Selected quad for the lemma: conscience_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
conscience_n	day_n	holy_a	sabbath_n	1,012	5	9.4280	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A59607	The true Christians test, or, A discovery of the love and lovers of the world by Samuel Shaw ...	Shaw, Samuel, 1635-1696.	1682 (1682)	Wing S3045; ESTC R39531	240,664	418

and many of our Scholars think of themselves if ever they think of themselves and what opinion they have of their own temper and inclination who from Week to Week spend more than a moiety of their days in Sports and Recreations in needless Visits impertinent Confabulations and either in doing Ill or doing Nothing or doing that which is nothing to their purpose nothing serving to their general or special calling They cannot imagine sure that by saying a Prayer or reading a Chapter in the morning they have purchas'd all the rest of the day to their own use as the Jews got the remainder of the Fields and of the Flocks by offering up the First-fruits and the First-born or that by beginning in the Spirit they have obtained a Licence to go on and end in the Flesh One would think it that a Christian Preacher should make as much Conscience of his time as an Heathen Painter and allow Nulla Dies sine Linca No Day without a Line to be a good Motto It is certainly a weak Argument that because Men have good Estates and need not Work nor Trade to maintain themselves that therefore God does require no business at all of them but that their time is their own And as for those that are in a Clerical Capacity methinks the Children of this World who act at a more industrious rate should shame the Children of Light or the Lights of the World let them call themselves by what name they please out of that silly fancy that because they have got a little Learning therefore they need study no more or because they can make a Sermon in one day of a Week and preach it on another that therefore the other five are their own to play with Amongst the Worldly Gamesters the unseasonable make up as great a number as the unrightcous or intemperate I reckon those unseasonable Gamesters who purloin from the Lords-day to bestow in Sports and Recreations I will not enter into the Controversie about the Morality of the Sabbaths nor the certain Right of Succession that the Lords day hath to the Holy Rest of the Seventh day but I do believe that the Conscience of a good man is the best Casuist in this matter And that every such man in the World doth think it reasonable to appropriate some certain time to the more immediate and solemn Worship of God and that no such man will grudge a seventh part of his time to so good a matter who gives him all the rest and that there are many such men who are so far from grudging God one day in a Week that they had rather every day in the Week and every Week in the Year and every Year of their Lives could be directly spent in the service of that God to whom they owe all they have and in communion with whom and therein I place the true Celebration of a Sabbath their true and proper happiness doth consist And I am of opinion with Mr. Hales and many other good men That Religion doth prosper or decay in Church Family or single Soul proportionably as the Christian Sabbath is observed or neglected It seems that there are some Pleasures allow'd us in general which are therefore call'd our own Isa 58. 13. which yet we are required to refrain from on God's Holy-day And I see no reason he has to complain for want of Recreation on the Sabbath to whom the Sabbath it self is the greatest Recreation which I pray God it may be to all that pretend to a predominant love of the Father As for those Conscientious Sensualists who use Sports on the Lords-day to prove that they are no Jews the end may be good possibly but the method that they take will I doubt indifferently serve to prove that they are no good Christians neither Besides these there are other Worldly Gamesters who indulge themselves in Sports and Pleasures in a time of Publick Calamity or Danger whom the Prophet Amos describes Amos 16. in the beginning and God threatens above all sorts of men that I read of except those that blaspheme the Holy Ghost saying That their iniquity shall not be purged from them till they dye Isa 22. 14. In short It is the Character of true Israelites that they cannot make merry when Jerusalem is oppressed Psal 137. and by the Rule of Contraries it is a Symptom of a Sensualist to nourish himself in a day of slaughter MEDITAT XXVI Of Debters SIN is properly a Debt but to be in Debt is not properly a Sin If it were what Consolation could be administred to them that were born in Debt and continue therein sore against their Wills to them that are engaged therein meerly by the Providence of God or reduc'd thereunto by the Injustice or Oppression of men But yet to be much in Debt and that inextricable is a very great Calamity and especially burdensome to a just and ingenious mind and yet more especially if contracted by any fault or folly of his own For if to lose Estates and lay down Life it self upon a Publick or Charitable Account be accounted Generous and Virtuous to run into Debt upon such Account ought not sure to be esteemed scandalous Solomon somewhere tells us That the Borrower is Servant to the Lender And indeed if there were no more in it but this loss of Liberty it would make that condition troublesome and uneasie But alas it is attended with many other mischiefs and dangers which do still inhance the Calamity The Precept therefore of owing no man any thing Rom. 13. 8. is given us in much mercy and God does therein consult our ease safety and quiet as by commanding us to be chaste and temperate and righteous he does consult our health and credit There are two Commands in the Text To owe no man any thing and to love all men always The former seems a very hard Commandment to the Poor and it is almost impossible for them to perform it Juvet idem qui jubet The latter is seldom I doubt performed by the Rich whose Riches for the most part make them proud disdainful oppressive and covetous The performance of the former seems to depend upon the performance of the latter For how is it possible that the Poor should be out of Debt if the Rich be not kind and charitable But if all men did love their Neighbors as themselves then it were easie to conceive that no man need ow any thing to any What then Does God command men Impossibilities Does he with-hold Straw and yet command his Servants to make Brick Does he send men naked into the world and leave them destitute of all things even of strength it self and yet charge them neither to beg nor borrow but to starve No this cannot be we must therefore relax the seeming severity of this Command by some favourable interpretation and say We must not wilfully and needlesly contract Debts nor carelesly and unjustly continue in them It is