Selected quad for the lemma: conscience_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
conscience_n	child_n	spirit_n	witness_v	1,106	5	9.8469	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A66556	The Scriptures genuine interpreter asserted, or, A discourse concerning the right interpretation of Scripture wherein a late exercitation, intituled, Philosophia S. scripturæ interpres, is examin'd, and the Protestant doctrine in that point vindicated : with some reflections on another discourse of L.W. written in answer to the said exercitation : to which is added, An appendix concerning internal illumination, and other operations of the Holy Spirit upon the soul of man, justifying the doctrine of Protestants, and the practice of serious Christians, against the charge of ethusiasm, and other unjust criminations / by John Wilson ...	Wilson, John, 17th cent.	1678 (1678)	Wing W2903; ESTC R6465	125,777	376

grounds of Religion or principles of sober Reason Is not the guilt of sin and the wrath of God to be trembled at And is not sinful Man capable of feeling the bitterness hereof Nay doth it not stand him greatly in hand to be affected with them Are these nothing but the reeks and vapours of melancholy overwhelming the fancy and filling it full of fears and dreadful apprehensions This indeed would be very grateful to the Mad Crue who will readily gather from hence that whensoever Conscience gives them any close stinging gripes for their wickedness as I doubt not but it doth sometimes it is but making themselves believe that this is nothing else but a Melancholick Qualm and then they will soon conclude that the best way to be rid of such an unpleasing Guest is to run to a Tavern or a Play-House to drink or sport away these Fanatick Vapours and Superstitious Fears that break People of their ease and are Enemies to the peace of Mankind And such Mountebank-Medicines may possibly for a while skin over the sore and smother the checks of Conscience by casting the careless Sinner into a Frolick-Fit But whenever God comes thorowly to grapple with the guilty Soul and set his sins in order before him casting Fire-Balls of wrath and horror into his Conscience the Poor Wretch will find that these Anodynes will prove but miserable Comforters and that it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God But what do we think of the Scripture-instances given before Job David Heman What of the lamentable state of Fr. Spira besides other Examples not a few of later years What were they nothing but Melancholick Fancies that drew from those distress'd Souls such bitter complaints and dreadful outcries When the last-mention'd Person fell into that woful Agony his Friends supposing that Melancholy overshadowing his judgment might be the cause of his trouble convey'd him to Padua a noted University in Italy and had the advice of three eminent Physitians who after due examination and mature consideration of things return'd this Verdict That they could not discern that his Body was afflicted with any dangerous Distemper originally from it self by the predominancy of any humour but that extream grief oppressing the Spirits stirred up ill humours in the Body and thereby discomposed him And when they had endeavour'd by Physick to consume those humours or at least to divert the course of them from the Brain but all without the desired success Spira nothing it thus bespeaks them Alas Poor Men how far wide are you do you think that this Disease is to be cured by Potions Believe me there must be another manner of Medicine it 's neither Plaisters nor Drugs that can help a fainting Soul cast down with the sense of sin and the wrath of God It 's only Christ that must be the Physician and the Gospel the sole Antidote The Physicians says the Relator easily believed him having understood the whole truth of the matter and therefore wisht him to seek some spiritual comfort I grant indeed that Melancholy where it is predominant gives great advantage to the increase of sadness and the multiplying of perplexing fears and when Conscience is awakened its fears and disquietments may be heighten'd by Imagination and this set on work by small accidents as the sound of a Knell or the rattling of Thunder or some frightful sight But still the first and principal cause of the distress is something really formidable to a sober and sedate Mind And if any should judge otherwise I think I may without any imputation of rashness or uncharitableness suspect them to doubt whether Vindictive Justice and the Everlasting Pains of Hell be a reality And if any should be of that mind let them if they think good solace themselves with such dreams till experience resolve the question Come we in the next place to speak something of the joys that are begotten in a Christians heart by the discovery of God's love to him Touching this thus much we find 1. That the love of God is shed abroad in the hearts of Christians by the Spirit of God And that the same Holy Spirit witnesseth with their spirits that they are the Children of God and Heirs of Glory Where the Apostle speaks of a twofold witness of our Adoption 1. The Spirit of God witnesseth this partly by begetting that Grace in the heart that is the peculiar Character of a Child of God in which respect he is said to seal Believers to the day of Redemption viz. by stamping the holy image of God upon them partly by enabling them to discern this work and see this seal stamp'd upon them 2. The regenerate Conscience enabled and assisted by Gods Spirit to see this doth thence infer a Christians Sonship 2. Where this is wrought it serves to fill the heart with exceeding joy above what the greatest earthly comfort can beget Witness that of the Psalmist There be many that say Who will shew us any good Lord lift thou up the light of thy Countenance upon us Thou hast put gladness in my heart more than in the time that their Corn and their Wine increased And that of the Apostle who speaking of Christ says Whom having not seen ye love in whom though now ye see him not yet believing ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory The testimony that Conscience gives to a Christian of his Integrity is as St. Paul tells us matter of much joy But there are who conceive that besides this there are sometimes afforded some more immediate refreshments from the Holy Spirit And of this mind is a learned Author in a Treatise published some few years ago where he thus speaks The Feast of a good Conscience is the true Christians daily diet and sure whatever the rich men of the World think he only can be said to fare deliciously Nay he hath yet more supernatural food Manna rain'd down immediately from Heaven the Holy Spirit sent on purpose to refresh and support him those Joys which differ rather in degree than kind from those which are to be his final portion 3. Hence are Christians enabled to pass cheerfully through the sharpest trials and sorest afflictions that can befal them in this their mournful pilgrimage We rejoyce saith the Apostle in hope of the glory of God And not only so but we glory in tribulation also And the Hebrews took joyfully the spoiling of their goods knowing in themselves that they had in Heaven a better and an enduring substance 4. Where these Joys are in their full tide they carry the Christian triumphantly through the bitterest pangs of death of which there are numerous examples in all Ages of the Church These comforts are not afforded to all in like measure nor to any always at the same height It seems good to the Wisdom of God so to dispense them as that those who have

believe must be something else and that can be no less than the Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation which the Apostle prays for in behalf of his Ephesians I further add this that an Immediate Work of the Spirit is defensible also in another sense viz. as it is opposed to a necessity of outward means on the Spirits part For as it is in the outward and visible Administrations of Providence God hath tied us to the use of means for our own preservation and subsistence yet he hath not tied up himself to means so but that he can and sometimes doth step out of his ordinary way and work for us more immediately where means are wanting or whensoever he thinks fit to act without them So may it be said in this case the invisible Dispensations of Grace it is our duty to use the means afforded us for our information in the things of God and it were bold presumption for any Man to expect the Spirits help in the neglect of those means But God hath no where told us that I know that he hath bound up himself from communicating his Light and Grace in a way extraordinary without means either where the means are denied or whensoever he is pleased to wave their use And therefore that distinction given by Lud. Wolzogen of the Spirits power into Soluta and Ligata will not without some limitation be received by considerate men CHAP. II. 1. Wolzogen ' s bitter Invective against the Pastors of the Reform'd Churches 2. The Nature of Distresses of Conscience and Spiritual Desertions open'd and the reality of them proved 3. Of Spiritual Joys from the sense of Gods love the reality of them also asserted 4. A Conjecture at the Original of that conceit that resolves the aforesaid different apprehensions and impressions into the different temper of the Body BEfore I shut up my Discourse I cannot let pass without some Animadversion what Lud. Wolzogen hath written in the latter part of his second Book De Scripturarum Interprete where he thinks it not enough to have owned and applauded the Exercitators profane scoff at the aforesaid Doctrine of the Reformed Churches about the Spirits enlightening as a piece of Enthusiasm the effect of a deluded fancy attributing that to the Spirit of God that is the natural effect of the mind or the apprehension of some imaginary good But as if he were glad of such an occasion he breaks forth into a most bitter Invective against the Doctors and Professors of the Reformed Religion for that his aim is at them is evident by the whole Series of his Discourse notwithstanding all his palliations for owning and maintaining any such supernatural and immediate Operations of the Spirit and daringly ascribes all to the heats of an exalted Imagination or the vapours of melancholick Blood and the unusual Joys of a recreated Temperament or perhaps to the clearer light of some discovered Truth and sometimes to the deceitful Dreams or wild Commotions of a distracted Mind falsly conceited to be the Divine Breathings of the Holy Spirit And this he especially censures in those who having attained to some eminent Gifts of Utterance a tenacious Memory a lively and ready Fancy with a fluent Elocution are fervent in their Devotions whose Performances he says are cryed up for the actings of the Spirit not that the Persons thus qualified are so weak as to think that this comes from the Spirit of God but that they are willing others should believe so that they may make the better advantage of such a reputation to gain power into their hands and as a torrent carry all before them filling all with Schism and Sedition This is the sum of his angry Rhetorick in this matter And his Friend Velthusius speaks in the same Dialect And no doubt there are others in the World of like mind with them by whom those strong impressions of joy or sorrow that are made upon the hearts of Christians from the sense of sin and wrath on the one hand or of the saving love of God on the other and those fervors of spirit that they sometimes feel and express in the solemn services of Religion and exercises of Devotion are censured as proceeding from the different temperament of the Body and the suitable workings of a deluded fancy or aseribed to Enthusiastick impulses or such like imaginary causes But let the whole be brought under an impartial examination and I doubt not but this will appear a groundless calumny to all that shall give sober Reason leave to judge without the interposure of Prejudice or Passion First then let us consider of those different apprehensions and impressions before-mentioned and see what Scripture and sound Reason teaches us concerning them Man as he is an Intelligent Creature hath a power connatural to him of reflecting upon himself and judging of his own state and ways as he stands in relation to God and Eternity This power of Reflection is commonly known by the name of Conscience which as it is appointed to be Mans Domestick Guide and Monitor to shew him his way and mind him of his duty so it is a constant Inspector over him not only as a Witness of what he is and does but as a Judge also in the Name and place of God to pass sentence upon him and give him some fore-taste of those future joys or sorrows that shall be the portion of the Children of Men in another World Begin we with the Distresses of an afflicted Conscience arising from the sense of Sin and Gods deserved wrath for it This may be considered either as the case of one newly awakened by the Terrors of God to a sad debate with himself having hitherto been a stranger to the state and way of Holiness or of one already regenerated and begotten again by renewing Grace one that hath formerly experimented in some degree the sweetness of a Heavenly Life but is now brought into a dark uncomfortable condition through want of the sense of Gods saving love not without sad impressions of his dreadful displeasure Though I shall not wholly exclude the former out of my present debate yet it is the latter that I intend chiefly to treat of Those to whom this befals during this distress walk disconsolately find little or no sweetness in any duty they perform any Ordinance they attend upon any blessing they make use of Sometimes they strongly suspect if not peremptorily conclude themselves to be reprobates and cast-aways to have no Grace in their hearts no part in the Redemption of Christ but to be Enemies of God Captives of Satan and Vessels of Wrath fitted to destruction And this is one part of God's Paternal Discipline wherewith he is pleased to exercise some of his beloved Children whether to correct their unthankfulness under former enjoyments or to put their Graces to greater tryal or to fit them for some special service or to humble them for some heinous sin and