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	work_n	6,774	5	6.2905	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A80475	The deputy divinity or, inferiour deity and subordinate God in the world, Conscience, I say, 1 Cor.10.29. A discourse of conscience, being the substance of two sermons, delivered: one of them at the Temple-church in London: the other in the countrey. / By Henry Carpenter, Minister of the gospel at Steeple-Ashton in Wilts.	Carpenter, Henry, 1605 or 6-1662.	1657 (1657)	Wing C614; Thomason E1711_1; ESTC R209576	23,781	132

sufficient to give life then Christ's death was in vain Now therefore Act. 25.12 as Festus to Paul about appealing to Cesar so may I say to the Christian appealing to the Gospel Hast thou appealed unto Gospel unto Gospel shalt thou go And an evangelicall good Conscience is a seeing of an act according with the rule of the Gospel And now since we have left the common rode of Conscience in general and betaken our selves to a good Conscience in particular note we that Conscience is called good for a two-fold goodness 1. An old natural and essential goodnesse of veracity and so much good may be in a bad mans Conscience notwithstanding his depravation and corruption by the Fall as to know something of the true rule and to speak truth according to its knowledge The cursed Scribes and Pharisees John 8.9 Hypocrites even their Consciences were so good as to deal plainly and honestly with them and to tell them the truth of their state to their conviction convicted by their owne Consciences It is indeed the best thing a wicked man hath better then his Mind Heart Will or Affection there is more goodnesse in a wicked mans Conscience I speak not of primitive spiritual but of essential goodnesse than in any other of the powers of his soul besides hardlier seduced then any part in man his Conscience stands and speaks more for God his Servants Truth and Name then himself doth or will And therfore S. Paul durst appeal even unto their Consciences though not unto their speeches commending our selves to every mans Conscience in the sight of God 2 Cor. 4.2 And this is one goodnesse for which Conscience is called good 2. A renewed spiritual goodnesse of Conscience for if a man be renewed all the man is renewed all his mind Eph. 4.23 the spirit of his mind the most pure and spiritual part of his soul is renewed also The mind and the Conscience go together Tit. 1.15 in their soylings and washings in their corruptings and renewings And here might be distinguished again and again of this renewed good Conscience Either perfect not in degrees but in parts and conditions of goodnesse Or defective 1 Cor 8.7 failing in some condition of goodnesse weake and apt to be defiled and seduced The conditions of this goodnesse are principally two One Formal respecting its constitution Another Effective for execution whereby it is fitted and qualified for its proper acts and uses As that Clock may be called good which is made well and goes well Now to the constitution and execution of a good Conscience Amesius Honeste bona Rom. 14.17 Facate bona two specialties are required 1. Integrity and uprightnesse 2. Serenity and peace And here also might be discoursed of the several offices and properties acts and aspects of Conscience upon practice but that I am in a digression and must return to my point of instruction For the keeping of Conscience with all keeping that it may be good Therefore take we up and contract unto this evangelical good Conscience Three things are necessary 1. Rom. 2.15 The light of knowledge Of God his will and rule both Law and Gospel what is good and bidden us what bad and forbidden us of our selves whether we be such as God's rules require yea or no Both David's and Achan's Conscience had this light to walk by Psal 18.23 Josh 7.20 some knowledge of God and of themselves by this light is all the work cut out that Conscience hath to do No being or working for Conscience without knowledge of God and our selves 1. No work for Conscience without some knowledge of God's revealed will the only rule and bond of Conscience which makes it to be what it is and to do what it does Men might swear lye kill Rom. 7.7 steal prophane blasphem remorslesly without this light of knowledge 2. No work for Conscience without some knowledge of our selves for the knowledge of the rule doth but as tell Nathan's tale of two men and a sheep without the knowledge of our selves which doth as say Thou art the man Men might crucifie the Lord of glory Luke 23.34 1 Cor. 2.8 and Conscience say and do nothing without this knowledge O say we then with Solomon That the soul be without knowledge Prov 19.2 it is not good The ignorant soul cannot have a good Conscience for if Conscience be not truly informed and rightly principled it will be either idle or ill imployed as working in the dark either nothing or all things lawful working falsly and erroneously And oh Isa 5.20 Act. 26.9 Joh. 16.2 what a potent instrument for Satan is an erroneous and misguided Conscience That will make a man even kill his Brother his Father nay God's dearest Servants and perswade him that he doth God service Therefore beg we God the Father of lights Jam. 1.17 through the true Light to lighten our darknesse being our own natural lights are waxed dim John 1.9 and burn blew to set up another The light of his Word and another The light of his Spirit That the candle of the Lord within it may give light enough to search the inward parts of the belly Prov. 20.27 For the world is fuller of dangerous downfals than the valley of Siddim was full of slime-pits Gen. 14.10 wherein the Kings of Sodom and Gomorah fled and fell Here is desperate fearful going in the dark not knowing whither he goeth especially neer such horrible Precipices John 12.35 Therefore pray and again I say pray for inlightned Consciences for though some may go to Hell with it yet none can go to Heaven without it therefore labour to get it and be not without it for a world beseech God as he hath given us Consciences that we may not want guides so that he would give our consciences light Mat. 15.14 that our guides may not want eyes lest the blind lead the blind and both fall into the ditch Mat. 6.23 For if the light that is in thee be darkness how great is that darknesse Another ingredient to this evangelical good Conscience The life of new obedience no good Conscience without universal constant sincere obedience knowledge obedience cannot be separated in a good Conscience therefore called The life of obedience For what is knowledge without obedience but as a model without a building Act. 24.16 and a cypher without a figure which stands for nothing therefore the Apostle who is upon sacred record the pattern of a good Conscience made it his dayly exercise to have and to hold and to use a good Conscience in all obedience the lack whereof in daring to act against God's rule or without God's warrant causeth shipwrack of Faith 1 Tim. 1.19 and of all good Conscience As in Hymeneus and Alexander Who hath more science than the Divel yet none worse Consciences for lack of obedience And obedience in Christian ears

should not sound as old and legal Rom. 3.27 2 Thes 1.8 but rather as new and evangelical For there is a law of Faith and a vengeance on the disobedience to the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ Mat. 11.28 29 30. yea there is a yoak of Christ and which is more admirable a yoake that easeth O mirus reficiendi modus But whither run we out into particulars there is one comprehensive compendious thing most eminently and transcendently necessary to an evangelical good Conscience as all in all Namely 3. The Spirit of Faith in the blood of Jesus 2 Cor. 4.13 No good Conscience without Faith as it seems by their fast frequent conjunction together 1 Tim. 1.4 18 19. so obvious in holy Scripture Faith and a good Conscience 1 Tim. 3.9 yet not that poor livelesse fruitless faith which may be found in apostate men Jam. 2.15 and Divels Rom. 1.17 Rom. 5.1 Act. 15.9 1 John 5.4 Eph. 2.8 who are said to believe and tremble But that Faith which verisies and justifies and purifies and pacifies and conquereth and saveth This this is the Faith For the image of God wherein man was first created was not more necessary to the attaining of a legal good Conscience than this Faith so invested with such gracious properties is to the accomplishing of an evangelical For what availeth the knowledge of Law and Gospel and so much Faith as to give credence to the truth of the precepts and promises and threats without that personal peculiar proper Faith whereby Christ is applied in particular with all his benefits to each believing soul So that without Faith no evangelical good Conscience Whence here is the difference betwixt the compleatnesse of a legal and evangelical good Conscience That requireth many acts to perfect it Deut. 26.27 Jam. 2.10 one sinful commission or omission is enough to wrack and spoyl it This requires but one only to compleat it one act of believing uniteth to Christ by which union man is made partaker of the all-sufficient obedience of Christ which is the sole and absolute object matter of an evangelical good Conscience For as one act of Adam brake the whole Decalogue so one act of faith in Christ will perfectly fulfil it But not the habit without the act nor the act without the object maketh an evangelical good Conscience and justifies For the whole obedience of Christ typified by the whole Lamb to be eaten and accounted for Exod. 12.4 10. is it that satisfies the justice of the Law which when by faith we are conjoyned to him is made all ours And therefore Faith and Christ's blood Christ's Blood are here conjoyned in one as to an evangelical good Conscience As no good Conscience without faith So No good Conscience without Christ's blood A good Conscience is most beholding unto the blood of Christ for its goodness as the only price of it the material and meritorious cause of it yea and of our redemption the graces fore-mentioned are the means of application There sticketh to the Conscience of every man naturally a great deal of guile and filth which defileth and obscureth and hardens it and it hath contracted so much guilt and foulnesse that there is no room for peace till it be refined and cleansed Heb. 9.14 Act. 15.9 Rom. 5.1 and mollified which can no way be done without saith in Christ's blood Heb. 9.18 22. which is all in all For as in the old Law all dedications and purgings and remissions were by blood So in the new Law of Faith in the Gospel no good done about Conscience without blood It is Purged Purified Pacified all by this blood Conscience is 1. 1 Joh. 1.7 Purged and Cleansed -From the corruption of sin by the efficacy of Christ's blood From the guilt of sin by the merit of Christs blood 2 Tim. 1.3 2. Purified and Sanctified from the stain of sin 1 Pet. 3.21 by the purity of Christs blood 3. Pacified from the unquietness of sin Col. 1.20 by the attonement of Christ's blood In sin unrepented Isa 57.20 21. unpardoned unpurged unreformed there is no peace but like the troubled Sea it cannot rest A good Conscience may be like the troubled Air sometime disquieted but when the wind is still the Air can rest when the occasion is over the Conscience is quiet But a bad Conscience is like the troubled Sea that cannot rest through the inconstancy of its own natural motions fluxing and refluxing and the restlesnesse of its own waves as well as the boysterousnesse of external storms and winds so that the Sea remains unquiet when the storm is ended so do evil mens bad Consciences when the outward occasion of affliction is ceased and that trouble ended yet they have that within which denies their rest Such indeed is the guilt and filth of sin to the Conscience as Jonah to the Mariners and Achan to the Souldiers a dangerous and accursed thing or like an arrow-head and corrupt coar in a wound no safety or blessing ease or healing till out and gone And this can never be done but by the blood of Jesus Heb. 12.24 Oh that purging purifying pacifying blood of his that blood of sprinkling so called in allusion to that blood in the bason of the Passeover Exod. 12.22 wherewith the Lintel and the two side-posts were sprinkled and whereby this blood was prefigured Now although about the two side-posts some Interpreters are but little divided yet about the transome or lintel lesse most applying it to Conscience For the resemblance in ancient buildings of those Countreys contriving in or just over the lintel a place to look out at for the discovery of all that knock at door And such a thing indeed is Conscience through which we should look out upon all occurrences and occasions before we admit or open And this Lintel we must strike with the bunch of Hysop dipped in the blood of the Bason Conscience must be struck with faith in Christ's blood the blood of sprinkling which speaketh better things then that of Abel Better to God and better to Conscience Mark 4.39 and the voice which it speaks is peace and be still and that not because blood but because his blood who can quiet Consciences as well as Seas and Winds and that not without faith for no goodnesse or purity or peace to the Conscience without blood and no such blood for the Conscience without faith Therefore the unbelieving Conscience is a defiled Conscience and the defiled Conscience is a disturbed Conscience and the disturbed Conscience no compleat good Conscience Tit. 1.15 defiled and unbelieving are in conjunction by the holy Ghost Therefore as we love to have and to hold and to use a good Conscience in all our beggings beg we this faith of God in this blood For what can a man do with an old natural Conscience without a new inlightned one And

all Scripture given by Inspiration of God 2 Tim. 3.16 is profitable not only for doctrine but also for reproof correction and instruction c. So let this be used 1. For reproof Of three Errors in opinion 1. 1. Error That Conscience in general is not common to all as if some men had no Consciences whereas it is as possible for fire to be without heat as for any man to be without a Conscience The vulgar saying is Such a man hath no Conscience c. But the meaning is He hath no good Conscience for as good none as none good But every man hath a Conscience one or other such as it is good or bad For it is a standing Power created by God and unmoveably set in the soul of man abiding for ever with him whether he be on Earth in Heaven or Hell 2. 2. Error That Conscience is nothing but a sad mood or melancholy sit or heavy damp and dumps on the spirit of a man c. Erroneously mistaking the effect of the cause Whereas Conscience is a standard chained to man ever remaining with him when all his moods and fits of heats and colds of fears and joyes and jollities are over and gone Let Hypocrites and Epicures slabber it with their jollity and daub it with their formality yet their Consciences will be sure one time or other if not in the midst of their drunken carouses and riotousexcesses like those singers of a mans hand on Belshazzar's wall get in the end and bottome Dan 5.5 to sadden soure and spoyl all Prov. 14.13 yea even in their best services as in Cain's Sacrifice when his countenance was dijected there will be something if not in the midst Gen. 4.5 yet in the end to tell them That both their Acts and Persons are rejected That Conscience is hanged or drowned 3. Error dead and gone a great while a go c. But alas these are idle addle opinions Atheistical Proverbs and sottish imaginations had it been no more then this That Conscience hath lain long bedrid and speechlesse c. it had been enough yet it might be raised and recovered But that he is dead yea so shamefully and accursedly dead 'T is petty Atheism to say and think so No no Ahitophel can tell you That though a man hang himself 2 Sam. 17.23 yet he cannot hang his Conscience Saul can tell you 1 Sam. 31.4 That though a man kill himself yet he cannot kill his Conscience which is as immortal as his soul Judas could tell you Mat. 27.4 That no force or violence can suppresse or curb it for it made him carry back the price and decry his sin saying I have sinned Pharaoh could tell you That no earthly might or majesty can bash or dash it but that one time or other it will stare and flie in the sinners face for it did in his as great a King as he was and made him say I have now sinned The Lord is righteous Exod. 9.27 but I and my people are wicked Saul again could tell you That no Mirth or Musick can Charme or Conjure the evill spirit of it 1 Sam. 16.14 16. for his bad Conscience plaied the Divel with his wretched soul And Joseph's Brethren could tell you That time and years cannot expunge the writings nor obliterate or eat out the ingravings of it for twenty years after when there was no other Pursuer or Remembrancer it accused them Gen. 42.21 22. and made them look wistly upon one another and accuse themselves of their cruel unnaturall usage of him Nullum tempus occurrit Regi And they said one to another We are verily guilty concerning our Brother c. Therefore is this distresse come upon us and his blood required of us And now having mentioned twenty years 't is the lesse notable to speak of Pharaoh's Butler's Conscience remembring him about one year after Gen. 40.23 Gen. 41.9 I do now remember my faults this day And verily so it is That as many in youthful vanity and vain-glory do such violent wrongs in bulges and bruises to their bodies as forty or fifty years after they sadly remember in the Aches and Ailings of pained old Age So do many bear out insensibly for a time the bulges and bruises they have given their souls it may be thirty forty fifty years till the hand of the Lord be upon them either in some heavy crosse and sharp affliction or a Death-bed and then commonly Conscience remembers them For Conscience will keep a grudge a long time and is not so soon pacified as offended though it doth not always shew remorse yet it always keeps remembrance though in many men it sleep in regard of motion yet it never sleeps in regard of notice and observation And though not always speaking yet it is always writing taking Notes preparing Bills and Items against that day to come Nay death it self that dissolves all worldly knots and parts the neerest on Earth Man and Wife cannot part Conscience and Sinner but it remains in him as a worm that never dies Mar. 9.44 and as a fire that never goes out Isa 66.24 not on Earth no nor in Hell And thus for reproof of three errors and false opinions 2. For Correction Of three practical Errors and Misbehaviours of the World in point of Conscience 1. 1. Miscarriage In wrapping up Goliah's sword in a fair cloth behind the Ephod In hiding the monstrous miscarriages prodigious impieties and divelish practises of the World under that Religious name and specious mask of Conscience One man is of an erroneous opinion and Hetrodox judgement holds some false doctrine by means either of the authority of the Teacher or of the dignity of some eminent follower as having mens persons in admiration Jam. 2.1 Jude 16. and having the faith of Christ in respect of persons or of prejudice and prepossession sticking to his first perswasion pride and obstinacy denying place for retractation or truer information and this he calls his Conscience Another is of an irrefractory inclination of an heady headstrong humour and propension his senses not exercised to discern between his natural and spiritual disposition Heb. 5.24 the motion of his sensitive appetite and his diviner principle his lower and his upper soul and the former commonly is more obstreperous importunate and clamorous for satisfaction then the latter whereby a man thinks himselfe bound to do whatsoever he hath a strong mind will and humour to do and this he calls his Conscience Another is of a strong strange imagination and phantasie which is a kind of irrational animal conscience having the same relation to sensitive representations those Laws in the members which Conscience hath to intellectual those Laws of the mind Rom. 7.23 Aristotle And as phantasie supplieth the place of reason in unreasonable creatures so it doth of Conscience in unconscionable when a man is directed

what with an inlightned one without a purified and pacified one without a sanctified and saved one by the blood of Jesus O plead this blood but first beg it with more then Rachell's earnestnesse for children Gen. 30.1 Lord give it me or else I die And when we have gotten this good enlightned purified and pacified Conscience we were best keep it with all diligence keep the peace of it and not willingly offend it for a thousand worlds And that upon these considerations 1. That to sin against the cry of an illightned Conscience Isa 65.3 Ezek. 2.4 is to provoke God to his face like impudent children in the holy Prophets account for an illuminated Conscience is as the face of God in the soul of man where a man even sees God looking upon him commanding or forbidding 2. That to sin against the cry of an illightned Conscience is to draw upon a mans soul the horrible guilt of Herod's aggravation and huge addition unto all his sins and evils Luke 3.20 He added yet this above all that he shut up John in prison John 5.35 John was a burning and a shining light And such is an illuminated Conscience therefore to go against the burning and shining light thereof is to add yet this above all other evils to shut up our John in prison 3. That to sin against the cry of an illightned Conscience offends Gods deputy in the soul and provokes him oft times to stab the heart dead all duty discountenance faith and hope and discourage confidence in prayer If our heart condemn us not 1 John 3.20 21. Mat. 5.23 then have we confidence towards God and what we ask we receive c. But if it doth condemn us we may hold our peace for it is of greater danger then in case of an offended and irreconciled brother If thou bring thy prayer into God's presence and there remembrest that thine offended irreconciled Conscience hath ought against thee first go and by faith in Christ's blood and resolution of new obedience be reconciled unto thy Conscience and then come and pray for an irreconciled Conscience doth ever way-lay undermine and enter caveats against prayers Psal 66.18 no offering will be accepted till Conscience be satisfied be it for our selves or others bad Consciences much hinder prayer If I have a bad Conscience God will not heare my prayers saith David ye have good Consciences Heb. 13.18 therefore God will hear your prayers for us said Paul 4. That Conscience is ever to abide and dwell with us never to leave a man therefore to be kept with all diligence that it may be good and void of offence Two that were born and bred and must inseparably live together should take heed of offending one the other there is a parting time for all but a man and his Conscience there are none on Earth with whom we shall always live without any separation but our Consciences not always with Husbands or Wives with Parents or Children with Masters or Servants c. But with our Consciences ever therefore make you much of it In one of the Fathers we read a Parable to this purpose Greg. Mor. of a Man that had three friends two of whom he loved very intirely and the third but indifferently this Man being called in question for his life craved aid of his friends The first would only accompany him some part of the way and bring him going and no more The second would onely lend him some means and accommodate him for his journey and no more But the third whom he least expected and regarded would go all the way abide and appeare ever with him speak and plead for him and never leave him Now we are the man Flesh World and Conscience are our three friends And when death shall summon us to Judgement Our fleshly friends will bring us to our graves and decent burials so far going and there leave us Our worldly goods may help us to Shrouds Coffins Tombs and at most Epitaphs and there leave us But well fare a good Conscience this will live and die with us or rather live when we are dead awaiting our rising again to appear with us and stand for us before God at his judgement-seat And when neither of our other friends can do us good then a good Conscience will stand us in high and eternal stead Conscience I say FINIS