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	put_v	shipwreck_n	2,471	5	12.3348	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A42085	Discourses upon several divine subjects by Tho. Gregory ...	Gregory, Thomas, 1668 or 9-1706.	1696 (1696)	Wing G1932; ESTC R7592	108,242	264

which demand our Faith as well as those that call for our Practice in many places displaying themselves in such Capital Letters that he who runs may read them There are indeed in these Writings 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some obscure Places and hard to be understood But these I conceive are not necessary to be understood For if they were our Heavenly Father had undoubtedly so deliver'd them that by his Blessing upon our honest Labour and Study we should at length certainly clearly and distinctly understand them But since as I humbly conceive they are not so deliver'd but after all our Pains and Industry lie securely envelop'd with their own Darkness we may safely conclude from the Goodness of our Maker that they are not necessary to be understood Nay I verily believe that such is the nature of some of these Places especially of some in St. John's Revelations that 't is prodigious Impertinence and unpardonable Vanity to determine peremptorily upon them They seem to be Prophecies which belong not to us but to our Children Not to the Present but Future Ages of the Church when they will all clear up and apparently unfold themselves in their utmost Completion Then at last will the Clouds all vanish and disappear and these places shine forth with untainted Lustre and Brightness Then will the Church behold with Joy and Transport the manifold Wisdom of God which for wise and great Ends is hid from these Ages and Generations and which therefore 't is no ways necessary we should understand Let others then if they dare venture curiously pry into these Recondite Points Let them continually rack and torture their Brains in the fruitless search after these hidden Mysteries till their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Knowledge falsly so call'd so swell add puff them up that they either wrest them to their own Perdition over-looking the plain self-evident places and by unwarrantable contradictory expositions of the obscure bringing in damnable Heresies and Corruptions into the Church or of all which this present Age is abundant proof they cause their own Heads to grow vertiginous and irrecoverably fall into the lamentable state of Delirancy and Madness But let us be sober and wise unto Salvation not impertinently prying into things beyond our reach but studying the things which make for Peace and things whereby we may edifie one another Let us meditate in the Law of the Lord not to gratifie our Curiosity but to meliorate our Lives not to encourage and patronize Divisions and Schism but to preserve Union and Concord in the Church of God Not to be litigious noisy and impertinent but holy and unblameable in all manner of Conversation The fourth and last thing to be advis'd 4. Study to live well or in all the Accidents and Emergencies of your Lives to keep a Conscience void of Offence towards God and towards Man This is the best and surest way to preserve your selves pure from all manner of Contagion For I can never entertain such unworthy Thoughts of my Blessed Maker as to think he will suffer an ingenuous Soul who makes it her Business sincerely to search after Truth and diligently to walk in the old Paths ever to die in any Damnable Error And if I am not unpardonably mistaken the Sacred Oracles do abundantly confirm me in this Persuasion Great peace says the * Psal 119. ver 105. Psalmist have they that love thy Law and nothing shall offend them and † Ver. 130. again When thy word goeth forth it giveth light and understanding unto the simple and ‖ Ver. 104. again Thro' thy Commandments I get understanding therefore I hate all evil ways And our ** Joh. 7.17 Lord himself If any man will do his will he shall know of the Doctrine whether it be of God And as I am persuaded that 't is absolutely impossible for a devout well-meaning sincere and pious Soul ever to die in any damnable Error so on the other hand I conceive it almost as impossible for a Man who has cast off all Care of his Conscience to keep his Faith long pure and undefil'd † 2 Tim. 1.19 20. St. Paul tells us of Hymeneus and Alexander that having put away their Conscience they miserably made Shipwrack of their Faith And 't is observable of the Learned Jews that when about three or fourscore Years before the Nativity of Christ they began to relax their Discipline and to dissolve into the loose and wanton Customs of their neighbouring Orientals they immediately betook themselves likewise to transform their Faith resolving the Commandments of God into their own Inventions and making his Word of none effect through their upstart Traditions You see they first defil'd their Conscience and then their Faith May then the God of all Grace who hath call'd us unto his Eternal Glory by Christ Jesus keep us stedfast in the Faith once deliver'd to the Saints and to that End stablish strengthen settle us in every good Word and Work To Him he Glory and Dominion for ever and ever Amen Amen 1 PET. Ch. v. Ver. 8. Your Adversary the Devil as a Roaring Lion walketh about seeking whom he may devour WHether that ancient Opinion of the Heathens de invidiâ Daemonis had its Rise only from those grand Cheats and Delusions which the more inquisitive and searching Heads amongst them observ'd to be impos'd upon the World not only in their more common and ordinary ways of divination but likewise by the most celebrated Oracles themselves as * De Myst Aegypt Jamblichus argues or rather as the Learned † Orig. of Temp. Eo Casaubon contends borrow'd its Original from the History of the Fall of Man which the several Nations are suppos'd to have receiv'd by Tradition from the Sons of Noah and Plato more particularly from some Learned Jews in Egypt I shall not take upon me to determine My present Scope and Design being only to shew 1. That in the Confession of All as well Heathens as Christians there are a sort of wicked and malignant Daemons which are Enemies to mankind Express'd in these Words of my Text The Devil your Adversary 2. That these wicked and malignant Daemons are permitted to wander up and down in the Earth Express'd in these Words The Devil your Adversary walketh about 3. To lay open with what indefatigaable Pains and various Stratagems they seek to ruine Men and with what Cruelty they treat them when they are deliver'd up into their hands Express'd and imply'd in these words As a roaring Lyon he walketh about seeking whom he may devour 4. Though they have Malice enough to destroy us all yet that they cannot do us the least Mischief unless God permits them Express'd in these Words Seeking whom he may devour or may be permited to devour 1. In the Confession of All as well Heathens as Christians there are a sort of wicked and malignant Daemons which are Enemies to mankind Should we take the Wings of the

various and phantastick Spirits of Error and Delusion Were Men once well grounded in the Principles of their Religion and able to give a Reason for their profession of the Faith did they not take up their Religion upon Trust and like the Turks and Pagans only therefore embrace it because consonant to the Belief and Practice of their Progenitors they would be wonderfully delighted in the Statutes of the Lord and walk without Offence in the Path of his Commandments The multifarious Contrivances of the Enemy and the Deceiver would be easily detected and unravell'd by their Reason which assisted by the unerring Records of Divine Revelation would break through all the Fogs and Vapours of Deceit with the Strength and Brightness of the faithful Witness in Heaven But when the Mind lies uncultivated and devoid of true Principles and is not fram'd into a Right Understanding and Judgment of Divine Things when Men cannot rationally account for any and therefore are indifferently inclin'd to all the ways of Worship the Tempter will soon appear in the beautiful Form of an Angel of Light and under that disguise unhappily decoy them into the endless Mazes and Labyrinths of Error The Shadow of Religion to their unskilful Judgments will soon be effectually recommended for the Substance and the External fallacious superficial Signs be mistaken for the Interiour and Real Acts of Devotion A judicious safe well-grounded Piety will be renounc'd for the wild irrational Dictates of Melancholy and Enthusiasm and one phantastical senseless unintelligible Interpreter of the Divine Oracles be preferr'd before ten Men that can render a Reason In a word They 'll be induc'd either totally to reject the Word of God for their own pretended Inspirations the undefiled Law of the Most High for the soul impure Suggestions of their ungodly Spirits or at least to mingle with the Waters of Life the putrid Streams that flow from their own Cisterns This I need not prove from the Records of Antiquity our own Nation being a sad Demonstration of it at this day For how are some of our Brethren tho' they enjoy the most blessed Opportunities of a right Information tost to and fro like foolish Children with every Wind of strange Doctrine How are they led away by every Impostor from the simplicity of the Gospel and spoil'd and plunder'd of their Christian Armour by the false Prophets that are gone out into the World Alas were it not for the decent and orderly the wise and prudent the beautiful and heavenly Constitution of our Establish'd Church This Land which was not long since the Glory of all Lands would really be nothing else but a Spiritual Bedlam all the various kinds of Spiritual Phrenzy and Madness having entred into it and uncomfortably filling its mournful Habitations with their outragious Blasphemies and unintelligible Jargon No Notion so absurd and ridiculous no Doctrine so monstrous and paradoxical no Principles so wicked and atheistical but what find some dreaming Prophet amongst us to espouse and assert them and that Dreamer tho' he has neither Piety nor Learning nothing but the loathsome detestable Vernish of Hypocrisie and Dissimulation to distinguish him from his Neighbours has notwithstanding his Followers Abetters and Admirers Mens indifferency in the Affairs of Religion unfortunately leads them to those unlawful Assemblies where their unstable and treacherous Hearts are easily taken captive by the Spirit of Delusion so that under the pretence of trying all things they really let go all that is good from Neuters or indifferent and lukewarm Friends commencing virulent irreconcilable Enemies to the Preachers of sound Doctrine To such Delusions and Inpostures I say are Men unhappily exposed by their unaccountable Indifferency in the Affairs of Religion But alas this is not all For 3. This indifferent Temper not only exposeth particular Persons to the various and phantastick Spirits of Error and Delusion but the whole Community likewise to Ruin and Destruction A Kingdom divided against it self says our * Mar. 3.24 Lord cannot stand and by these means this Nation stands divided into several Factions and Parties who with all imaginable Rancor and Bitterness endeavour to devour and prey upon one another Our Enemies then may save themselves the danger of venturing their Necks among us Let them have but Patience and we shall do their work for them What their Plots and Cabals their Fire and Faggots their Gun-powder and Treason could never effect our Enmities and Divisions our Fewds and Animosities our Strises and Seditions will certainly bring to pass These disunite and weaken our Forces in the day of Battel These divide our Councils and evacuate the wise Sanctions and Decrees of our Synods These pull down our Fortresses our Walls and Bulwarks and expose us naked and defenceless to the Incursions of the Common Enemy Tho' therefore we never so solemnly protest against the Innovations of Popery and zealously declare our Abhorrence and Detestation of its impious Doctrines unless we endeavour by all lawful and warrantable means to cement these Differences we our selves are the Men who maintain its Interest here and make way for its unhappy Re-admission into the Land May the Good Lord of Heaven and Earth then open all our Eyes and cause us to know the Things which belong unto our Peace before our Sins provoke him to hide them finally from our Eyes And thus you have seen how much this indifferent Temper falls short of the Character some Men unskilfully put upon it That 't is so far from being ally'd to that truly excellent and laudable Vertue Moderation that 't is a very indecent and unreasonable thing odious and abominable in the sight of God and Good Men most impious in its Nature and pernicious in its Consequences That it plainly demonstrates that Men are acted by no fix'd and steddy Principles but are of vagrant and loose Minds unresolv'd in their Judgments unsetled in the Faith and in truth of very little or no Religion at all That it not only exposeth particular Persons to the various and phantastick Spirits of Error and Delusion but the whole Community likewise to Ruin and Destruction Let me then intreat you my Brethren for the Credit and Reputation of our Common Christianity for the Honour of our most Beautiful Prudent and Pious Mother the Church of England for the Preservation Safety and Happiness of these Kingdoms as you love your God your Religion your Country your own Souls to be stedfast and immovable in the Profession of the Faith not walking deceitfully and in Masquerade as you see the manner of some is nor basely prostituting your Consciences by an hypocritical prevaricating Behaviour to your Secular Interest but in spight of all the Terrors and Allurements of the World serving God with a faithful and true heart with Uprightness and Sincerity all the days of your Life And to this End give me leave to advise these few things 1. That you call no Man Master upon Earth i. e. That you never