Selected quad for the lemma: conscience_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
conscience_n	good_a	love_n	unfeigned_a	1,422	5	11.0683	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A33078	The Church of Rome unmask'd, or her false principles briefly detected with some reasons of so many retaining or returning to communion with her, and the great danger of everlasting destruction, that such persons, especially after separations from her, return to her communion, do run themselves on / written by a learned divine, by way of letter to a friend in the country.	Learned divine.	1679 (1679)	Wing C4196; ESTC R18501	78,331	77

Monasteries and Nunneries places of separation from the World in a sort to be devout in if they be so disposed and for those that have desires for Heaven she can shew them as she pretends a certain way whereby they may not only obtain but merit it too and to that purpose excites them to much devotion to God and to the Saints and provokes them to bounty and works of charity though she poysons them with her Doctrine of Merit tending to puff them up and corrupts all their good things with the sowre and evil leaven of Idolatry and other false Opinions before reproved For as the Apostle saith of the false Apostles that they could transform themselves into the Ministers of righteousness while corrupting men in and from the faith they were for all their goodly appearance in reality the Messengers of Sathan and that they made a fair shew in the flesh and gloried in appearance not in heart 2 Corinth 11.13 15. and 5.12 Gall. 6.12 So is it with these men They are as Dr. Stillingfleet hath very well and worthily observed and in his Sermon upon that Text manifested them to be Wolves in sheeps clothing and the Religionists that walk after their directions are corrupted and spoiled by them For if the speaking with the tongue of men and Angels gift of Prophecy and understanding all Mysteries and all Knowledge yea and Faith so as to remove Mountains and the giving all a mans goods to feed the poor and his body to be burnt will not profit him if he have not love or charity 1 Cor 13.1 2 3. what profit think we can accrue to this Church or to any of its Devotionists from all their Devotions Gifts Liberality Penances or whatever else is done by them while they are guilty of gross Idolatry and corruptions of the Faith as is before evidenced Surely no Idolater hath true love to God nor any that is partaker with the Blood-thirsty the guilt whereof lies upon this Church and all in its Communion When the Apostle commends Charity it is a Charity out of a pure heart and a good conscience and Faith unfeigned 1 Tim. 1.5 which cannot be where Idolatry and Superstition and corruption of the Faith take place however liberal they may be in Almsdeeds to the poor which the Apostle also supposeth may be where that love and charity which is so necessary and excellent is yet wanting Suppose the Gallathians seduced by the false Apostles to believe the necessity of Circumcision and the observation of the Laws of Moses should have been also perswaded by them to have retired themselves into Monasteries and spent their time in Devotions and been free to give all they had to feed the poor would any or all those things have profited them under that perswasion I suppose not seeing the Apostle saith If they were circumcised Christ would profit them nothing Gall. 6.2 If Christ would profit them nothing surely much less would those things or whatever else could have been done by them And doubtless if the corrupting their Faith by Circumcision would have so marred all their Religion much more will Idolatry Superstition and the other Iniquities before detected in the Roman Communion marr all their finest and otherwise most laudable actions But then on the other side this wiley Church like a wiley Strumpet hath other entertainments for persons of other tempers or dispositions and if they have a mind to live loosly and in the practice of any Wickedness they have plaisters to skin over such Ulcers they can fit them with loose Doctrines and Principles they can hold them in the Roman Communion by telling them that if they confess to the Priest once a year or oftner and receive Absolution from their sins upon some petty Penances and seeming Austerities to the flesh which yet they may upon pretty light Devotions or for mony have Indulgencies in they may receive pardon for all their forepast faults yea perhaps for a great many years too or for a great time to come and if they continue in sin till death returning to what they have confessed yet if but an hour or two before their death they can but send for a Priest and make confession of their sins with some attrition or grief that their condition is no better though they be not contrite or broken in heart for their sins nor have any love of God yet having the Priests absolution and being anointed with their Extream Unction they are secured from Hell and damnation Indeed they may be unfit for Heaven as the foolish Virgins were that slumbred and slept till it was proclaimed that the Bridegroom came and then not having Oyl in their Vessels their Lamps were gone out ay but they shall go but to Purgatory at the worst and be purged by those pains for sometime and from thence also they may be soon released by vertue of the over-much Oyl in the wise Virgins Vessels that is by vertue of the meritorious works of Supererrogation done by their more religious Votaries and Canonized Saints and by the Masses and Sacrifices offered for the quick and the dead and other Devotions performed by their living Priests especially if they give a considerable sum of mony to them to purchase their Devotions for them when they dy and then they may in a short time too be at rest therefrom And these are fine pleasing baits to hook and hold in the Souls of vitious persons Now who that 's religiously inclined but by a conceit of meriting will be observant of the rules of such a Religion And who that loves his sins but will like such a Doctrine and Religion as gives them so good encouragement to hold them fast and propounds such easy remedies to secure them from the dreadful punishments of them And that 's a main reason of so many great and small being held fast in the arms of this loving Church that she being in her self gay and gawdy and deckt and painted with fine colours hath the wit or craft and subtlety to bait her Hooks according to the humors of the several persons for whom she fishes and accommodates her self to the several dispositions of her Paramours to be either more solitary and sullen or more pleasant and gamesome as may suit best with their constitution What we have said upon this first Head to the reasons of so many being held still in her Communion may suffice to that 2. And truly in answer to the inquiry in its second branch some things of what is said to the former might be repeated again or rather referred unto by us as causes thereof namely of the falling off of so many to her that have been delivered from her and brought up under that light by which they might so discover her false colours as to keep from her As the subtlety of her Emissaries and Factors having now more liberty amongst us to negotiate for her than formerly and the occasions of offence ministred by our own divisions