Selected quad for the lemma: conscience_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A87158
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The weary traveller his eternal rest being a discourse of that blessed rest here, which leads to endless rest hereafter. By H. H. D. D. Rector of Snaylwell, and Canon of Ely.
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Harrison, Henry, 1610 or 11-1690.
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1681
(1681)
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Wing H893A; ESTC R215784
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80,142
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276
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of doing ought more than is necessary to this eternal Rest will never attain to do so much He is likely to shoot short of his Mark who is so affraid of over-shooting it He that said So run that you may obtain meant so diligently so earnestly as if you were never sure enough of obtaining it but by running as fast as your Spirits can hold out till you come to the Gaol the high price of your calling in Christ The slothful Servant that said his Master was an Austere Man did but slander his Master to hide his own negligence thinking all too much that he did and that eternal Salvation which cost no less than the death of the Lord of life the Son of God was set at too high a price Such as are thus niggardly of their pains will find at last that by not improving their Talent they will lose at once both Heaven and it Take from him the Talent saith Christ in the Parable Matt. 25.28 and cast the unprofitable Servant into outer darkness That this may not happen unto any one of us let us follow the advice of the Apostle Heb. 12.14 which saith follow peace with all men and holiness without which no Man shall see the God of peace God is not disquieted or troubled or angry though for our sakes he seems to be so when his wronged justice must punish us unless we repent 'T is our sin not his wrath which whets the Sword of the destroying Angel and shall not we desire to be like the Angels yea like our Heavenly Father in being at Rest and quiet and keeping the peace of our Spirits in the midst of a froward generation To be sedate and quiet in the midst of as many humours as Men To be the same when others run several ways to break our Rest To be humble when one scorns us Meek when another provokes and rages Silent when this Man reviles Charitable when the other hates and persecutes us Not to be transported with passion at others violence To stay at home and keep our selves in calmness and peaceable Rest when the World is gone out of order not to pull it more in pieces by seeking to settle it as we please Not to enrage the fire that threatens us by blowing up with violent words but to quench it with soft answers and to overcome evil with good following peace with all Men and fighting only against our lusts and passions which War against the Soul and disturb and hinder its rest and peace From whence come Wars and fightings amongst you are they not from restless lusts and desires of all sizes that War and rage with in you These lusts are the spawn of the two great sensual principles Desire and Anger Sometimes pride sometimes coveting that which God hath not made ones lot and then disturbing and confounding properties in hope of attaining it All the unpeaceableness in the World is forged and managed by these lusts And the graces which Christ prescribes Matt. 5. as Humility Meekness Contentedness are sent to root them out and to dwell with that impatience and insatiable restless ravening which troubles the World But too many there are amongst us who have not thus learnt Christ The wrathful Malecontent who disturbs both Church and State sails through a stormy tempestuous Sea and Rocks and Sands ready to ruine him that by the ruine of many others in soul and body estate and good name he may arrive at his wisht-for haven of riches and power But what doth he find at the end thereof but a miserable Shipwrack of himself as well as others horror of conscience hatred from Men of all parties perpetual jealousies of his being bereaved of his dearly bought unjust acquisitions and at last 't is likely Hamans Gallows Absalons Tree or Joabs Sword However an infamous name and memory after an anxious perplext life and that which is incomparably worse eternal intolerable sorrow and pain both of Soul and Body The like may be said of the Heretick or Schismatick who when he hath prided himself a while by leading a numerous party or sect of unstable Souls from the faith that was once for all delivered to the Saints from the unity of peace and order of obedience to lawful Governours into destructive Error and Schisme finds himself wilder'd and those that followed him crumbled into subdivisions 'till one and the other end in shame and self confusion bringing them either to repentance or intolerable endless misery But on the other side the peaceable meek obedient follower of Christ enjoys his Rest and the benefit of good Government with cheerful thankfulness to God and Man bears the troublesom oppressions and disorders of an evil one patiently and if the violence of seduced Governours call him to the fire and fagot imprisonment banishment sequestration and what not he chuseth rather poverty and death with torments for an hour or two than the farr worse rack of an evil conscience the Worm that dieth not and the fire that is not quenched They that go about to build a Tower up to Heaven if they be once confounded and divided in their Language 't will prove but a Babel or shameful Chaos at best When one builds and another pulls down what profit have they then but labour Eccl. 34.23 A house divided against it self be it a Family a Kingdom or Church it cannot stand to Gods glory And it were to be wisht that they who have the glory of God in their Mouths when they separate from the Church which Baptized and taught them their Christianity for matters of an indifferent nature no where forbidden would take heed of dishonouring God and his glory by pretending to make them the end of their groundless quarrels and jealousies The common enemies to true Religion are Atheism and Supersttion Whereto then serves all this ado about gestures and vestures and other external rites and formalities That for such things as these never imposed but for decency and order Men should clamour against the times desert their ministerial office fly from their Country as out of Babylon stand at open defiance against lawful authority in Church and State draw their Pens and Swords against them whereto serves all this but to give scandal to Atheist and Romanist The Atheist to think there is no certainty in Religion and scoff at all the Romanist to think that theirs is the true when their adversaries have so little unity and peace with each other Unity and Peace are the order and harmony the beauty and strength and comfort of our own Spirits as also of Families and Neighbourhoods Cities and Kingdoms Church and State Peace gives a seasonable opportunity of gathering wealth and of employing and enjoying it with thankfulness to God and charity to Man it gives an advantageous leisure for learning and knowledge of all sorts especially that which most concerns us the Knowledge of God and Christ Jesus But division and strife are the ruine and misery of single Persons
Rest in the Kingdom prepared for the blessed of his Father Despise not then the goodness of God who made you at first after his own Image Despise not the mercies of Christ the Son of God who came to take your nature and die for you Despise not the Spirit of God who waits and longs for your Sanctification Despise not those precious promises which yet are offer'd to all that cleanse and purify themselves nor those endless intolerable woes and miseries which are threatned to all despisers He that seeks not this Rest but walks in the ways of his own heart 'till he can walk no longer and thinks to delay from time to time his faithful conversion and reformation 'till he must take Sanctuary at last in the sighs and groans sorrows and purposes of sickness and his death-bed he that 'till then retained his sins and now when he knows or fears at least that he must die is sorrowful for haveing walked contrary to God and a good conscience he is in all probability sorrowful only for his danger which may possibly consist with as great an affection to sinful ways as in perfect health for even then in some circumstances he would have withstood the greatest temptation the boldest lust would refuse to be satisfied in the Market such restraint is no abatement of the affection He that grieved not 'till death and hell pressed him hard and doom was ready to seize upon him grieved for the sad consequences of sin not for its baseness and disorder For a remedy herein all such Persons had need to cure themselves of these tormenting fears of death and hell by a timely and early repentance because a late repentance is seldom sound and never save And this repentance which necessarily foregoes remission of sins can no ways better be obtained than by constant and fervent prayer Ask and ye shall have said our Saviour The prayer of Faith availeth much said St. James God is nigh unto all them that call upon him faithfully Seek and ask and beg and sue for what you will by fervent and faithful prayer by prayer that goes not out of feigned lips and it shall be given you Prayer is the very breath of Gods Spirit whereby our Soul draws in and sends forth Gods grace and it s own gracious desires Prayer it is our very scaling Ladder and Engin of battery whereby heaven is beseiged and suffers violence 'T is our arrow by which we pierce the Clouds and having gotten audience above 't is our weapon by which we wound our enemies below 'T is the Rudder and Anchor which keeps our Souls steddy in many waters when many winds and billows beat upon us 'T is the Compass by which we Sail when all is clouded 'T is our Key by which we open Heaven and wrestle with God resolving with Jacob not to part without a blessing But 't is not every lazy Prayer born in the lips or at most in the phansy uttered only for fashion sake or to quiet for a while a galled conscience No it is the Prayer of a righteous Man though a Man of infirmities with others when fervent that availeth much so much that it hath shut and opened Heaven made the Sun stand still and go back Though the Person be righteous if the Prayer be not fervent God hath no regard to it no reason to hear and consider that Prayer which he himself that makes it scarce hears and considers Great reason then have all to watch and to pray to make our calling and election sure and wisely in time to provide whilst the day of Salvation lasts that our labours here may terminate and end in eternal Rest because we know not how short our time is All flesh is grass said the Prophet Isaiah 40.6 And all the goodliness thereof is as the flowers of the field The grass withereth the flowers fadeth away because the Spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it surely the people is as grass for as the grass how green and flourishing soever it seems yet it sprang from the Earth and shortly after beasts devour it or winds blast it and if it come to last out its full time even then the Sythe comes to cut it down So is Mans life with all its fresh seeming contentments at the mercy even of every Creature Fire and Water Air and Sickness Famin and the Sword and what not almost And though he escape all sad accidents and casualties to the utmost length of Mans Age yet there is a natural Syth of Gods decree and Mans inward corruption that will not fail to cut him down No Age no condition can be exempted by any art by any means from the stroak of death Every Age hath proper to it self some posterns some out-lets of death besides those numberless open gates through which thousands yearly pass The bud is blasted as soon as the blown Rose the Lamb comes to the shambles as well as the grown Sheep Death looks not at Mens Estates or Degree or Age it comes not to the Church book to summon them by that the Womb the Cradle protects not many Infants die in both we know And the Jews Proverb is daily fulfilled in Golgotha are skulls of all sizes Childhood is so tender and yet so unwary of running into harms-way that Parents Eyes and Nurses Arms are scarce sufficient to keep one Child from strange and early calamities and death it self unless a guardian Angel be granted it to watch its very playings and sleepings eatings and drinkings The more uncertainty and instability we find here in things below the less ought we to rely and trust in any Creature and so much the more ought we to put our trust in God The very unfaithfulness of all things else should renue and confirm our faithfulness and to God who makes sickness and death become life and health by removing the vail of flesh which intercepts the light and sight of the fountain of life and gives an immediate access to him in whom alone this eternal Rest is to be found It is the honour and triumph of true Religion that having chosen God for its Rest it cannot be bereaved or defeated of its choise by any calamities whatsoever of this life It lifts up the Soul above all the winds and storms of this uncertain transitory world and fixes the heart upon that eternal fountain of joy and rest and happiness where there is no variableness nor shadow of turning Wish and desire and love whatsoever you please besides God Put your trust in any thing less or lower than him and you are not only sure that your love will be turned into hatred your liking into loathing your trust into despair when death comes but even while life and health lasts you are at uncertainties tossed perpetually betwixt the ebbs and flows of chance 'twixt hopes and fears like an unstable wave of the Sea or hanging like a doubtful Meteor in the Air whilst the humble patient Christian that trusts