Selected quad for the lemma: conscience_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
conscience_n	charity_n	faith_n	unfeigned_a	991	5	10.9930	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44334	The works of Mr. Richard Hooker (that learned and judicious divine), in eight books of ecclesiastical polity compleated out of his own manuscripts, never before published : with an account of his life and death ...; Ecclesiastical polity	Hooker, Richard, 1553 or 4-1600.; Gauden, John, 1605-1662.; Walton, Izaak, 1593-1683.; Travers, Walter, 1547 or 8-1635. Supplication made to the councel.	1666 (1666)	Wing H2631; ESTC R11910	1,163,865	672

no proof to the contrary But that our love is sound and sincere that it cometh from a pure heart a good conscience and a faith unfeigned who can pronounce saving only the searcher of all mens hearts who alone intuitively doth known in this kind who are his And as those everlasting promises of Love Mercy and Blessedness belong to the mystical Church even so on the other side when we read of any duty which the Church of God is bound unto the Church whom this doth concern is a sensible known company And this Visible Church in like sort is but one continued from the first beginning of the World to the last end Which company being divided into two moyeties the one before the other since the coming of Christ that part which since the coming of Christ partly hath embraced and partly shall hereafter embrace the Christian Religion we term as by a more proper name the Church of Christ. And therefore the Apostle affirmeth plainly of all men Christian that be they Jew or Gentiles bond or free they are all incorporated into one company they all make but one body The unity of which visible body and Church of Christ consisteth in that Uniformity which all several persons thereunto belonging have by reason of that one Lord whose servants they all profess themselves that one Faith which they all acknowledge that one Baptism wherewith they are all initiated The visible Church of Jesus Christ is therefore one in outward profession of those things which supernaturally appertain to the very Essence of Christianity and are necessarily required in every particular Christian man Let all the house of Israel know for certainty saith Peter that God hath made him both Lord and Christ even this Iesus whom ye have crucified Christians therefore they are not which call not him their Master and Lord. And from hence it came that first at Antioch and afterward throughout the whole world all that were of the Church visible were called Christians even amongst the Heathen which name unto them was precious and glorious but in the estimation of the rest of the world even Christ Jesus himself was execrable for whose sake all men were so likewise which did acknowledge him to be their Lord. This himself did foresee and therefore armed his Church to the end they might sustain it without discomfort All these things they will do unto you for my names sake yea the time shall come that whosoever killeth you will think that he doth God good service These things I tell you that when the hour shall come ye may then call to minde how I told you before-hand of them But our naming of Jesus Christ the Lord is not enough to prove us Christians unless we also embrace that Faith which Christ hath published unto the World To shew that the Angel of Pergamus continued in Christianity behold how the Spirit of Christ speaketh Thou keepest my Name and thou hast not denied my Faith Concerning which Faith The rule thereof saith Tertullian is one alone immoveable and no way possible to be better framed anew What rule that is he sheweth by rehearsing those few Articles of Christian belief And before Tertullian Irency The Church though scattered through the whole World unto the uttermost borders of the Earth hath from the Apostles and their Disciples received Belief The parts of which Belief he also reciteth in substance the very same with Tertullian and thereupon inferreth This Faith the Church being spread far and wide preserveth as if one House did contain them These things it equally embraceth as though it had even one Soul one Heart and no more It publisheth teacheth and delivereth these things with Uniform consent as if God had given it lut one onely Tongue wherewith to speak He which amongst the Guides of the Church is best able to speak uttereth no more then this and less then this the most simple do not utter when they make Profession of their Faith Now although we know the Christian Faith and allow of it yet in this respect we are but entring entred we are not into the Visible Church before our admittance by the door of Baptism Wherefore immediately upon the acknowledgment of Christian Faith the Eunuch we see was baptized by Philip Paul by Ananias by Peter a huge multitude containing Three thousand Souls which being once Baptized were reckoned in the number of Souls added to the Visible Church As for those Vertues that belong unto Moral Righteousness and honesty of life we do not mention them because they are not proper unto Christian Men as they are Christian but do concern them as they are Men. True it is the want of these Vertues excludeth from Salvation So doth much more the absence of inward belief of heart so doth despair and lack of Hope so emptiness of Christian Love and Charity But we speak now of the Visible Church whose Children are signed with this mark One Lord one Faith one Baptism In whomsoever these things are the Church doth acknowledge them for her Children them onely she holdeth for Aliens and Strangers in whom these things are not found For want of these it is that Saracens Jews and Infidels are excluded out of the bounds of the Church Others we may not deny to be of the Visible Church as long as these things are not wanting in them For apparent it is that all Men are of necessity either Christians or not Christians If by External Profession they be Christians then are they of the Visible Church of Christ and Christians by External Profession they are all whose mark of Recognisance hath in it those things which we have mentioned yea although they be impious Idolaters wicked Hereticks Persons excommunicable yea and cast out for notorious improbity Such withal we deny not to be the Imps and Limbs of Satan even as long as they continue such Is it then possible that the self-same men should belong both to the Synagogue of Satan and to the Church of Jesus Christ Unto that Church which is his Mystical Body not possible● because that Body consisteth of none but onely true Israelites true Sons of Abraham true Servants and Saints of God Howbeit of the Visible Body and Church of Jesus Christ those may be and oftentimes are in respect of the main parts of their outward Profession who inregard of their inward disposition of minde yea of External Conversation yea even of some parts of their very Profession are most worthily both hateful in the sight of God himself and in the eyes of the sounder part of the Visible Church most execrable Our Saviour therefore compareth the Kingdom of Heaven to a Net whereunto all which cometh neither is nor seemeth Fish His Church he compareth unto a Field where Tares manifestly known end seen by all Men do grow intermingled with good Corn and even so shall continue till the final consummation of the World God hath had ever

with our Ministerie God really performing the same which Man is authorized to act as in his Name there shall need for decision of this point no great labour To Remission of Sins there are two things necessary Grace as the only cause which taketh away Iniquity and Repentance as a Duty or Condition required in us To make Repentance such as it should be what doth God demand but inward sincerity joyned with fit and convenient Offices for that purpose the one referred wholly to our own Consciences the other best discerned by them whom God hath appointed Judges in this Court. So that having first the promises of God for pardon generally unto all Offenders penitent and particularly for our own unfeigned meaning the unfallible testimony of a good Conscience the sentence of God's appointed Officer and Vicegerent to approve with unpartial Judgement the quality of that we have done and as from his Tribunal in that respect to assoil us of any Crime I see no cause but that by the Rules of our Faith and Religion we may rest our selves very well assured touching God's most merciful Pardon and Grace who especially for the strengthening of weak timerous and fearful mindes hath so farr indued his Church with Power to absolve Sinners It pleaseth God that men sometimes should by missing this help perceive how much they stand bound to him for so precious a Benefit enjoyed And surely so long as the World lived in any awe or fear of falling away from God so dear were his Ministers to the People chiefly in this respect that being through tyranny and persecution deprived of Pastors the doleful rehearsal of their lost felicities hath not any one thing more eminent than that Sinners distrest should not now know how or where to unlade their Burthens Strange it were unto me that the Fathers who so much every where extol the Grace of Jesus Christ in leaving unto his Church this Heavenly and Divine power should as men whose simplicity had universally been abused agree all to admire the magnifie and needless Office The Sentence therefore of Ministerial Absolution hath two effects touching sin it only declareth us freed from the guiltiness thereof and restored into God's favour but concerning right in Sacred and Divine Mysteries whereof through Sin we were made unworthy as the power of the Church did before effectually binde and retain us from access unto them so upon our apparent repentance it truly restoreth our Liberty looseth and Chains wherewith we were tyed remitteth all whatsoever is past and accepteth us no less returned than if we never had gone astray For in as much as the Power which our Saviour gave to his Church is of two kindes the one to be exercised over voluntary Penitents only the other over such as are to be brought to Amendment by Ecclesiastical Censures the words wherein he hath given this Authority must be so understood as the Subject or Matter whereupon it worketh will permit It doth not permit that in the former kinde that is to say in the use of Power over voluntarie Converts to binde or loose remit or retain should signifie any other than only to pronounce of Sinners according to that which may be gathered by outward signes because really to effect the removal or continuance of Sinne in the Soul of any Offender is no Priestly act but a Work which farr exceedeth their Ability Contrariwise in the latter kinde of Spiritual Jurisdiction which by Censures constraineth men to amend their Lives It is is true that the Minister of God doth then more declare and signifie what God hath wrought And this Power true it is that the Church hath invested in it Howbeit as other truths so this hath by errour been oppugned and depraved through abuse The first of Name that openly in Writing withstood the Churches Authority and Power to remit Sinne was Tertullian after he had combined himself with Montanists drawn to the liking of their Heresie through the very sowreness of his own nature which neither his incredible skill and knowledge otherwise nor the Doctrine of the Gospel it self could but so much alter as to make him savour any thing which carried with it the taste of lenity A Spunge steeped in Worm-wood and Gall a Man through too much severity merciless and neither able to endure nor to be endured of any His Book entituled concerning Chastity and written professedly against the Discipline of the Church hath many fretful and angry Sentences declaring a minde very much offended with such as would not perswade themselves that of Sins some be pardonable by the Keyes of the Church some uncapable of Forgiveness That middle and moderate Offences having received chastisement may by Spiritual Authority afterwards be remitted but greater Transgressions must as touching Indulgence be left to the only pleasure of Almighty God in the World to come That as Idolatry and Bloodshed so likewise Fornication and sinful Lust are of this nature that they which so farr have fallen from God ought to continue for ever after barred from access unto his Sanctuary condemned to perpetual profusion of Tears deprived of all expectation and hope to receive any thing at the Churches hands but publication of their shame For saith he who will fear to waste out that which he hopeth he may recover Who will be careful for ever to hold that which be knoweth cannot for ever be withheld from him He which slackneth the Bridle to sinne doth thereby give it even the spurr also Take away fear and that which presently succeedeth in stead thereof is Licencious desire Greater Offences therefore are punishable but not pardonable by the Church If any Prophet or Apostle be found to have remitted such Transgressions they did it not by the ordinary course of Discipline but by extraordinary power For they also raised the Dead which none but God is able to do they restored the Impotent and Lame men a work peculiar to Jesus Christ Yea that which Christ would not do because executions of such severity beseemed not him who came to save and redeem the World by his sufferings they by their power strook Elymas and Ananias the one blinde and the other dead Approve first your selves to be as they were Apostles or Prophets and then take upon you to pardon all men But if the Authority you have be only Ministerial and no way Soveraign over-reach not the limits which God hath set you know that to pardon capital Sin is beyond your Commission Howbeit as oftentimes the vices of wicked men do cause other their commendable qualities to be abhorred so the honour of great mens vertues is easily a Cloak of their Errours In which respect Tertullian hath past with much less obloquy and reprehension than Novatian who broaching afterwards the same opinion had not otherwise wherewith to countervail the Offence he gave and to procure it the like toleration Novatian at the first a Stoical Phylosopher which kinde of men hath alwayes accounted

them that so to do were so sin against their own souls and that they put forth their hands to iniquity whatsoever they go about and have not first the sacred Scripture of God for direction how can it chuse but bring the simple a thousand times to their wits end how can it chuse but vex and amaze them For in every action of common life to since out some se●tence clearly and infallibly setting before our eyes what we ought to do seem we in Scripture never so expert would trouble us more then we are aware In weak and tender minds we little know what misery this strict opinion would breed besides the stops it would make in the whole course of all mens lives and actions make all things sin which we do by direction of Natures light and by the rule of common discretion without thinking at all upon Scripture Admit this Position and Parents shall cause their children to sin as oft as they cause them to do any thing before they come to years of capacity and be ripe for Knowledge in the Scripture Admit this and it shall not be with Masters as it was with him him in the Gospel but servants being commanded to go shall stand still till they have errand warranted unto them by Scripture Which as it standeth with Christian duty in some cases so in common affairs to require it were most unfit Two opinions therefore there are concerning sufficiency of holy Scripture each extreamly opposit unto the other and both repugnant unto truth The Schools of Rome teach Scripture to be unsufficient as if except Traditions were added it did not contain all revealed and supernatural Truth which absolutely is necessary for the children of men in this life to know that they may in the next be saved Others justly condemning this opinion grow likewise unto a dangerous extremity as if Scripture did not only contain all things in that kinde necessary but all things simply and in such sort that to do any thing according to any other Law were not only unnecessary but even opposite unto salvation unlawful and sinful Whatsoever is spoken of God or things appertaining to God otherwise then as the truth is though it seem an honour it is an injury And as incredible praises given unto men do often abate and impair the credit of their deserved commendation so we must likewise take great heed lest in attributing unto Scripture more then it can have the incredibility of that do cause even those things which indeed it hath most abundantly to be less reverendly esteemed I therefore leave it to themselves to consider Whether they have in this First Point overshot themselves or not which God doth know is quickly done even when our meaning is most sincere as I am verily perswaded theirs in this case was OF THE LAWS OF Ecclesiastical Polity Book III. Concerning their Second Assertion That in Scripture there must be of necessity contained a Form of Church Polity the Laws whereof may in no wise be altered The Matter contained in this Third Book 1. WHat the Church is and in what respect Laws of Polity are thereunto necessarily required 2. Whether it be necessary that some particular Form of Church Polity be set down in Scripture sith the things that belong particularly to any such Form are not of necessity to salvation 3. That matters of Church Polity are different from matters of Faith and Salvation and that they themselves so teach which are out Reprovers for so teaching 4. That hereby we take not from Scripture any thing which thereunto with the soundness of truth may be given 5. Their meaning who first urged against the Polity of the Church of England that nothing ought to be established in the Church more then is commanded by the Word of God 6. How great injury men by so thinking should offer unto all the Churches of God 7. A shift notwithstanding to maintain it by interpreting Commanded as though it were meant that greater things onely ought to be found set down in Scripture particularly and lesser framed by the general Rules of Scripture 8. Another Device to defend the same by expounding Commanded as if it did signifie grounded as Scripture and were opposed to things sound out by the light of natural reason onely 9. How Laws for the Polity of the Church may be made by the advise of men and how those being nor repugnant to the Word of God are approved in his sight 10. The neither Gods being the Author of Laws nor yet his committing of them to Scripture is any Reason sufficient to prove that they admit no addition or change 11. Whether Christ must needs intend Laws unchangeable altogether or have forbidden any where to make any other Law then himself did deliver ALbeit the substance of those Controversies whereinto we have begun to wade be rather of outward things appertaining to the Church of Christ then of any thing wherein the nature and being of the Church consisteth yet because the Subject or Matter which this Position concerneth is A Forms of Church Government or Church-Polity It therefore behoveth us so far forth to consider the nature of the Church as is requisite for mens more clear and plain understanding in what respect Laws of Polity or Government are necessary thereunto That Church of Christ which we properly term his body Mystical can be but one neither can that one be sensibly discerned by any man inasmuch as the parts thereof are some in Heaven already with Christ and the rest that are on earth albeit their natural persons be visible we do not discern under this property whereby they are truly and infallibly of that body Only our minds by intellectual conceit are able to apprehend that such a real body there is a body collective because it containeth an huge multitude a body mystical because the mystery of their conjunction is removed altogether from sense Whatsoever we read in Scripture concerning the endless love and the saving mercy which God sheweth towards his Church the only proper subject thereof is this Church Concerning this Flock it is that our Lord and Saviour hath promised I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish neither shall any pluck them out of my hands They who are of this Society have such Marks and Notes of distinction from all others as are not objects unto our sense only unto God who seeth their hearts and understandeth all their secret cogitations unto him they are clear and manifest All men knew Nathaniel to be an Israelite But our Saviour piercing deeper giveth further Testimony of him then men could have done with such certainty as he did Behold indeed an Israelite in whom there is no guile If we profess as Peter did that we love the Lord and profess it in the hearing of men charity is prone to believe all things and therefore charitablemen are likely to think we do so as long as they see