Selected quad for the lemma: conscience_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
conscience_n	draw_v	faith_n	sprinkle_v	1,168	5	10.6414	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A48431	The works of the Reverend and learned John Lightfoot D. D., late Master of Katherine Hall in Cambridge such as were, and such as never before were printed : in two volumes : with the authors life and large and useful tables to each volume : also three maps : one of the temple drawn by the author himself, the others of Jervsalem and the Holy Land drawn according to the author's chorography, with a description collected out of his writings.; Works. 1684	Lightfoot, John, 1602-1675.; G. B. (George Bright), d. 1696.; Strype, John, 1643-1737.	1684 (1684)	Wing L2051; ESTC R16617	4,059,437	2,607

too curious to inquire after but what the matter of his mediation is these two things make evident viz. his presenting his people to Gods acceptance and his presenting their services to the like acceptance For what acceptance can any soul under Heaven find upon his own account What can a man do toward his own justification before God Job VII 20. I have sinned what shall I do unto thee A very pertinent question A man is so little able to find acceptance with God of himself that he may rather stand amazed that ever sinful men do find acceptance The Apostle accounts it not an ordinary thing to comprehend with all Saints the bredth and length and depth and height of this mystery Ephes. III. 18. Before Christ a Mediator was set up imagin how Adam could deal with God to find acceptance with him after he was now become sinful Adam Nay it is not easie to conceive how he dealt with God even while innocent For certainly it was his duty to pray in his innocency thereby to shew his dependance on God but upon what interest to pray when he had no Mediator is something difficult to apprehend But after he was fallen and Christ not yet promised those three hours that he lay in darkness before the promise of Christ came to him How could he then pray to God and upon what account beg his pardon But I need not to use many words to shew the need of Christ a Mediator Secondly This that we have spoken concerning the Altar may give us some measure and scantling how to come to Christ and believe in him for acceptance viz. to relie upon him intirely for our acceptance with God as the Israelite cast himself intirely upon the Priests offering and the Altar sanctifying his gift that it might be acceptable If there may be any distinction made betwixt coming to Christ and believing in him which indeed may very well signifie the same thing let us observe it here and observe it upon the comparison before us about the Altar An Israelite comes and brings a sacrifice along with him to the Priest and Altar and prays him I pray Sir offer this to God for me for acceptance You must first observe the nature and quality of his sacrifice whether it be fit for the Priest to meddle with and for the Altar to receive upon it I remember a distinction the Jews have in their writings concerning a first-born child viz. that he may be fit for the inheritance but not fit for the Priest that is may have some blemish or defect that he may not be fit to be consecrate to God as the first-born ought to be yet may be fit enough to inherit his Fathers land A man may be fair and fit for this and that employment in earthly things and very useful in his place and station when in the mean while he may be little fit for Christs employment or receiving An Israelite brings a Dog Cat c. to the Priest and entreats him to offer that upon the Altar for him Was this a fit offering for the Altar Could the Altar with all its holiness sanctifie such a gift as that Antiochus the wretch when he offered Swines flesh upon the Altar it was to defile the Altar and not for the Altar to sanctifie the Sacrifice This shews what kind of person he must be that goes to Christ to desire him to present his person an acceptable sacrifice with God and that he may find favour with him He must bring him a clean sacrifice or no coming there In Isa. LXVI 3. where the Prophet speaking about abolishing the Jewish Sacrifice under the Gospel he saith He that killeth an Ox is as if he slew a man he that sacrificeth a Lamb is as if he cut off a Dogs neck and he that offereth an oblation as if he offered Swines blood Think not that when offering of clean beasts is ceased offering of unclean will be accepted Men think to obtain acceptance and favour from God through Christ at an easie rate and with a little ado when there is more in it than they conceive They must first be such as are fit for Christ to own and to present to his Father a sacrifice fit to be offered to God upon his Altar and not a Dog or Swine The Apostle tells us how to come to this our Altar Heb. X. 22. Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water It is the custom in our University that when any one presents another to the Vice-Chancellor and University for the taking of any degree he undertakes to them that he is fit for such a degree Christ never presented any to his Father to graduate him in his acceptance and favour but such an one as was qualified and fit for that acceptance When I say fit I mean not out of merit but so qualified as God requires those to be qualified that he will accept A thing very well worth the deep consideration of us all that we be not deceived concerning believing in Christ as too many are deceived Who is he among us but he thinks at one time or other so to believe in Christ as shall serve his turn for salvation while in the mean while he walks in the clean contrary way to believing To believe in Christ is indeed to relye upon him for salvation but it is relying upon him on such conditions as Christ will admit of not at a mans own pleasure A man takes on him to get to Christ through him to find acceptance of God though his tongue be full of vanity hands of filthiness heart of evil life of profaneness yet through Jesus Christ our Lord he hopes to speed well enough It is true indeed that there is no other name under Heaven whereby acceptance with God is to be found but this man does no better than bring a Dog or a Swine to be offered on the Sacred Altar when he thinks that Christ will present such a filthy beast as he for a person to be accepted of God No Wash you make you clean put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes Cease to do evil learn to do well And then come to the Altar and you may hope for acceptance Those that Christ presents to his Father are such as of whom he is not ashamed Heb. II. 11. and XI 16. But would not Christ be ashamed to present a Dog or a Swine a filthy and ugly sacrifice to his Father a wretch that is all dirt and filth and pollution and wallows in it still and will not out of it He in the Law that must come nigh the Altar must wash himself in water and change his garments or he must not come to offer there The application is so easie that I need not to insist upon it And by this very thing we may observe two things I. That

the Reformation have been undermining its welfare and exercising the skill and patience of its earliest Bishops In so much that it was long since the judgment of one of your Lordships * Grindal Predecessors in the See of London and one that had been charged with too much favour and gentleness towards them that severity was necessarily to be used For thus he writes in a Letter which I have seen to a great Minister of State Anno 1569. Mine opinion is that all the Heads of this unhappy faction should be with all expedition severely punished to the example of others as people fanatical and incurable And the same New Reformers as they were then termed created so much affliction to the Church that it made * Sands another very Reverend Prelate of this See quite weary of his Bishoprick and drew this complaint from him in a Letter dated 1573. I may not in conscience I cannot flee from the afflicted Church otherwise I would labour out of hand to deliver my self of this intolerable and most grievous burthen I make no doubt but your Lordship being in the same place and having to do with Men of the same temper feel the same burthen God Almighty strengthen and encourage succeed and bless You in all the wise methods You use in the Government of Your Church and Clergy But I forbear any further to interrupt Your precious hours only recommending my pains to Your Lordships acceptance and my self to Your Blessing being My Lord One of the meanest of Your Clergy and Your Lordships most humble and dutiful Son and Servant IOHN STRYPE Low-Leighton May 14. 1684. THE PREFACE I AM not unsensible this Second Volume may lye under some prejudice as Translations and Posthumous pieces usually do which have not the last polishing of the Authors own Hand nor his consent to make them Publick Therefore to prevent any too hasty censures and to give this Book the advantage of a fair light and thereby to justifie what hath been done in sending it abroad to bear its fellow company is the chief design of this Preface And here I am to account for two things according to the two Parts that this Volume consists of The former is the Translation of the Horae Hebraicae and the second the Publishing of the Sermons I. For the former it cannot be denied that a Translation labours under the same disadvantage that the Copy of a good Picture doth which seldom reacheth to the Truth and Perfection of the Original And it needs not be said that among those fatal things such as Epitomies wilful Interpolations ignorant and careless Transcriptions and the like whereby the Books of the Antients especially Ecclesiastical Writers have suffered no small damages unskilful Translations have contributed their share damages rather to be deplored than ever to be redressed But as to the present Translation I have this to apologize for if not to justifie it That seeing these Latine pieces were the very 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the last result and perfection of our Authors long and elaborate Oriental Studies the very marrow and compendium of all his Rabbinical Learning and since that great knowledge he had attained in that way is in these Latine Exercitations maturely and after many years pensive thoughts digested and reduced to be admirably subservient to the Evangelical Doctrine and by a peculiarly divine skill he hath made the Rabbies more bitter enemies than whom the Gospel never had to be the best Interpreters of it it was thought pity that his Countrymen should be deprived of these his last and best labours and seemed somewhat unjust that Strangers and the Learned only should reap the benefit of them Besides it is to be considered how much a right understanding of the four Evangelists and the Acts of the Apostles which contain the History of the great Founder of our Religion and his holy Institution would contribute to the burying of unhappy differences which have arisen in a great measure from mistaken Interpretations of matters in those Books and to the furthering peace and unity among us and how highly all that call themselves Christians are concerned to attain to the true sense and meaning of the Holy Scriptures on which our Faith and Hope is built and lastly that these our Authors labours administer such considerable help to us herein it was resolved so small an impediment as the Latine Tongue should not obstruct so great a Good I hope there will be no occasion to accuse the Translation for any defect of care or faithfulness or skill but rather that it may merit some approbation upon all those accounts The work of a Translator chiefly consists in carrying along with him the sense of the Author and as much as another Language will allow the very air of his expression that he may be known and discovered though he wear the dress and habit of another Nation I trust those who undertook this employment will be found to have duly attended to both I will not be so confident as to vouch it so absolutely free of all mistake as if the Translators had been inspired by the Author himself it being morally impossible in a Work of that critical nature and considerable length not to make a stumble or a slip It will satisfie reasonable Men I hope if the errors are but few and the Work be generally accompanied with a commendable diligence The judicious Reader will not like our pains the less that we have not much regarded curious and smooth Language For none will look for a fine and florid style in a Translator who is bound up to follow close his Author and considering that he that presumes to vary too freely from his words t is a great venture but he varies often from his sense too And indeed affectation of soft words and handsom periods would have been a Vice here for it would have made the Author look unlike himself whose style was generally rough and neglected his mind being more taken up about sense and inquiry after truth than those things And therefore I hope none will place this among the blemishes of the Translation If the words be easie and intelligible and naturally expressive of the sense the more plain and unaffected the better I will advance a step further in behalf of this English Translation there are some things in it that may give it the advantage even of the Latine Exercitations themselves Namely that they are all with a diligent and careful Eye revised and corrected in abundance of places besides what the Errata directed to The Addenda Printed at the end of the Horae upon S. Luke and S. John are here reduced to their proper places in the body of the Book excepting one passage only which was neglected I know not how but now Printed at the end of this Preface The Annotations upon the eleventh Chapter of the Epistle to the Romans ignorantly and carelesly thrust in among the Exercitations upon the Acts of