Selected quad for the lemma: conscience_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
conscience_n	end_n	faith_n	unfeigned_a	1,201	5	10.8215	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A09507	The good conscience. Or, The soules banquet royall. In a sermon by T.P.	Pestell, Thomas, 1584?-1659?	1615 (1615)	STC 19789; ESTC S114583	21,753	36

reconciled to God an estate neither befalling the prowde Pharisee swolne and pufft vp with a false conception tympany a deceiuable confidence and ouer-weening of his owne righteousnes nor the dull and stony sinner who drunk with sinnes sweetnes is made insensible and remains seemingly vndisquieted In summe t' is nothing else but that inward integritie of the heart whereof S. Paule speaking sayes The ende and complement of the Law is Charitie in a pure heart with faith vnfained 1. Tim. 1.5 And presently after Vers 19. differencing it from a meer vnderstanding he saith Some haue made a shipwracke of Faith by forsaking a good Conscience Wherein saith Caluin hee shewes it to be a liuely ardor of seruing God with the entire affection of his soule and a sincere endeuour to liue godly and honestly among men respecting properly and precisely God as the maine ende and obiect therof but lesse principally men because the effects and fruits of it extend euen to them also This thus opened brings vs I hope some light to finde and see what an euill Conscience is which is whatsoeuer the former is not A remembrance of an ill-led-life ioyned with feare of punishment or a grieuous and racking motion of the soule mixt with knowledge and sight of her owne wickednes and by consequence with a foresight of her owne miserie But in handling the next part of the Text we shall obtaine a manifolde discouerie of them both and be made to descry aswell the comfortable nature of the one as the poore and wretched condition of the other Come wee then to that which I called the maine intendment of Solomon or the generall Doctrine hence obserueable The first part whereof is that there is no peace to the wicked as God speakes by Esay No ioy no comfort in an ill soule And the second That the good man is the onely merrie man aliue For so much is veiled and couered here vnder these words A continuall Feast 3 For the first as Saint Paul speakes of the good man that he is afflicted yet alwayes merrie So Solomon of the wicked iust contrary euen in laughter the heart is sorrowfull Pro. 14.13 The world then it seemes is cousened and gulled with showes and shadowes and outward semblances thinking such a man sicke that is in perfect health esteeming an other in great iollity of an able lusty body when t' is but a languishing carkasse For the full worldling sets out and paints and struts like a huge Colossus of gold peraduenture or Iuory without but stuft with clay and stones within all their happinesse affoording no more comfort then for a theefe to be hanged on a painted Gallowes Therefore Seneca calls it Foelicitatem bracteatam capsulam totam gilded felicity all couer and shell and barke straw without graine or gilded sheathes with leaden weapons nor yet so merely T' is not a froath or winde or emptinesse but a burning a corrosion a sting a poyson a secret malignity withall For so Solomon implyes where speaking of all outward things hee sayeth They are not onely vanity but vexation of the spirite So that worldlings may complaine of all earthly matters as Agarnemnon doth of honour in the Tragedy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 T 's sweet in show and semblance a farre off but it sads a man at heart when it comes The maine reason whereof is that of Senecaes because all folly and vanity laborat fastidió sui growes in the end weary of it selfe Et maximam sui veneni partem bibit drinkes vp the greater part of her owne poyson occasioned by a gnawn wormeaten a wicked guilty conscience For as the Cruciaeries in Rome bore that Crosse which should afterwards beare them so God hath layde this conscience as a crosse on euery sinnefull wretch wherein hee suffers before before time of his full and final suffering A thing which the Heathens felt and discouered Sua quemque fraus suus terror maximè vexat sayeth Tullie Each mans owne fraud and his owne affrightment most disquiets him and those Furies sayeth hee doe anguish and pursue wicked men not with burning firebrands as wee see in Tragedies sed angore conscientiae but with the trouble of their conscience And Seneca most diuinely Nihil prod st inclusam habere conscientiam patemus Deo Quid quaeris quid machinaris quid abscondis custos tuus te sequitur Quid locum abdictum legis arbitros remoues Putas tibi contigisse vt oculos ouium effugias To what end sayeth he Doth a sinner chuse secresie or solitarinesse Demens quid prodest non habere conscium cum habes conscientiam Madman what auayles to haue no witnesse of thy wickednesse thou hauing a conscience which is a thousand witnesses A thing which euery sinner would shunne and cannot whose state is therefore resembled to the stricken Beare which running per syluas saltusque through woods and groues yet still haeret lateri laethalis arundo the deadly arrow sticks still in her side so runnes and rowles the perplexed sinner like Lucans Beare Se rotat in vulnus secum fugientem circuit hastam though hee wheele and turne round as the Wiseman sayth Impij ambulant in circuitu yet the Speare that wounded him fals not out Such men sayeth Plutarch are like men sea-sicke who being in the shippe thinke they should doe better in the boate and thence backe againe to the shippe nihil agunt c. They doe nothing sayeth he nothing to any purpose so long as their choler remaines in the stomacke So the Sinner no shift of place no change of ayre relieues him being dogged and tended on by Erynnis Conscientiae the Hellish Hagge or fury of his conscience that euer-gaping Cerberus that euer-waking blood hound eyther barking eager and so disturbs his rest which is bad enough or if it chance to sleepe it is farre worse if it wakes it makes him like a mad-man when it sleepes a Lethargique dull and senselesse if it speake a thousand wild Chymaeraes and winged furies and spirting serpents ride vpon the tongue of it but when it is dumbe it casts him into a stony deadnes which is an estate so damnable as we are wont to expresse it by resemblance to a Patient on whom Physicke works not or that seeles not himselfe sicke when both Physitians and friends know him desperate Ti 's Austines Quid miserius misero non miserante seipsum What more miserable then a wretch not to take compassion on himselfe Nor can it bee thought a pleasure for a sinner that his soule is growne ouer with a filme or cataract that he becomes obdurate seared and remorselesse and so secure like Ionas vnder hatches a sleepe for such a sleepe of the conscience is but a dogges sleepe as God tolde Cain in Gen. 4. If thou doest ill Sinne lyes at the dore lyes like a dogge at the dore vpon a sodaine to rise and plucke out his throat Tandemista tranquilitas tempestas est saith Saint