Selected quad for the lemma: conscience_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A26955
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The mischiefs of self-ignorance and the benefits of self-acquaintance opened in divers sermons at Dunstan's-West and published in answer to the accusations of some and the desires of others / by Richard Baxter.
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Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.
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1662
(1662)
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Wing B1309; ESTC R5644
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245,302
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606
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a sweet delightful boldness and make you 〈◊〉 to him as your help and refuge in all your necessities When you find the great promise fulfilled to your selves I will put my Law in their hearts and in their minds will I write them and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more you will have boldness to enter into the Holyest by the blood of Jesus by the new and living way which he hath consecrated for us through the veil that is to say his flesh And having an high Priest over the house of God you may draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith having your hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience or the conscience of evil as your bodies are washed in baptism with pure water Heb. 10.16 17 18 19 20 21 22. In Christ we may have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him Eph. 3.12 This intimate acquaintance with our great High Priest that is passed into the Heavens and yet abideth and reigneth in our hearts will encourage us to hold fast our profession and to come boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need Heb. 4.14 16. When by unfeigned Love we know that we are of the truth and may assure our hearts before him and our Heart condemneth us not then we have confidence towards God and whatever we ask we receive of him because we keep his commandments and do those things that are pleasing in his sight 1 Joh. 3.18 19 20 21 22. 6. When once you know that you have Christ within you you may cheerfully proceed in the way of Life when doubting Christians that know not whether they are in the way or not are still looking behind them and spend their time in perplexed fears lest they are out of the way and go on with heaviness and trouble as uncertain whether they may not lose their labour and are still questioning their groundwork when the building should go on It is an unspeakable mercy when a believing Soul is freed from these distracting hindering doubts and may bodily and cheerfully hold on his way and be walking or working when other men are fearing and enquiring of the way and may with patience and comfort wait for the reward the â—rown of life when others are still questioning whether they were ever regenerate and whether their hopes have any ground We may be stedfast unmoveable always abounding in the work of the Lord when we know that our labour is not in vain in the Lord 1 Cor. 15.58 We may then gird up the lâ—ins of the mind and in sobriety hope unto the end for the grace that is to be brought us at the Revelation of Jesus Christ 1 Pet. 1.13 7. When you are assured that you have Christ within you it may preserve you from those terrors of soul that affright theâ— that have no such assurance O he thâ—â— knoweth what it is to think of the intolerable wrath of God and says I fear I 〈◊〉 the object of this wrath and must bear thâ—â— intolerable lead everlastingly may knowâ— what a mercy it is to be assured of our escape He that knows what it is to think of Hell and say I know not but those endless flames may be my portion will know what a mercy it is to be assured of deliverance and to be able to say I know I am saved from the wrath to come 1 Thes 1.10 And that we are not of them thâ—â— draw back to perdition but of them that believe to â—he saving of the soul Heb. 10.39 And that God hath not appointed us to wrath but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ who dyed for us that whether we wake or sleep we should live together with him We may comfort our selves together and edifie one another when we have this assurance 1 Thes 5.9 10 11. They that have felt the burden of a wounded spirit and know what it is to feel the terrors of the Lord and to see Hell fire as it were before their eyes and to be kept waking by the dreadful apprehensions of their danger to be pursued daily by an accusing conscience setting their sins in order before them and bringing the threatnings of God to their remembrance these persons will understand that to be assured of a Christ within us and consequently of a Christ that is preparing a place in glory for us is a mercy that the mind of man is now unable to value according to the ten thousandth part of its worth 8. Were you assured that Christ himself is in you it would sweeten all the mercies of your lives It would assure you that they are all the pledges of his love And love in all would be the Kernel and the Life of all your friends your health your wealth your deliverances would be steeped in the dearest Love of Christ and have a spiritual sweetnss in them when to the worldling they have but a carnal unwholsome luscious sweetness and to the doubting Christians they will be turned into troubles while they are questioning the Love and meaning of the giver and whether they are sent for good to them or to aggravate their condemnation and the Company of the Giver will advance your estimation of the gift Mean things with the company of our dearest friends are sweeter then abundance in their absence To have money in your purses and goods in your houses and books in your studies and friends in your near and sweet society are all advanced to the higher value when you know that you have also Christ in your hearts and that all these are but the attendants of your Lord and the fruits that drop from the tree of life and the tokens of his Love importing greater things to follow Whereas in the crowd of all those mercies the foul would be uncomfortable or worse if it mist the presence of its dearest friend and in the midst of all would live but as in a wilderness and go seeking after Christ with tears as Mary at his Sepulchre because they had taken away her Lord as she thought and she knew not where they had laid him Joh. 20.13 All mercies would be bitter to us if the presence of Christ do not put into them that special sweetness which is above the estimate of sense 9. This assurance would do much to preserve you from the temptation of sensual delights While you had within you the matter of more excellent contentment and when you find that these inferiour pleasures â—re enemies to those which are your happiâ—ess and life you would not be easily taken with the bait The poorest brutish pleasures â—re made much of by them that never were â—cquainted with any better But after the â—weetness of assurance of the Love of God â—ow little relish is there to be found in the pleasures that are so valued by sensual unbeâ—ievers Let them take them for me saith â—he believing soul may I
in nature and necessity and must go together to attain their end Concerning God as we may well say that we must Love and serve him only and none but him because we must Love nothing but for his sake and as a means to him the End of all and so while it is God in all things that we Love we are more properly said to Love God then the Creature by that act because he is the Ultimate first intnded end and principal object of that Love And as the means as a means hath its essence in its relation to the End so the Love of the means as such is accordingly specified And so we may say of our study and Knowledge of God that nothing but God is to be studied or known because it is God in the creature that must be studied It is a defective Similitude as all are to say As it is the face that we behold the glass for For God is more in the creature then the face in the glass But though all the means be united in the End yet are they various among themselves And therefore though we must study know and Love nothing but God yet must we study know and Love many things besides our selves The means that are many must all be thought on More strings must be touched then one how near soever if we will have any Musick More Letters must be learned than I or we shall never learn to read All men will confess that to confine our charity to our selves and to do good to no others is unlike a Christian To deny to feed and clothe our Brother in his need is to deny it unto Christ And it will be no excuse if we were able to say I laid it out upon my self And the objects of our charity must be the objects of our thoughts and care And it will not suffice for our excuse to say I was taken up at home I had a miserable soul of my own to think on And yet if these self-studying souls that confine almost all their thoughts unto themselves would but seek after God in themselves and see his grace and benefits it were the better But poor souls in the darkness of temptation they overlook their God and most of their study of themselves is to see Satan and his workings in themselves To find as much of his image as they can in the deformities or infirmities of their souls but the image of God they overlook and hardly will acknowledge And so as noble objects raise the soul and amiable objects kindle love and comfortable objects fill it with delight and God who is all in One perfection doth elevate and perfect it and make it happy so inferiour objects do depress it and ugly loathsome objects fill it with distaste and loathing and sad and mournfull objects turn it into grief And therefore to be still looking on our miseries and deformities must needs turn calamity and wo into the temperament and complexion of the soul This much I thought needfull to be spoken here to prevent misunderstanding and misapplication that while I am pressing you to study and know your selves I may not encourage any in extreams nor tempt them to make an ill use of so great and necessary a doctrine And indeed the observation of the sad calamity of many poor drooping afflicted souls that are still poreing excessively on their own hearts commanded me not to overpass this caution And yet when I have done it I am afraid lest those in the contrary extream will take encouragement to neglect themselves by my reprehensions of those that are so unlike them And therefore I must add to save them from deceit 1. That it is but a very few that are faulty in overstudying themselves in comparison of the many thousands that err on the other hand in the careless neglecting of themselves 2. And that it is symptomatically and effectively far more dangerous to study your selves too little then too much Though it be a fault here to exceed yet it is for the most part a sign of an honest heart to be much at home and a sign of an Hypocrite to be little at home and much abroad Sincerity maketh men censurers of themselves For it maketh them more impartial and willing to know the truth of their condition It cureth them of that folly that before made them think that presumption shall deliver them and that they shall be Justified by believing promises of their own though contrary to the word of God yea by believing the promises of the Devil and calling this a Faith in Christ They are awakened from that sleep in which they dreamed that winking would save them from the stroke of Justice and that a strong conceit that they shall not be damned will deliver them from damnation and that they are safe from Hell if they can but believe that there is no Hell or can but forget it or escape the fears of it These are the pernicious Conclusions of the ungodly discernable in their lives and intimated in their presumptuous reasonings though too gross to be openly and expresly owned And therefore they are undisposed to any impartial acquaintance with themselves But grace recovereth men from this distraction and makes them know that the Judgement of God will not follow the conceits of men and that the knowledge of their disease is necessary to their cure and the knowledge of their danger is necessary to the prevention and that its the greatest madness to go on to Hell for fear of knowing that we are in the way and to refuse to know it for fear of being troubled at the news And an upright soul is so far fallen out with sin that he taketh it seriously for his enemy and therefore is willing to discover it in order to its destruction and willing to search after it in order to a discovery And he hath in him some measure of the heavenly illumination which maketh him a child of light and disposeth him to love the light and therefore cometh to it that his deeds may be made manifest Joh. 3.21 Hypocrites are quick-sighted in discovering infirmities of others but at home they shut the windows and draw the curtains that they may not be disturbed or frightened in their sin Thieves and sleepers choose not light Darkness suits the works of darkness It is a good sign when a man dare see his own face in the glass of Gods word and when he dare hear his conscience speak I have ever observed it in the most sincere-hearted Christians that their eye is more upon their own hearts and lives than â—pon others and I have still observed â—he most unsound professors to be least cenâ—orious and regardfull of themselves and â—ardly drawn to converse at home and to â—ass an impartial judgement on themselves HEnce therefore you may be informed of the reason of many other difâ—erences between sincere Believers and the â—ngodly As 1. Why it is that the sincere â—re so