Selected quad for the lemma: conscience_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
conscience_n	heart_n	love_n	unfeigned_a	1,193	5	10.9808	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A47216	A sermon preached at St Maries in Cambridge, to the Universitie September the 6, 1668 the Sunday before the Sturbridge fair / by Edvvard Kemp ...	Kemp, Edward, d. 1671.	1668 (1668)	Wing K259; ESTC R19271	11,870	26

taken with numbers either seducers and deceivers or the train that they draw after them The Vulgar are much pleased with this gaudiness muster and shew and it is hard to take their minds off from this pageantry if there be many of these deceivers they take as it were fatisfaction to be deluded The Apostle doth indeed take notice of the strength of their Faction and so may we too without any blame in us but perhaps if it makes any great impression in us we may too much gratifie them in their vain glory for they love to be admired yes and feared too upon all occasions for their Troops none make more oftentation of the people they boast every where of their Many which they produce when either Reason or Arguments fail them just as the Devil in the Gospel did to Christ My name is Legion for we are many Yet Christ for all that and perhaps the rather cast them out I doubt not though it be a kinde of menace to the government thus to out-brave it with force yet God will still bear up both the Church and Crown and strengthen their hands to over-aw them that work now as Deceivers but if their adherencies were so great as their friends would make us beleeve they would quickly pull off their mask and disguise and scarce so tamely ask and sue for that which with more daring they could command But in the mean while it is the great joy of a Christian to meditate and call to minde those remarkable abatements and casting down the courages and spirits of such Deceivers though never so numerous by very late examples when all outward Force was theirs to make use of And it cannot but be a great refreshing to all humble hearts and such as are sensible of our sad fractions that they can scarce finde any Faction that took content and high complacency in multitudes but God took some way or other in his good time to lessen and abate their pride either by the weak arm of a Supreme Magistrate deserted or by their own divisions these numbers no good Christian that hath a heart prepared to embrace what God shall allot them though it carries with it the face of never so direfull and angry a persecution can tremble at or fear Not that I contemn or despise numbers for I hope I shall always have in great veneration the Glorious Company of the Apostles the goodly fellowship of the Prophets the holy Army of Martyrs and the Catholick Church throughout all the world But I was always of that opinion when by Gods permission any strong combination of men are knit together in detriment to the truth of the Eternal God and casting blots upon his Sacred Oracles in unworthily betraying the true and pious sense of holy Scripture to serve wicked purposes and practices that neither their numbers nor their cunning contrivances can keep them long from the shame that must pursue such Sacrilegious Cheats but as their numbers must needs melt at the breath of Gods displeasure for so high an impietie so their impure and stained cozenages and impostures are so easily detected though wilfulness may shut the eyes of the Vulgar that their despicable troops together with their scattered and routed falsities will but the more at length dress out the triumph of pure and undefiled verity To conclude all Our Apostle is in our eye and he well maintains his innocency and denies any insincerity in his Doctrine any deceit cozenage or imposturage in his preaching which if true he could not lose his reputation in any thing sooner and I could wish some that are ready thus to hazard theirs upon the account of errours would consider it So unworthy a thing it seems to our Apostle to be esteemed a Broacher of Corrupt Doctrine a vender of paint and fucusses or indeed any thing that are mixtures and sophisticate or that hath onely the shadowings of truth the fallacies of Arguments and the pretty Romance victories of Errours to elude with far from that humour which is now so common to decline the Churches Doctrine as too mean a vassalage to submit to which truths perhaps may serve to so low ends as to serve God with fear reverence purity and holiness to the subduing of lusts hating of sin to lead men into the paths of righteousness and so to heaven but not to the triumphs and glorious credit that vended errours may procure them in this world which is the brave designe they drive on and truly they might do much to that end but that ordinarily such falshoods light into mean Artists hands to dress and into very dull souls to manage I must needs say the time is come that many consent not to wholsome words nor can endure sound doctrine but after their own lusts heap to themselves teachers having itching ears and turn away from the truth yet if we will indeed do right to our sacred Order win credit and honour to our holy Office and to our Ministration in the Word if we would have Christians our hope our joy our crown of rejoycing in the presence of our Lord at his coming we must not be vain talkers and deceivers speaking lies in hypocrisie and teaching things that we ought not for filthy lucres sake we must shew incorruptness gravity sincerity sound speech that cannot be condemned we must not desire to please men but God who tryeth our hearts And we cannot have a more illustrious example then our Apostle St Paul who walked not in crastiness but by manifestation of the truth commended himself to every mans conscience in the sight of God in all things approved himself as the Minister of God by unfeigned love by the word of truth that he had corrupted no man that Christians were in his heart to live and die with them and his words toward them were not yea and nay or as my Text expresseth him and Timothy We are not as many that corrupt the word of God but of sincority as of God in the sight of God speak we in Christ FINIS