Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	great_a	king_n	year_n	3,100	5	4.5726	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A50967	The minister's reasons for his not reading the kings declaration, friendly debated by a dissenter.	Dissenter.	1688 (1688)	Wing M2195; ESTC R10242	25,456	24

been at least your tacite Plea for not stirring up or troubling your Consciences to make a Dis●retive Judgment whether the Act of your Superiour which you are commanded to Publish were Lawful or Unlawful by the Law either of God or of the Land and to tell you the truth I do not think you are in the Eye of the Law such Criminals as on this particular occasion you would render your selves to be in case you should Read the Kings Declaration in Obedience to his Command though you did not approve the matter of it in your private Judgment it not being your Province positively to determine concerning it in point of Law You might with better pretence of Conscience if pressed to it in your own mind as an Act necessary to avoid a Sin against God after the Reading of the Declaration have taken your Exceptions to it in your particular Station then to have followed the course you have taken as it were by common consent one in the name of all the Rest thus openly to Declaim against it for that had been an Exercising of such an Act of Judgment and Reason if the cause Required it as a Minister of the Gospel might have done in reference to God whatever had been the consequence of it in respect to Men And the Prospect you had of this as you afterwards manifest does not excuse but rather condemn you for seeing better things and following the worse VII You say Our Law supposes that what we do in Obedience to Superiours we make our own Act by doing it This is the onely Reason I know why we must not obey a Prince against the Laws of the Land or the Laws of God because what we do let the Authority be what it will that Commandt it becomes our own Act and we are Responsible for it If you State this as a general Case of every Subject I suppose you mistake the Law for I cannot conceive how a Clerk in Parliament Privy Council Court of Justice or Convocation who Writes and afterwards Reads openly what his Superiours have Dictated and Commanded him to Read should be supposed in the Eye of the Law to be his own Act If you mean by your Laws you being Ministers are Responsible for what you do in any other Manner then the rest of the Kings Subjects or Ministerial Officers are you should have done well to have shewed it for till that be done I know not how to Distinguish of your Case as Different from other Ministerial Clerks The onely Reason you alledge why you must not obey a Prince against the Law of the Land or the Laws of God is both Complicated and Equivocal For if you willingly walk after any Command which is contrary to the Law of God let the Authority be as you say what it will that Commands it whether of a Prince singly or a Prince in conjunction with a Parliament I grant that it becomes your own Act for which you are responsible to God But it is not so in many Cases where a Prince may Command to Do or forbear what a particular Statute forbids or appoints Because He may therein Exercise His Prerogative according to the Common Law. Besides if you being a Minister should obey the Kings and your Lawful Superiours Order and Read his Declaration by which some Penal Laws are suspended and this Act of Prerogative should afterwards come to be Questioned in Parliament to whom are you Responsible Surely not to the King nor to your Ordnary whom you have Obeyed you cannot mean tha● not to any ordinary Court of Justice for no Information or Indi●●ment will lye against you there at the Kings Suit you must be then Arraign'd for it in Parliament or no where And if you come to be Responsible for it there I think your Rubrick established by Law and our Ignorance of any other Law will be a Sufficient Plea to excuse you For it will be a President of the First Impression I know not of any Parish Minister has ever heretofore been Question'd and Condemn'd in Parliament for obeying an Order in this Kind of His Prince or Lawful Superiour VIII Ministers are bound to take care that what they Publish in their Churches be neither contrary to the Laws of the Land nor the good of the Church Ministers of Religion are not look'd upon as common Cryers but what they Read they are supposed to recommend too though they do no more then read it For is not Reading Teaching It may be it were no fault to consent to the Declaration but if I consent to teach my People what I do not consent to my self I am sure that is a great one I take it for granted that you have sufficiently demonstrated to all Men that Reading and not Preaching off Book is Teaching for that has been your ordinary Practice for many Years and it is true by Reading you Teach your People to understand what you Read but when that is done your People are at liberty to judge and you also in this Present Case being ordered to read what the King hath declared are at liberty to Pen a Sermon that may be a Paraphrase upon what you read before and read that in your Pulpit afterwards so as therein you do not transgress the Law of God or of the Land and by that your People may understand whether you consent to or dissent from what you have read and if your are commanded by Law to read what you do not consent to in your own Conscience and for the discharge of a good Conscience towards God let your People know so much I think you therein discharge both the Office of a Minister to Man and Duty of a Teacher to God and in such a Case tho you should afterwards be judged by Mans Law yet you may with a quiet Mind therein commend your Cause to God who judgeth righteously Be it so That Ministers are not look'd upon as common Cryers yet give me leave to say you being Ministers are look'd upon as publick Preachers or Heralds to publish the Orders of your Superiors and are no more accountable to any Man for the matter which you so publish then a Herald who Publishes the Kings Proclamation to his Subjects con●●der the Consequence if the Judgment of what i● agreeable or contrary to the Laws of the land the Good or Hurt of the Church be left to the private Determination of every Parish Minister What will become of the Authority of their Superiours Of what us● is the Rubrick to which they have Subscribed which directs them to read what the King or their Ordnary enjoyns For in this Case 't is all one as I said before whether you are enjoyned to Read by an ● of State or an Act of Parliament for I think you will grant me this That the ● of an Eternal 〈…〉 t 〈…〉 t of Parliament then 〈…〉 So that in 〈…〉 〈…〉 no 〈…〉 f●r in your S●tion to 〈…〉 it himself of Evil a 〈…〉