Selected quad for the lemma: end_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
end_n	oath_n	strife_n	swear_v	3,032	5	9.0688	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A39678	The reasonableness of personal reformation, and the necessity of conversion; the true methods of making all men happy in this world, and in the world to come Seasonably discoursed, and earnestly pressed upon this licentious age. By J.F. a sincere lover of his native countrey, and the souls of men.	Flavel, John, 1630?-1691.	1691 (1691)	Wing F1180B; Wing F1466_CANCELLED; ESTC R214634	80,393	172

crying ou● Stop Stop when we see thee departing from the Paths 〈◊〉 Honesty Honour and Safety and taking the direct Roa● to that Gulph of Misery in which few if any foot-step are found of such as return again that are far engage● therein Suffer us but fairly and friendly to expostulate th● matter with thee What design can we have against th● true Interest whilst thine and ours cannot possibly 〈◊〉 opposite or disjunct but one and the same Interest Well then that which thy Reason and Conscience offers being so weighty fair and just and what thine own Interest plainly lies in I will not be so uncharitable as to suppose thou wilt either refuse to hear or reject what they have to say in the following Cases and Debates CHAP. III. Wherein the true Censure and Judgment of right Reason and Conscience are given upon profane Swearing and Blaspheming the Name of God As also their Replies to several Pleas offered in Defence or Excuse thereof SECT I. GOD bestowed on Man the Noble Faculty of Speech a peculiar Favour and Priviledg for two Ends and Uses 1. That by the use of his Tongue he may glorify his Maker and sound forth the Praises of his Redeemer 2. That we might thereby be able to communicate our minds one to another in all our necessary and convenient Interests and Concernments whether Civil or Religious This Member the Tongue tho small in quantity is found to be mighty in efficacy and whilst it is kept under the Rule and Government of Grace the words that drop from it are as Apples of Gold in Pictures of Silver Gracious words are Bread to feed and Water to refresh the Souls of others A sanctified Tongue is as a Tree of Life Conversion Edification and Consolation are the delicious Fruits of the Lips But the Tongues of some Men break loose from under all the Laws and Rules both of Reason and Religion and serve only to vent the froth and filth which abounds in the heart as in a Fountain of Pollution For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh The Tongue moves lightly but falls heavily it strikes soft but wounds deep It would not spare Men of the highest Rank and Eminence did not the fear of capital Punishments teach them so much Wit to keep their Tongues in Prison that they may keep their Bodies out of Prison And tho for this reason they are afraid of making too bold with the Names of Men yet having no fear of God at all they fall upon his great and dreadful Name tossing it to and f●o without any Respect or Reverence Augustus prohibited the common use of his Name left it should grow too cheap and vile by the common and needless using of it The Name of Mercurius Trismegistus was very sparingly used because of the great Reverence the People had for him The very Heathens were afraid to pronounce the Name of their great god Demogorgon as fearing the Earth would tremble when his Name was mentioned How doth the Reverence of Heathens to their false gods expose and aggravate the impudence of professed Christians in their vile Indignities and Abuses of the Great and Terrible Name of the True God! Yea they not only take up his Name vainly and rashly into their Lips but audaciously insert it by a profane Oath into their common Talk as that which gives the Grace Lepor and Ornament to their Discourses Some have not been ashamed to say What pity is it that Swearing should be a Sin which gives so great a Grace and Ornament to Language SECT II. Swearing by the Name of God in a righteous Cause when called thereto by due Authority is not only a lawful but a religious Act founded upon and directed to the Honour of God's Omniscience whereunto there is a solemn Appeal made in every assertory and promissory Oath and a religious Acknowledgment made him of his infallible Knowledg of the Truth or Falshood of our Hearts and all the Secrets of them be they never so involved and inward things The lawful use and end of Swearing is to put an end to all Strife and to maintain both Equity and Charity among Men the two Bonds and Ligaments of Humane Society Now it being the Soveraign Right and Property of God alone infallibly to search and try the hearts and reins of Men he thereby becomes the in●allible Witness to the Truth or Falshood of what they speak so that in every such lawful Oath there is not only a solemn Appeal and in that Appeal an Ascription of Glory to his Sovereign Omniscience but therein implicitely at least they put themselves under his Wrath and Curse in case they Swear falsly which makes this Action most sacred and solemn The deep Corruption of Humane Nature by the fall makes these Appeals to God under a Curse necessary For it is supposed tho Men be false and deceitful yet there is some Reverence of a Deity and fear of his Wrath and Curse left unextinguished in their fallen Nature So that Men will rather speak the truth tho to their own shame and loss than by invocating so glorious a Name in vain put both Soul and Body under his Wrath and Curse By which it appears what an awful and solemn thing an Oath is and that every good Man not only takes a lawful Oath with holy fear and trembling because of the Solemnity of the Action but rather ought to chuse Death than to Swear prophanely because of the horrid Malignity of the Action SECT III. The contumely and malignity found in profane Oaths appears in that terrible threatning The Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his Name in vain a threatning altogether as Just and Righteous as it is Severe and Terrible This Sin admits of degrees of Guilt 'T is highly sinful to Swear by the Name of God lightly and vainly in our common Discourses tho the Oath be clip'd and half suppress'd or disguised in the Pronunciation of it which argues some remains of fear and shame in the Sinner 'T is yet worse and indeed not a jot below Blasphemy to swear by any other Name than the Name of God For in so doing they attribute to a Creature the Sovereign and Incommunicable property of God set that Creature in the very Throne of God and Invest it with the Regalities of his Omniscience to know our Hearts and Almighty Power to avenge the wrong upon us done to himself as well as to Men by false swearing But to break in rudely and blasphemously upon the Sacred and Tremendous Name of God with bold and full-mouth'd Oaths striking through his Sacred Name with direct contumelious Blasphemies this argues an heart from which all fear of God is utterly expelled and banished Yet some there are grown up to that prodigious heighth of Impiety that they dare assault the very Heavens and discharge whole Vollies of Blasphemies against that Glorious Majesty which dwells there They are not afraid to bid defiance to

Converses Do you love him the better for his plain dealing with your Consciences in detecting the grand Cheat of Formality in Religion for his close cutting Convictions of the insufficiency of meer Civility to your Salvation and the indispensable necessity of Regeneration Do you heartily Love and Honour him for thundering you out of Ale-houses and Taverns unto your Family and Closet-duties For telling you plainly your Love must not be confined to your own Party but extended to all that fear God however they be externally distinguished among Men Nay for convincing you plainly that Religion lies not in external Modes and Rites in Standing Kneeling or Responses That the Name and Cry of the Church the Church will as little avail to your Salvation as the cry of the Superstitious and Profane Jews the Temple of the Lord the Temple of the Lord are these That true Religion is an inward serious spiritual thing consisting in and evidencing it self by the Mortification of your Sins and real devotedness of your Hearts to the Lord If such a Man as this will please and delight your very hearts then my Reason is bound to conclude there may be reality in what you pretend But if you shall hate and loath such a Man as this equally with a professed Dissenter you must excuse me and all the Rational World with me if we shall conclude that it is not true Zeal for the Laws for the Church or for the sincerity and peaceable Lives of its Professors but an inward rooted Enmity at Religion it self that sets you on work under the feigned pretences of other things Expectation V. Fifthly Your Reason will expect and exact it from you that whensoever you shall be convinced that all these Stirs and Bussles that have been in the World all this Fining Imprisoning and Impoverishing your Protestant Brethren and Neighbours for their Conscience-sake hath done the Church no good but given a great and real Advantage to our common Enemy to ruin us together that we may distinguish our selves how we please in our Folly but they will never distinguish us in their Fury for we are all known to them by one common Name of H●reticks In this Case your Reason exacts it from you and so doth the common Reason of Mankind that a Sense of common Interest and common Danger now quiet those Fe●ds and extinguish those Fires which our own Lusts first kindled and the Devil and our common Enemies have incensed to the great Damage and Hazard of the whole Protestant Cause Such a seasonable and becoming Sense as this were in it self sufficient to cool a wise Mans heats if Penal Laws were left standing in their full force and vigour but when the Wisdom and Reason of the State shall plainly discern both the Usefulness and Necessity of Liberty and thereupon take away as they have now most prudently and seasonably done the further occasions of mischief to the whole by relaxing the Yoke that bound some and those a very great Body of truly Loyal and Useful Subjects leaving the rest in the quiet Possession of their own Liberties and Properties what shall we call that Fire which still continues burning and encreasing not only after but by all this but an unquenchable Hell-fire If Chimaera's and self-created Jealousies That some carnal Interests of ours are not so well secured to us under Liberty as they were under Persecution and Tyranny this were the right way to perpetuate Dissentions and Persecutions to the end of the World And now Gentlemen I hope I may say without being vain or opinionative that your own Reason hath fairly disarmed you of these Pleas and Excuses by which you have hitherto defended your selves in your most sinful Practices of profane Cursing and Swearing Drunkenness Uncleanness and bitter Enmity against your Protestant Brethren for things that touch not the Essence of Christianity And believe it Sirs it is truly Genteel and Glorious to suffer your selves to be subdued and conquered by the plain Convictions of your own Reason and Conscience 'T is ten thousand times more Honourable and Glorious to lay down your Arms at the feet of these than to lay down both Reason and Conscience at the feet of Satan and your Lusts and continue sighting obstinately against God your own Souls Bodies Estates Reputations yea your very Reasons and Consciences your Innocent Brethren and the Peace of Church and State under Satan's Banner In all this Discourse I have not designed to exasperate but asswage and restrain your Lusts and Passions by laying the loving and gentle hands of your own Reasons and Consciences upon them I have not given the least Injurious touch to your Honour but all along pleaded for the Recovery or Security of it I have exposed no Man by any particular Mark or Indigitation But now I have don● with you if your own Consciences shall begin to make a rounder and more particular Application of these general Reasonings and Arguments and say to you as Nathan to David Thou art the Man I am not accountable for that But be confident of it you are accountable to God for all those plain Convictions and faithful Endeavours used with you and tryed upon you to save you from all those Miserie 's your head-strong Lusts with furious Precipitation are manifestly running you into If you can substantially and solidly refel those Arguments against and vindicate those Pleas for Sin which Reason and Conscience have urged and censured above and can produce stronger and clearer Arguments to defend and justify the Courses here censured and condemned Or if you can obtain a Writ of Error to remove these Causes to another lawful Court of Judicature where you shall obtain a more favourable Verdict your complaint of severe Dealing with you here will not want some Ground or Colour But if you cannot as you know you cannot then never blame your own Reasons nor mine for dealing Rigorously or Injuriously with you I am willing to hope and perswade my self that I shall at least obtain a Reformation of Life from many of you I have tugg'd hard for it with you here I will tug harder with God in Prayer to obtain it for you But yet Gentlemen I must tell you in the close That tho an external Reformation of these Evil Courses may make your Lives more healthy happy and durable in this World and will greatly conduce to the publick as well as your personal and private Interest yet if you expect compleat and perfect Happiness in the World to come you must advance one step further beyond Reformation unto sound Conversion The first makes you comparatively happy here but the second will make you perfectly happy and blessed for ever hereafter The first frees you from many temporal Miseries upon Earth but the second from eternal Miseries in Hell And this brings you to the other blessed Step by Conversion which is the Second Part. The Second Part Evincing the POSSIBILITY NECESSITY AND EXCELLENCY OF Conversion to God