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ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A33722 Liberty of conscience, asserted and vindicated by a learned country-gentleman ... Care, George. 1689 (1689) Wing C503; ESTC R21541 21,512 30

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LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE Asserted and Vindicated By a Learned Country-Gentleman Humbly offered to the Consideration of the LORDS and COMMONS in this present PARLIAMENT LONDON Printed for Jonathan Robinson at the Golden Lion in St. Paul's-Church-Yard 1689. THE PREFACE Courteous Reader MY Purpose in the following Treatise is not to satisfy all the Questions which may be put as What if any one should preach in the Pulpit in terminis that Jesus is not the Christ or against the Resurrection of the Dead or any other Article of our Faith which all who call themselves Christians do acknowledg or affront the Minister at the Communion and pull the Cloth and Vtensils off the Table such things by the place and manner of doing them may be reduced to moral Impiety and punished as Crimes against natural Light. But my Business is to assert a just Liberty in such controversial things of Religion as they who have forsaken the Church of Rome do differ in and have as they suppose some able and learned sober and Godly Men of their Persuasion supposing that in the mean time they behave themselves peaceably and live without any Civil Injury for my own part I am so sar from thinking that any of these Sects ought to be punished that I believe they might communicate each with other notwithstanding any Opinion in Religion which they hold if that be all had they but Charity enough to bear with and forbear one the other for he who believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God 1 John 5. 1. and is built upon the Rock Matth. 16. 16 18. Although I will not deny but I should prefer a purer Church before a less pure and perhaps one that is not of my own Persuasion before one that is for other causes but I cannot communicate with any Church which will require me to subscribe to or by my Practice and Gesture to justify any the least thing which I judg to be unlawful or else I shall not communicate for Example The Baptism of Infants is not so material a thing either way as that Men should break Communion upon it for there is for it neither Precept nor Precedent On the other side it is not forbidden but if he who thinks it unlawful to baptize his Infant shall not communicate except he doth he cannot lawfully communicate and the Schism is on their part who will force it as a necessary Condition of Communion for they cause Divisions Rom. 16. 17. I think there are in our Church others who deserve Toleration less than any Dissenters whom I know as notorious Prophaners of the Lords Day Haunters of Ale-houses at unseasonable times of the Night or when according to their Consciences they should be at Church and other debauched Persons whom we hear daily in the Streets cursing and swearing bidding God to damn themselves and others Now that they are grosly mistaken who tolerate such Persons as these that offend against their own Consciences and yet severely punish Dissenters in matters of mere Religion will be sufficiently proved in the following Discourse G. C. Of Liberty of Conscience QVI bene distinguit bene docet it will therefore be requisite to premise a word or two for distinction's sake And First We need not trouble our selves to define Conscience logically but taking that word grosly and as it is vulgarly understood we mean by Conscience any Man's Perswasion of what he is to believe and practise which may be of two sorts 1. Either first of such things as may be known by the common Light of Nature Or 2. Such things as are known only by Divine Revelation And these are of two sorts 1 st Such as concern the revealed Will of God under the Old Testament which is called the Law Or 2 dly The Revealed Will of God under the New Testament which is called the Gospel And Secondly By Liberty we mean an Immunity from Punishment and that is either 1. Divine viz. the just Judgments of God. 2. Humane and those are twofolde 1. Civil and Temporal Punishments by loss of Life Limb or Estate c. 2. Ecclesiastical by the Admonitions and spiritual Censures of the Church These things being premised the Truth concerning Liberty of Conscience will be cleared by the proof of the following Propositions I. First then if the Conscience be erroneous by any great Fault against the common Light of Nature we cannot assert any Freedom to it For God will punish it and the King will punish it and so should the Church too by her spiritual Censures and the greater the Error is as to the clearness of the Light against which it is committed or as to the Mischief and Malignity of it the more punishable it is for else we should introduce a Liberty for professed Atheism Blasphemy Murther Adultery Theft c. for Catilines and Ravilliacks c. for Punishments in such cases may be proper and more likely to amend the Delinquent and save the Community from such Mischiefs as such Errors tend to bring upon it Yet do not good Magistrates write all their Laws in Blood but decree Capital Punishments only against Capital Offenders and especially for such Offences as are against the second Table which Magistrates are better able to judg of and strike at the Root and Being of Civil Societies as Murther Paricide c. I mentioned gross Errors in the Proposition for as Aquinas saith in his Summes All Faults against natural Light belong not to the Cognizance of the Civil Magistrate who is a publick Person but are to be corrected by Oeconomicks and Ethicks so for the most part the Faults of Children are to be corrected by their Parents Besides some gross Errors may be excepted as they may be circumstantiated or over-ruled by Education and Religion therefore the Christians did not persecute the Heathens as the Heathens persecuted them although the Idolatries of the Heathens were contrary to common Light nor do the Protestants persecute the Papists as the Papists persecute the Protestants though some of the Errors of the Papists as Transubstantiation are grosly against the common Light of Reason and Sense it self but more tolerable as Errors meerly than paying Peter-pence to the Pope is in Civil Government II. Prop. Such Jews as lived in the Times of the Old Testament were not to have the Liberty of their Consciences as to humane Punishments though a great part of that Law consisted only of the revealed Will of God for God's Will was likewise revealed that they should be punished Now these Ordinances unto which the Jews were bound were mostly concerning the outward Man and very clearly revealed Besides the Jews had their Vrim and Thummim their Priests and Prophets whom God according to his Promise Deut. 18. 18. raised up from time to time for their Direction whom the People were bound to hear under penalty of Excision neither were the Strangers that dwelt in the Land and were but Proselytes of the Gate to be tolerated in