Selected quad for the lemma: law_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
law_n	conclude_v	justify_v	work_n	5,025	5	6.3708	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A00643	The souls looking-glasse lively representing its estate before God: with a treatise of conscience; wherein the definitions and distinctions thereof are unfolded, and severall cases resolved: by that reverend and faithfull minister of the Word, William Fenner, B.D. sometimes fellow of Pembroke-hall in Cambridge, and late parson of Rochford in Essex.	Fenner, William, 1600-1640.; Calamy, Edmund, 1600-1666.	1640 (1640)	STC 10779; ESTC S101939	116,565	318

do not trouble their thoughts to aim at Gods commandment in it Let me tell you Conscience will not count this obedience For conscience feeleth no bond but Gods word and if ye do not look at that it is no obedience with conscience conscience will never acquit you or absolve you for this it accounteth of this obedience as no obedience at all See 1. Cor. 10.25 and so forward There the Apostle handling that question of conscience at last concludeth Whether ye eat or drink or whatsoever ye do do all to the glory of God vers 31. Let your hearts look at that and aim at that in whatsoever ye do still look at God all is lost with conscience else Though ye eat never so soberly and drink never so moderately pray never so duly conscience counteth it all nothing if ye do not look at God It is God onely his word that doth bind it and it will never give a discharge except your hearts look at him Vse 3 3. This serveth to confute our Antinomists such as say the law of God bindeth not the conscience of the regenerate Ye see here that the law of God bindeth the conscience and therefore if the regenerate have any conscience at all as certainly they have the best conscience of all men then it must needs bind their conscience From what Christians are freed We confesse the conscience of the regenerate is freed from many things by Christ First it is freed from the yoke and bondage of the ceremoniall law Gal. 5.1 Stand fast in the libertie wherewith Christ hath made us free and be not entangled with the yoke of bondage Everie mans conscience is freed from that yoke of the ceremoniall law because it ended in Christ Secondly the conscience of the regenerate is freed from seeking justification by the deeds of the law Indeed the first covenant was by the works of the law He that doeth them shall live in them But the second covenant speaketh better things He that believeth shall be saved It is true if God had not sent his Sonne we must have sought justification by the works of the law Though it were impossible to find it by reason of our sinnes yet conscience was bound that way But now that Christ Jesus hath sealed up a new covenant in his own bloud conscience is freed from that former Rom. 3.28 Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law For though justifying faith never be without the sincere doing of the law yet the deeds of the law have no influence into justification Conscience is freed from seeking justification thereby Thirdly the conscience of the regenerate is freed from the rigour of the law They are bound in conscience to use the law as a rule of their life and in sinceritie to obey it but are not bound by the gospel to the rigour of it that they are freed from Rom. 6.14 and so they are not under the law but under grace I grant that all carnall people who are yet out of Christ do all lie under the rigour of the law and as long as they submit not to Jesus Christ nor get into him they are bound in conscience to keep it though they cannot They cannot sinne in one tittle but conscience will condemne them before God They shall be condemned for every vain thought for every idle word for every the least sinne for every the least lust for any the least omission of good They lie under the rigour of the law and they are bound in conscience to keep it and they shall be countable for every transgression because they are under the law But the conscience of the regenerate is free from this rigour because they are under grace and therefore they are delivered from the law Rom. 7.6 The Lord hath delivered them by the body of Christ and therefore they are not bound by the gospel to all that obedience that the law in rigour requireth Fourthly the conscience of the regenerate is freed from the curse of the morall law For though the law doth condemn yet their conscience needeth not fear it because they are in Christ There is no condemnation to those that are in Christ Jesus Rom. 8.1 which walk not after the flesh but after the spirit Indeed those that are not regenerate not ingraffed into Christ they are still in the mouth of the gunshot the law doth condemn them and they have no shelter and their conscience is bound by it and they shall find one day that by it their conscience will condemne them to hell It may be now for the present their conscience is quiet and they choke it and so it letteth them alone yet they are condemned in conscience and one day they shall find it But the regenerate are by Christ freed in conscience from all this condemnation Thus farre we grant But the Antinomists Antinomists and I know not what Marcionites would have more They cannot abide to heare that a regenerate person is bound to any sincere obedience to Gods law as the rule of their life They crie out against the morall law as once the Babylonians did against Jerusalem Down with it down with it even to the ground O ye do not preach Christ if ye talk of the law Beloved these are drunken opinions fitter to be preached among drunkards and Epicures and monsters then among the peculiar ones of God The law of God doth bind the conscience of all the people of God so that they are bound to make it a rule of life Nay the Scripture calleth it Christs bond whereby he bindeth his people to him Psal 2.1 2 3. The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his Anointed saying Let us break their bonds and cast away their cords from us Tush we will not be tied by his laws nor be so precisely strait-laced with such commandments as these Here the laws of the Lord are called bonds and cords Gods people are bound to him by them But the wicked they stand out and refuse to be bound Now if the law be called a bond I pray what bond is it but of conscience It is not a bond like a prisoners fetters to be put about their legs This is a spirituall bond that bindeth the conscience But let me prove it to you by arguments There be sundrie arguments to prove it Arguments That Gods law bindeth the conscience of the regenerate Arg. 1 First That which hath power to say to the conscience of the regenerate This is thy dutie and this must be done that bindeth the conscience But the law of God hath power to say thus to the conscience This is your dutie Who can tell better then Christ When ye have done all these things that are commanded you Luke 17.10 say We are unprofitable servants we have done that which was our dutie to do Mark He speaketh

however and the high-way to hell but to be wicked when ye have godly neighbours about you your sinne now is double For as you offend God so you offend them too Ye may remember what Christ saith Whosoever offendeth one of these little ones which believe in me it were better for him that a milstone were hung about his neck and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea Matth. 18.6 Ah ye vile wretches ye little imagine what fearfull vengeance ye pull on your own heads It were better for you that a milstone were hung about your necks and ye thrown into the sea then that ye should offend one of these little ones Ye may call them what ye will call them puritanes precisians uncharitable people censurers ye may call them as Satan teacheth you to call them but it is certain it were better a milstone were hung about your neck and ye thrown into the sea then that ye should offend any one of Christs little ones The Lord open your eyes that ye may repent and believe the gospel your selves and be saved 4. Lastly be exhorted brethren to labour after a good conscience How excellent a thing is it that hath so many good ingredients Illumination is one ingredient and Faith is another and Tendernesse another and Purenesse another and Quietnesse another and the Bloud of Jesus Christ another It is like Aarons composition which smelt sweetly when he went into the sanctuarie It is compounded of excellent conditions such as smell swee● when we come before God the Lord loveth that such should come nea● him We may come with assurance t● speed if we come with a good conscience Heb. 10.22 Let us draw near with assurance o● faith having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience Mark we may draw near with assurance if we come with t● good conscience It will comfort us in all troubles and support us in all dangers It maketh us happie nay there is no happinesse without it It will make us with quietnesse and contentednesse of spirit undergo whatever it shall please God to lay upon us How can they want comfort that have this It is a spring of comfort within them This will remain with us when all other comforts will forsake us When friends fail and estate faileth when credit and health and strength and all fail then a good conscience if we have it will speak peace to us yea and it will effect it in us comfort us and fasten comfort upon us Friends may speak words of comfort and peace to us but it may be we are not able to receive it the minister may preach peace but it may be we are not able to take it But a good conscience speaketh peace and effecteth it it doth not onely speak it but it putteth it into our hearts It proppeth us up in all miseries in sicknesses yea in death it self A good conscience then maketh us hold up our heads when all the world shall be confounded A good conscience will bear us out against the King of terrours It is onely a good conscience that can look death in the face 1. Cor. 15.55 57. and say O death where is thy sting thanks be to God who giveth us victorie through our Lord Jesus Christ Yea at the day of judgement when the whole world shall be burning before us when the great men of the world who go in silks and scarlet and broidred hair shall fear and shiver as a reed shaken with the wind this will make us with boldnesse undergo the terrour of it This will make us happie in all our distresses When crosses pelt us and sicknesse paineth us and death attacheth us we are happie men What if we have the tokens of Gods wrath upon our bodies so we have the marks of his love upon our souls What outward calamitie soever happeneth to us yet if we have this good conscience we are happie O then let us labour to get it by faith and a holy life If we would be safe in the floud-time in the day of Gods wrath we must be busie now about the ark we must provide beforehand for it Nothing but this ark will save us in the deluge of Gods anger It is in vain to trouble our selves about other things Jubal was a merrie man Gen. 4.20 he made pipes and organes Jabal built tents others planted vineyards but Noah provided his ark Many desire comfort in sicknesse in death but they do not provide for it beforehand They look after their sports or businesses in the world but this ark is neglected this good conscience without which all mens labour is vain Be they what they will be in never so much credit and esteem they are yet most miserable when troubles and afflictions come on them as one day they shall and shall not tarrie then all their comforts will forsake them When death looketh them in the face then their hearts die within them How full of pride and haughtinesse soever they were before yet when they come to die if their consciences be awaked they will with Saul fall down to heare the name of death 1. Sam. 28.20 and no spirits be left in them Nay if we want a good conscience when we lie on our death-beds desire good people to pray for us Good sir I beseech you let me have the benefit of your prayers to God for me Alas if thou hast not a good conscience all the prayers under heaven will not help thee See Heb. 13.18 Brethren pray for us for we trust we have a good conscience Mark The Apostle telleth them they may pray for him with comfort because he had a good conscience As if he had said If we had not a good conscience it were in vain for you to pray for us If ever God heare the prayers made for us we must have a good conscience Those that have not this good conscience shall never enter into the kingdome of heaven Though they had Moses Daniel and Job to pray for them yet all their prayers could not help them in the time of their distresse The bond of conscience NOw we must look back unto the foure propositions which at the beginning I observed in the text I am upon 1. That there is in every man a conscience 2. That the light which directeth conscience is knowledge 3. That the bond which bindeth conscience is Gods law 4. That the office of conscience is to bear witnesse to accuse or excuse I have in the handling of these a little altered the method and spake of the two first and the last Now followeth the third and that is consciences bond which is Gods law which shew the work of the law written in their hearts c. It is onely the work of Gods law that it beareth witnesse of that it accuseth or excuseth for The bond of conscience is Gods law The law of God is consciences bond Neverthelesse we must here distinguish The bonds