break our heads Such Pastors give a poor soul as much satisfaction as Pope Martin gave the Sicilian Embassadors to whom thrice praying Aguus Dei qui toll is peccata mundi miserere nobis Oh Lamb of God which takest away the sins of the world have mercy on us He thrice answered Ave Rex Judaeorum dabant illi alapas Hail King of the Jews and they smote him on the face Had his Holinesses hand gone with his tongue giving each of them a round box on the ear they should have been as much beholding to him as the men of Gotham were to the Gentleman who restored their lost man supposed to be drown'd by giving them every one a sound blow on the back with a Cudgel There will be but little conscience made of any Laws Civil or Ecclesiastical or respect had to Magistrate or Minister should Authority grant Dispensations to the prejudice of its own honour and to the rebatement of the vigour of injunctions as fast as some men will forge cavils and make pretensions The fellow that was bitten by the legs thought the City madly order'd where stones were tied up and dogs let loose But that Nation should be worse where Doves should be punisht and Crows set free where the peaceable and tractable should be circumscribed and proscribed by penalties and the extravagant and perverse indulged by faculties The Christian Prince who shall be perswaded to let loose his people to their own will-worship may pull down all the Churches in his Dominions and hang up the Priests But God be thanked who hath given our gracious Sovereign another manner of heart and a discerning spirit to know both from the word of God and from sad experience that as in those dayes when there was no King in Israel Jud. last every man did that which was right in his own eyes So in these dayes to let every man do that which is right in his own eyes will soon make again no King in Israel William the Conquerour took the right course to make a sorrest when he ruinated and laid waste the Churches and Chappels but I dare not commend his project because the world hath observed two fatal marks set upon it in the losse of two sons of his slain therein the one at his hunting of a Deer the other by an Arrow shot at a Deer but diverted from its intended scope by a glance on a tree There is no such ready way to turn a Christian Nation into