Selected quad for the lemma: conscience_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
conscience_n	heaven_n	hell_n	worm_n	1,015	5	11.0094	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A81589	The Doctrine of the Presbyterians reduced into practise. Whereby it is demonstratively proved, that it can neither convert an infidel, amend a profane person, nor comfort an a[ffli]cted. That it overturneth the profitable preaching of the Word, the use of the sacraments, and exercise of prayers.		1647 (1647)	Wing D1774A; ESTC R174682	11,392	29

to shun their damnation The Catechumenist will further adde that if the Gospel according to this Doctrine be preached unto the most not to any other end but onely for their greater damnation that he will no longer hearken to it seeing it is most likely that he is of the greatest number and not of the small that he remembers he hath read in some Authors that God directs his Word to them that thereby he might make them more deaf and sheweth them the light of the Gospel to blinde their eyes and that therefore they who never heard the Word are lesse miserable or shall fare better then they who could not therefore beleeve because God would not give them grace sufficient to beleeve Finally our Catechumenist will tell him that if the decree of God be so as the Catechist proposeth it must needs follow that they both labour in vain seeing that every man before he is come into the world is already inrolled in one of the two Registers either life or death and that it is no more possible to be blotted out of the one or the other than it is for God to deny himself The Catechist then fearing that this Proselyte will fall from him doth tell him further that it is not for us to search into these secrets that there is no visible mark whereby to discern the elect from the reprobate and that the elect themselves know not the election before their calling which is deferred sometimes unto the last houre of their lives that every man ought to be ready to answer and obey God when he calleth That there are none but profane and reprobates who say that men labour in vain seeing that they whom God hath elected to salvation are likewise elected to ●aith and good works But these things will the more provoke our Catechumenist for he will say or at least think that it is no matter to be able to distinguish in particular the elect from the reprobates and that it sufficeth to know in generall that every one is necessarily either of the one or other And seeing that no man is able to so any thing before his vocation and conversion which may avail him that therefore we should defer all things till then and seeing that our saving vocation worketh with such a force that it is impossible to disobey it would be extreame folly to hasten the execution of Gods will by humane industry and study yea and that our prayers too were likewise hereto vain in as much as we cannot make any thing pleasing to God without faith which is never to be had before our calling That the question is not of the quality of him who so speaketh whether he be profane or no but of the quality of the doctrine which necessarily makes him to be so Let us now see whether this doctrine have more power over a debauched Christian to bring him to repentance and amendment of life To him the●fore he will shew the filthines of his sin the scandal to his neighbour the ingratitude to his Creator and Redeemer the menaces of the Law and the vengeance of God prepared for all Impenitents c. Whereupon this man having more knowledge of the doctrine of the Presbyterians than a good conscience will send his censurer to the maximes and principles of them and will much muse how the other should be ignorant that every thing which is done by men on earth be it good or bad cometh not to passe but by the efficacious decree or ordinance of God who doth all in all That the first cause doth in such manner move and direct all the second causes among which is the will of man that they cannot otherwise stir than as they are stirred That he is very sorrie that he is given to such and such a vice but his comfort is that he knows that God would have it so by his secret will that God hath predestinated him hereunto having as much willed and procured the treason of Judas as the salvation of St. Paul That he hath no power to retain grace when he that gave it will take it away that the Spirit bloweth where it listeth inspireth whom it will with-draweth when it pleaseth and when it pleaseth returneth again And if it return with intention of his amendment it shall be as impossible for him to withstand or else delay as it is now to work or hasten it That it is not for him to prescribe the time and houre of his conversion wherein a wicked man doth no more than doth a dead man in his resurrection That God is able to quicken him and endue him with his Spirit though he were already dead foure dayes and stinking in the grave as Lazarus yea if that perhaps shall not be untill the last houre of the day yet God giveth not the grace to cry Abba Father That he so abhorreth the Doctrine of those who are styled Independents that he dareth not use the least endeavour to do well for fear of obscuring that grace which worketh irresistably and attributing any thing to the will of man Yet he remembers that he had sometimes good motions proceeding doubtlesse from the Spirit of God which hath given him the truth faith that can never fail and that for the present he is like unto the trees in Winter which seem dead though they are alive being of the number of the elect And his sin it self how enormous so ever worketh together to his salvation yea and that he hath already obtained pardon for it That his Censurer cannot deny it seeing that he exhorteth him to repentance which is nothing worth without faith no more than faith if it beleeve not the remission of all sins both done and to be done although he were of the number of the reprobates a thing which he will not affirm for fear of being so held indeed Yet notwithstanding his Censurer could again nothing by it who by his exhortation and threatnings could not any way alter the decree of heaven but onely molest him with the torments of hell and to stir up a worme in his conscience to gnaw him to no purpose If hereupon the Censurer proceed and tell him that although the Spirit alone doth immediately produce repentance in the heart of a sinner yet notwithstanding that exhortations and threatnings are the means and instruments which it useth in the work The other will demand further of him the explication of his saying therein observing a manifest contradiction in that on the one side repentance is immediately attributed to the holy Ghost and on the other side these Scriptures and threatnings are held as means and instruments of this work The operation being not there immediate where the means are used That if these means of exhortation be necessarie or at least if it be ordinarily required in this operations how can it be that they who reject it and resist the Instrument do not likewise nay cannot resist the principall cause which is the holy