Selected quad for the lemma: conscience_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
conscience_n	humane_a	law_n	obligation_n	1,134	5	9.8189	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A45318	The shaking of the olive-tree the remaining works of that incomparable prelate Joseph Hall D. D. late lord bishop of Norwich : with some specialties of divine providence in his life, noted by his own hand : together with his Hard measure, vvritten also by himself.	Hall, Joseph, 1574-1656.; Hall, Joseph, 1574-1656. Via media.	1660 (1660)	Wing H416; ESTC R10352	355,107	501

too ever killing with an ever-living death for a perpetual fruition of our torment Here is the bondage where is the liberty Christ hath spoiled principalities and powers and made a show of them openly triumphing over them in the same cross Colos 2.15 By his death he destroyed him that hath the power of death tke Devil Heb. 2.14 So then Christ hath freed us fourthly from the bondage of Satans tyranny At the best the law is but a hard Master impossible to please 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith St. Paul but at the worst a cruell one The very courtesie of the law was jugum an unsupportable yoke but the spight of the law is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a curse Cursed is every one that continues not in all that is written in the book of the law to do it Gal. 3.10 Do you not remember an unmercifull steward in the Gospell that catcheth his bankrupt fellow by the throat and saies Pay me that thou owest me so doth the law to us we should pay and cannot and because we cannot pay we forfeit our selves so as every mothers son is the child of death Here is our bondage where is our liberty Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law being made a curse for us Oh blessed redemption that frees us from the curse Oh blessed redeemer that would become a curse for us that the curse of the law might not light upon us so Christ hath freed us fifthly from the bondage of the law Moses was a meek man but a severe Master His face did not more shine in Gods aspect upon him then it lowred in his aspect to men His ceremonies were hard impositions Many for number costly for charge painfull for execution He that led Israel out of one bondage carryed them into another From the bondage of Egypt to the bondage of Sinai this held till the vail of the Temple rent yea till the vail of that better Temple his sacred body his very heart-strings did crack a sunder with a consummatum est And now 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Christ is the end of the law Rom. 10.4 Now the law of the spirit of life hath freed us Rom. 8.2 You hear now no more newes of the ceremonies of prefiguration they are dead with Christ ceremonies of decency may and must live let no man now have his ear bored thorough to Moses his post Christ hath freed us sixtly from the law of ceremonies Our last Master is humane Ordinances the case of our exemption where from is not so clear concerning which I finde a double extream of opinion The one that ascribes too much to them as equalling them with the law of God the other that ascribes too little to them as if they were no tie to our obedience The one holding them to bind the conscience no less then the positive laws of God the other either sleighting their obligation or extending it only to the outward man not the inward we must learn to walk a mid-way betwixt both and know that the good lawes of our superiours whether civill or ecclesiastical do in a sort reach to the very conscience though not primarily and immediately as theirs yet mediately and secondarily as they stand in reference to the law of God with our obedience to his instituted authority and therefore they tie us in some sort besides the case whether of scandall or contempt Where no man can witness there is no scandall where is no intention of an affront to the commanding power there is no contempt and yet willingly to break good Iaws without all witness without all purpose of affront is therfore sin because disobedience For example I dine fully alone out of wantonnesse upon a day sequestred by authority to a publick fast I dine alone therefore without scandall out of wantonnesse therefore not out of contempt yet I offend against him that seeth in secret notwithstanding my solitarinesse and my wantonnesse is by him construed as a contempt to the ordainer of authority But when both scandall and contempt are met to aggravate the violation now the breach of humane lawes binds the conscience to a fearfull guilt Not to flatter the times as I hope I shall never be blurred with this crimination I must needs say this is too shamefully unregarded Never age was more lawlesse Our fore-fathers were taught to be superstitiously scrupulous in observing the lawes of the Church above Gods like those Christians of whom Socrates the historian speaks of which held fornication as a thing indifferent de diebus festis tanquam de vita decertant but strive for an holy day as for their life we are leapt into a licentious neglect of civill or sacred lawes as if it were piety to be disobedient Doth the law command a Friday fast no day is so selected for feasting let a schismaticall or popish book be prohibited this very prohibition endears it let wholsome lawes be enacted against drunkennesse idlenesse exactions unlawfull transportations excesse of diet of apparell or what ever noted abuse commands do not so much whet our desires as forbiddances what is this but to baffle and affront that sacred power which is entrusted to government and to professe our selves not Libertines but licentiate of disorder Farr farr is it from the intentions of the God of order under the stile of liberty to give scope to these unruly humors of men the issue whereof can be no other then utter confusion But if any power besides divine in Heaven or Earth shall challenge to it self this priviledg to put a primary or immediate tie upon the conscience so as it should be a sin to disobey that ordinance because 't is without relation to the command of the highest let it be anathema our hearts have reason to be free in spight of any such Antichristian usurpation whiles the owner of them hath charged us not to be thus the servants of men 1 Cor. 7.23 so Christ hath lastly freed us from the bondage of humane ordinances Lo now ye have seen our liberation from a whole heptarchy of spirituall tyranny Stand still now awhile Honourable and beloved and look back with wondring and thankfull eyes upon the infinite mercy of our deliverer sin beguiles us conscience accuseth us Gods wrath is bent against us Satan tyrannizes over us the law condemnes us insolent superstition inthralls us and now from all these Christ hath made us free How should we now erect altars to our dear Redeemer and inscribe them Christo liberatori how should we from the altars of our devoted hearts send up the holy sacrifices of our best obediences the sweet incense of our perpetuall prayers Oh blessed Saviour how should we how can we enough magnifie thee no not though those celestiall Choristers of thine should return to bear a part with us in renewing their gloria in excelsis glory to God on high Our bodies our souls are too little for thee Oh take thine own from us and give it

the parts and a liberty of the man There is a drunken liberty of the Tongue which being once glibbed with intoxicating liquor runs wilde through Heaven and earth and spares neither him that is God above nor those which are called Gods on Earth the Slanderer answer'd Pirrhus well I confess I said thus O King and had said more if more Wine had been given me treason is but a Tavern-dialect Any thing passes well under the Rose it is not the man but the liquor not the liquor but the excesse that is guilty of this liberty There is an audacious and factious liberty of this loose filme which not only ill-tutor'd Schollers take to themselves under the name of libertas prophetandi pestering both Presses and Pulpits with their bold and brainsick fancies but unletter'd Trades-men and tatling Gossips too whith whom deep questions of Divinity and censures of their Teachers are grown into common table-talk and peremptory decisions of Theological problemes is as ordinary almost as backbiting their neighbours There is a profane liberty of Atheous swaggerers which say disrumpamus Vincula let us break their bonds Not religion only but even reason and humanity seem fetters to these spirits who like the Demoniack in the Gospel having broken all their chains finde no freedom but among the noysom graves of hatefull corruptions There is a disloyal liberty of those rebellious spirits which despise government and hold it a servitude to live within the range of wholesome lawes there is no freedom with these unquiet dispositions but in the bold censures of authority in the seditious calumniations of superiours and in their own utopical prescriptions Every thing is good to these men save the present and nothing save their own though all these are not so much liberties as licentiousness Besides these there are civill liberties of Persons Towns Incorporations Countries Kings Kingdomes good reason these should be mutually stood upon Religion was never an enemy to the due orders and rights of policy Gods book is the true Magna charta that enacts both King and People their own He that hath set bounds to the wide Ocean hath stinted the freest liberty but these liberties are not for the pulpit It is the Christian liberty wherewith we have to do that alone hath scope enough both for our present speech and perpetual maintenance This Christian liberty stands either in immunity from evill or enlargement to good The immunitie is from that which is evill in it self or that which is evill to us In it self Sin Satan Sin whether in the fault or in the punishment the punishment whether inward or outward Inward the slavery of an accusing conscience Outward the wrath of God Death Damnation Evill to us whether burdensome traditions or the law the Law whether Moral or Ceremoniall Moral whether the obligations or the curse Enlargement to good whether in respect of the creature which is our free use of it or whether in respect to God in our voluntary service of him in our free accesse to him Accesse whether to his throne of grace or our throne of glory I have laid before you a compendious tablet of our Christian liberty lesse then which is bondage more then which is loosenesse Such abundant scope there is in this allowed freedom that what heart soever would yet rove further makes it self unworthy of pitty in loosing it self Do we think the Angels are pent up in their Heavens or can wish to walk beyond those glorious bounds Can they hold it a restraint that they can but will good like to our liquorous first parents that longed to know evil Oh the sweet and happy liberty of the sons of God All the world besides them are very slaves and lye obnoxious to the bolts fetters scourges of a spiritual cruelty It is hard to beat this into a carnall heart no small part of our servitude lyes in the captivation of our understanding such as that we cannot see our selves captive This is a strange difference of misprison the Christian is free and cannot think himself so the the worldling thinks himself free and is not so What talk we to these Jovialists It is liberty with them for a man to speak what he thinks to take what he likes to do what he lists without restriction without controlment Call ye this freedom that a man must speak and live by rule to have a guard upon his lips and his eyes no passage for a vain word or look much less for a leud to have his best pleasures stinted his worse abandoned to be tasked with an unpleasing good and chid when he fails Tush tell not me To let the heart loose to an unlimited jollity to revell heartily to feast without fear to drink without measure to swear without check to admit of no bound of luxury but our own strength to shut out all thoughts of scrupulous austerity to entertain no guest of inward motion but what may sooth up our lawlesness This is liberty who goes lesse is a sla●e to his own severe thoughts Get thee behind me Satan for thou savourest not the things of God If this be freedom to have our full scope of wickedness Oh happy Divels Oh miserable Saints of God Those though fettered up in chains of everlasting darkness can do no other but sin these in all the elbow-room of the Empyreal heaven cannot do one evill act yea the God of Saints and Angels the Author of all liberty should be least free who out of the blessed necessity of his most pure nature is not capable of the least possibility of evill Learn O vain men that there is nothing but impotence nothing but gieves and manicles in the freest sins some captive may have a longer chain then his fellowes yea some offender may have the liberty of the Tower yet he is a prisoner still Some Goal may be wider then some Palace what of that If Hell were more spacious then the seat of the blessed this doth not make it no place of torment Go whether thou wilt thou resolved sinner thou carriest thy chain with thee it shall stick as close to thee as thy soul neither can it ever be shaken off till thou have put off thy self by a spiritual regeneration then only thou art free It is a divine word that in our Liturgie Whose service is perfect freedom St. Paul saith as much Rom. 6.18.20 Being freed from sin ye are made servi justitiae the servants of righteousnesse What is liberty but freedom from bondage and behold our freedom from the bondage of sin tyes us to a sure liberty that is our free obedience to God Both the Orator and the Philosopher define liberty by Potestas vivendi ut velis but withall you know he addes quis vivit ut vult nisi qui recta sequitur See how free the good man is he doth what he will for he wills what God wills and what God would have him will in what ever he doth therefore he is a