Selected quad for the lemma: conscience_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
conscience_n	faith_n	good_a	purge_v	1,223	5	9.3250	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A96039	Wisdome and innocence, or prudence and simplicity in the examples of the serpent and the dove, propounded to our imitation. By Tho. Vane doctor in divinity and physick.	Vane, Thomas, fl. 1652.	1652 (1652)	Wing V89; Thomason E1406_1; ESTC R209492	46,642	189

feet when thou oppressest or dost not relieve the poor thou givest him gall and vinegar to drink when thou dost or consentest to any thing which endomageth his children his Servants thou cryest out with the Jewes crucify him crucify him Qui in deum delinquit eum relinquit Hee that sins against God forsakes him Whosoever purchaseth any profit enjoyeth any pleasure giveth way unto any Passion satisfieth himself in any action which Gods word hath pronounced unlawfull it is he that contrary to the prudent serpent hazards the losse of his head putteth himself in danger to be separated from Christ to preserve his hands or his feet his hayr or his nayles or any thing that is of lower valew and is like unto the Jewes who cryed out not him but Barabbas Such are all covetous persons whose greedy affections are like Pharaoh's lean kin which when they had eaten up the fat it could not be perceived that they had eaten it but were still as evill-favoured as they were before so these men whatsoever they devour are never satisfied but have their desires as vast and empty as ever and are like Apprentises Christ-masse-boxes to take all in but to restore none till they be broken nor they till they bee dead Such are also the Receivers of bribes who like Gehazi when they receive a bribe believe they receive a Blessing for so he called it but as he found it so shall they that a bitter Curse is couched under it for whatsoever men get by bribery sacrilege oppression ufury cosenage forswearing lying or the like is like to prove as fatall to them as that peece of flesh which the Eagle stole from the altar that had a coal clave to it which set her nest on fire Such also are all those who doe spend their means as unlawfully as these get it who as S. Gregory saith when the poor members of Christ are pinched with hunger and want doe profusely spend their Estates on harlots on drink on dice on balls on plays on vain and soul-killing pleasures or else their time in idleness and impertinent visits like one Vatia on whom was made this Epitaph Here lyes Vatia who grew old in nothing but idleness Or else in vain obscene foolish fruitless discourses interlarding their speeches with lies to make them more plausible powdring them with oaths to make them as they think more gracefull O what a folly is it in those men and in whom almost is not that folly that when they may hold Christ and the consequent thereof their Salvation for denying of themselves unlawfull gains or pleasures such as perish like Jonas gourd as soon as they be sprung up and leave nothing behind them but repentance when they may keep the true faith and love of Christ with the loss of their lives by which loss they shall gain it of their honours of their estates of their friends for which they shall be recompenced even in this life an hundred fold will yet notwithstanding with Jeroboam for the politique respect of keeping of his kingdom with Peter for the declining of some bodily danger with Ananias and Saphira for with-holding back a little money with Saul for preserving the fattest of the Cattle with the man of Israel for the unchast embraces of a harlot with Baltazar for c●rowsing in the cups of the Sanctuary yea with our first Parents for an apple or a piece of bread as Solomon saith will transgress and suffer themselves to be separated from the fountain of life Christ Iesus rather than say with holy Joseph Gen. 39. How can I doe this evill and sin against my God O let not let not the least shadow of such weakness fall upon our souls as shall make us prefer any thing before our union with Christ but let us as we ought witness the truth of the Apostles saying in our selves Mat. 19.27 We have forsaken all and followed thee Now that which must knit and glue us unto Christ is faith which while we hold we shall be able to quench all the fiery darts the temptations of the devill as saith the Apostle The devill and his instruments the wicked while they rob us of our externall felicities doe but as David did unto Saul cut off the lap of our garments but if they force us from the fortress of our faith as he did unto Goliah they cut off our heads Let us therefore keep faith and a good conscience and make no shipwrack of that precious merchandize like Hymeneus and Alexander reproved by S. Paul but in all the rough tempests of this lifes calamities let us anchor our faith and hope upon Christ who is the sure ground of our salvation In all the Syren enchantments of sinfull pleasures with Ulysses let us tie our selves to the main-mast of a strong immoveable godly resolution whereby whatsoever evill wee suffer or seeming good we may enjoy to rent us from the stedfastness of our faith we may ever with such a calm and constant indifferency give them entertainment that neither the one nor the other may remove us but that we may still remain like a man in an open field who to which part of the horizon soever he sends his eye he himself is alwaies in the center And let us not like the dirty-minded Gadarens banish Christ out of our Country for the loss of a few swine nor forsake our profession of him nor swerve one hayrs bredth from the line of his Commandements to inherit whatsoever either profit or pleasure or ought else hath endeared to the eye of the world seeing their purchase is care their possession trouble their essence vanity and their end misery But rather in the midst of this worlds conflicts let us engrave that triumphant motto of S. Paul on the Ensign of our Faith Rom. 8.35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ shall tribulation or anguish or famine or nakedness or perill or persecution or sword I am certain that neither death nor life nor Angels nor Principalities nor Powers nor things present nor things to come nor strength nor height nor depth nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. CHAP. VI. A Fourth excercise of Prudence in the Serpent not unworthy our imitation is this The Serpent when hee swimmeth to avoid the danger of drowning keepeth his head alwaies lifted above the waters So wee while wee swim through the Sea of this lives actions must ever bear up the head of our reason that we be not drowned in pleasure and delight The world is a Sea and man a ship adversity is his ballast prosperity his sayls passions his Saylors and reason his Pilot who sits at the helm to steer his course aright adversity like ballast keeps us even and steddy but when our over-busie passions doe hoyse up more sayls of pleasure than our weak barks can bear we run our selves under water and over-whelm our reason

if we had the heat of that love would reflect so strongly on our hearts clouded with sin that it would wholly dissolve them into tearfull sorrow even as the Sun printing hard his hot beams upon a gross thick cloud powrs it down into rain The Prophet David was of a far other temper and yet had an excuse as colourable as any one being a man and amongst men a souldier and amongst souldiers one of the hardiest whom no danger could reach to fear no temporall domage to grieve and yet such impression did sorrow make in his heart for sin that he saith I will wash my bed every night and water my Couch with my tears O faelices lachrymae quas beata manus conditoris absterget saith S. Bernard O those happy tears which the favourable hand of God shall wipe away And O those happy eys which have chosen rather to melt themselves into such tears than to lift themselves up with pride to look aside with disdain or asquint with envy These tears of Compunction and sorrow for our sins doe afford us the same refreshing that taking of soyl doth unto the hunted deer who being hotly pursued by hellhounds the Devill and his temptations and our hearts embost and panting under their pursute are wonderfully refresh'd and restor'd to our lost strength by washing our selves in the bath of our relenting tears into which who so enters as into the troubled waters of Bethesda's pool is assuredly healed of his sins If then the bitter sorrow for sin be the mother of such sweet and wished for effects let us seal up our desires with the words of S. Aug. Let repentance bitter repentance be the continuall companion of my days grief continuall grief the insatiate terror of my life and if I be not worthy to lift up my eys to heaven in prayer yet at least I am worthy to put them out with weeping CHAP. III. THe third thing required to the renewing of our lives is Confession The Dog when his stomack is surcharged with any hurtfull meat by eating grass vomits it up again so when we have burthened our consciences with ever-hurtfull sin wee must by eating the bitter herb of Contrition disgorge our sins at our mouths by Confession For as in a wound so long as the iron or steel or any part of that which gave the wound remains it obstructs the healing so doe the remains of sin in the Conscience through non confession control the influence of any remedy applyed thereunto as Solomon saith Prov. 28.13 He that hideth his sins shall not be directed but he that shall confess and forsake them shall obtain mercy An impostume breaking inwardly threatens death unto the party but outwardly it is a means to purge and cleanse the body So sin suppressed and smothered within our hearts doth empoyson and choak our souls but breaking out at our mouths by Confession it doth purge and clear the conscience and like the breaking out of the lips in an ague is a sign of our amendment So as S. Paul saith Rom. 10.10 With the mouth confession is made unto salvation Which Confession that it may be thus profitable must be also generall When a mans body sweats all over say the Physicians it is a sign of strength of nature but if it sweat in some parts and not in others it is a symptom of debility and weakness and no less testimony is it of the weakness and wickedness of the soul if wee doe not purge our souls universally of all our sins These parcell Confessors are like the children of Israel who cast out most of the heathen out of the land of Canaan yet suffered the Gibeonites to remain and made a league with them who thereby became as nails in their eys Num. 33.55 and spears in their sides so the least sin that remains with us uncast out by Confession will be a prick unto our consciences and an instrument of our destruction Now Confession as it must be accompanied by universality so it must be ushered by examination whereby looking back into the book of our consciences wherein the names of all our sins are written we must awaken the remembrance of all our thoughts words and deeds and muster them up together that so by Consession they may be cast forth as a sick man who being about to take a Purge first takes a Preparative to open the passages that so by the purge they may be the more easily ejected And that we may amongst the millions of our actions know which of them are to be superscribed with the title of sin we must have recourse unto the word of God as it is expounded unto us by the Church and the Pastors thereof which like the Mariners card and compass will demonstrate unto us how neer or far off our actions are from the immoveable North Pole of Gods commandemants And as when the Sun shineth not into a house the ayr seemeth clear but if it once enter in at the window it then appears full of motes and dust so the light of Gods word shining in our understandings will discover an infinite number of sins which before its access wee could neither perceive nor would we believe And as the word of God doth shew us our faults so also doth it cleanse them like unto a bason of water wherein a man may both see the spots in his face and wherewith he may wash them away as the Psalmist saith Ps 118 9. How shall a young man amend his way by keeping of thy words In this word of God therefore this river of the Sanctuary in imitation of the Serpent must we wash our selves which not unlike a certain water in Macedonia which being drank by the Sheep maketh them white so this received into our hearts doth blanch our souls with the whiteness of innocence Now where the Well of Gods word is deep and a stone rowled on the mouth thereof that is is hard to be understood with Rachel mentioned in the scripture Gen. 2.9 we must get some Jaacob to remove it that is some one that hath wrestled with God as the name of Jaacob signifies and that hath thereby obtained his assistance unto his studies and endeavours that so he may administer unto us But let us beware above all things that wee doe not drink down the water of Gods word with the abusive interpretation of heretiques for then contrary to the former effect of the Macedonian water it will be like that water in the troughes for the sheep wherein Jaacob laid his pilled rods which made them bring forth spotted lambs so will this make us bring forth opinions erroneous black and foul The serpent as I said in the beginning after his fasting his eating a bitter herb his casting up a poysonous humour and his bathing himfelf in water seekes some narrow hole through which drawing himself he slips off his old skin and drying his slipperinesse in the sun recovers a new one so