Selected quad for the lemma: conscience_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
conscience_n	accuse_v	contain_v	law_n	1,269	5	5.8505	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A96073	A modest discourse, of the piety, charity & policy of elder times and Christians. Together with those their vertues paralleled by Christian members of the Church of England. / By Edward Waterhouse Esq;	Waterhouse, Edward, 1619-1670.	1655 (1655)	Wing W1049; Thomason E1502_2; ESTC R208656	120,565	278

charity longer then in children and obtain a Name better then those of sonnes and daughters but if we be too cold and chill to be provoked to do good I pray God never to permit us to do evil if Learning be not advanced let it never be injured by us 'T was a brave speech of H. 8 th in the Parliament house Anno 37 Regni If I contrary to your expectation should suffer the Ministers of the Church to decay or Learning which is so great as Jewel to be minished or poor or miserable to be u●relitved you might say that I were no trusty friend to you nor charitable to mine even Christian neither a lover to the publike wealth nor yet one that feared God And it is the glory of the Medicean family that they have ever loved Learning and cherished Learned men for which they are noted to be blest with riches and honour above most houses fn Europe Let men in place and powe● take heed all they do to inoculate their Names into the stock and rolls of Royalty amounts to nothink if they disoblige the Learned for though prowess and hardiness diligence and wealth are great advancements to glory yet they are things perishable and have no influence on succession when the Lyon is dead or disarm'd then every body beards him and Goliah deserves to be infulted upon who defied when in his array and in the head of Philistims both Israels God and Israels host but he that hath been a bounteous and brave Prince good in Office to Religion and Learning may expect after his death to live in the eternity of Historians pens and Orators tongues and have Encomiums like that of Leo the tenth Thou O Learned Leo art the worlds darling all man-kind are enamoured with thee as the restorer of peace the determiner of warre the establisher of safety the calmer of strifes the father of studies and the fosterer of student the great Patron of ingenuity And for my part I almost think Cardinall Richilicu half recompenced for all the invectives against him in that Epitaph the Schoo●s of Sorbon made upon him I le mention but part of it to avoid prolixity Hic oriundus a Regibus aut pro Regibus Superavit seipsum major aliis semper se minor c. And then concludes Though Richlieu be dead yet his wisedem lives to move Europe yea he lives in the Schools of Sorbon in which nothing dies but hath immortality of fame The knowledge of this hath so convinced great spirits that they next to the Gods have been awed by nothing more then the fear of being disgusted by men of Learning Though Caesar made great changes in Rome yet he not only dealt gently but liberally with Learned men Omnes medicinam Romae professores liberalium artium doctores quo libentius ipsi urbem incol●rent caeteri appeterent civitate donavit There are other instances of the charity of Elder times to poor of all sorts whether of Noble houses decayed or ingenious Callings antiquated or the like but I pass them by concluding that no encouragement to Art answers those of Rewards and Honours for as S r Edward Deering witily wrote Great Rewards do beget great Endeavours and certainly when the Great Bason and Ewer are taken out of the Lottery you shall have few adventurers for small plate and spoons only If any man could cut the Moon all out into little Starres although we might have still the same Moon or as much in small peeces yet we shall want both light influence Thus much of the second Head under which I reduced the glory of Elder Times their Charity I come now to the last The Policie of former times not that Policie of Circum vention but of Government by which Laws honesty property and civil order were immured I do not propose any Scholasticall or nice stating of these severalities under heads precisely to their nature but so I rank them as may give me method to write of and the Reader some little delight to read them As then the foundations of buildings are first to be well laid before the superstructure can go forward so in affairs of Government the reason and method is univocall Laws are the supports of Government which made the Philosopher say No Laws no Cities Laws are the boundaries of lust and lawlesness Without them lust saith M r Pym will be a Law Covetousness and Ambition will become Laws Laws are as necessary to Polities as Physitians to naturall bodies and as Cyrus said well They must needs be unjust Who will not be obsequious to Laws which are beneficiall to all and when they are just and lasting equally respect all that are to be bound by them It is the frailty of our nature to trespass upon lenity therefore wise men care not how severe Magistrates are when they are just because they resolve not to provoke Governours that are prudent consider Laws under two regards as initiall and constitutive as subsidiary and establishing what is already well disposed for changes seldom advance peace but multiply the care and insecurity of the changers to prevent which Governours eye disorders at that distance in which they are least dangerous and put irons in them ere they break prison to publick annoyance as an advised Physitian who sees a disease in the matrix of ill humours when as it were the materia ex qua is hardly massed long before it be articulate and quick or as Apelles who saw Protogenes his art in the carriage of his pensill but half a line Laws like nets ought to lye round to compass all offenders and those who being subjects hope by their greatness to be priviledged from the command of them either meet with no Governours worthy their place or no Laws worthy their Name The generall end of Laws is Order for all Laws are either mandative of duty or tuitive of property or remunerative of vertue or punitive of vice all which tend to Order and Order is then rightly cared for when to Superiors duty to Equals love to Inferiors pity and to all Justice is given and whereever these are in any sort omitted either the Law is too short or the Executioner too remisse God as he is the first in Order and Dignity so the great and Supream Law giver when first he permitted mans prog up and down the world for a livelihood he gave him his Credentials according to which he should negotiate This was the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the unwritten Law graven by the finger of God in the Tables of Mans heart though blurred by sinne yet never so to be erased but that it had power of accusing or condemning so said the Apostle for when the Gentiles which have not the Law do by nature the things contained in the Law these having not the Law are a Law unto themselves which shew the work of the Law written in

Ark been taken by the Philistims the glory had been departed from the Israel of Gods Church How much prophane mirth would the sonnes of Error have made with these Songs of Zion had God given them up into their power But blessed be God the Church hath ever had ane held the Scriptures in high value though not admitted all parts of it for Canon at one and the same time sometimes they found parts of it not in good hands as they thought other parts by Hereticks were corrupted and handed to them not as they were in the autographon but with emendations to which were added many spurious and rejectitious Gospels Prophecies and Epistles fitted to answer the lying divination Satan had no foot other parts of Scripture not primariò authenticae the ancients allowed to be read sub regulâ morum but not as a rule of faith but such only as were received from Prophets and allowed by Christ Jesus his Apostles and their Scribes and Schollers and their successors hath the Church owned and adhered to and those are the Books in the Canon of our holy Mother the Church of England not that all mouthes have been stopped or all Christians agreed in the harmony no all have not beleeeved Gods testimony in the Churches report and traditional fidelity S t Jerom tells us that it was usual with hereticks to corrupt Catholick Authors the Eunomians dealt thus with Clemens the elder and Ruffinus is not behind-hand for this trick while he prefixed the Name of a holy Martyr to a book of Arrianisme and Evagrius charges them of entitling their hereticall books with the Names of Holy Orthodox men such as Athanasius Gregorius Thaumaturgus and Julius in brief Theodoret is round with them telling us they cared not what Law they broke what boldness and freedom they took for maintenance of their wickedness nay oftentimes they made it the master-piece of their blasphemy to violate the holy Law of God As men in groves cut this stick and that wand they like and leave the rest so pick erroneous men this book and that passage here and there and leave the rest as useless Whatever is contrary to their device and casts dirt in their face they reject and disown their darkness and the light of Scripture agrees not Light is au ill guest to an ill conscience and because Scripture troubles their Owle eyes and dismantles their impostry they cannot away with it Tertullian perstringes the Valentinians for their clucking into corners and their sculking up and down and sayes Our Doves-coat hath no guile is open and visible to all comers who have liberty to see and hear what we do And 't is a Note unimprobated that patrons and professors of error and none but such have ever dishonoured Scripture or questioned its authority nor have ever any who had a grounded hope of Heaven by Gods mercy held themselves above Ordinances as the means of attaining it nor have they ever pick'd and choos'd cull'd and refus'd this and not that Ordinance but had respect to all Gods commands and equally adored all his dispensations Charge an holy soul with queaziness in this kind object to it that it loves not to be limited and enlarged by the word not to humble it self to God in prayer not to obey Authority for the Lord and for conscience sake and it answers in Hazael's word Am I a dog that I should do this No this spot is not the spot of Gods people 't would be a sully which mountains of niter could not cleanse 'T is true indeed in the interpretation of this or that particular Scripture there hath been yet is and ever will be to the end of the world different opinions and many passions have lathered so high that charity hath often layen in the suds as is the Proverb even amongst men otherwayes without exception as between S t Augustine and S t Jerom in the Exposition on the second Chap. of the Galatians yea and in many things and under many temptations some of you have lived and spoken somewhat against the majesty and authority of the holy Scripture as Origen by Name who therefore confessed his errors and publikely retracted them as appears in his Epistle to Fabian and as S t Jerom testifies in his Epistle to Pammachius and Oceanus And therefore Legends Canons and Traditions brought into some Churches as grounds of belief and made obligatory to the conscience as onely the holy Scriptures ought to be held are but of late date in the Christian Church for S t Jerom or Epiphanius in him writes thus to Theophilus That thou mindest us of Church-Canons we thank thee but know this that nothing is so antique as the Laws and rights of Christ And Father Marinarus in the Counsel of Trent denied that the Fathers made Traditions to stand in competition with Scripture but good man he was born down with the many voices that decried his sound assertion as that which better beseemed a Colloquie in Germany then a Counsel of the universal Church but what he said was nevertheless true because disliked by those vipers for as they then so their predecessors long before cried up Traditions and perhaps they had it from the Jews or rather from the devil the author of it both in Jews and others Our Lord Jesus arraigns the Jews for making void the Commandements of God by mens traditions and transgressing the Commandements of God by traditions yea of rejecting the Commandements of God to fulfill them and the Apostle S t Paul reproves this and cautions against it Beware saith he least any man spoyl you through Philosophy and vain deceit after the tradition of men after the rudiments of the world and not after Christ Where the Apostle doth not simply dehort from traditions in affirmance of Scripture or civil custom but from such use of traditions as tends to the eclipse of the testimony of truth in the word written which is transcendently above the witness of man and therefore I cry out to all those New-lights as S t Jerom did Spare your pains hug not the cloud of your conceits instead of the Juno truth Why do you bring that to sale which the primitive Church for four hundred years never heard of Why take you upon your shoulders that task which Peter and Paul never taught nor were they now alive would own untill this day the Christian world hath been without this Doctrine and I in mine old age will profess that faith in which I was born and into which baptized Would S t Jerom have been stanch had he lived to these times wherein old and sound Religion is like wormeaten lumber cast into the outhouses or like unfashionable furniture turned out of the chambers of note to adorn the Nursery or the Chaplains lodgings I trow he would and had he he must have reproached many professors who now would pull

their hearts their conscience also bearing witnesse and their thoughts accusing or excusing one another What this radical Law was and how farre it reached is somewhat above me to determine But this is plain that from the right use of this Law there is enough to make us know God our selves and our Neighbour and to abhor injury to any of them 'T is true God explained this Law by superadded Laws which he gave his people the Jews and according to the equity of which we Christians proceed but he never superseded or nulled that Primitive Law But rather strengthens it by these latter Though the fairest draught of this Law was that on the heart of Adam yet the remains of that divine Art is admirable in the heart of every man who from that is taught to love and fear God as the most excellent good and to do every thing as in his sight yea not to do wickednesse because of the divine adversation to it There are amongst the Learned those that specifie the heads of this Law written in the heart Our late deceased Selden out of the Rabbins reduces them to six heads Idolatry Blasphemy against God Shedding of bloud Incest Theft judiciall Proceedings and they farther say that after the Floud there was added a Seventh against eating of bloud I purpose not to say any thing of this further then to shew the necessity of Laws to keep Nature in awe and the great use of them For what Saint Chrysostome saith of Governours that say I of Laws their right hand If people had no Rulers and Magistrates men would have lives lesse calm then wilde beasts do and would not only snarl at but wholly devour one another As God commended the use of Laws by his first compiling of them so hath he principled man with dispositions desirous of and conformable to Laws No Family no combination no number of men but have their Laws Customes and usages according to which in matters of all natures they proceed If there be any Casus omissi they consult about them and make prudent provisions concerning them for the future The Law of nature is the generall Law of mankinde A Law immutable hath been and ever will be what it was till it cease by dissolution What was to Adam a sin by the light of Nature is no lesse a sinne to us by light of the same nature To disobey our Creator To forget reverence to our own selves To do injury to those that live with us These and sundry such things are abusions to nature and against the law of it Upon this Text of Nature Men in all ages have largely commented and the severall Laws of Nations are as so many Pandects and multiform Cases upon the Institutions of God in nature God hath given man understanding to proportion Government to the best advantage of civil society The Authority to rule is Gods the frame of Government mens They at first order it as seems best to the advantage of them and their people In all Governments there hath been great care to compile Laws with advice and to execute them answerably Therefore the more innocent times and people resigned themselves and theirs to the pleasure and conduct of their Religious and holy men or to such martiall spirits as yet were guided by them and wholly rested on their sagacity for conduct It was no vulgar policy to possesse people that Law-makers had colloquy with the gods in the contexture of their Laws the nature of man by a voluntary and yet in a sort awed propension believing best of that which came from the divine supervising And indeed there were no Laws ever made or continued good but such as have their patern from that lustre and equity which is in the divine Law whether in pure Nature or in sacred writ For while Law-makers consulted with themselves and endeavoured to enter●ize their powers and entail to their Families the glory of Soveraignties they were apt to embase Laws by mixtures of injury which lacquied to their Usurpations And while they had rewards and honours to bestow wanted not Parafites to excite them thereto and Orators to defend them with pretended Reason for so doing But when they consulted with Right Equity and Justice and considered that to oppress others to right ones self was injury and a plausible ground of the oppresseds conspiracy against their oppressors and that they ought not to do as they would not be done by then they betook themselves to equaller distributions or to such designs of prudence as gave them honourable establishments by consent And so Volenti non sit injuria Of all the Law-givers that I reade of none more absolute then Moses yet none more ingenious the nobility of his minde and the tendernesse of his conscience would not permit him to fix rule upon his Family he left the dispose of it to God whose it was There is a second much to be admired It was Mycithus Servant to Anaxilaus Tyrant of the Rhegini who had by his dying Master commended to him the Government of his Kingdom and Children But he carried himself so gently and justly all the time of his Viceroyship That the people thought themselves governed by a person neither unmeet for rule nor too mean for the place And when his Regency grew out by the full age of his masters children he resigned his power to them and therewith the riches he had accumulated accounting himself only their Steward and contented himself parvo viatico living at Olympia to old age very privately but with great respect and serenity A great temptation to be other then he was but a greater vertue to be as he was These two I say denied themselves much and were excellent Rulers but for the most part Law-givers have done otherwise Fuerunt bona principia quod oppressam voluit defendere civitatem mali Eventus quod superatis dominis ducibus savis graviùs ipse civitatem quassavit qui se publicae calamitatis fore promiserat defensorem And many times in so doing not amisse For where no injury is done who so fit for Government as those who know the Rule of Government and will use what means conduceth to the Preservation of Government against all who either by fraud endeavour to subvert ot by hostility to vanquish it as a Subject to their Levelling Triumphs Of all the Heathen Worthies none more famous for their Laws then Lycurgus among the Greeks and Numa in the Romane Common-wealth the former wrote his Laws in bloud having the Sergeants of Death attending those that violated them and but requisite it was he should so do who had fierce and fallacious Greeks to deal with where Sampsons of destruction are there must be cords of Adamant to keep them under with The latter was so milde that next to the care of the gods for he was Religion● deditissimus he thought nothing more precious then perswasion or compulsive on men then a