Selected quad for the lemma: conscience_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
conscience_n	law_n	sin_n	transgress_v	1,751	5	11.5774	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26360	The Christian's manual in three parts ... / by L. Addison ...	Addison, Lancelot, 1632-1703.	1691 (1691)	Wing A513; ESTC R36716	123,157	421

truth defend them how loud●y soever your Tongue may accuse them He only who confesseth and forsaketh shall find mercy If you thus forsake your sins God is faithful and ●ust to forgive you your sins and cleanse you from all unrighteousness 1 John 1.9 He ●s bound in Fidelity and Justice ●o fulfil that promise of Pardon to you which he has made to all Penitents upon their humble Confession of sins and sincere Reformation This being the only course whereby you may free your self from all punishment of sins and become capable of Mercy XXXII But besides this Confessio● thus to be made to God the● is also a Confession to be mad● unto the Guide of Souls in case of a troubled and doubting Co●science and to the Church 〈◊〉 point of publick Offence and Sca●dal Which sorts of Confessio● as to their conduct profitablene● and necessity I shall not now ha●dle having designed them a d●stinct Treatise XXXIII The second branch or ingredient of Repentance is Sorrow which naturally results from Confession For when by this you as you must needs have inform'd your self how you are guilty of many and heinous sins and the miseries to which they have exposed you it were strange if the sight thereof should not make you sorrowful XXXIV But seeing sorrow for sin has vulgarly engrost the whole Notion of Repentance and that men are prone to think they have quite extinguisht the wrath kindled by sin when they have dropt a few tears upon it I shall here mind you of the nature of that sorrow which accompanies true Repentance And first you will find it to have a double spring the one a fear of danger the other a dislike of sin And first XXXV That sorrow which ariseth only from a sense of the danger to which your sins have betray'd you it doth not say the Schools break the heart but only fret it So that this sense or fear of present danger being blown over the sorrow caused by it doth also vanish not leaving any mark of amendment behind it And yet to this sorrow that we shall be punished called Attrition though never so empty of reformation by the absolution of the Priest is turn'd into Contrition say the Roman Casuists Which is a● most unkind deceit of Souls the Scripture having made no● promise that flying from the wrath to come shall be sufficient to obtain pardon without bringing forth meet fruits of Repentance XXXVI Secondly There is a sorrow arising from a dislike to sin and conscientious thoughts that thereby you have undutifully grieved and provoked so good a God so compassionate a Father so gracious a Redeemer and so blessed a Sanctifier And this never misses of producing the effect of true sorrow which is to sin no more For for a man to be sorrowful out of an apprehension of the punishments God has annext to sin rather than that hereby his Law has been transgressed and the Conscience polluted this is to grieve rather that God is just than you are guilty XXXVII Sorrow for sin is very prope● to turn your stomach against it and you must have less sense than the Brute you ride on i● you shun not that has caused you to smart and put you to pain But yet there are othe● fruits of Repentance that mus● deliver you from the wrath to come for meer fear of dange● can be no further reasonable o● useful than as it disposeth you to forsake the sins that cause● it But if you should be so fa● bewitched through the deceitfulness of sin that you will no● leave it though you die in it arms or if you grieve tha● you have sinn'd and yet still go on to sin if knowing the malignity and having poised and found the weight of sin to be as a talent of Lead upon your Soul and notwithstanding all this you still venture on to commit it this will leave you unpardon'd because unreform'd and make all your tears as water spilt upon the ground XXXVIII Sorrow for having offended God the greater it is the more acceptable it is to him and profitable for your self For it being a sort of punishment the more afflictive it is the more surely it will accomplish the intent of all punishments even the amendment of the Offender And if you once have felt the pain and trouble of a wounded Conscience you will have no great mind to venture afresh upon the sins that caused it In short sorrow arising out of fear of danger proceeds from love to your self and therefo●● can never avail you for pardo● But godly sorrow working ●pentance to salvation arise● from a love to God whom 〈◊〉 more you love the more yo● will grieve to have offende● him Sorrow arising from se● of Gods vengeance usually te●minates and ends in a sullen d●spondency and desperate d●jection of Spirit but sorrow 〈◊〉 having provoked God change● the mind turns you from 〈◊〉 to holiness and the consta●● practice of all those Christi●● Duties which the Gospel r●quires at your hands But you find your self herein to ●●lumpish and heavy and th● you cannot grieve to that d●gree you ought then the wa● to quicken up your penitenti● sorrow is to quicken up yo● love to God to which his continual favours do most powerfully oblige you Wicked men love those that love them and if you were sensible which is impossible of no other of Gods kindnesses but his sparing you when you deserved punishment and his giving you space to repent when he might have cut you off in your sins this were enough to engage you to love him with all the kinds and degrees of the purest affection Imagine how many have been snatcht hence in a moment whose offences have perchance not been so provoking as your own Consider what could move God to spare you in a continued course of many years disobedience against him but his own unspeakable goodness and because he was loth to have you perish Let pure thoughts of Gods love dwell in your heart and they will melt it down into an humble and contrite sadness that you have dealt so unkindly as to forsake the Lord. XXXIX And if the sole consideration of Gods long-suffering be so ingenuous an Engagement to make you grieve for having sinn'd against him you will find the multitude of his other mercies to cause Rivers of waters to run down your eyes for having broken his Laws And if your heart be so hard that it will not relent upon these considerations then have you great reason to importune God with humble prayer that he would smite that Rock your heart that it may flow with the tears o● true repentance the waters o● a second Baptism that he would give you such a clear sight of your sins as may at once cause you to sorrow for and abandon them XL. Reparation is a third branch of true Repentance and is due to God to Man First to God who in all injuries is the first party injured For though you may

this purpose as is so generally supposed And give me leave to speak of these two freely and first of Disputation which is a meer empyrick prescription in order to heal our present distempers For though Disputation as it is managed by the Pen may have got a great Vogue in the World yet we can never hope that our Dissenting Judgments should hereby be reconciled if with due seriousness we consider First the manner of their conduct Secondly the matter to be disputed Thirdly the persons thereby to be wrought upon And First If the conduct of disputes fall under a calm unprejudiced and reflexive review as they appear in Print the Pen-men thereof seem to have intended rather the defamation than conviction of each other and to have been of an opinion that men were to be refuted as Mercury of old was worshipt by throwing dirt and stones in their Face But we have been taught by miserable experience that the lashing of a Few hath been subservient to no better end than to exasperate the whole Party And that our keenest Arguments if we may judge by the Event have only served to alarm the Adversary into a better provision for future resistance and to strengthen their opinion in that part wherein the Attack had discovered it to be the weakest But grant as indeed we must that the Dissenters to whom this Paragraph chiefly relates are not able to stand in Argument before their Opponents yet we must also grant that there is a want of Decorum in the Victors carriage while his Argument loseth its efficacie through the looseness luxury or rigour of its expression For it is too apparent to conceal that there are so many unmanly reflections in most of our late Controversies that discreet and sober persons loath the reading of those Pages where they occur Which gives occasion for doubting that such arguings so managed proceed not from that Spirit of meekness wherewith the overtaken Brother should be restored nor were designed to procure Unity and Concord among us seeing that so little of that Charity can therein be discerned which is the bond of Peace and sure ground-work of all true Reconcilement And if the conduct of our Debates were throughly considered we might find this Church complaining like the Eagle in the Greek Epilogue which seeing her Breast wounded with a feather'd Dart cryed out with Tears Alas my own kind hath destroyed me But to proceed It cannot be doubted but that some opinions sooner die by being contemn'd than taken notice of And I am perswaded that this National Church is now troubled with many Opinions which long ere this would have found their own Graves if they had not been kept alive with opposition In so much that it may be said of this particular Church what was of the Catholick That if she had stopt and damn'd up the Originals and Springs of Controversies rather than determining for one part to give them as it were a Pipe and Conduit to convey them to Posterity she had not suffer'd that Inundation of Opinions with which at this day she is over-run A policy still in practice in the Popish Countries where those Books of Controversies are scarce to be met with wherein their Religion is maintained against Reformed Churches By which means they live free from those Dissentions wherewith their Neighbours are afflicted to their scandal and ruin And I hope we may safely imitate their Wisdom whose Errors we abhor But if Controversies were as necessary as by some they are pretended to be yet their conduct ought so far to be reformed as that at least there be a cessation from hostile Expressions which have hitherto been of no better use than to exasperate Men into a petulant and peevish vindication of that Name under which they conceived themselves to be reviled Next that the Disputers would not vent and foam out their personal Piques and Animosities under the pretence and cloke of asserting Religion and the Church Lastly that they would aim at Peace and not Revenge For how seemly soever the present carriage of Disputes may be accounted in persons of another Character yet it is very ill-becoming those who are stiled Embassadors of Reconcilation and who ought to express the Emphasis of that Title in reconciling Mens Wills with their Duties and their Understandings with the Truth in bringing the wicked to repentance and the malicious to Charity and to win all to a holy compliance with the design and Rule of the Blessed Author of Christianity which was to heighten our Conversation to the most elevated pitch of true Vertue Peace and Holiness and that our Righteousness should exceed all theirs that ever went before us CHAP. IX The Just Matter and Subject of Controversie in Religion examined How by Catechising and not Dispute we are therein to be reconciled AND not only the present conduct of Disputes render them unsutable Medicines for our Disease but also the things concerning Religion which can with any Reason be pretended to be the matter thereof Now whatever in Religion can be pretended to be disputable must either respect its Dress and Ornaments or its Body and essential Parts the Exteriour Appendages or the Principles of Religion If the Scruple or the Dispute be about the Dress outward Rites Circumstances and Fashion of Religion than no contrivance seems more rational or method more probable to assoil and remove it than a due Catechising and instructing the scrupulous in the indispensible Duties of the Fifth Commandment and to tender him a plain Scheme of the Obligation that lies upon his Conscience To honour and obey the King and all that are put in Authority under him to submit himself to all his Teachers Spiritual Pastors and Masters How the Supreme Powers have Authority in the Externals of Religion How in Religion things indifferent in themselves may pass into a Law which ought to be obeyed as much as any Laws in indifferent things which relate to the good of the Civil State How things of never so low a stature or indifferent concernment having once received the Image and Superscription of a Law ought to be obey'd both for the sake of God and Conscience How it can no way comply with the design of Government to make good their Institutions by dint of Argument For if Authority were obliged to satisfie every medling and capricious Brain they would have little or no time left to be obeyed c. And when indiscretion of zeal or pride of Wit engage to vindicate every thing that is lawfully commanded it is to have a better opinion of our own than the Magistrates Prudence to think our Arguments will be more prevailing than their Commands or that the former were requisite to support the latter c. That these and the like things are proper for Catechism and thereby the most gently and indiscernably to be infused none I presume will gainsay For they naturally fall in with those Truths which belong to our duty toward man