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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A94173	Ten lectures on the obligation of humane conscience Read in the divinity school at Oxford, in the year, 1647. By that most learned and reverend father in God, Doctor Robert Sanderson, Bishop of Lincoln. &c. Translated by Robert Codrington, Master of Arts.	Sanderson, Robert, 1587-1663.; Codrington, Robert, 1601-1665.	1660 (1660)	Wing S631; ESTC R227569	227,297	402

defective in those things which are beyond its Sphear of which nature are the mysteries of Faith and weak in those things which are a little more remote from those precepts which are most universal in those cases I say we must have recourse to the light of the word as to a light shining in a dark place 2 Pet. 1. 19. To the Law and the Testimony if they speak not according to this word it is because there is no light in them Ifa 8. 20. Thy word is a Lantern unto my feet and a light unto my path Ps 119. 105. If I should enlarge my self upon the perfection and the profit of this Law there would be no end of my discourse See on this Subject the nineteenth Psalm where there you shall find much in few words and concisely And the hundred and nineteenth Psalm where you shall find the same things in more words and more largely represented XXVII Moreover there are two parts of this Law the Law properly so called and the Gospel I do not here understand the Law and the Gospel in that sence as for the most part it is taken by Divines for the two Covenants made by God with man The covenant of Works and the covenant of Grace but in the more common acceptation for the Books of the old and new Testament which the Fathers not unaptly for this purpose have called the old Law and the new Law but both these Laws all the whole Law of Moses and the new Law of Christ for that part of it which containeth moral institutions is cryed down by the Antinomians the Anabaptists and Enthusiasts and other prodigious names of a generation of people of our age as altogether unprofitable and unworthy of the care and study of a Christian after he is come to be of age in Christ and annoynted with the unction of the Spirit They will admit of no Law but only the Law of Faith and the Dictates of the Spirit I am not at leasure now to confute them neither indeed is it very needfull seeing that the Apostle James hath long since so opposed the Monsters of such errours as if by some Prophetick Spirit he had on purpose undertaken the Confutation of them XXVIII The old Law which is called the Mosaical Law is distinguished into three parts the Moral the Ceremonial and the Judicial Of every one whereof many things are diversely disputed by many men I shall at this time passe them by and briefly propound unto you what I conceive of the obligation of them reserving in the mean time to every man his own Judgment I say therefore in the first place That no Law at all delivered by Moses doth formally directly and by its self oblige the Conscience of Christians as it is the Law delivered by Moses my reason is that every Mosaical Law as Mosaical was positive and a Law positive doth oblige none but those only on whom it is imposed Seeing therefore that the Law delivered by Moses was only imposed on the peculiar Nation of the Hebrews as may easily appear to any man that will observe but the beginning of it Hear Israel and the whole Addresse of the folowing discourse it cannot so appertain unto those who are out of the number of that Nation as by that account to oblige them because delivered by Moses But if any part of that Law doth now oblige Christians as certainly the Commandements of the Decalogue are obliging it commeth to passe by Accident and ratione materiae by reason of the matter not because Moses so commanded but because that which hath been commanded by him is either agreeable to the Law of Nature or confirmed in the new Law by Christ himself XXIX I say in the second place That the Ceremonial Law of Moses doth oblige the Jewes in their Consciences before the Gospel of Jesus Christ was preached to them but not other men unlesse those only who were Proselytes of the Jewish Religion and worship who consisting of two kinds Proselytae Portae and Proselytae Justitiae so called by the Jews that is to say Proselytes of the Gate and Proselytes of Righteousnesse were obliged to the observation of the Ritual precepts Those of the former kind were obliged to the fewer but those of the latter as the Jews themselves were obliged to the observation of them all Now from the time of the Death and Resurrection of Christ since the Gospel began first to be preached to the Jews and afterwards to the Gentiles until the eversion of the Temple of Jerusalem and the Jewish Common-wealth this Law indeed was dead if we love to speak after St. Augustine but not deadly which is to say that it had lost the force of obliging but the Rites and Ceremonies delivered by Moses were not altogether unlawful but left as indifferent to the observation of every man so that it was lawful for any one according to the emergency of the occasion to use the freedom of his own will and to use them or not to use them a due respect being always had to Prudence and Charity And that this was the sence of St. Paul is so manifest both by his constant Doctrine and his Practice that there needeth no proof of it And after the eversion of the Temple it was spoken by diverse men that this part of the Law of Moses was not only dead but mortiferous which unlesse it be rightly applyed and with a prepared Distinction I am affraid will be found to be more wittily than solidly expressed For all Ceremonies are not alike to be esteemed But those which concern Order and Decency are wisely to be severed from those which were the Figures of Christ to come for those figurative Ceremonies which were instituted by God to be Types of Christ our Redeemer to come in the Flesh such as were Circumcision sacrifices and many such like became certainly of no use after Christ did really fulfill all things which were typically figured in those Ceremonies and sufficiently declared to the whole world by the Preachers of his Gospel that all those things were rightly fulfilled they are therefore to be taken away not only as dead and rotten but are most carefully to be shunned by every true Christian as deadly and pestiferous and above all things it must most precisely be taken heed unto that they be not observed with any opinion of necessity according to that Gal. 5. 2. I Paul say unto you if you be circumcised Christ will profit you nothing But those Ceremonies which pertain only to the outward Decency in the solemnity of the Divine-worship although peradventure it were better not to use them where a just cause of offence may be given yet they are not simply to be condemned as unlawfull upon this bare account that they are a part of the Mosaical paedagogy XXX I say in the third place That although many do distinguish betwixt those Political Laws of Moses which were of a common right of which they

proper unto Potentia's but to Habits to be obtained to be assumed to be layd down or to be lost but men are said to find to lose to take up and to depose their Consciences The Conscience therefore is not a Potentia but a Habit. XVII I do therefore thus state it The Conscience properly and formally and by a direct praedication is a Habit yet notwithstanding it may be a Potentia and that two ways first materially because it is in the Potentia as in the Subject 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say in which Secondly by approximation for being placed as it were in the midst betwixt Habitum acquisitum and puram potentiam a Habit acquired and a pure potentia it can assume the name of either as the Mediums do participate of either of the Extreams And hereupon it is that Conscience is found in little Children who are not capable of acquired Habits Neither is it altogether necessary that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the mind and the Conscience in Tit. 1. be contradistinct as bare Potentia's but it seems rather that both words are there taken by a Synecdoche the mind for the speeulative Intellect with all its pertinences as the Schoolmen speak it and the Conscience for the practicall Intellect with all its pertinences that is with all the faculties Habits and Acts and what do respectively pertain to any of them XVIII In the Definition of Conscience I have placed the word Faculty which in some measure doth seem to me to be common to the Potentia's and Habits and is very proper to signifie Habits innate Peradventure you will object that every Habit is acquired by often actings and therefore this doth so appertain to the essence of a Habit that Habits are especially to be known from Potentia's by it as by a specifical difference to wit that the Potentia's are accquired and the Habits natural therefore unless a man will maintain meer contradictions he ought not to say that Conscience is a Habit innate To this I answer that it must be indeed confessed that all Habits whatsoever both are and ought to be called accquired nay even those Habits which seem to be most natural and for this cause because they want the assistance of the sences and many praevious sensible actions that so the Species of things sensible in respect whereof the Soul of it self is like a clear table-table-Book may be conveyed into the Phantasy and become at last intelligible Neverthelesse some Habits may be called and with great reason too innate for as much as the mind by an inbred-light doth immediately give an assent to the thing propounded without any fear of the opposite to it only the Apprehension of the Terms being supposed neither to procure its assent doth it want the helps of internal study or external institution For example The Intellective Habit of this Principle Omne totum est majus qualibet sui parte Every thing that is whole is greater then any part of it is a Habit innate so far as by the force of the light of Nature and only out of the apprehension of the Terms the truth thereof of its own accord doth enter into the mind without any study or Teacher And yet nevertheless this Habit is acquired so far as it needeth the assistance of the sences that so by often actions in sensible things one may arrive unto the knowledge of the Terms that is to say what belongeth to the whole and what unto the parts XIX If it may be yet objected that the Conscience cannot be called an Innate Habit for those things which are Innate are not capable of errour neither can they be defective and they are the same in all in whomsoever they are but the Conscience can erre and be evil neither is it the same in all men I make answer that it doth indeed follow from this that the Conscience is not a Habit simply innate which no reasonable man will affirm for it is repugnant to Nature but as partly as before mentioned it is innate so also it is partly acquired The Soul of man doth bring with it as it were some seeds of knowledge of good and evil which grow up and are perfected by study and institution In the same manner natural agility is compleated by Exercise and natural Logick by Logick artificial the Conscience therefore in respect of those morall Agibles which as the School-men speak are of the first Dictates of Nature and are its primary objects is a natural or an innate Habit and is alike in all men and is always right without any errour or depravation but in respect of those things which are afterwards learned and come close up unto those first principles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whether it be by an internal and proper meditation or an external institution it is a Habit acquired and may be erronious and defective XX. But this is enough if not too much of the Genus of Conscience I shall more briefly dispatch the rest The second member of the Definition is the Subject which is twofold viz. Subjectum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Subjectum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Subject in which and the Subject of which The Subject 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or of which is man or rather a reasonable creature Math. 8 29. if we will speak more exactly for it is found in holy Writ that the Angels themselves are conscious of their Rebellion James 11 12. and of the punishments thereby due unto them 1 Corinth 6. 3. and that they know they shall be tormented yet neverthelesse they tremble at the revealed word of God as also that they are to be judged at the comming of the Lord and to give an account of all things they have done But because it belongeth not much to this discourse to know the nature of Angelick minds and it hath pleased the most wise God to make but little mention of it in the Scriptures I have appropriated this Definition of the Conscience unto man only For although in brutish creatures there appeareth a shadow of Conscience as of reason and many things are performed by them which do bear a show of Justice and Prudence as indeed what is reported of Elephants and of the policy of Bees and Dogs and of some other living Creatures is much to be admired yet they are all but the works of the Phantasy and not of Reason and they proceed from a natural Instinct and not from Conscience Man therefore is the proper Subject as well of Reason as of Conscience and every man is so the very Heathens the Reprobates and even Infants themselves being not excluded As for the Heathens St. Paul Rom. 2. 15. expressly speaketh that they do show the works of the Law to be written in their hearts their Consciences bearing them witnesse And the same Apostle Tit. 1 15. declareth that the filthiest persons have a Conscience although an impure one for the

he did it to the Honour of God and the Solemnity of his worship in publick and not to the excesse in Bankettings and the fomenting of Sloth and Wantonnesse XIV The Rhetoricians do give many Precepts concerning Imitation in Oratory to wit that it will be profitable for him who would be an Orator to propound unto himself some remarkable person who is excellent in the Art of Speaking whom he must indeavour to imitate which also the Philosophers do make mention of as a salubrious precept for the institution of our lives Seneca doth exhort us to the Example of some famous and excellent person for the better composition of our lives manners for the way by precepts he saith is tedious which is made but short and more effectual by Examples Examples moreover do carry with them a kind of secret delight and have joyned to them as much profit as perswasion as we may see in little Children who unwillingly do obey the commands of others but take a great pleasure to imitate their Acts Those men neverthelesse who give these Counsels do withal advise us that to live well and happily we ought to have a sound judgment to make a wise choice both of the men whom we would propound unto our selves for examples and of the things themselves which we are to imitate Fabius derides those weak Orators who endeavouring by a vain affectation and empty circumstance of words to imitate the style of Cicero do conc●ive they have performed something rare and happy if they can often but conclude with an esse videatur And Tully himself doth reprove the perverse diligence of some men in this particular who having propounded to themselves some famous Orator for examples do imitate nothing of them but their infirmities Such a man was Fusius an evil imitator of a good Orator Caius Fimbria Nervos Caii Fimbriae in dicendo saith Tully non assequitur oris pravitatem imitatur He attains not to the soundnesse and pithinesse of Caius Fimbria in speaking he imitates only the imperfection of his speech Nazianzen relateth that Bazil Bishop of Caesaria by reason of his great piety and learning called commonly Bazil the great was had in such a reverent esteem by all men that not a few did studiously affect and strove to have some resemblance of his bodily infirmities as of the paleness of his countenance his slow gate and pronunciation of his words and other defects of his body In the same nature others do attest that there were not some wanting who with all their industry did endeavour to counterfeit the drawling of the great Orator Demosthenes and the stammering of the famous Philosopher Aristotle O Imitatores servum pecus saith Horace 1 Epist 19. XV. These things and a thousand more like unto them which every day we read of in approved Authors being all of them the examples of a perverse imitation would provoke our mirth rather than our choler if this perversness consisted only in words in the outward habit and gesture of the body and had no place at all in our lives and manners But here also nothing peradventure more unfrequently but certainly far more dangerously Decipit examplar vitiis imitablie The example doth deceive being vitiously resembled whiles too indulgent to our own affections and transported by the pravity of our desires out of the abundant heaps of examples we make choice of those most willingly and in them doe most vehemently urge those circumstances which seem most suitable to that side to which already our minds do incline that sowe may the better serve our vain affections and desires And this whosoever shall more diligently peruse the books published by the Anabaptists and Brownists and other Sectaries of that complexion or what some few years before have been written by their true predecessors the Puritan Reformers he shall most readily find to be egregiously performed by those who make it their businesse to disturb the order of the Church the peace of the Common-wealth and that I may give you some testimony of the perverseness of these mens spirits which I hope I shall perform without just offence to any sober man give me leave I pray you but briefly to examine one of their arguments taken as they alledge from the example of Christ and the Apostles which being handled large enough and with great animosity by them how solidly and sincerely they have carryed themselves therein I shall leave it unto you to judge XVI About forty years since there came forth a book published by some Ministers of the Diocesse of Excester for there were many heads and hands in it against the Rite of kneeling at the receiving of the Sacrament Amongst other arguments which they had every where sought for and brought together they seemed to triumph most in this which they say was taken from the example of Christ himself The sum and strength of the argument lyes in this It is not lawfull for a Christian in any religious action pertaining to the worship of God to recede a jot from the example of Christ and the Apostles the action being imitable as every action of Christ is to be imitated and being rightly followed by others ought to be imitated as well by all Christians But Christ and his Apostles did receive the holy supper in another posture than kneeling therefore we Christians also ought to do the like This so weak and so pittyfull a Sophism being imposed not only on the unlearned people but on others also who if they were more wise it would be better with the Church of Christ it will not be labour lost to propound some things unto you which may abundantly demonstrate to you the vanity of the whole argumentation XVII In the first place therefore observe that here is a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a transition to a thing of another kind which is so foul an errour that it is hardly to be pardoned in School-boys for the whole controversie being altogether of the gesture they dispute here with much importunity on another Subject which is of Actions only Let us grant that every action of Christ is to be imitated but who will say that gesture is an action there being so wide a disparity and and disproportion betwixt them that they are not in the capacity of one common Genus but do properly belong to two distinct praedicaments for gesture belongeth to Situs or the praedicament of posture and Action to another proper praedicament of its own name XVIII In the second place observe that the four last praedicaments are of a lower extract viz. Ubi Quando Situs and Habitus the where the when the gesture and habit are almost of one estimation and account in respect of those actions to which as it were they are added as Concomitants for they are nothing else but some relations of an inferiour note and circumstances altogether extrinsical to the actions themselves It seems not therefore agreeable to reason that by the force

vitious by reason of the defect of a due rectitude in that circumstance From whence ariseth another difference betwixt an affirmative and a negative Humane Law or a Law commanding or forbidding For a Law affirmative doth not give any goodness to the Act which it commandeth if it be otherwise evil in any part of it But a Law negative doth contribute evilnesse to the Act which it forbiddeth although it be otherwise good in every part of it Or which is the same again a Humane Precept affirmative doth make that necessary which it finds to be good a humane precept negative doth make that unlawful which it found to be good both of them what they found evil do leave it to be evil as they found it Notwithstanding both do oblige in their manner and as to us this to the doing of that which by commanding is now made necessary and that to the not doing of that which by forbidding is now made unlawfull XXVI The seventh Doubt remaineth of Ecclesiastical Lawes in Special By Lawes Ecclesiastical I do not understand those Lawes which are constituted by Ecclesiastical Persons without the Authority of the Civil Magistrate which consideration pertains not to this case but to a Cause of an other kind to wit the Cause efficient but those which being made by any lawful Power doe treat of Ecclesiastical things for at this present we dispute only of the material Cause I have never heard of any besides those two above named who denyed all Indifferency or who would not grant to the political Magistrate some Power in things indifferent meerly political But we meet every where with a great number of Innovators who would take from men all Power of making Rites and Ceremonies in the publick worship of God besides those which are prescribed by Christ and his Disciples in the Gospel But sincerely I professe that to give satisfaction to my self and to others in this particular Having perused many Books written by many Authors but especially of our own Nation concerning this Subject I find not any one that can produce any just or any likely Reason of Difference why there may not be a Power of ordaining and determinating concerning things indifferent as well in Cases Ecclesiastical as Political For the Arguments which are urged from Scandal and Christian Liberty and other common Places of the same Nature doe equally fight against the Lawes and Constitutions of both Kinds and do overthrow them both or neither of them Those which are thought to carry a peculiar force against Ecclesiastical Laws and Rites are four which as the time will permit I will briefly and orderly examine they are derived 1. From Christ the Lawgiver 2. From the perfection of the Scripture 3. From the nature of holy Worship 4. From the example of the antient Church XXVII In the first place they object that of the Apostle James 4. 12. There is one Lawgiver who can save and destroy In the reign of Elizabeth many who were the Coriphaei of that Disciplinary Faction did make very much of this argument as the foundation of their whole Cause They alleged that Christ was the only Prince and Legislator of his Church And the Laws which he made did oblige the Church to a perpetual observation of them and that no other Laws ought to be admitted nor any other Legislator acknowledged whosoever shall presume to make any other Lawes besides those which Christ made shall act the part of Anti-Christ and declare himself a rash Invader into the Office of Christ We have discoursed on this place and expounded it already as occasion did require especialy where it was to be proved that God only and his Christ did exercise an absolute and a direct Command on the Consciences of Men But that this hath no greater a place in Lawes politick than in Ecclesiastick he must needs be blind that doth not observe it For why can the obligation of humane Laws in civil things consist with the legislative Power of Christ alone and why cannot there be the same consistence in Lawes Ecclesiastical Who can discover or produce the least shadow of any difference from that Text. Be Christ the Law-giver of the Christian Church Is he not as well the Law-giver of the Christian Common-wealth But the Apostle in that place made not the least mention of the Church nor instituted the least disputation concerning things Ecclesiastical neither doth he treat there at all of Political Lawes or Rites but of the Censures of Private Men. He would have the faithful admonish●d to be mindf●●l of Christian Charity and that they should forbear from passing a rash Judgment on their Brothers for God was only the Judge of Consciences who alone made that Law by which every man in the last Day shall be judged This is the true scope of that place This is the mind of the Apostle What is here I pray you that tendeth to the condemning of Humane Lawes or if to the condemning of them why of Ecclesiastical Lawes more than Civil Neither of which either the one or the other are asserted by us by themselves and of their own Vertue to oblige the Conscience XXVIII In the second place they object the Perfection of the Holy Scripture This they say is the Rule both of Life and Manners and which can make a man of God wise to every good work to which if any man shall adde any thing of his own he shall commit a most remarkable trespasse against God and pull most heavy punishments on himself All this is most certain But if the Scripture in all considerations be the absolute rule of our lives of all things whatsoever to be done and if we may believe these Stoicks it extends to the slightest things insomuch that it is not lawful to take up a straw unlesse it be by the prescribed word of God will it not suffice as well for the regulating of things Civil as Ecclesiastical or how can the Laws of ●he Church derogate more from the perfection of the Scripture than the Laws of the Commonwealth or who is he who rightly can say that he hath added something to the word of God who for Honesty and Orders sake did make the Ecclesiastical Laws seeing he propounded not his Laws unto the people as the word of God and God in his word hath commanded that all things in the Church shall be done honestly and in order XXIX In the third place they object the Nature of worship to wit that the worship of God is a thing sacred in which worship all things are to be done by the Command of God and all Humane inventions are to be driven far away as superstitious nay plainly Idolatrous and traditionary Rites Indeed the worship of God is a sacred thing neither is it lawful for man to institute any other worship besides that which God hath ordained But because there is an Ambiguity in the word we are to distinguish of the worship of God which is taken