Selected quad for the lemma: authority_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
authority_n	believe_v	faith_n	scripture_n	10,448	5	6.7135	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A54203	The reasonableness of toleration, and the unreasonableness of penal laws and tests wherein is prov'd by Scripture, reason and antiquity, that liberty of conscience is the undoubted right of every man, and tends to the flourishing of kingdoms and commonwealths, and that persecution for meer religion is unwarrantable, unjust, and destructive to humane society, with examples of both kinds.	Penn, William, 1644-1718.	1687 (1687)	Wing P1352; ESTC R23116	25,930	41

Impose the Oath For certainly Transubstantiation is no point of State nor does the Doctrine of good Works make a man a good Subject and it is possible for a Papist to be Loyal to the Supream Authority and yet believe there is a Purgatory All these are no Fundamental points of Christian Faith clearly set down in Scripture but infer'd from passages and glances of the Text to which the Answers are believ'd as probable by the Papists as the Objections against them by us and therefore there is no reason they should be so cruelly Tested for Doctrines that are but either obscurely reveal'd or not necessarily enjoyn'd As little reason is there to enforce this Test upon the Papists when we know that many of our own perswasions would Scruple to take it and some so nice as absolutely to refuse it At least it is very severe to compel such as are young and unlearned for all are not Casuists that enter the Parliament House or have Preferment in the Kingdom to Swear that such an Opinion or Doctrine is not true which they have been always bred up to from their Infancy especially to come bluntly upon them without any preceding Instructions or endeavours to convince their Understandings only Swear or else depart the Kings Presence and quit your Imployment But all this is done they say to prevent the growth of Popery and secure the Publick Peace as if the taking the Test would avail to make a man either a better Neighbour or a better Subject For Experience tells us That they who impose this Test conside never the more in those whom they have frighted to take it and tho by taking it they may preserve what places they have yet is it not in it self any step to Preferment Rather indeed is there less reason to conside in those that are unwillingly drawn to an outward Complyance then in those that Obstinately refuse to be obliged since there can be no greater cause of Hatred and Resentment then the remembrance of their being compell'd publickly to Swear against their Consciences unless their Judgments are really chang'd and then all Penalties to enforce them are superfluous Whence it must be concluded that the Tests and all Oaths of that nature are always either absolutely pernicious or altogether unnecessary if against the inward Judgment damnable as being the highest degree of Perjury and Spiritual Murder of the Soul if according to the Internal Sentiments useless More then this it was the Opinion of Isidore That a man ought to make no scruple to break an Oath that would bind him to a dishonest and unjust Action for that the promise must needs be wicked that cannot be fulfill'd but by making a man wicked And what can make a man more wicked then to renounce his Religion for private Gain So that if the Test as it is an Oath that would bind a man to such an unjust Action as the Renouncing his Religion for Worldly Honour or Preferment may be so easily broken to what purpose is it kept on foot Since it has not power enough to bind the Person that takes it And indeed if the power of an unjust Oath were so great as some would make us believe how deeply are they Perjur'd that took the Covenant and Engagement yet after that were so Instrumental in Restoring of his late Majesty of Blessed Memory whose Right and Title to the Crown they had so solemnly abjur'd But they have their Absolution from St. Ambrose who tells us That some Promises cannot be perform'd nor some others kept without the Violation of our Duties both to God and Man. Upon these considerations we have just reason to believe it was that our Supream Legislator and Soveraign Prince set forth his most Gracious Act of Indulgence thereby to free from Spiritual Bondage the Enflav'd Consciences of his Suffering Subjects Groaning under the Tyranny of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction Therein truly resembling the Divine Majesty whose Vicegerent upon Earth he is while he sheds down down upon all in general the Rayes of his Christian Compassion and spreads the Cherubim Wings of his Mercy over multitudes so latety tormented with the Unsanctified Vexation He has publicly declar'd it to be his Aim to fix his Government on such a Foundation as may make his Subjects happy in the Enjoyment of their Religion with freedom of Exercise and their Property without Invasion Under the Reign of such a Prince whom God preserve what Cause or Grounds can there be for Fears or Jealousies 'T is an ill sign of Obedience in Subjects when they distrust the Solemn Declarations of their Prince And on the other side to deny him so small a Recompence for his Excess of Benignity in his Royal Toleration as the Repeal of Cruelty and Injustice Cruelty in the Penal Laws and Injustice in the Test is the highest Ingratitude in the World. Certainly it cannot be thought but that a Monarch so tender of the Liberties and Consciences of his Subjects must be ill at ease till he has removed those Scourges of Imposition that hang over their Heads in such a Threatning posture And therefore since Soveraign Consideration thinks it meet to have them taken away 't is a very rude piece of Obstinacy to be Froward and Peevish in Opposition to Soveraign Reason FINIS This was finished before the Translation of Lactantius and therefore as not being borrowed from him I thought fit to let it pass with this Advertisement

The Reasonableness OF TOLERATION AND The Unreasonableness OF Penal LAWS And Tests Wherein is prov'd by Scripture Reason and Antiquity That Liberty of Conscience is the Undoubted Right of every Man and tends to the Flourishing of Kingdoms and Commonwealths And that Persecution for meer Religion is Unwarrantable Unjust and Destructive to Humane Society With Examples of both kinds Offer'd to the Consideration of a Person of Honour LONDON Printed for John Harris at the Harrow against the Church in the Poultrey 1687. The Reasonableness of Toleration and the Unreasonableness of Penal Laws and Tests c. IT has been for many hundreds of years the main Scope and Aim of the Clergy in most Opinions to grasp into their Clutches the exercise of Temporal Jurisdiction as in former times so now of late our Church of England Men have not been the least ambitious of that Authority 'T is true the Clergy of England could never fix such Jurisdiction in themselves but what they could not perform by their Spiritual Authority they brought to pass by the assistance of the Civil Power They found that the Scripture had not given them the least title to lord it over the Consciences of Men in matters of Religion nor had left them any weapons to combat Dissenters in Opinion nay even Error it self onely Christian Admonition and at last when that would not prevail Publick Separation from Communion with such as obstinately persisted in defyance of the Truth For this reason they never ceased to Amuse and Alarm the Civil Magistrate with continual Suspitions and Fears to render him jealous of all other Men that were not conformable to their Humours and Ceremonies A passionate conceit of their own Perfection above others which no man of common sence can be reconciled to and a convincing argument that those Persons must have but little or no Conscience themselves who with so much Vigor and Obstinacy labour to uphold a Civil Persecution so directly opposite to all the dictates of Scripture Reason and Conscience As for Scripture the Authority of it is so evident to the contrary that nothing can be more where it instructs the Servants of God to be gentle to all men sorbids Christians to Judge one another and tells us that every man is to stand or fall to his own Master that one man esteems one day above another and another esteems all days alike yet happy is he who condemns not himselfe in that which he allows That is to say whose Conscience does not inwardly accuse his outward profession The same great and zealous Preacher of the Gospel in the case of the unbelieving Wise and Husband gives such a mild and condescending answer as if he had taken his Pen from a Doves wing Let neither Her nor Him that unbelieves depart if pleased to stay for that God had called us to peace adding withal that as God has called every one so let him walk and so he ordained to all the Churches Certainly there could be nothing more divinely uttered to oblige the Professors of Christianity in Charity and Meekness to forbear one another then such an express Injunction of so authentick an Apostle to live peaceably with an Infidel Nay writing to the Christians he absolutely denyes that even the Apostles themselves have any Soveraignty over the Conscience but only commissions to aid and assist their Consciences Not says he that we have dominion over your Faith but are helpers of your Joy Altogether conformable to that Doctrine of Meekness wherein Christ instructs his Disciples not to aspire to the Title of Rabbi or Master in Spiritual Affairs besides that we are admonished to let the Tares grow among the Wheat till the time of Harvest Nor is it for any man to suggest that this mild and moderate Temper was only intended for those Primitive Times when the Christians were liable to Persecution without any Temporal Power to defend themselves For let the choicest Champions but grant that those were the best and purest times and then it will behove them to shew a Dormant VVarrant in the Scripture by which Christ ever gave Commission to his Disciples to cut the Throats of all Dissenters or to despoil them of their Estates and send them to perpetual Banishment and they have done their work But if they can bring no such authority they must acknowledge that Lording o'er the Conscience is an unwarrantable piece of Tyranny over the Rights and Liberties of a Christian True it is that the Successors of Constantine were taught by their Eclesiasticks that there were two Duties required from them one as Christians the other as Soveraigns that as Christians they were bound to obey divine Precepts as every private man is bound to do but as Princes to make good Laws and keep their Subjects steady in the practice of Piety Honesty and Justice chastizing the Transgressors of his sacred Laws espeaclally the Deacalogue And because they who transgressed against the first Table which relates to divine worship were worse then they who transgressed against the Second which relates only to Justice between Man and Man therefore Princes were oblig'd to punish Blasphemy Perjury and Heresy more severely then Murder or Theft As for Blasphemy and Perjury there was reason sufficient why they should be punished by civil Penalties For Blasphemers and Perjured Persons cannot be thought to be men of Conscience nor are they that take that Liberty to be endured for that Blasphemy and Perjury are criminal in all Religions and differing opinions whatever as being contrary to good manners and contaminations of civil Society but it does not follow from hence that every man must be punished as a Heretick who differs in his judgement from the Church of England Certainly it must be first agreed upon what a Heretick is and who is that Heretick and which is that Law that reaches his offence before they can punish him by any Law. Now those things that make a Heretick are Errors in Fundamentals or about Fundamentals Conviction and Contumacy And they are Hereticks who obstinately and against the most evident light of Truth defend some doctrine directly or of necessary consequence tearing up the foundations of Christian Faith. The Church of England therefore should have made it out that the Dissenters and Roman Catholicks were Hereticks of this sort Convicted and Contumacious and then all they could do was to put them under Excommunication not to torment their Persons and Estates with Mulcts Imprisonments Fines and Sequestrations which how dissonant it is from the Golden Rule of God Himself still preferring Mercy above Sacrifice is evidently apparent The character of Menelaus in the second of Maccabees is that he was unworthy of the Preisthood as one that had the Fury of a cruel Tyrant and the Rage of a savage Beast Conformable to which was that of Cicero quoted by Lactantius It is the most miserable thing in the world says he to carry a savage and cruel disposition under the shape of

a man. It is said that Diana of the Scythians had a Temple and an Altar near the entrance into the lake Meotis upon which it was the custom of the Heathens to Sacrifice the Bodies of living Men a Cruelty little differing from the severity of those People that seem to make their Interest their Scythian Diana and living Men the Sacrifices to their Ambition and the support of their Spiritual Grandeur Yet this must be the main design of those that study thus the destruction of all other Mortals but themselves within the Verge of their Jurisdiction which as it is a great Argument of a Spiritual Arbitrary Government so is it at the same time a sign of no less Presumption for a particular number of Men enclosed within the narrow Circle of Episcopacy compar'd with those vast multitudes of Dissenters and Roman-Catholicks that under various names of distinction invented by their Adversaries spread themselves over the fourth part of the World to arrogate to themselves to be the only Flock of Christ and that they are the only Pastors who have power to drive men to Heaven for this is to disclaim the Popes Supremacy and usurp it to themselves to Preach down one Antichrist and set up six and twenty For if Meekness Mildness Unity Peace and Concord are the Vertues that embellish Christian Jurisdiction Cruelty Rigor Persecution and Violence must be the marks of Antichristian Tyranny They therefore that so vehemently Persecute the Professors of Christianity because they either doubt or happily err in some particulars that will admit of Ambiguity and which it may be have been otherwise understood in former Ages are most unjust For we find that the Antient Jews did never Punish the Sadduces tho they denied the Doctrine of the Resurrection For that tho it were most true yet then it was but only glanced at in their Law and not taught at all but covertly under Types and Figures But supposing the Errors to be such as among equal Judges might be easily confuted both by the Authority of the Scriptures and the common Consent of the Fathers Nevertheless the great strength of an over-grown Opinion is to be considered and how the Endeavours of Men to defend their own Sects diminishes the strength and liberty of their Judgments A Man will sooner part with any thing than his Opinion An Opinion says Chrysostom that has taken deep root through Custome is hardly to be removed for that there is nothing that we alter with more unwillingness then our Customes in Religion But whether this different Opinion be an Error and how it is to be Punished he only can without danger judge who is the Eternal Judge who alone knows the true measures of Knowledge and the proportion of Faith. Let them Rage against you says St. Austin concerning the Manichees who can presume to be without Errors themselves for my part I neither can nor dare for I ought to bear with you as others did formerly with me and to treat you with as much Patience Meekness and Gentleness as they did me when I was blindly carryed away with your Errors Religionis non est Religionem cogere says Tertullian And Athanasius also highly blames the Arrians because they were the first that call'd in the Civil Power to their Assistance against their Antagonists and that endeavoured by Force Stripes and Imprisonments to draw such to themselves whom they could not win by the strength of their Arguments Gregory Bishop of Rome writing to the Bishop of Constantinople said that it was a new and unheard of manner of Preaching to enforce Faith by Stripes and Punishments History also affords us the Examples of several French Bishops who were condemned by the judgment of the Church for calling in the Civil Power against the Priscillianists and of a whole Council in the East that was Condemned for consenting to the Burning of Bogomilus Conformable to the sayings of Plato The Punishment of him that Errs is to be Instructed And of Seneca That no wise man ever hated those that Erred for if so he must necessarily sometimes hate himself And therefore the Emperour Valentinian is highly commended because he never Persecuted any man for his Religion nor ever commanded this or that to be Adored nor forced his Subjects to Embrace his own manner of Worship Infinite are the sayings of the Primitive Fathers and Men of Learning their Successors who have all along condemned the forcing of Conscience or compelling Men to do a thing which is contrary to their Conscience or to abstain from such Exercises as they in Conscience esteem necessary and profitable for their Salvation all centring in the utter detestation of all manner of Violence and Imposition in matters of Religion A Maxim which not all the Usurpations of Ecclesiastical Persons have bin able to corrupt And therefore it was the saying of Montluc a Roman Catholic and Bishop of Valence That the Rigors of Torments was never to be practized towards People who had no other Crime but only a Perswasion which they thought to be good and pious Peter Martyr speaking of the Power of the Church It is her Duty says he to correct Sinners not with the Sword not with Penal-Laws or Fines not with Imprisonment or Exilement but after her own Method by the Efficacy and Power of the Word It is said of Maximilian the Second Emperour of Germany That tho he persever'd to his death a Roman Catholic yet he was never the less disesteemed by the Protestants for that in matters of Religion he observed an exact Moderation between both Parties and never ceas'd till he had obtain'd the use of the Cup in the Eucharist for those of his Subjects that desir'd it The same Emperour also gave this Advice to Henry the Third of France then returning out of Poland to quiet all disturbances in his Kingdom at his first Entrance into it according to the Example of his Father Ferdinand who after he had long toyl'd and labour'd in the Reign of Charles the V. to appease the troubles in Germany and settle the differences about Religion when he found the Minds of the People more provok'd then any remedy obtain'd by force and violence with the Consent and Applause of all the Orders of the Empire made those favourable Concessions which when nothing also would do restor'd Tranquilitie to the Empire More Remarkable was that saying of Henry the Third of France Himself upon his Death-Bed after he had received his Deaths wound from Clement the Monk Nor let the cause of Religion deter ye This Error long possess'd me and drew me into inextricable Mistakes The pretence of Religion hurried us into Faction Leave that to the judgment of the Orders of the Kingdom and keep this in your Minds as a fix'd and constant Maxime That Religion which is inspir'd into the Minds of Men by God cannot be commanded by Men. Nay Pius the Fourth the none of the best of Popes yet being Sollicited by the French