Selected quad for the lemma: conscience_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
conscience_n	godly_a	rejoice_v	simplicity_n	1,031	5	9.5439	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A29932	Dwelling with God, the interest and duty of believers in opposition to the complemental, heartless, and reserved religion of the hypocrite / opened in eight sermons by John Bryan ...	Bryan, John, d. 1676.; Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1670 (1670)	Wing B5243; ESTC R31994	149,472	465

longest to be freed from it It 's Grace certainly that makes thee able to discern so hidden and close a Corruption and to hate it And as sense and feeling is a certain sign of a living Man as was now said So thy sense of hypocrisie with a hatred of it is a sure note and token of thy sincerity So that thou art not in the Flesh but in the Spirit Nor matters it so much what evil motions thou findest in thy self as how thou standest affected to them There are and will be filthy scums rising up in thy heart continually while thou livest here But while thou castest it off as it riseth by confession and self-condemnation it shall never hurt thee God will not condemn but absolve and acquit thee of it Thou mayest and oughtest to take comfort in the allowance of the Law of God in thy judgment and in thy will consenting to do it having an unfeigned desire purpose and endeavour to please God and to do his will this being the work of God's sanctifying Spirit and a special fruit of Christ's purchase as real comfort therefore herein as if thou wast perfect in obedience For if there be first a willing mind it is accepted according to that a Man hath nor shall he be rejected for that he hath not In this God's choicest Servants have comforted themselves against all their imperfections and falls and failings Obj. But I question the truth of my desires Answ That thou need'st not do as long as thou esteemest God's grace and favour above all things Seeking by prayer and other means every Day to grow less sinful and more holy and mournest for thy Daily miscarriages lamenting after the Lord. Obj. But my Conscience condemns me for an Hypocrite Ans O spiteful bitter thought bitterly spiteful thought Thou hast reason to discredit thy Conscience if it be opposite to the Word of God and not to regard it against the Word of God If our heart condemn us God is greater than our heart and knoweth all things He knowes the way thou takest that it is right And his word which is the Judge of Conscience hath given Sentence on the right side And therefore thou art bound in this case to check and condemn thy Conscience for troubling thee causlesly So did David and Job Let me give thee one caution take heed of making inherent Grace the only and chief ground of thy comfort Though it is indeed the only evidence of thy title to comfort For in so doing thou shalt commit two great evils one against thy self in leaning upon a bruised Reed for thine own Spirit may fail thee and be overwhelmed and thy heart may reproach thee another against the Lord making an Idol of that gift of his which cannot be so trusted in without sin Rely more upon God's Grace without thee than that which is within thee Yet cherish also inherent Holiness as thy only evidence of Life Eternal and the beginning of it Finally give not credit to thy misgiving heart that would perswade thee thou hast no assurance that God is thy Habitation For thou hast that degree of assurance which is necessary to the beeing of Grace the lowest degree of certainty which is in every true believer consisting in an application of adherence Whereby the Soul of a penitent sinner casts it self upon Jesus Christ with a resolved humble recumbency cleaving to him as the Ivy doth to the Oak Eagle to the Carkass goes out of it self renouncing its own Merits and relying upon the Person and Merits of Christ his active and passive obedience for forgiveness of sins and for Life and Salvation This is the act of Faith and every one that thus receiveth him with an Obediential affiance knows that and that through him dwelling in his heart he hath his dwelling in God You therefore as yet that have not any comfortable assurance cease hence-forth to doubt and fear and assay to joyn your selves with them that have with whom we are next to deal as Saul assayed to joyn himself to the Disciples at Jerusalem Who will not at all as they were awhile of him be afraid of you but receive you joyfully into their blessed Society And when thou hast told despair Divine Herbert's strange story Say to it as he doth Hark Despair away THE FOURTH SERMON HAving dealt with those of this Divine Houshold that have as yet no comfortable assurance that the Lord is their Habitation we proceed to deal with them that have higher degrees of assurance which carry sensible comfort with them one is the Application of Experience when a Christian discerns in himself Divine impressions effects of regenerating Grace two or three whereof we will mention The prime and most general is a real change of the whole Man from evil to good This is a sure evidence of our being in Christ If any Man be in Christ he is a new Creature old things are past away all things are become new Whoever is changed in all his senses motions and affections speeches and actions is certainly ingrafted into the Body of Christ by his spirit The substance of the Soul and Body is the same the qualities and operations altered Another is walking in the light as God is the light Living and conversing following that light of God which is conferred upon us by Grace evidenceth us to be partakers of the Divine Nature Purifying our selves as he is pure Hereby we know we have fellowship one with another God with us and we with him that he dwells in us and we in him Love to the Brethren Christ's whole spiritual kindred who are knit to him to the bond of Faith and among themselves by that of love another infallible note We know that we have passed from Death to Life because we love the Brethren When a Christian's faith in lively exercise reflects upon its own acts receptive of Christ and operative by him having withall a sanctified Conscience witnessing sincerity in the actings he gathers by discourse and reasoning his own spiritual estate as Paul did Our rejoycing is this the testimony of our Conscience that in simplicity and godly sincerity not with fleshly wisdome but by the grace of God we have had our conversation in the World and now abundantly to you-ward Such an application of experience had Thomas upon his Faith not quite exquisit before but very weak was raised and renewed by beholding touching and feeling The other application is that of evidence when the testimony of God's spirit comes and concurs with ours when we finde the Holy Ghost in us not only as a seal imprinting the graces of Christ upon our Souls nor only as an earnest giving us the first Fruits and as it were handle of Heaven Those holy and Heavenly Gift conferred in this life being a pledg of the perfection which shall be in the next but

in the Light but sit in Darkness and in the shaddow of Death Namely 1. Grosly ignorant ones that are utterly unacquainted with the first Principles of the Oracles of God These are in Satan's Power under his Government who is the Ruler of the Darkness of this World against these is the wrath of God revealed from Heaven in temporal and spiritual and Eternal Judgments Knowledgè being the Foundation and Seed of all saving Grace they must needs be graceless that want it 2. Wickedly erroneous ones those who hold in their judgments Doctrines overthrowing the Christian Faith these are not many Doors from Death For every fundamental Errour hath a damnable defilement being a Leprosie in the Head the worst of that kinde of Plague 3. Openly prophane ones that live in the omission of known duties and in the practice of known gross sins Who for the pleasures of the Flesh renounce the Heavenly blessings as Esau did who for a Morsel of Meat sold his birth-right Fornicators Thieves Drunkards Revilers Swearers Sabbath-breakers c. This ye know that no such have any abiding in God but dwell in the Devil whose they are and whom they serve and with whom they shall abide eternally without Repentance 4 Meer civil ones who live not in any open offence against the Second Table but are utterly regardless of the First which are of absolute necessity to prove Man's being in God The Gospel teaching us to live godly as well as righteously and soberly Nor without holiness shall any Man ever see God 5. Hypocrites who though they seem to have a prime respect to the First Table which Christ calls the First and great Commandement yet they make little or no Conscience of the Second Table duties love not their Wives are cruel to their Children and Servants will lie and cheat and cozen tipple c. The damnable estate of these hath been sufficiently discovered and that the lowest place of Torments in the burning Lake is assigned for them 6tly Haters and Blasphemers and Persecutors of the ways of Godliness and of them that walk in those wayes by word or deed This is an evident token of Perdition and the wrath of God shall come upon such to the utter-most if they perish in their malice The duty we owe to all these is to mourn for their undone condition and to desire and strive earnestly to convert them That they may be in capacity to live and lodge with you under the same Roof and partake of the same glorious Priviledges and Graces and Comforts So you ought to do by these when you have occasion to converse with any of them as Lydia by Paul and Silas constrained them to come into her House and abide there at least by earnest invitation and perswasion as Jael did Sisera with another manner of mind Turn in my Lord turn into me fear not You are bound to have the same tender and cordial affection towards all these that are out of God's grace that Saint Paul had towards the Galatians that were fallen from grace My little Children of whom I travel in birth again till Christ be formed in you 1. Be in pain for them as a Woman in travel is Grieve and groan and sigh and weep bitterly for them as Lot did for the Sodomites With whose filthy conversation he was vexed for that righteous man dwelling among them in seeing hearing vexed his righteous soul from Day to Day with their unlawful deeds I beheld the Transgressors and was grieved Rivers of Waters run down mine Eyes because they keep not thy Law O that my Head were Waters and mine Eyes a Fountain of Teares that I might weep Day and Night as well for the sins as the slain of the Daughters of my People For they be all Adulterers an Assembly of treacherous Men and bend their Tongue like their Bow for Lies They proceed from evil to worse Samuel mourned for Soul Even mourned because of the transgression of them that had been carryed away Jesus grieved for the hardness of the Heart of the Jews Beheld their City and wept over it Out of much affliction and languish of heart I wrote unto you with many teares Many walk of whom I have told you often and now tell you weeping that they are Enemies of the Cross of Christ whose end is destruction whose God is their Belly whose Glory is their shame who mind Earthly things For loves sake love to God who is dishonour'd and your Countrey which is endangered and to these poor Creatures that are destroying their poor Souls and your own Souls which you will preserve from infection by this means lay sadly to heart and grieve affectionately for the sad dark doleful damnable condition so many thousands in this Land are in Should you come into Houses full of dead Men that had slain themselves would not your Eyes affect your Hearts could you forbear tears You can scarce come into any House where some are not spiritually dead and destroying their own Souls which is a thousand times worse 2. Pray for them Brethren my Hearts desire and prayer for Israel is that they may be saved O that I shmael might live before thee If any Man see his Brother sin a sin which is not unto Death he shall ask and he shall give him life God shall pardon him and by that means free him from everlasting Death Father forgive them for they know not what they do Lord lay not this sin to their charge There are none you know or meet with worse than these for whom Stephen thus prayed they were stiff necked so hard that they were not to be made plyable uncircumcised in Heart and Eares as prophane inwardly and wicked as the Heathen themselves though they outwardly in their Bodies carryed the Seal of God's Covenant They always resisted the Holy Ghost by whom God's truth was not only propounded but the truth of it likewise so powerfully demonstrated that they could not contradict it but only by obstinate malice They gnashed upon that Holy-man with their Teeth from madness and malice which they bear to the Evangelical Doctrine which he preached and they stoned him with Stones to Death Pray also that God would work a change in their mindes and manners draw them by a merciful Violence out of Satan into Christ 3. To your mourning and prayers add utmost endeavours using every one according as his Nature and Condition shall require Of some have compassion making a difference and others save with fear pulling them out of the Fire The simple weak and seduced deal gently with Those that are hardned and perverse and corrupters of others be as much as in you lyeth Instruments of their Salvation by more severity Save them with fear namely by a lively denuntiation of God's Judgments darted into your Consciences pulling them out of the Fire that is doing what you can