Selected quad for the lemma: conscience_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A67765
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The prevention of poverty, together with the cure of melancholy, alias discontent. Or The best and surest way to wealth and happiness being subjects very seasonable for these times; wherein all are poor, or not pleased, or both; when they need be neither. / By Rich. Younge, of Roxwel in Essex, florilegus. Imprimatur Joseph Caryl.
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Younge, Richard.
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1655
(1655)
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Wing Y178A; ESTC R218571
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77,218
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76
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the bread of deceit but men finde it as gravel crashing between their teeth Nor will his troubled conscience suffer him to steal a sound sleep yea he sleeps as unquietly as if his pillow were stuft with Lawyers per-knives I may give ye a hint of these things from the word but onely God and he can tell how the remembrance of his forepast cozenages and oppression occasions his guilty conscience many secret wrings and pinches and gives his heart many a sore lash to increase the fear and horror of his soul every time he calls the same to remembrance which is not seldom As O poor wretches what do they indure how are they immerged in the horrors of a vulned conscience there is more ease in a nest of Hornets then under the sting of such a tormenting conscience He that hath this plague is like a man in debt who suspecteth that every bush he sees is a Sergant to arest and carry him away to prison It was Gods curse upon Cain when he had slain his brother Abel to suspect and fear that every one he met would kill him yea it makes him so afraid of every thing that a very Maulking frights him and it is much that he dares trust his Barber to shave him Dionysius was so troubled with fear and horror of conscience that not daring to trust his best friends with a razor he used to findge his beard with burning coals as Cicero records He is much like a Malefactor in prison who though he fare well yet is tormented with the thought of ensuing judgement It is the hand-writing on the wall that prints bloody characters in Belshazzars heart So that if any should deem a man the better or happier for being the richer he is very shallow as many looking on the outer face of things or see but the one side as they used to paint Antigonus that they might conceal his deformity on the other side see not how they smart in secret how their consciences gripe them Nor does any one know how the shoo wrings the foot but he that wears the same Or admit the best that can come as suppose they can stop consciences mouth for a time or with the musick of their mony play it asleep for the present yet when they lye upon their death-beds it will sting them to the quick For when death hesiegeth the body Satan will not fail to beleagure the soul yea then he will be sure to lay on load for as all corrupt humors run to the diseased and bruised part of the body so when conscience is once awakened all former sins and present crosses joyn together to make the bruise or sore more painful As every Creditor falls upon the poor man when he is once arested Or let it be granted that his conâ—cience never troubles him on his sick bed and that he have no bonds in his death as the Psalmist speaks Psal. 73. but departs like a Lamb which is not onely possible but probable for more by many thousands go to hell like Naball then like Judas more dye like sots in security then in despair of conscience yet all this is nothing for the sting of conscience here though it be intollerable is but a flea-biting to that he shall endure hereafter where the worm of conscience dyeth not and where the fire never goeth out This is part of sins wages and Satans reward We have sinned therefore our hearts are heavy Isa. 59. 11 12. The sorrows of them that offer to another God as do the covetous shall be multiplyed says holy David Psal. 16. 4. Yea Seneca an heathen could say that an evil life causeth an unquiet minde so that Satans government is rather a bondage then a government unto which Christ giveth up those that shake off his own What his government is you may partly guess at by the servile slaveries he puts his subjects upon As O the many hard services which Satan puts his servants upon and what a bad Master is he when we read that Origen at his onely appointment made himself an Eunuch Democritus put out his own eyes Crates cast his money into the Sea Thracius cut down all the Vines whereas David did none of these Ahaz made his son to pass through the fire Jephta sacrificed his onely daughter as the text seems to import Wicked men think they do God good service in putting his children to death but where do we finde any Religious Israelite or servant of God at such cost or when did God require this of his servants The Prophets and Apostles never whipt nor lanced themselves but Baals Priests did this and more And so of the Papists those hypocrites of late yeers and the Pharisees of old How many sleepless nights and restless dayes and wretched shifts treacherous and bloody plots and practises does covetousness and ambition cost men which the humble and contented Christian is unacquainted with How does the covetous mans heart droop wish his Mammon How does he turmoile and vex his spirit torment his conscience and make himself a very map of misery and a sink of calamity it is nothing so with Christs servants CHAP. XIII I Have much more to enlarge of the miseries of unmerciful and ingrate full Misers but before I speak of them I will give you the reasons and uses of these already dispatcht wherein I will be as brief as may be You see that God may give men riches in wrath and so as they shall be never the better for them but the worse Now that you may not think it any strange thing observe the reasons why and how justly they are so served The first Reason is the unmerciful Misers monstrous unthankfulness for those millions of mercies he hath received from God of which I shall give you an account in the second part this causes God either not at all to give him or in giving him riches to add this you have heard as a curse withall He is unthankful for what he hath therefore have he never so much it shall not be worth thanks He is cruel to the poor therefore he shall be as cruel to himself The poor shall have no comfort of what he hath therefore himself shall have as little The covetous are cozen Germans to the nine leapers thankless persons They are so much for receiving that they never mind what they have received He deals with God as a dog doth with his master who as Austine observes devoureth by and by whatever he can catch and gapeth continually for more Nor hath covetousness any thing so proper to it as to be ingrateful A greedy man is never but shamefully unthankful for unless he have all he hath nothing He must have his will or God shall not have a good look from him yea as the Mill if it go empty makes an unpleasant and odious noise so the covetous man if the Lord does not satisfie his desires in every thing he will most wickedly murmur and blaspheme his
his fire with hay hath much smoak and but a little heat which leads me to the sixt particular CHAP. XI SIxthly another sore judgement which God inflicts upon the merciless mnckworm for his monstrous unthankfulness is he injoyes not a merry day no not a pleasant hour in seven yeers ye if you observe it he resembles Agelaustus Grandfather to Crassus who never laughed in all his life save once when he saw a mare eating of thistles or rather Anaxagorus Clazoenius who was never seen to laugh or smile from the day of his birth Joyes never so much as look in at the door of his heart worldly delights to him are but like delicate meates to him that hath lost his tast But O the cares fears anxieties sighs sorrows suspitions sad thoughts restless desires the horrors troubles tortures torments vexations distractions griefs girdes gripes grudgings repinings doubts dolors desperation that are the ordinary companions of the covetous How is he hurried with desires to get distracted with getting vexed for what he cannot get tortured for what he loseth or another gaineth troubled with fear of losing what he hath already gained yea his labor to gather riches is restless his care to keep them boundless his sorrow if he chance to lose them endless and his fear lest he should hereafter lack cureless Of all plagues sent into Egypt that of the Flies was one of the most troublesome for they never suffered men to rest for the more they were beaten off the more they came upon them so of all miseries and vexations that God layes upon worldlings this is not the least to be continually vexed and tormented with cares which they neither can nor indeed would beat off by any means they are able to devise for they rush in upon them in the morning so soon as they awake accompany them in the day forsake them not at night they follow them to bed and will not suffer them to sleep their thoughts will not permit them to sleep nor their sleep permit them to rest They afflict them in their dreams as giving them no quiet either by day or night as God threatneth to wicked men by the Prophet Jeremiah Jer. 6. I could give you a large bill of particulars but fear of cloying is alwayes at hand to curb me wherefore take these few for a taste Want does not break so many sleeps for provision the next day as abundance does for increase His nights are as troublesome and unquiet as his dayes and his dayes as the dayes of Babylons downfall Never is more watchfulness then where is most purpose of wickedness see Micha 2. 1. Luk. 16. 8. Psal. 36. 4. Eccles. 5. 12. T was Chilons sentence Misery and Usury go commonly together If his plot be crossed and his hand cannot act that wickedness by day which his head hath devised by night he is taken with a fit of of melancholy sick of the sullens as was Ahab He thinks it a death that he cannot be suffered to dye it is a hell to him that the gates of hell are shut against him Having ingrossed a commodity if he cannot have his expected price for it or prevail not in his sute or cannot recover what he expected or if any one breaks in his debt or if he hear of a Taxe or some unavoidable payment and an hundred the like every of them adds to the care and grief of his heart which was ready to burst with care and grief before for he had rather be damned then damnified and in case he cannot have his will of another he will be revenged of himself like Nanplius King of Euboea who when he could not revenge his sons death upon Ulysses cast himself into the Sea Yea in case he sustain any great loss he is ready to make himself away as Menippus of Phenicia did who having lost his goods strangled himself Or like Dinarcus Phidon who at a certain loss cut his own throat to save the charge of a cord At least he feels more sorrow in losing his mony then ever he found pleasure in getting it nor will any condition content him for the lightness of his purse gives him an heavy heart which yet filled doth fill him with more care His medicin is his malady These rich men are no less troubled with that they possess lest they should lose it then poor men are for that they want In the day time he dares not go abroad for fear of robbing nor stay at home for fear of killing His thoughts are so troubled with fear of thieves that he cannot that he dares not sleep yea he fears a thief worse then the devil therefore will he be beholding to the devil for a spell to save him from the thief which once obtained a little Opium may rock his cares asleep and help him to a golden dream for all his minde and heart is to get mony if waking he talks of nothing but earth if sleeping he dreams of it Lastly as if all his delight were to vex himself he pines himself away with distrustful fear of want and projecting how he shall live hereafter and when he is old resembling Ventidius the Poet who would not be perswaded but he should dye a begger And Apicius the Romane who when he cast up his accounts and found but an hundered thousand crowns left murthered himself for fear he should be famished to death CHAP. XII SEventhly To the former miseries which a cruel Miser is justly plagued withall this may be added the dolefulness of his conscience for the sin of oppression lyes upon the soul as heavy as lead yea as the shaddow does ever follow the body so fear and desperation in all places and at all times do wait upon an evil conscience Sin armes a man against himself our peace ever ends with our innocency A Pithagorean bought a pair of shoos upon trust the Shoomaker dyes he is glad thinks them gained but a while after his conscience twitches him and becomes a continual chider he hereupon repairs to the house of the dead casts in his money with these words There take thy due thou livest to me though dead to all beside Micha stole from his mother eleven hundred shekels of silver but his complaining conscience made him to accuse himself and restore it again Judg. 17. Il gotten goods lye upon the conscience as raw meat upon a sick stomack which will never let a man be well or at ease untill he hath cast it up again by restitution Means ill gotten is to the getter as the Angels book was to Saint John When he eat it it was in his mouth as sweet as hony but when he had eaten it it became in his stomack as bitter as gall Rev. 10. 10. The which is notably illustrated Job 20. 12. to 20. which together with the whole Chapter is marvellous good for cruel and unmerciful men to read for I may not stand here to repeat it Sweetness is promised in