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	hell_n	worm_n	1,009	5	9.7957	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A43686	A discourse of the excellency of the heavenly substance which is useful for the present, and so may be for future times.	Hickes, John, 1633-1685.	1673 (1673)	Wing H1879; ESTC R40162	98,991	257

imperfect and therefore usually they that have most of them would have more and seldome sit down and say they have enough This makes Kings so desirous and industrious to enlarge their Dominions and Empiers to add to their weight of or multiply their Crowns This makes many Rich men so thirsty to increase their Bags and their fields These and many other things demonstrate an intrinsick deficiency in all Earthly Substances which renders them mean and inconsiderable what ever esteem men may have of them that know no better for of what little worth is that Drink which will not quench the thirst or that Meat which cannot fill and satisfie the stomach and so what little value is to be put upon all these worldly substances that can never fill and satisfie the soul But when the soul is possest of this celestial substance it shall say I need no more nor no other According to that Axiome desiderium boni imperfectioris cessat acquisito perfectiori The supream excellency of this substance is Rhetorically set forth and displayed by the Apostle in 2 Cor. 4.17 where it s called a weight of glory to shew the abundance and greatness of it and such an one as is far more exceeding 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the Original and its such an emphatical Graecism that other tongues cannot word by word express it to the full therefore they are necessitated to use other words and phrases which exceeds all comparison as Mire supra modum Erasmus supra modum in sublimitate Vulg. Lat. Excellenter Excellens Beza Exceedingly excelling a most excellent the Dutch Annot. and as our translation hath it a far more exceeding the Greek most properly is A weight of glory according to excellency unto excellency It s as much as if the Apostle had said that all Hyperbolical expressions fall far short of this glory such is the transcendent excellency of it Much might be spoken of it but when all is said that the most Florid and Rhetorical Tongues of Men or Angels can it will but disparage it And when the Saints come to possess it they will say as the Queen of Sheba did concerning Solomons glory The half of it was not told them Finite created good is usually better in the expectation then fruition but infinite increated good is infinitely better in the fruition than it can be in the expectation 6. This shews that the happiness of the Soul is local It is not every where not any where but limited and confined to a particular place and that this happiness is distinct from Heaven it self as much as a Treasure is from the place where it is laid up or a man from the Room where he lodgeth There are a Generation of men as hath been already said and spoken to in part that would possess the World with a beleif that all the Heaven or Hell there is is within a man that is all happiness or all misery that he shall either enjoy or suffer is in his Soul and where ever he is and goes he carries his Heaven or Hell about with him This is indeed a truth in a sense but as it 's opposed to a place where the righteous shall be felicitated and to that which the wicked shall be tormented in for ever or where more of God shall be enjoyed and a deep sense of the loss of him and pain shall be felt is a most gross Error And hereby they carry on a most pernicious design destructive to all Religion endeavouring thereby to vacate Gods rational and mortal Government of rational Creatures that is his ruling and governing them in a way consisting with promises and threats and so opening a passage to all Licentiousness and Prophaness to the most Nefarious Courses and profligated flagitious Practises in the World Those that do read and believe the Holy Scripture Rom. 3.2 Those Oracles of God which give clear and certain Answers to all that do consult with them about their future state and do not pervert the proper sense and meaning thereof nor wrest them to their own destruction do know that besides the Hell which every awakened enraged guilty Conscience is even the Hell of Hells called therefore the Worm that never dieth Mark 9.44 like the Vulture that the Poets fain'd was alwayes gnawing and preying upon Prometheus his Liver while chain'd to the Mountain Caveasus and the Heaven within a man which every one hath to whom the Love of God through Jesus Christ is manifested and the Remission of his Sins is Seal'd up in his most precious Blood there is a Local Hell where as in a peculiar place the wicked shall be for ever tormented and a Local Heaven where they shall be for ever blessed And this substance may be said to be there as to be in no place else The light of nature doth so much attest this truth that none but such as imprison and extinguish the same will deny it 3. It 's a Substance that 's better that is bettter than any Goods the Saints can be be robbed and bereaved of or the hands of violence can tear from them But because I have spoken to and explained in part this already I shall onely add these two things which it involves in it 1. What encouragement Saints have and how reasonable a thing it is that they let go and part with their Goods for pure Gospel Religion and the sake of Christ seeing they have that which is better They have it in hope and if they do this they shalt certainly have it in fruition Who will not part with a less perfect for a more perfect good this every mans Reason will consent and agree to Who will not part with Brass for Gold with pebble-Stones or painted Glass for Orient Pearls with Rags for Robes with a poor Cottage for a Crown and Court with Puddle for Fountain waters Much more highly rational is it to part with all earthly Treasures for that which is heavenly seeing the disproportion is infinitely greater And how much do many Professors of the Christian Religion discover an imbecillity and impotency of Reason as well as a want of Faith and Religion it self to stick at this and make it a Stone of stumbling when called thereunto seeing the possession of the one is depending upon the other 2. How rational the Saints joys are when they do thus take joyfully the spoiling of their Goods A Beast hath no reason to guide him in his choice or rather pursuit of any good sutable to his own Nature hee 's only conducted and led by sense hence that which ariseth from the good proper to such unreasonoble nature may rather as some say be called delight then joy this being thought more appropriate to reasonable nature and intelligent beings And though all men as men have a Principle of Reason inhereut in their Souls yet are they not directed and guided thereby but by sense in the prosecution of good To its dictates they hearken and by them are