Selected quad for the lemma: conscience_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
conscience_n	darkness_n	light_n	shine_v	1,422	5	9.5903	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A79881	Aurea Legenda, or Apothegms, sentences, and sayings of many wise and learned men, useful for all sorts of persons Collected out of many authors by Sa. Clark, sometimes pastor in B.F.	Clarke, Samuel, 1599-1682.	1682 (1682)	Wing C4488A; ESTC R223906	51,711	152

Sanders to run over the Irish Mountains quite out of his Wits till he perish of hunger In brief it so oppresses that it causeth the sweating Soul to cry with David Oh my Bones are broken And with Moses who know's the power of his Wrath And to joyn with Soloman a wounded Spirit who can bear what Man what Angel Who under Christ Nay this stroke upon the Soul seperated from all Sin drew from the Lord of Life those sad cryes My God my God why hast thou forsaken me That which a Thousand taunts ten Thousand racks could not have done this one alone apprehended and felt wrested from him And shall such a thing as this so near so great a Neighbour be offended Be we then of St. Paul's mind Set Conscience at an high Price Consider what it will be worth in the Day of trouble of Death of Judgment and resolve to begg starve burn dye a Thousand deaths to save Consciences life As a good Conscience next to God its Master is our best Friend in the World so Conscience offended is our forest Enemy The greatest Friends are bitterest Foes when divided No Wars to Civil Wars to domestical Wars The nearer the worse and therefore the Conscience being nearest if it become an Enemy is the heaviest of all others For First It 's an unavoidable Enemy other Enemies may be kept off with strength or put off with skill but so cannot Conscience No Barrs no Bolts no Bulwarks can keep that from thy Table or Bed Dan. 5. 5. Belshazzar may sooner keep out ten Thousand Medes and Persians than one Conscience That will pass through all his Guards and Officers to his presence and in the Face of his Nobles and Concubines arrest him and shake him in despight of his security Nor will this Officer be bob'd with a bundle of Distinctions and Evasions When God sets it a work it marches furiously like Jehu and will take thee up with his answer What Peace so long as thy Whoredoms and sins remain As there is no Respondent like Conscience so there is no Objector like to that A man may make a shift with a wrangling Sophister yea with the Devil himself better than with his Conscience For no Devil knows that by me which I do by my self And the Conscience shall have the hearing when the Devil shall not For Conscience is the Kings Solicitor and speaks for the great King Secondly This Enemy is unsufferable It strips us at one stroke of all other Comforts a sick Stomach makes that meat which before much pleased now to encrease the Disease So doth a sick Conscience It takes away the relish of all natural Comforts and of all spiritual Exercises and Ordinances and makes a man a burden and terror to himself It fills one full of Horrors and unhappiness the Violentest diseases may be born but when the Pillers are shaken when that which bears up all is wounded when the Heavens fight against a man and a poor Creature must wrestle against infinite justice and power Oh how hard a thing is this The wrath of a King is terrible and the rage of Seas of Fire of Lyons but still here is Creature against Creature Weak to Weak but who knows the power of Gods anger Who can stand before that consuming Fire Not man Not mountains Not Angels The terrors of God and anguish of Spirit cast's the Devil himself into a frenzy and makes him mad As those parts of the Nail next to the flesh at first are softer than the rest but after a while they grow into that hardness which is in the remoter parts So the Consciences of all men have those seeds of insensibility in them which makes them at last deaf to every Charm and secure against all the thundering Judgments which are denounced against them As the operation of the Sun is always strongest there where it is not at all seen to Wit in the Bowels of the Earth So the judgments of God do oft lye heaviest there where they are least perceived to Wit in an hard Heart and seared Conscience When men go about to extinguish and darken the light of direction which God hath put into their Hearts and Consciences to guide their paths by he puts out their light of Comfort and leaves them to Darkness and Sorrow Other afflictions are but the taking some stars of Comfort out of the Firmament when others are left still to shine there But when God's countenance is hid from the Soul the Sun it self the fountain of Light is darkned to such and so a general Darkness befalls them A light Load upon a raw Shoulder is very grievous So is a little outward grief to a wounded Conscience Every fowl that hath a beautiful Feather hath not the sweetest Flesh Nor doth every Tree that beareth a goodly Leaf bring good Fruit. Glass gives a clearer sound than Silver and many things glister besides Gold The wicked man's jollity is but the Hypocrisie of mirth It may wet the Mouth but cannot warm the Heart Smooth the Brow but not fill the Breast In the midst of his greatest mirth he hath many a secret gripe in his Conscience and little knows the World where his shooe pinches him As Jezabel no doubt had a cold Heart under a painted Face So many a mans Heart akes and quakes within him when yet his Face counterfeits a smile We have a cloud of Witnesses Prophets Apostles Martyrs who would hazard themselves upon the angry Seas Lyons Flames rather than upon a displeased Conscience Collected out of the Works of B. Reynolds Dr. Harris and Dr. Stoughton by S. C. Some choice Sentences and Sayings concerning the Blessings and Benefits which accompany a pure peaceable and good Conscience COnscience is a Prime faculty of the reasonable Soul there set to give notice of its spiritual Estate in what Terms it stands with God Conscience saith St. Austin is like a Wife the best of Comforts if good the worst of naughts if bad Deal friendly with Conscience and next to God it will prove thy best friend in the World First Thy truest Friend that will never flatter thee but make thee know thy self Secondly The surest Friend that will never start from thee It wll Ride with thee It will lye with thee sleep with thee Wake with thee It will Walk with thee Be with thee in every place beyond all times Thirdly The sweetest Friend in the World If natural cheerfulness be so good an House-keeper to a good man that it Feasts him daily as Solomon saith Oh then what will be the Banquets of a Conscience sanctified purified and pacified What joys those that will carry a man above ground and make him forget the best of Natures Comforts what Comforts those that will make him sing under the Whip in the Stocks at the Stake in despite of the Fire Oh what the strength of Conscience that can sooner tyre the Tyrant than the Martyr And can carry weak Strength as weak as Water

Aurea Legenda OR APOTHEGMS SENTENCES AND SAYINGS OF MANY Wise and Learned men USEFUL For all sorts of Persons Collected out of many Authors by Sa. Clark sometimes Pastor in B. F. The Preacher sought to find out acceptable Words and that which was written was upright even Words of Truth The words of the Wise are as Goads and as Nails fastened by the Masters of the Assemblies which are given from one Shepherd Eccle. 12. 10. 11. London Printed for Nathanael Ranew at the King's-Arms in St. Paul's Church-yard 1682. Some choice Sentences and Sayings concerning the Mischiefs and Miseries which attend an impure unquiet and guilty Conscience COnscience is God's spy and Man's overseer God's Deputy judg holding its Court in the whole Soul bearing witness of all a Mans doings and Desires and accordingly excusing or accusing absolving or Condemning Comforting or Tormenting What art thou then the better when none is by so long as thy Conscience is by Conscience is the great Register or Recorder of the World 'T is to every Man his private Notary keeping record of all his Acts and Deeds It hath ●he Pen of a ready Writer and takes from ●hy Mouth all that thou speakest yea ●rom thy Heart all thou Contrivest And tho its writing may be for the present like to the writing with the juice of an Onion or Lemon illegible Yet when thou comest to the fire of Distress it will then appear or at farthest in the great Day of Judgment it will discover all Conscience always keeps Centinel in a mans Soul and like a Register Records all our good and evil Actions Tho the darkness of the Night may hide us from others and the darkness of the Mind may seem to hide us from our selves yet still the Conscience hath an Eye to look in secret upon what ever we do and tho in many Men it sleeps in regard of motion yet it never sleeps in regard of Observation and Notice It may be hard and seared but it can never be Blinded That writing which in it now seems to be invisible when it 's brought to the fire of Gods judgment will be most Clear There is nothing so much fastened in the Memory as that which Conscience writes All her Censures are written with indelible Characters never to be bloted out All or most of our knowledge forsakes us in Death Wit acuteness Variety of language Habits of Sciences Arts Policies Inventions c. only those things which Conscience imprinteth shall be so far from being obliterated by Death that they shall thereby be much more manifest whether they be impressions of Peace or Horror Conscience is a most bribeless Worker It never know's how to make a false report of any of our ways 'T is Gods Historian with reverence be it spoken that writes not Annals but Jornals The words Deeds and Cogitations of Hours and Moments Never was there so absolute a Compiler of Lives as Conscience is It comes not with prejudice or acceptation of Persons but dares speak the truth of a Monarch as well as of a Slave Nero the Emperor shall find as great a Fire burning in his Bosom as he dares wrap the poor Christians in to light him to his Lusts Before and in the acting of Sin we will hear nothing but afterwards Conscience will send forth a shrill and a sharp Voyce which shall be heard all the Soul over as was that of Reuben to his Breth'ren did not I warn you saying Sin not against the Child c. It 's as proper for Sin to raise Terrors in the the Soul as for rotten Flesh or Wood to breed Worms That worm which never dieth is bred here in the froth of filthy Lusts and flagitious Courses and it lyes grubbing and gnawing upon Mens inwards many times in the Ruff of all their jollity This made Saul to call for his Musick Belshazzar for his carousing Cups Cain for his Workmen to build him a City and others for other of the Devils Anodines to put by the Pangs of their wounded Spirits and throbbing Consciences One small drop of an evil Conscience will trouble a whole Sea of outward Comforts and Contentments A confluence whereof would no more ease a wounded Conscience than a Silken Stoking will do a broken Legg As a little water in a Leaden Vessel is heavy So is a little trouble in an evil Conscience An evil Conscience is a burden importable able to quail the Courage and crush the Shoulders of the strongest Hercules of the mightiest man upon Earth Hence Job preferred and Judas chose strangling before it Daniel chose rather to be cast to the Lyons than to carry a Lyon about with him in his Bosome an enraged Conscience The primitive Christians also used to cry out Ad leones potius quam ad Lenones abjiciamur Let us rather be cast to the Lyons than to be thrust into Brothel-houses What good is there in a Chest full of Goods when the Conscience is empty of goodness such an one is like unto Naaman a Rich man but a Leper For excellent Parts and Gifts without a good Conscience are but as so many sweet Flowers upon a Dead man wrapped up in fair Linnen Or like to sounding Brass or a tinkling Cymbal Conscience is God's greatest Officer and Vice-gerent in Man set by him to be as it were thy Angel keeper Monitor Remembrancer King Prophet Witness Examiner Judge yea thy lower Heaven If thou slightest and wrongest it it will be an Adversary unto thee and an informer against thee an Accuser Witness Judg Jailor Tormenter a Worm Wrack Dungeon unto thee yea thy upper Hell An evil Conscience makes the Wicked fly when none pursues Prov. 28. 1. Such a fearful Fugitive was bloody Cain such were those cursed Canaanites Jos 24. 12. that were chased by Gods Hornets among them that is by the Blood-hounds of their own Consciences Such were those Syrians who struck with a Pannick fear fled for their Lives and left their rich Camp for a Booty to the Hunger-starved Israelites 2 Kin. 7. 7. c. The shadows of the Mountains seemed to be armed men to guilty Gaal Judg. 9. 36. The Burgundians when ready to joyn Battel with their Enemies thought that long Thistles were Spears He that is delivered up to a seared Conscience to a dead and dedolent Disposition is in a manner in a desperate condition He heaps up wrath against the Day of Wrath c. Rom. 2. 5. this made a reverend Man say I had rather be in Hell with a sensible Conscience than on Earth with a reprobate Mind Plutarch thought that the very Life of a vicious and a wicked man was punishment enough for him without either Gods or mans revenging hand For saith he if they examine their Lives they find themselves empty of Grace and Goodness destitute of Hope loaden with Fear Sadness uncheerfulness and of Suspicion of what will follow after Their lives therefore are worse than the life of a Dog For a Dog lives