Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	convince_v	free_a	great_a	31	3	2.0652	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A65629	A golden topaze, or, Heart-jewell namely, a conscience purified and pacified by the blood and spirit of Christ / written by Francis Whiddon ...	Whiddon, Francis, d. 1656 or 7.	1656 (1656)	Wing W1644; ESTC R10315	60,273	170

whole soule were defiled and every part and power depraved yet conscience had so much life left in it as with Iobs messengers to tell sad tydings of mans great losse There remaines in it scintilla rectae rationis a little spark to shew what great light hath been extinguisht but now this also through affected blindnesse and wilfull malice is so smothered and suffocated through a daiely custome of sinning that I may say of conscience in many as the Psalmist of an Idol it hath an eye and cannot see an eare and cannot heare a mouth and cannot speak Thus stands the cause whith many a hardned sinner The eye of their conscience is as the eye of a mole which serves only to decore the body but not to guide the way Their eares but as the eares of an Addar wilfully stopt at the best counsell that the messenger of Christ can bring unto it and the mouth of it as the mouth of a viper that sucks in and sends out nothing but poison and poisonous expressions Yet notwithstanding the naturall Conscience will hold an excellency beyond all other powers faculties in the soule So that thy Maker still deserveth praise from thee Use 2 Have all a conscience then let all acknowledge it and not dare to conceale what God hath given them It s very dangerous to hide any Talent that God gives us in a Napkin Luk. 19. what God bestowes on man man is to imploy and use it to the honour of him that gives it therefore let conscience appeare in a conscientious walking before him be holy to thy God Tit. 1.12 upright to thy neighbour and sober in thy selfe walke so circumspectly in thy place and calling that all may say thou art a man of conscience But woe unto us we sojourne in Mesech our habitations are in Kedar we live among such as are enimies to conscience yea open and professed enimies unto it yea the very naming of conscience is very hatefull unto them aske them where their conscience is and they will desperately answer what tell you me of conscience Conscience say they was hanged long ago But let me tell thee thou wretched Belialist that saiest that conscience is hang'd wast thou the Hangman If so then know God will be avenged on thee for this cruell act he will one day revive conscience and then assure thy selfe thy conscience will hang thee But hear me thou foolish man that thus talkest of hanging conscience thou speakest not only prophanely but most ignorantly thinkest thou it is in the power of any man to hang conscience know thou it is impossible the worke is too hard for all the hangmen in the world The Hangman may hang thee as he did Haman or thou mayest hang thy selfe as did Judas but neither he nor thou art able to offer such violence to conscience Wer'st thou to live as long as Methusalem it will outlive thee go where thou wilt it will go with thee nec fugere nec fugare poteris go up to Heaven or go downe to Hell 't will never leave thee nor forsake thee Againe I find some who are so maliciously bent against conscience that they resolve if they cannot hang conscience they will beat out her teeth and pluck out her tongue so that she shall neither bite nor barke if the lust of the flesh the lust of the eyes the pride of life if all the pleasures of sin will do it they will surely effect it They will call for the harp with Saul for their Cup with Nabal and their Harlot with Herod and all to drowne the cryes and complaints of conscience but let me tell such that thus labour to make conscience dumb possible it is that by a long custome in sin or greedy practice of it men may prevaile so far as to silence her for the present so that she shall not speak but know this though you keep conscience from speaking yet not from writing she will act the part of a Recorder and Register put downe exactly every daies deviations and aberrations and when shee sees her time will produce her Bill and read it aloud making thine eares to tingle now a lie and then an oath this time drunkennesse that time uncleanesse such a day thou tookest away thy Brothers goods by oppression and theevery another day his good name by slaunder and calumny In fine the Bill will be so bigg so black that thou wilt not be able to endure to heare it read And then thy conscience whom thou hast thus wronged will be avenged for all her wrongs and act the part of a Judge a Jaylour and a Tormentour and joine with her God in that black and most just sentence take him bind him hand and foot and cast him into utter darknesse where there shall be nothing but weeping wailing gnashing of teeth and that for ever Oh consider this ye that abuse Conscience lest she teare you in pieces when none shall deliver you 3. Use of Conviction unto all Atheisticall persons that dare say with their tongue or in their heart there is no God Tell me thou Atheist hast thou a conscience in thee and yet no God over thee how can this be if thou wilt suffer thy selfe to be lead by common reason thou then wilt be forced to say there is a God Consider the operation of thy conscience if it be not seared and thou shalt find that upon some grosse sin it will be a witnesse and give testimony against thee but to whom to men or Angels that cannot be for they cannot heare the voice of conscience nor receive consciences testimony neither can they see what is in the heart of man It remains therefore that there is a spirituall substance most wise most holy most mighty that sees knows all things to whom conscience beares record and that is God himselfe Let Atheists bark against this as long as they will they have that in them that will convince them of the truth of the Godhead will they nill they either in life or death Let the dreaming Atheist consider the great affliction that that severe Governesse of the life of man brings upon their soules by affrighting horrors of Conscience by puzzeling and befooling them in the free use of their Reason by curbing them in their naturall and kindly injoyments in the life present and making bitter all the pleasures and contentment of it by some checks of Conscience by anxious cares and disquieting feares concerning their state in the life to come Besides those ineffable agonies of mind dampes and deadnesse of spirit that they sometimes undergoe so that to be buried quick were lesse torture by far then such dark heart-sinking privations of all the joyes of life And they cannot chuse did they not shut their eyes against the light but see that there is a superintendent principle over nature which is all one as to confesse that there is a God If thou be not convinced by the working of thine owne

are to adde light to light i. e. the light of Scripture unto the light of Nature without knowledge the conscience cannot be good but as a blind man drinke poison as soon as wholsome liquor and stand as securely upon the brinke of a deep dungeon as upon a broad pavement and why because he seeth not the venome of the one nor yet the danger of the other Even so the blind conscience drinks iniquity as water and stands fearelesly upon the brinke of hell without any fear of falling into it and all because he seeth not the vilenesse of the one nor yet the mischeife of the other into which he runneth therefore adde I say unto the light of nature the light of scripture 2. Adde bloud to bloud i. e. the bloud of Christ to thy sin-bleeding soule this is that bloud which must cure thee and no other bloud can do it 1. Beasts bloud will nto heale thy conscience the bloud of buls and goats cannot purge away sin 2. Mans bloud will not as the bloud of Abel or the bloud of Martyrs 3. Thine owne bloud will not cure thee Saul having an evill conscience might thinke to ease him selfe by falling on his owne sword and shedding his owne bloud but alas this will not cure but kill Ther 's nothing can cure our sick polluted consciences but only bathing in the poole of Bethesda There is nothing can make us white but the bloud of the lamb It is Christs bloud only Zach. 13. this is that fountaine for sin and for uncleanesse this is the bloud that must cleanse thee from all sin 1 John 1.7 8. See therefore thou adde unto thy bleeding soule this precious blood 3. Adde spirit unto spirit i. e. unto thy spirit Gods spirit When Gods spirit comes into thy spirit it will not only regenerate thy spirit but witnesse with thy spirits that thou art healed and make thee with a joyfull voice to cry out Abba father Rom. 8.16 4. Adde faith to faith unto thy generall faith an applicative faith thou then wilt not only beleive that these former simples and ingredients thus compounded and as it were mixed will cure an evill conscience but will boldly say my evill conscience by these meanes is purged and quieted Where these principles and simples are thus compounded and happily joined together there is a perfect cure the evill conscience is become a good consceence the defiled conscience a purged conscience the troubled conscience a peaceable conscience thou art made whole therfore as our Saviour unto the Adulteresse when she had received merecy gave her this caveat to sin no more so say I to thee that hast a pure and peaceable conscience go sin no more but observe thy Physitians rules in keeping a good diet be holy to God upright to man sober in thy selfe if not thou wilt fall back into thine old disease so thy condition will be more desperate then ever Now for preservatives that conscience may keep its purity and peace 1. Abstaine from all appearances of evill Account no sin little but remember that a little leake may sinke a ship and one spark of fire may burne a city it was but a wanton glance at first in David when he looked on Bathsheba but if you mark it many sins and many sorrowes followed upon that glance of his so that which James speaketh is here most true behold how great a flame a little fire kindleth therefore abstame from the appearance of sin 2. Beware of intimacy with any ungodly person take heed whom thou makest thy companion the sweetest dispositions are soonest sowred by evill society wicked Ahab is no fit companion for godly Jehoshaphat nor Cerinthus the Heretick for John the Divine Take heed of such as are either erroneous in judgment or vitious in conversation wilt thou joine with those that are enimies unto God doest thou not know that one diseased sheep may infect an whole flock so on corrupt man may corrupt a multitude as we find in Alexander 2 Tim. 2.17 Hymeneus Philetus Phigellus Hermogines and others whose word did eat as doth a Canker which if not seasonably prevented will grow incurable The Originall word is gangrene 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies to eate as the disease called a wolfe or a canker doth which consumeth not only the part where it is but spreadeth farther in the flesh Such is the Nature of Hereticall doctrine if it be not stopt in the beginning cured by solid confutations and Ecclesiasticall censures upon those that are obstinate it will spread far and run over the whole body of the Church Beware of such a man that is an Heretick Tit. 3.10 11. after the first and second admonition reject knowing that he that is such is subverted and sinneth being condemned of himselfe i. e. convinced in his owne conscience that he shuts his eyes against the light and resisteth and opposeth the known truth The like I say for prophane and vitious persons though they entice thee consent thou not and if they say come with us or be one of us oh come not into the way of sinners Prov. 1.10 nor enter into the counsell of the ungodly Prov. 3.34 lest thou sit in the seat of the scorner and at last become a scorne and a derision unto God and the godly 3. In doubtfull things take the surest and safest way All men have flesh and so consequently error in them Great differences arise in things practicall one holds recreations on the Lords day and another denies it This man for usury that man against it some say Faith and Troth are no Oathes others will tell thee that they are more then yea and nay The Multitude are for Cards Dice drinking of healths Math. 5.37 long haire in men and naked backs and breasts in women but the fewest and wisest are against all these Judge thou therefore which is the safest way to use all these or to refuse them heare what the Spirit tells thee abstaine from all appearance of evill have no fellowship with the unfruitfull workes of darknesse but rather reprove them Doubtlesse it will be safer for thee to deny thy selfe in forbearing Eph. 5.11 then to take liberty in using them Give no offence to tender consciences but follow Paul who was so wary of giving offence to Gods people that even in things lawfull he would deny himselfe resolving to eate no flesh while the world standeth rather then to make his brother to offend i. e. to put a stumbling block before him 1 Cor. 8.13 or give an occasion of sin unto him Wherefore walke on sure ground and be warranted from God for what thou doest Whatsoever things are true whatsoever things are honest whatsoever things are just pure lovely whatsoever things are of good report if there be any vertue Phil. 4.8 if any praise thinke on these things 4. Take heed of false and phantasticall Teachers who boast of the spirit of