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
A58795	The Christian life. Part II wherein the fundamental principles of Christian duty are assigned, explained, and proved : volume I / by John Scott ...; Christian life. Part 2	Scott, John, 1639-1695.	1685 (1685)	Wing S2050; ESTC R20527	226,080	542

that hath any Reverence for the Humane Nature within him would ever suffer himself to be bribed for an Opinion that doth not only undervalue but deride and Ridicule it Should you hear your self branded with a contemptible Character or ranked among Apes or any such ridiculous Animals you would doubtless be so far from courting the Author of it that you would resent it as a great Affront and think your selves obliged in honour to return the Provocation and yet for the sake of a few base Lusts which are the Shame and Scandal of your Natures you espouse the Cause of Atheism tho it derides and affronts you to your Face and stains the Glory of your Natures with the most contemptible and ridiculous Character in the World II. THE Atheist concludes against the very Being and Well-being of Humane Society For the Soul that penetrates through all Humane Society and compacts and unites it in a regular Body is Religion or the Sense and Acknowledgment of a Divine Power without which all the Parts of the Corporation of Mankind like the Members of a dead Body must necessarily disband and flye abroad into Atoms For a form'd Society which is an united Multitude consists in the Harmony and Consent of its Members mutually united by Laws and Agreements and disposed into a Regular Subordination to one another neither of which can any Humane Society long continue without the Belief and Acknowledgment of a God FOR without this in the first place 't is impossible that the Parts of any Society should continue united by Laws and Agreements For 't is from the Belief of a God that all the Obligations of Conscience are derived so that take that away and these must dissolve and when the Obligations of Conscience are dissolved there is nothing but Mens temporal Interests can oblige them to conform to those Laws and mutual Agreements by which they are united to one another And if it be their Interest only that obliges them to be just and faithful to their mutual Agreements they will be equally obliged to be unjust and unfaithful when ever it is their Interest to be so So that this Principle which only obliges them to be honest while it is for their Advantage will as effectually oblige them to be Knaves when ever the Case is altered and things being reduced to this Issue there remains no Foundation of Trust and mutual Confidence among Men. For what can any Mans Promise signifie if he be under no Obligation but Interest To be sure if it be for his Interest he will do what he says without any Promise but if it be not what Promise can oblige him You will say it is his Interest to keep his Word because otherwise he will forfeit his Reputation for the future But pray what Reputation can a Man have to forfeit that owns no other Law or Obligation but his Interest or who will ever presume upon that Mans Word and Engagement whose avowed Principle it is to be honest no longer than he can gain by it Thus Atheism you see resolves all our Obligations into our worldly Interest which is so fickle and mutable a Principle so dependent upon Chance and the Inconstancies of Fortune that there is no hold to be taken of those that are governed by it For that which is their Interest to Day may be their Disadvantage to Morrow and if it should so happen they must steer a contrary Course or else act contrary to their leading Principle So that for Men to trust each other upon this fickle Principle is all one as to relie upon the Constancy of a Weather-cock which every contrary Wind turns to a contrary Position And things being once reduced to this Issue that Men can place no Trust or Confidence in one another their Society will soon become their greatest Plague and Vexation For every Man will be forced to stand upon his Guard against every Man and keep himself reserved and retired within himself till at last out of mutual Distrust and Jealousie of one another they are forced to withdraw their Society and to live apart in separate Dens for fear of being intrapt and devoured by each other AND as Atheism cuts in sunder those Ligaments of mutual Trust and Agreement by which the Parts of Humane Society are united so it also dissolves that Regular Subordination that is between them Plutarch observes in his Treatise against Colot 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. It seems to me more possible for a City to stand without Ground than for a Commonwealth to subsist and continue without the Belief of a God which is 〈◊〉 only firm Foundation whereup●● 〈…〉 and Society depends For if there be no God what should oblige any to own any Superiour or pay any Submission And if his Interest be his only Obligation to his Superiours when ever he can mend his Fortune by Rebelling against them that very same Interest which at present restrains him from it will with equal force invite him to it nor will it signifie any thing that we are obliged to the contrary by Oaths of Fidelity and Allegiance for if it be our Interest to be faithful to the Government our own Prudence and Discretion will oblige us to it without such Oaths as well as with them but if it be not our Interest and this be the only Principle that obliges us no Oath or Engagement can hold us So that in this State of things all the Security that Governors can have of their Subjects is that they will not Rebel when they are not able but as soon as they think it safe to be sure they will think it lawful which being once admitted will undermine the very Foundations of Government and utterly dissolve that regular Subordination by which Humane Society is supported Whereas admitting that the Laws of our Prince are bound upon us by the Authority of a Sovereign Lord who can render us eternally happy or miserable we are obliged to obey him by all that we can hope or fear and have all the Engagements to Loyalty that the Reflections on a happy or miserable Eternity can lay upon us What a prodigious piece of Folly is it therefore for Men to embrace Atheism as their Interest which doth thus directly tend to deprive us of all the Comforts of Society by involving us in eternal Confusions and Disorders For if once we take away mutual Trust and Government from the World both which have a necessary Dependence on the Belief of a God we break all the Harmony of Humane Society and convert it into a Commonwealth of Canibals And what Man in his Wits would ever be found of an Opinion that proclaims open War with Mankind and is pregnant with Consequents so fatal and destructive to the World Can we think it more advantageous to us that Atheism should be true than that Humane Society should be upheld and perpetuated or are the Pleasures we reap from the Lusts which incline us to Atheism comparably

Direction to Vertue antecedent to all our Reasoning and Discourse Which Theages the Pythagorean stiles a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a certain natural Impetus or Enthusiasme by which without any previous Discourse or Deliberation we are forcibly carried on towards vertuous Actions For some Affections there are in our Nature which do in the general plainly signifie to us that there is such a thing as Moral Good and Evil in Humane Actions and others that do as plainly point out what those Actions are wherein this moral good and evil is subjected Of the first sort are the Affections of Love and Hatred Complacency and Horror Glory and Shame Repentance and Self-satisfaction which plainly declare that there are answerable Objects in the Nature of Things and Actions that there is a Good to be beloved and an Evil to be hated a Deformity to be abhorred and a Beauty to be delighted in an Excellency to be gloried in and a Filthiness to be ashamed of a Well-doing to be satisfied 〈…〉 an Ill doing to be repented of For 〈◊〉 the●e were no such real Distinctions in the Nature of Things and Actions all these Affections in us would be utterly vain and impertinent And as these Affections of our Nature do signifie in the general that there is a moral Good and Evil in our Actions so there are others which do particularly point out what Actions are morally Good and what Evil. Thus for Instance the Passions of Veneration and Disdain do plainly direct us to Honour God and our Superiors and to be constant in good Courses out of a generous Scorn of all Temptations to the contrary Thus Commiseration and Envy direct us to Charity and Justice to lament and assist those who are undeservedly unfortunate and to be displeased with the Advancement of base and undeserving People and consequently to be just and equal in our Distributions and to proportion them to mens Merit and Desert For by this Passion of Envy Nature teaches us that there is such a thing as just and unjust equal and unequal and that the former is to be embraced and the latter to be shunned And to name no more thus Sorrow and Joy doth by a silent Language disswade us from injuring and perswade us to benefit one another For so by the mournful Voice the dejected Eyes and Countenance the Sighs and Groans and Tears of the sorrowful and opprest all which are the powerful Rhetorick of Nature we are importuned not only to forbear heaping any further Injuries upon them but also to commiserate their Griefs and by our timely Aids to succour and relieve them As on the contrary the florid and chearful Looks the pleasant and grateful Air which we behold in those that rejoyce are so many Charms and Attractives by which Nature allures us to mutual Vrbanity and Sweetness of Behaviour and a continual Study to please and gratifie one another By these and many other Instances I might give it is evident that tho by our own ill Government we too often deprave our Affections and corrupt them into Vices yet their natural Drift and tendency lies towards Vertue Thus by their own natural Light which they carry before us they direct our steps to the Way we are to walk in and point out all those Tracts of eternal Goodness that lead to our Happiness For since these Affections are in us antecedently to all our Deliberations and Choices it is evident they were placed there by the Author of our Natures and therefore since 't is He who hath inclined them to all that they naturally incline to He doth in Effect direct and guide us by their Inclinations So that their natural Tendencies and Directions are the Voice of God in our Natures which murmurs and whispers to us that natural Law which our Reason indeed doth more plainly and articulately promulge And from this natural Tendency of our Affections to Good proceeds that pleasant and painful Sense of good and bad Actions which we experience in our selves before ever we can discourse For thus before we are capable of reasoning our selves into any Pleasure or Displeasure our Nature is rejoyced in a kind or just Action either in our selves or others and we are sensibly pleased when we have pleasured those that oblige us and as sensibly grieved when we are conscious of having grieved and offended them We love to see those fare well who we imagine have deserved well and when any unjust Violence is offered them our Nature shrinks at and abhors it We pity and compassionate the miserable when we know not why and are ready to offer at their Relief when we can give no Reason for it which shews that these things proceed not either from our Education or deliberate Choice but from the Nature of our Affections which have a Sympathy with Vertue and an Antipathy to Vice implanted in their very Constitution And hence it is that in the Beginnings of Sin our Nature is commonly so shy of an evil Action that it approaches it with such a modest Coyness and goes blushing to it like a bashful Virgin to an Adulterers Bed that it passes into it with such Regret and Reluctancy and looks back upon it with such Shame and Confusion which in our tender years when as yet we are not arrived to the Exercise of our Understandings cannot be supposed to proceed from Reason and Conscience and therefore must be from the natural Sense of our Affections which by these and such like Indications do signifie that they are violated and offended Now this natural Sense of Good and Evil which springs from the Frame and Nature of our Affections was doubtless intended by God to be the 〈◊〉 guide of Humane Nature that so when as yet 't is not capable of following Reason and Conscience it might be directed to what is Good and be preserved from wicked Habits and Prejudices by its own Sense and Feeling till such time as it 's capable of the Conduct of Reason that so when this leading Faculty undertakes the Charge of it it may find it 〈…〉 to its 〈◊〉 and be able to manage it with more Ease and Facility And thus by the natural Drift and Tendency of our Affections God hath plainly revealed to us what is good and what not IV. GOD hath also entailed upon our Actions natural Rewards and Punishments and thereby plainly declared which are good and which evil For it is easily demonstrable by an Induction of Particulars that every Vertue hath some natural Efficacy in it to advance both our publick Good and our private Interest That Temperance and Charity Righteousness and Fidelity Gratitude and Humility are not only convenient but absolutely necessary to our Joy and Comfort our Peace and Quietness our Safety and Contentment to the Health of our Body and the Satisfaction of our Mind and the Security and Happiness of our Society with one another Whereas on the contrary Vice naturally teems with mischievous Effects and is ever productive