Selected quad for the lemma: conscience_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
conscience_n	worship_v	zeal_n	zealous_a	12	3	9.0047	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A88141	Elias redivivus: a sermon preached before the honorable House of Commons, in the parish of Saint Margarets West minster, at the publike fast, March 29, 1643. By John Lightfoote, preacher of the Gospel at Bartholomew Exchange, London.	Lightfoot, John, 1602-1675.	1643 (1643)	Wing L2053; Thomason E99_11; ESTC R20324	33,230	56

the best reason she can give for that her zeale is but this because her Fathers worshipped in that Mountaine Joh. 4. 20. Laban in the marriage of his daughter Leah will rather follow custome then either conscience or his owne promise and covenant He had agreed with Jacob for Rachel and for Rachel had Jacob served but when it commeth to the point of performance he suborneth Leah and deceives him with her and what is his reason Why it was not the custome of the Countrey to give the younger before the elder Gen. 29. 26. How the predominancy of this humour in the diseased body of this Church doth cause us to cast up againe the wholesome Physicke of a Reformation it is knowne too well The confession of the Prophet may be taken up concerning us and with addition We have sinned with our forefathers nay we are resolved so to doe still The errours that the ignorance and dulnesse of former times did admit into the worship of God and profession of Religion we are resolved to retaine because they were the Customes of former times 3. And thirdly a maine obstacle in the way of Christs powerfull comming among a people and in the way of your worke that seekes thus to bring him is a corruption of opinion that men have concerning Christ or Religion it selfe Religion to carnall men must be a little gawdy or else it cannot be a pleasing Religion as the Virgin Mary must be a Lady or she is not thought fit to be a Saint The simplicity and plainenesse of the Gospel spoiles its intertainment with sensuall minds And Antichrist by putting his Religion in so gorgeous clothes hath gained so much upon them and stollen mens hearts thorough their eyes God did once indeed comply with the grosse dulnesse of the Jewes that he might winne them and because they could not goe further in Religion then they were led by the eyes he gave them such a one as suited to them and because it was so with them once carnall men would have it so still These are the three sonnes of Anak with whom you have had so long to wrestle and with whom you have to combate still before you can bring our Israel to the desired Canaan I may say againe that it is no wonder that this worke in your hands goes so slowly on when three such Giants doe seeke to hinder it You have to fight not with flesh and bloud but with principalities and powers with the strong holds of Satan in the hearts of men Oh that we could finde out some such powerfull forerunners to goe before you as might cleare the way for your readier passage Where might we get so skilfull a Mustian as could calme these evill spirits that thus disturbe all It is farre from my skill to advise you what to doe in these respects But to you others that sit by and are spectators how these Worthies labour under these opposals this may shew what need you have to drive on the great and weighty workes that they have in hand with the earnestnesse of your prayers Their hands like those of Moses it is no wonder if they be weary with holding up so long in so great imployments these must be the Aaron and Hur that must support them that they fall not quite Me thinke we may even see written in the very things that they are in managing they are so weighty what Paul inserts to so many of his Epistles Brethren pray for us And Brethren pray for them I will conclude all in the words of the Psalmist Let my tongue cleave to the roofe of my mouth nay let me change the number for I know you will joyne with me in the saying Let our tongues cleave to the roofes of our mouthes if we forget the Parliament in our best devotions And so have I done with the first part that I named the Person and his function that must doe the worke now I come to the qualification of that person for that worke and for his function He shall goe before him in the spirit and power of Elias We meete in this part with two severall parties Elias and John men exceedingly renowned in their generations and exceeding great reformers in their times Elias in the middle of the times of the Law and John in the beginning of the times of the Gospel We might deale with them as the Prophet Ezekiel doth with his two sticks with the names written upon them Judah and Joseph First we might take in either hand one and treat of them severally then might we take them both into one hand and in our handling they might become one but we will take up such things concerning them onely as shall be most materiall to be considered and most sutable to the present times And first we may lay this position and the text will warrant it That Elias shall never come to live and continue upon earth againe The Prophet Malachi indeed delivereth it in such termes as if he should come once againe Behold I will send you Eliah the Prophet And the Septuagint have driven the naile to the head to make this sense the surer for they have added Behold I send you Elias the Tishbite yet the Angel Gabriel in the text doth tell us that Elias himselfe is not to come in his owne soule but another in his spirit nor he in his owne person but it was John Baptist was to come in his power And so our Saviour Matth. 11. 14. And if you will receive it this is Elias which was to come and Matth. 17. 12. Elias saith he is already come which his Disciples doe truely understand of John the Baptist The Jewes as they do erroniously hold that the Messiah is not yet come so doe they hold also that Elias shall personally come before his comming And it is no wonder that they erre that errour mistaking the meaning of Malachi when so many Christians doe erre the same error with them though they have an exposition by an Angel and by our Saviour upon that Prophecie Jansenius Maldonate and others of the same nest Jesuites and Papists explaining these words that we have in hand doe resolve that they are more fitly to be applied to Elias his second comming which is yet to be then to his comming in the dayes of Ahab and they glosse them thus He shall goe before Christ at his first comming in the spirit and power that Elias shall goe before him in at his second A glosse much like that senselesse one of the Sect in Epiphanius upon these words in Gen. 1. 27. God created man in his owne image whereon they seemed to hold that the body of man was made after the Image of God and that Christs humane shape was the copy for the shape of Adam whereas Adam was not made a man after the likenesse of Christ but Christ was made man after the likenesse of Adam Even so is it with these expositors They

And how farre were they from intertaining such a Christ as this when they expected one of a quality so infinitely different Who could beleeve that the title over our Saviours head upon his Crosse should be a stumbling blocke unto the Jewes feete And yet was it so at that very time when they fixt it there and so it hath beene ever since and so it is at this very day Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jewes They looked for the Messiah to come from Bethlehem and they knew him but for Jesus of Nazareth And they expected a pompous King of the Jewes and how farre was he from such a King And thus they knew not him when he came from Galilee nor the voices of the Prophets what they meant by his Kingdome and thus were they very farre unlikely to receive him when he came These three things then being thus considered and notice taken how farre this people of the Jewes were gone away both in life and doctrine what corruption they had contracted in their manners what doting upon their ancient Customes and what misprision concerning Christ it is no wonder if he that came to reforme these things that were so farre amisse had need of a spirited and a powerfull forerunner to make some way for him against he came And as it was at our Saviours comming in the flesh so also is it at his comming in the spirit Whensoever Christ is to be brought in among a corrupt and irregular people in the power and purity of his Word Gospel great hinderances doe ever offer themselves to stop the way and they had need of great forerunners to cleare them thence A Jerusalem is never built street and wall but those times are troublous a Reformation in a corrupted State is never wrought but with these opposals The very same things doe make the waies rough and unpassable for Christs comming now in his worke and power that made it then when he came in the flesh These three are as the net upon Mispah and the snare upon Tabor Hos. 5. 1. as the ambushes that the Idolatrous Priests laid upon those Mountaines to catch up all the passengers that should go to Jerusalem to worship the true God these catch up men that they come not at Christ These are the Korah Dathan and Abiram that are ever ready to oppose the Moses and Aaron that seeke to work good in the Congregation and the Jannes Jambres and Egyptians that affront them in the worke of the Lord And hence is it no wonder that that worke of the same nature that you have had so long in hand hath gone so slowly and so heavily on For 1. How truly is the morall of that Story concerning Anomon in 2 Sam. 12. come to passe in these dayes of ours First he was sicke for love of his sister Tamar and having used her at his pleasure he was then as sicke for hate So hath it beene with us of this Land we were sicke but a while agoe for a Parliament and nothing would cure us if we had not that like David we longed and longed againe for this water of Bethlehem that is beside the gate and could not rest till we had got it and yet when we have obtained it and that not without the hazard of your lives we now cast it upon the ground and care not for it We are now as weary of this Manna which God hath sent us as we were desirous of it before it came What should be the reason of mens such crossenesse and contrariety in their affections as to will and to loath to desire and to detest the same thing with the same earnestnesse in so short a time Why that in the Prophet You would have healed Babel and she will not be healed Men are affrighted I know not how at the rumor of a Reformation because they are afraid to be stripped off their carnalities and corruptions Like a simple Patient that in an eating and corroding sore if the Surgeon can abate his paine he likes it well but to cut out any proud dangerous and corrupting flesh that he will not endure Just so hath it been with us Whilest you eased us of the paines of those pressures that did pinch and took off the yoke from off our neck that glad so sore it pleas'd us well and you had our liking but to be restrained any whit from our former beloved sensualities to be straitned any thing of the extravagancies of our former wayes by the reines of a Reformation oh this goes to the quicke and we cannot indure it Durus sermo a hard businesse who can abide it Our Saviour hath told us long agoe that parting with an old acquaintance bosome sinne is as pinching to flesh and blouds as to pluck out an eye and to cut off a hand and we see it true by too wofull experience by mens unseparablenesse from their delights they carrying them and they them and will not be parted to perdition The Vine Olive and Figtree in Jothams Parable will not leave their wine fatnesse and sweetnesse to gaine a Kingdome Herod his Herodias to save his soule nor men of corrupt manners the corruption of their manners for a blessed Reformation This is the first adversary that you have in your way that seeketh to crosse the glorious work that you have in hand And there is a second which is like to this as a twinne of the same wombe and as bad as it and that is corruption in opinion concerning ancient Customes and a fixednesse to what our forefathers have used before 2. Custome as it is commonly said is a second nature and men cannot easily leave that which they have long used themselves and they will not easily leave that which they have seene and knowne to be used by their Predecessors The Ephraimites in the booke of Judges that had beene brought up to say Sibboleth all their life cannot say Shibboleth to save their life but they perish two and forty thousand Famous and fearfull is the story of Rabodus some call him by another name who when he was so farre perswaded from his Heathenisme into Christianity that he had one foote in the water towards being baptized and there asking whither his forefathers were gone that were not Christians nor baptized whether to Heaven or Hell and it being answered to Hell he puls his foote back againe out of the water with words to this purpose That he would goe whither his ancestors were gone and so he resolved to be what his Ancestors had beene This the more is the pity is the ultima Analysis of the Religion of too many thousands in this Land and time men and women are too commonly and generally pinned in opinion and in practice of religious things upon the customes and usage of ancient times and they are loth to be parted from them The woman of Sychar was zealous for the Temple upon Mount Gerizim but