Selected quad for the lemma: book_n
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A78473
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Certain materiall considerations touching the differences of the present times, collected by a faithfull pursuer of peace and truth.
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Faithfull pursuer of peace and truth.
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1643
(1643)
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Wing C1703; Thomason E246_4; ESTC R1181
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10,939
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12
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CERTAIN MATERIALL CONSIDERATIONS Touching the differences of the present times collected by a faithfull pursuer of Peace and Truth 1 COR. 13.8 We can doe nothing against the truth but for the truth 1 THES 5.21 Prove all things hold fast that which is good JAM 3.17 The wisdom that is from above is first pure then peaceable gentle and easie to be entreated London Printed 1642. Right Honourable THese Collections which I herewith send having passed the censure of some learned Friends with good approbation I presume to commend to your Honours perusall and finall disposing If I be out in any thing I shall accept it as a great favour if your Honour wil stoop to advertise me of it The notes upon the Observations I have not yet fairly copied out being a weak scribe in regard of my continuing infirmities otherwise I had adventured them with these as I had a good while since designed them to your Honours hands glad would my heart have been as I presume many more if the pen or tongue might rather have arbitrated these differences then the sword which puts no difference between good and evill The good God look downe in mercy upon the Land and put an happy end to these miseries which otherwise are like to put a miserable end to all our happinesse This is the constant prayer of Late at night and in haste Your Honours humbly devoted and in these times namelesse servant in Christ Iesus To his Friend SIR HAving beene much troubled even to restlesness in my thoughts about the tender and dangerous distractions of these times I have oft and earnestly besought Almighty God in my prayers that he would so assist mee with his spirit that I might honestly set my selfe to seeke the truth so seeking might find it and finding it might cheerfully embrace it and constantly cleave unto it in what case or danger soever I should finde it To this end I tasked my selfe to the saddest and severest Meditations my weake body and Intellectuals could undergo which being I trust by the guidance of GOD resolved into these ensuing Hypotheses I commit to your judicious and most impartiall censure being not so fond of my own fancies but that I can endure to see them stript naked and if they prove not the issues of Truth to disinherit them from ever having further possession of my thoughts I see not many things and heare not all living so remote from any Town where the Tyde of Books and reports flows in Some Pamphlets there are walking about with as much confidence and finding as good entertainment as Truth it self needeth and with a great deale lesse modesty then that useth to doe Pleas Appeals Reasons c. which beg the questions I looked they should prove and left mee more unsatisfied rather then they found mee I have hitherto perhaps through fondnesse more contentment from these conceptions of my owne which I entreat you to examine with all faithfulness and severity as knowing that you cannot doe your self or me any greater injury then to flatter me in falshood who am come praised be God so far towards wisdome as heartily to thank him who rebukes me in love and lovingly to honour him who refutes me with reason Homo sum errare possum Christianus sum Haereticus esse nolo PHILALETHES THe Book of Observations upon His Majesties Answers and Expresses did most of all stumble me but it was more by confounding then convincing my reason upon a due examination it seemed to me but a solid piece of Sophistry or learned Imposture I have made some strictures throughout upon him you shall see and censure them if I may receive any intimation that you guesse them worth the looking on Conscientiae laboro non famae non vitae Whilst I was musing the fire kindled and at the last I spake with my pen writing but what I believe and believing what I write to be the very truth my conscience bearing me witnesse in the Holy Ghost ALthough the King and Parliament assembled together are the most honourable and supream Court of the Kingdome from whom there is no humane Appeal yet they are still to be looked on but as a company of men subject to infirmities passions and errours as others are and therefore may determine even where they concur things evill in themselves or else we must grant that no Parliamentary Acts were ever evill in themselves and so needed no abrogation but only inconvenient for time and occasions and so needed but suspensions till fit seasons of re-inforcing them might return And if the whole may erre in their determinations much more may the parts severally and alone 2. In so great a number it is probable there still will be as it is certain now there are some of green yeers slender parts small experience little or no learning either in Arts or Law and I may adde from the censures of some part of that Court upon the other of at least suspected integrity who as they are chosen by popular voices wherein sinister References of times beare no small sway so are they probably lead in Voting by Popular Arguments tending most to liberty being incompetent Judges of the Method's and Mysteries of State-government Whence it will follow that since number of Voyces and not depth of Argument carries it the fittest and justest Propositions may be oft overborn by number which cannot be confuted by reason 3 As it is true that no evill ought to be imagined of the Parliament so is it as true that No evill ought to be imagined of the King and yet it is not untrue that where there is none the Greatest evill may be suspected and the Greatest evill may be where None is imagined 4 Though no Evill ought to be imagined of the Parliament conjunctim and in the lumpe viz. That what the King and Both Houses shall faitly and freely conclude upon and enact will prejudice no man yet in regard of particular Members when I know evill by them I may suspect evill from them Else why doth one part of the Parliament not only suspect but say so much and so great evill of the other Whilst they mutually repute each other enemies to the State which of all Civill evils is the greatest 5 When there is a noise of extream danger which all men fear and then earnest undertaking for prevention which all men desire it is easie to conceive how readily men will assent without a due examination either of the imminence of the danger or lawfulnesse of the prevention especially men of the weaker sort not well able to judge of either 6 When it is possible that no one in either house of Parliament may bee learned in the Laws since Noblemen Knights Gentlemen Citizens and Towns-men of which they consist are not necessarily so to be nor one more then Another I see not how the judgment of the Law can fully and properly reside in them especially when the King consents not And so much