Selected quad for the lemma: conscience_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
conscience_n	die_v	fire_n	worm_n	1,088	5	9.7140	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A23744	The ladies calling in two parts / by the author of The whole duty of man, The causes of the decay of Christian piety, and The gentlemans calling.	Allestree, Richard, 1619-1681.; Pakington, Dorothy Coventry, Lady, d. 1679.; Sterne, Richard, 1596?-1683.; Fell, John, 1625-1686.; Henchman, Humphrey, 1592-1675.	1673 (1673)	Wing A1141; ESTC R3510	135,212	264

be a Martyr for his God thousands become so to their Vices 21. If from the present we look forward to futuredangers the Atheist must here be perfectly silent he cannot say that the Christian after this life shall be in any worse estate then himself since he concludes they shall both be the same nothing But the Christian threatens him with a more dismal state he allows him indeed a being yea an eternal one but it is only such as qualifies him for a misery as eternal the worm that never dies the fire unquenchable where all the excesses of his short plesures shall be revenged with more excessive endless torments his senses which were here the only organs of his felicity shall then be tho not the only the very sensible mediums of his wretchedness and that conscience which he here suspended from its office shall then take our its arrears and return all it s stifled admonitions in perpetual horrors and desperate upbraidings I need not now sure ask on which side the greater danger lies 22. To conclude the result of all is that the transitory plesures of the Atheist are over-poised even by the present satisfactions of the Pious And the eternity of unbounded unconceivable joies he expects hereafter comes in ex abundanti having nothing on the other side that offers at a competition with it And at the very same rate of Proportion we have seen the dangers also are so that we can easily compute the utmost mischief our Christianity can do us if it should be false but the damage of the other is inestimable both for the penalty of loss and sense I may now appeal to common prudence to judg of the vast inequality and to pronounce that sure there had need be som great evidence of truth on the Atheists side to preponderate all these disadvantages Indeed nothing much below a demonstration can justify the choice of so dangerous Principles I am sure an equal probability can never do it where the danger is so unequal and were the veriest Atheist consulted in a secular case of the like circumstances he would certainly pronounce him a mad man that should make such an election How desperate a phrensy then is it to do it without so much as that equal probability nay indeed without any probability at all And yet this madness sets up for the monopoly not of Wit only but Reason too and by confidence and clamor seeks to run down those Arguments it can never confute 23. I may be thought here to have made too long a d●…gression from my proper Subject but I cannot confess it so for since my present business is to recommend Piety I can no way do that so effectually as by shewing its consonancy to right reason especially considering the busie industry is now used to represent it under another form and to alienate from it those persons whose Greatness may give it any luster or repute in the World of which sort I suppose there are few more frequently attaqued then Women of Quality that converse among those who call themselves the wits of the Age who living in so infectious an air had need of som antidotes about them and if what I have now offered appear not forcible enough for it pretends not to the tith of what may be said on the Subject yet it may at least do them this service to put them in mind of what they need and send them to the fuller dispensatories of others 24. And that is the thing I should earnestly beg of them that they would be so just to their own interest as not to combine with seducers against themselves but if they have bin so unhappy as to lend one ear to them yet at least not to give up both to be forced in a slavish submission to their dictates but hear what may be said on the other side And sure 't is but a low composition for God thus to divide with Sathan yet 't is that of which his Emissaries are so jealous that 't is one of their grand Maxims that none who professes Divinity is to be advised with and therefore by all Arts they are to be rendred either ridiculous or suspected to which methinks may by applied that Fable which Demosthenes once recited to the Athenians when Alexander demanded of them to deliver up their Orators of the Wolves and the Sheep who coming to a Treaty the first Article of the Wolves was that the sheep should give up their mastives which guarded them the resemblance is too obvious to need a minute application 25. But this is manifestly to reverse all former Rules and to trust a man rather in any Faculty then his own and would never have prevailed in any thing but where the soul is concern'd that poor despicable thing whereon alone we think fit to make experiments 'T is sure that if any should dispute their title to an earthly Possession they would not so tamely resign it nor would trust their own selves in its defence but would consult their ablest Lawyers and by them sift out every circumstance that might establish their claim Why should they then suffer themselves to be talk'd out of an Heavenly Inheritance without so much as once proposing their doubts to those whose study and profession it is to resolve them But as in all other ills so in this prevention is better than cure and therefore to those that are yet untainted the securest course will be to stop both ears against all profane insinuations and to use those who temt them to be disloial to their God that spiritual adultery as they should do those who solicit them to the carnal not so much as to enter parly but with the greatest indignation detest and reject them 'T is the saying of the Wise man Prov. 25. 23. that an angry countenance driveth away a back-biting tongue And certainly would great Persons look severely on such defamers of Religion they would give som check to that impudence of profaneness which has given it such a vogue in the World 26. And sure this is much their Duty to do if they own any relation to that God who is so dishonored They would think it a very disingenious thing to sit by to hear a Friend or Benefactor reviled and express no displesure and is God so friendless among them that only his traducers and blasphemers can be patiently heard Among the Jews at the hearing of any Blasphemy they rent their clothes but I fear we have som of our nice Dames that would be much more concern'd at a rip in their garment then at the rending and violating Gods sacred Name and could more patiently behold the total subversion of Religion then the disorder or misplacing of a lock or riband But 't is to be hoped there are not many so impious and those that are not will surely think themselves obliged with all their power to discountenance all the Fautors of irreligion whether they be the solemn sedater sort