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
A52087	A sermon preached at St. Margaretts in VVestminster on Sunday the sixt of February last, before many of the worthy members of the Honorable House of Commons in this present Parliament / by John Marston...	Marston, John, Master of Arts.	1642 (1642)	Wing M817; ESTC R15682	29,903	48

and another thing to will an alteration that God never doth but this often Mutat sententiam non matat consilium say the Schooles So that this alteration argues no change in God since in every thing hee doth what he will and so is constant to his will and that will is himselfe But they that repent not at the gratious messages of mercy finde a double punishment one for offending another for dispising favour and think then I beseech you what madnesse 't is after we have sinned to withstand our owne pardon by Impenitence and how fearefull a thing it will then to fall into the hands of the living Lord For if we repent not we treasure up wrath against the day of wrath making our selues more miserable in this that our impenitency procures our compleater veniance For God though he be mercifull and long suffering and waites the leisure of our repentance by many expectations of ●onuersion yet if a man will not turne he will whet● his sword and wound the hairie scalpe of s●ch a one as goeth on still in his wickednesse And why thinke you is it there said that God will whet his sword where t is said if men will not turne but only to shew that those that refuse the offers of Grace shall haue sharper veniance deep wounding Iudgments bee quite cutt off in utter ruine and confusion B●loved God hath dealt everie way graciously with us and he hath not dealt so with every Nation But now I Confesse our sinnes haue prouoked him to whet his sword nay more his hand hath bin stretched out nor is his arme now shortened but his hand is stretched out stil Nay more {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} as the Septuagint render that place not only extenta but exce●sa not only stretched out for so it is in the least stroake of correction and those haue not reformed us but his hand is high lifted up to strike us with full force and furie But as yet we hope there is mercy and that we may turne away all these evills with our teares for sprinkled with thes● the destroying Angell will passe by us And let us consider with wonder and thankfullnesse that as h●louingly invited Iudeas Conuersion by his Prophet so he 〈◊〉 ours now for Ioell being dead yet speaketh and tells you that God would faine haue you turne unto him T●e proclamations of princes usualy threaten penalty to all that either neglect or contemne them what then will become or those that slight the messages of heauen T is as much as your soules are worth if now knowing who it is that Cōmands you to turne you should not obey him And where fore is it that God thus earnestly longs for our repentance that he mercifully desires not our merrited destrnction that he should so thirst to shew us mercie that h●s very bowells should yearne within him For the word in the Hebrue for mercie is Racham an signifies and inward Commotion and yearning of the bowells God is in pain for want of our repentance And why all this doth our Conuersion aduantage him cannot he glorifie himselfe as well in our Confusion truly yes but heere appeares his loue to us that all he aimes at is our good that so his mercy might make us happie and not his Iustice mise●able How ready are we to perform the Diuils command though we see damnation at the end of it wheither it be with Adam to eate forbidden fruite mounting the tree fall presently whether it be with Caine to murther our Brother and soe liue for Cains life was his punishment and a wounded Conscience is worse then death Though it be to plot mischeife in a State with Achitophell and proue cunning at last only in our owne confusion though it be with Iudas to betray our Master and with Pilat to Condemne him and then presently through dispaire bid the world farwell in a halter Though it be to denie the Holy one to mu●ther the Lord of life and desire the life of a murtherer though by putting out that light wee bring darknesse upon our soules and contrive a curse through a generall blessing bringing his bloud upon us and all our Children We do this more at the Diuils command have we no obedience for the Lord of heauen what other wages can the Diuil 〈…〉 then the multiplication of our torments But God for our obedience giues us such p●ace of conscience in this life as no storme can d●sturb us Prepares our soules for Glory by such dayly augmentations of his Grace as will make us love to serue him being never so well Contented as when he Commands us Giues us such a faith as brings heauen downe into our soules to giue us earnest that he will one day call up our soules to heauen where to reward our obedience he will haue us liue eternally with him who commands us and in the meane time such a loue and desire to him that in Comparison of heauen we esteeme Paradice but a hell and life it selfe but Martyrdom The Angels are more excellent then we yet are they nothing else but obedience in the very nature of their being messingers to goe upon the employment he sends them for are they not all ministring spirits See then to be obedient to God is to live the life of angels But oh God stooping our contemplations lower how are we ashamed and confounded at the obedience of Abraham who was readie at the command of god to slay his sonne his only son the sonn whom he loued and so take a way his life that was the ioy of his owne to sacrifice Isaac to his God and so become a religious Murtherer But God layes no such harsh Commands upon us not to sacrifice a sonn but to Kill a sinn not to shed bloud but to abstaine from shedding it No horror in our seruices no Cruelty in his Commands Not to doe any thing against the nature of a Compassionate hart but to turne unto him withall our heart Not to giue him o●r childrens bloud but our owne teares and those not to aduantage him but clense us And as a motive to all this I beseech you consider who 't is that commands you 't is the Lord the Lord that made you and can confound you the Lord that made you of clay and can breake you in peices like a Potters vessell The Lord who to plague you can create a Hell in your consciences in this life and when you dye if you live but to resist his commands will cast your soule into Hell where the worme never dyes The Angels doe his will both Cito Celeriter without delay when they goe about it and with the speediest dispatch when they are in the imployment of it consider then that now the Lord calls upon you to turne and he calls upon you to turne to him Now and that 's the next point The second point And next to the Authour the opportunity speakes the

guilt and obligation to eternall punishment and lives with us in Hell to keepe us everlastingly living or dying for I cannot tell whether it be life or death to live in nothing but torment and dead to nothing else but happinesse I beseech you thinke Now what will be Then and let the thought of that Th●n teach you how to prize the Prophets Now for Ex hoc m●mento pendet aeternitas the eternall Condition of your soules depends upon it O now for the Tongue of Angells to perswade you but miserable man that I am I check that holy ambition knowing that to be so excellent that I cannot attaine unto it but such as I have I give unto you and beseech you as you vallue the joyes of Heaven as you dread the paines of Hell by those Soules of yours to redeeme which cost Christ himselfe his blood and by that precious blood the pri●e of your soules redemption by the love of that God who was before all 〈◊〉 lasting beyond all time being the Eternity it self to make a true use of this time Now O let not this day passe with out some reformation let not this dayes Sun set and the wrath of God still upon us but draw neere unto him now so neere that you may kisse the sonn for if his wrath be kindled yea but a little Blessed are all they that put their trust in him Let me expostulate with the prophet doth not the Su●llow and the Crane know their time yet poore man for whom these were made knowes it not Happily sometimes we feele Agrip●as ague some motions and groouings of repentance but we are still at a stand for a Conuenient season and so the fit goes off for the soules ague Contrarie to that of the body beginns with a hott fitt and ends in a Cold Truely though no time be amisse in respect of God for at what time soever a sinner doth repe●t that is the acceptable time that is the day of saluation yet Esaw's teares when the time was past the Virg●ns knocking when the dores were shut these shew what Solomon said that there is a time for every thing if we loose that time we shall weepe and knock as foolishly as they Opportunitie is it self a favour and t' is a second favour to discerne it but the greatest is to lay hold fit and from the want of these spring the causes of our Procrastination which is the common error of repentance I beseech you marke it eyther our Ignorance in not discerning the time or our Negligence that when wee doe discerne it do not yet embrace it This Christ laments with bitter teares and of that God himself complaines Ier 8. verse 7. Even the Storke in the ayre the Turtle the Crane the S●allow observe the time of their comming but my people knoweth not the Iudgement of the Lord God useth not thus to complaine but in ●reat cases to slight his so graciously offered opportunity he accompts no triviall matter T' is a point of the greatest consideration in all Christianitie else God would not have complain'd nor Christ so passonatly have bemoaned Ierusalem for the losse of it O saith he If thou hadst knowne that this day had bin the day of thy visitation and what then there he breakes off the teares comming so fast that he was forc't to weepe out the rest of his meaning O those teares silently tell us what the losse of time is for therefore did he weepe then because they wept no sooner But mee thinkes I heare flesh and blood begin to pleado May I not lay by the consideration of my repentance a little I am yong and healthy and gladly would I befriend my youth with the pleasures of the world a little longer and then I will turne to God with all my hart O be not deceaved a suddaine death may snatch us hence and send the soule into the other world with all our sins upon it and what the condition of that soule is I dread to tell you But suppose the best that Death send his harbinger by some languishing sicknesse kindly gives us warning of our departure yet lett me tell you that infinite are the perplexities which disturbe the repentance of the death bed Our owne paines will disquiet us and make us roare for uery anguish and so to cry to God is rather passion then repentance Can we be fitt to turne unto God when we can scarce turne our selues in our bedds the thought of the poore widdow we shall leave behind us will make the soule forget her spowse and swetest bridgrome Christ the feare of death will horribly affright us and a trembling dread so over whelme us that fearing to die we think not how to dye and so loose the life of the blessed the enemie will then raise Deuils in our consciences and present our thoughts with a sad Idea of hell and shew us all the torments we have deserued torments so intollerable so immarcessible that the damned soule would be glad to be but a Deuill and thinke it a high preferment to be nothing And to shew f●ll malice in the conclusion at our very departure he will shew us all our sinns in such a shape that despairing we may grow mad and die Tell me then is this a fit time for repentance Is the death bed a conuenient Altar to offer up our bodyes a living sa●rifice and then to when we lie a dying O God gi●e us grace to thinke of this betimes and lett me add that the Conuersion of our last time is seldom free but inforc't by the feare of hell but in that feare there is no loue and with out loue there is no hope of heaven To feare him onely for his iudgements and not as sonns is to find him a Iudge and not a Father Besides the actions of vertue performed then are not of that vallue with God as those which come to him wing'd with cheerefullnesse in our health and prospe●ity What great mercy is it to pardon an enemy when we have no power to hurt him or what great charity to distribute ou● goods when we cannot keepe them Alas in this estate Peccat●te dimiserunt non tu illa thy sinnes forsake thee Thou dost not forsake thy sinnes And let me argue the unsoundnesse of late repentance by the usuall experience of sick men who make prot●tations of great contrition but restored to health returne to sinne as the dogge t● his vomit and so as they mend grow worse But sinne I know is full of flattery and now I call to mind the Th●ife on the Crosse was not he saved the very last hower of his life though he scarcely ever thought on God before was not he prefer'd from the Crosse to Paradice without the trouble of more r●pentance Vnhapily argued but shew me such another example and sinne on till you lye a dying and truely that soules hardly put to it that hath no better shift then to make that a ground