Selected quad for the lemma: conscience_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A30290
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The way to peace A funeral sermon on Job 22.21. Preached upon the decease of the right honourable Elizabeth, Countess of Ranalagh. By Daniel Burgess.
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Burgess, Daniel, 1645-1713.
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1695
(1695)
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Wing B5719; ESTC R224017
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30,595
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82
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word Nothing slayeth Sinners or woundeth Saints more than Sloth In sacred Things he who is not doing is undoing whoever is not busy is not holy And of them who are so every slothful Servant is more a Thief than a Servant The slothful in Business is Brother to the slothful out of it God's Acquaintance is both entred and exercised by Diligence Memorable is the Royal Psalmist's word Thou hast commanded us to keep thy Precepts diligently Exh. 2 Think strain your Minds in the Thoughts Commune with your Hearts frequently and seriously concerning the Excellency and Necessity of God's Acquaintance Being come to Thinking beware of mispending your Thoughts by whose waste not a few Souls are lost The Number being great who mind little of Religion more than the Husks The Formalities which swallow up many Mens Care are in Reality no more And in fiery Contentions about them the most do seem rather to disgorge their Malice than to discharge their Conscience For what Conscience can dream either that any Way of Religion can please God without Acquaintance with Him Or that Difference in those Notions and Practices which consist with his Acquaintance is not very tolerable without Strife and Variance Wherefore shake this Viper off from your Hands away with the Serpent and take Fish away with the Stone and take Bread Look to the End of the Commandment which is Charity out of a pure Heart and a good Conscience and Faith unfeigned Mind you the Soul and Body of Religion be less intent upon the Garb and Dress Be a thousand times more careful to excel in Acquaintance with God which all do agree to be Saving-Religion than to promote this or that Opinion about which Men of unquestionable Integrity cannot agree whether it be from Heaven or of Men Of these Things put your selves in remembrance You were created to be acquainted with your Creator Your Conscience his Envoy in your Hearts tells you this Your Minds were given you to know Him and your Wills and Affections to Chuse and Love Him The Son of God was sent to die for you and his Spirit is sent down from Heaven to live in you that ye might be acquainted with God! And if you refuse to be so you vex God the Holy Ghost and put God the Son to open shame The Helps vouchsafed in the Gospel for God's Acquaintance are incomparably greater than those afforded under the Law So that if you improve not your Advantages you receive greater Damnation than Old-Testament Sinners Your Sin is aggravated and your Sentence will be so God's Acquaintance is great Gain and all the World without it is Vanity and Vexation If you enjoy not God the most despicable Insect enjoys as much as you and if you do enjoy Him the highest Cherub enjoys no more than you In God's Acquaintance there is great Reward even upon Earth where there is least of it If acquainted with Him you can have no Wants but he will supply them no Losses but he will repair them no Combats but he will be Second yea Principal in them and make the Victory as sure as the Fight In short Without God's Acquaintance no Sin will die in you and no Divine Grace will live Without this Acquaintance Enmity to God will be bewrayed or if buried buried alive Heavenly Vertue and Love of God will not be seen in you or if it be it will be seen to be but painted not engraved He must be a Man of such Thought that is ever acquainted with God With such Thought his Heart must stir him up and his Spirit must make him willing Exod. 35.21 Exh. 3 Resolve purpose let a Vote pass in your Souls and deliberately Design to get and encrease Acquaintance with God Resolution is the only generous Issue of Thought Which hath never been rightly fixed upon our Objects or into our Hearts when it is barren and bears it not Determine now therefore and fully engage to pursue Acquaintance with God Always to consult is as bad as never to consult at all For what is Consultation without Action And what can be either acted before it 's attempted or be attempted before it be resolved In vain I speak and in vain you hear any further if this Resolution be not first settled If your Wills remain still in suspence and you halt between two between God's Friendship and the World's it were more expedient that I should sit down and weep over you than preach on and direct you to what you intend not The Ark of God and the Idol of Philisthia could not stand upon the same Altar Neither can a Choice of God's Acquaintance and the World's consist in the same Heart Heaven and Earth be not such Equals as that they should compound and agree to take equal Shares in our Affections So that if any thing be done to purpose to this Effect must be your Language What have I to do any more with Idols I do renounce them with full purpose applying my self to seek God's Acquaintance I am on and off no longer now but fixed I see the Necessity and cease from the Impertinence of pleading Difficulty Let it cost me right Hand and right Eye they shall go if need be I will not give over seeking this Acquaintance though I die No Man comes into God's Acquaintance and Favour till he is made thus willing in the Day of his Power Exh. 4 Hope the best if your spiritual Hands hang down and Knees be feeble yet lift them up Hope even against Hope that as much as you have provoked Him to Vengeance God will now bring you to his Acquaintance That now he has given you to Will he will also strengthen you to Do all that is necessary Humble you much with the afflictive Thoughts of your long Enmity unto Him But join not with the Tempter against your self and your so gracious Father Do not tell your selves that you shall never see any Good come of your good Purposes That they are in vain and 't is not likely that the Majesty so Holy should ever be propitiated to you or you be made sutable or acceptable to Him But that as when He was willing you would not be reconciled so now that you are willing he will not incline to Friendship Give him not so insolently the Lie with your Mouth or Hearts and abhor the thought of his being unreconcilably angred or your being unalterably wicked Tell your selves the truth He is not implacable by the Oblation of his Son nor are you unreformable by the Power of his Spirit A Spirit which he hath promised to give unto them that ask as you are now resolved to do and that without ceasing No Man came ever into God's Acquaintance without this Hope and Confidence that There is Forgiveness with him Exh. 5 Seek as for Silver search as for hid Treasure for the sound Knowledg of your Righteousness your Strength and your Steps Hope is a Spring of Motion and unto nothing more
flagrant in the desire of them so panting after them as the Hart after the Water-brooks The Apostle's Assertion is thus to be taken If any Man thus love the World the Love of the Father is not in him 1 Joh. 2.15 The Throne and the Bed admit but one To subject us to the World is to depose God To take the World into our Hearts is to put him far from them How much less saith another Apostle The Friendship of the World is Enmity with God whosoever will be a Friend of the World is an Enemy of God! Jam. 4.4 When the Earth is interposed between the Sun and us it must needs be Night and when earthly things get between God and our Hearts there as necessarily follows an Estrangement and Darkness The Psalmist's Word speaks it in short The Covetous the Lord abhorreth Psal 10.3 Be it added lastly They err not knowing the Scriptures and the Grace of God who imagine Sins of unavoidable Infirmity inconsistent with his Acquaintance and Amity The Penitent who resists them is not alienated by them And as the innumerable Moats in the Air hinder not the descent of the Sun 's bright and benign Beams upon us neither do the numberless Failings of good Men deprive them of the rich Consolations of God Sins of meer VVeakness do rather excite Pity than kindle VVrath so far they be from interrupting Acquaintance Which is not broken neither by the moderate Employments or Comforts of this Life The Shop and the Plow are not only lawful but necessary Let there be just Care that the lean Kine eat not up the Fat that the Kingdom of Heaven be sought and first sought then do civil Callings subserve and not prejudice our higher Sacred One. So for the Comforts foresaid they are more than Innocent when Temperate If we take them by the Rules of God's Word we shall find them both harmless and useful to his Frindship We do so take them when we chuse none but what are of good Report for he that breaks the Hedg thereof a Serpent shall bite him and when we use not any to the wounding of Piety Charity and Chastity for by marrying of a Wife as well as by dallying with a Harlot a Man breaks the Peace of God if his Use of Liberty degenerates into Licentiousness and if he suffers it to make him break the Precepts of God Pleasure regularly chosen and used is Health to the Navel and Marrow to the Bones a Servant to Life and Godliness The Heart of the Wise is therefore in the House of such Mirth And may I not say it Look as God first created Man in a Garden of Delight He mostly new creates him also where the Voice of Joy and Gladness Sensual as well as Spiritual is heard The innocent Mirth of a Christian casteth a Lustre on his Religion and maketh it attractive Removeth from it the Reproach of Sowrness and Asperity Forth-shews its Sweetness and Alacrity whereof Men that try it not think it to be destitute Yea and as Cyprian and Justin of old because they think it to be destitute they are unpersuadable to try it Insomuch that Stoical and Monkish Austerity gives Occasion of Reproach and makes the Way of God to be blasphemed So far it is from adorning the Gospel from making it appear Amiable and from winning Men to the Love of it It was then when they that believed did eat their Meat with Gladness that the Lord added daily to the Church such as should be saved Morosity was never other than a back Friend to Christianity The Scruples of some others do require that this be added sc that Acquaintance with God is not inconsistent with Darkness and Doubts of his Love The Life of it consists not in Raptures and Extacies of Joy which God gives as in absolute Soveraignty and infinite Wisdom he sees fit and pleases How often do Children of Light sit in Darkness and see no Light Clouds of Witnesses are every where to be found yea the whole Sky of the Church is full of them Wherefore in a word the natural Sun maketh Gold and Silver where it doth not shine with any Lustre And the Sun of Righteousness riseth on many with Healing in his Wings to whom he doth not of a long time give rapturous Sensations of the same Neither know they well what Spirit they are of who think the holy One to be no Sanctifier where He is not at the same time a Comforter §. 2. Of the Peace and Good following Acquaintance with God The Hebrew Dialect takes Peace for the whole Element of Goodness For no less than all that is desirable Nor can the Gain of God's Acquaintance be supposed to be less Omnia habet qi habet habentem omnia To enjoy Him who is all Good is to enjoy no less than all of it Uncreated Goodness giving us its Acquaintance how shall it not with the same freely give us all things All that is necessary of created Goodness God is Faithful and his Acquaintance is thus Gainful His Friends are Kings as well as Priests and richer than the Persian Kings who went a begging to Projectors to invent them more Pleasures These are blest with more than they can ask or think But because Particulars are most affective that we may be provoked in the Faith and Love hereof to pursue it with becoming Zeal and Vigour attend we but these two Positions Yet sufficient one would think to reform the most Obstinate in evil VVays and to encourage the least Resolute in good Ones The Lord clothe them with a Power which none may be able to resist Posit 1 The Properties which commend this Peace are many e. gr 1. It is Vniversal One which contains all sc Peace with God with Conscience with Creatures and with Death Peace with God with God whose Wrath is Hell and whose Peace is Heaven A Peace which the Apostle saith passes all Vnderstanding Phil. 4.7 This follows Acquaintance with God When Adam sinned Enmity was made Enmity that is a Reciprocation of Hatred Christ Jesus maketh Friendship which is a Reciprocation of Love And how Partly by his Blood satisfying God's Justice and meriting his Mercy for us Partly by his Spirit mortifying our Malice and reviving all Grace in us Propitiating God to us and qualifying us for God's Love and Acquaintance Without the first God would be a consuming Fire to us and without the other we should never conquer our Fear or quench our Malice against him But by means of both there 's mutual Peace The Peace whence do spring the sweet Ones following Peace with Conscience one less known by the most accurate Description than by the least Fruition It can be but darkly shadowed forth by the liveliest Colours of Language but faintly represented by Metaphors What Calmness is to the Sea what Serenity is to a Day what Health is to a Body that Peace of Conscience is unto a Man That and much more But to such as have