A59665:1213
The Parable of the Ten Virgins Opened and Applied
The parable of the ten virgins opened & applied being the substance of divers sermons on Matth. 25, I-13 wherein the difference between the sincere Christian and the ... hypocrite ... are clearly discovered ... / by Thomas Shepherd ; now published from the authors own notes ... by Jonathan Mitchell ... Tho. Shepherd, son to the reverend author ...The parable of the ten virgins opened & applied being the substance of divers sermons on Matth. 25, I-13 wherein the difference between the sincere Christian and the ... hypocrite ... are clearly discovered ... / by Thomas Shephard ; now published from the authours own notes ... by Jonathan Mitchell ... Tho. Shephard, son to the reverend author ...
London: printed by J. Hayes for John Rothwell, 1660
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
5. Those whose Principle is nothing else but the strength of natural Conscience, which will set men a doing, when they have neither praise from men, nor gain from Christ for their labour. For the Lord deals with some men, •as the Romans did with some of their Prisoners; they would chain a Prisoner and his keeper together, and let them go up and down: so God chains many a poor Prisoner of hell and his conscience together, and lets them go together. And hence many a man keeps pace with his conscience, and cannot give it the slip for all the world heaped up with gold, as Balaam said.
Now there are two things in a natural conscience, Rom. 2. 15.
1. To accuse, Hence a man dares not omit prayer, dares not commit a sin he hath a mind to; conscience would then roar. Hence many keep constantly set duties in private, and tremble at small sins: not because they take any delight in the one, or are weary of the other; but because they are ever under the eye of this Judge.