Selected quad for the lemma: conscience_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
conscience_n	bind_v	law_n	obligation_n	1,970	5	9.7701	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26948	Mr. Richard Baxter's last legacy in select admonitions and directions to all sober dissenters.	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1697 (1697)	Wing B1297_VARIANT; ESTC R25271	57,203	76

the Question in the little Parliament whether all the Ministers of the Parishes of England should be put down at once I have seen how confidently the killing of the King the rebellious demolishing of the Government of the Land the killing of many Thousands of their Brethren the turnings and overturnings of all kind of Rule even that which themselves set up have been committed and justified and profanely fathered upon God these with much more such fruits of love-killing Principles I have seen If you converse with Censorious Separatists you shall hear so many invectives against them that are truly Catholick and sober as will make you think that Love and Peace and Catholick Communion are some sinful and mischievous things The experience of Twenty six Years in this Kingdom may convince the World what crimes may stand with high professions such as the generation springing up will scarce believe What high Professors were the proudest overturners of all Government and resisters and despisers of Ministry and Holy Order in the Churches The most railing Quakers and most filthy blaspheming Ranters to warn the World to take heed of being proud of superficial gifts and high profession and that he that stands in his own conceit should take heed lest he fall I have much ado to forbear naming some high Professors known lately at Worcester Exeter and other places who died Apostate Infidels deriding Christianity and the Immortality of the Soul who once were Separatists And I have heard of some Separatists who when others of a contrary judgment were going to the Churches at London looked in at the Doors saying The Devil choak thee art thou not out of thy pottage yet I commend to all that of the Apostle Phil. 2. 3. Let nothing be done through strife and vain glory but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than themselves Read this Verse over on your Knees and beg of God to write it on your Hearts And I would wish all Assemblies of dividers and unwarrantable Separatists to write it over the Doors of their Meeting places and join with it Rom. 12. 10. but especially study James 3. In a word if God would cure the Church of Religious Pride the Pride of Wisdom and the Pride of Piety and Goodness the Church would have fewer Heresies and Contentions and much more Peace true Wisdom and Goodness The forwardness of many to keep open Divisions and to affect communion with none but such as say as they do is a down right mark of a Schismatick And I know that dividing Principles and Dispositions do tend directly to the ruine and damnation of those in whom they do prevail When Men fall into several Parties burning in Zeal against each other abating charity censuring and condemning one another backbiting and reviling each other through envy and strife when they look strangely on each other as being of several sides as if they were not Children of the same Father nor Members of the same Body or as if Christ were divided one being of Paul and another of Apollo c. and every one of a Faction letting out their thoughts in jealousies and evil surmises of each other perverting the words and actions of each to an ugly sense and snatching occasions to present one another as fools or odious to the hearers as if you should plainly say I pray you hate or despise these People whom I hate and despise This is the core of the Plague sore it is Schism in the bud S. 16. When People in the same Church do gather into private Meetings not under the guidance of their Pastors to edifie one another in holy exercises in love and peace but in opposition to their lawful Pastors or to one another to propagate their single opinions and increase their Parties and speak against those that are not on their side Schism is then ready to increase and multiply and the Swarm is ready to come forth and be gon S. 17. When these People actually depart and renounce or forsake the communion of the Church and cast off their faithful Pastors and draw into a separated Body by themselves and choose them Pastors and call themselves a Church and all without any just sufficient cause when thus Churches are gathered out of Churches before the old ones are dissolved or they have any warrant to depart when thus Pastor is set up against Pastor Church against Church and Altar against Altar this is Schism ripe and fruitful the Swarm is gone and hived in another place S. 19. If they shall also judge that Church to be no Church from which they separated and so cut off a part of the Body of Christ by an unrighteous Censure and condemn the innocent and usurp Authority over their Guides this is Disobedience and Uncharitableness with Schism A true Christian that hateth Fornication Drunkenness Lying Perjury because forbidden in the Word of God will hate Divisions also which are so frequently and vehemently forbidden Jo. 17. 21 22. Ro. 14. throughout Ro. 15. 12. 1 Cor. 1. 10. Eph. 4. 1 2 c. 1 Cor. 12. Phil. 3. 15. Ro. 16. 17 18. 1 Tim. 1. 4. James 3. The mischief of Divisions may be seen at large p. 739. Q. May or must a Minister silenced or forbid to preach the Gospel go on still to preach it against the Law Answ He that is silenced by just power though unjustly in a Country that needeth not his Preaching must forbear there and if he can must go into another Country where he may be more serviceable We must do any lawful thing to procure the Magistrates licence to preach in his Dominions How Humane Laws bind the Conscience Q. Whether the Laws of men do bind the Conscience Answ p. 37. Taking Conscience in a stricter sense as including essentially a relation to God's obligation the full sense of the the question is this Whether it be a sin against God to break the laws of man Answ It is a sin against God to break such Laws as Rulers are authorized by God to make First because God commandeth us to obey our Rulers God commandeth us to obey in general and their Law determineth of the particular matter therefore God obligeth us in conscience of his Law to obey them in that particular 2. Because by making them his Officers by his Commission he hath given them a certain beam of Authority which is Divine as derived from God therefore they can command us by a power derived from God therefore to disobey is to sin against a Power derived from God Man being God's Officer First his own Law layeth on us an obligation derivatively Divine for it is no Law which hath no Obligation and it is no Authoritative Obligation which is not derived from God 2. God's own Law bindeth us to obey Man's Laws Rom. 13. And it may be a good reason to perswade Obedience to our Ecclesiastical Governours because Preaching is a cheap and easie

be not read read to keep up an ignorant lazy Ministry that can or will do no better 5. And especially if Authority command it and the Churches agreement require it Of the Oath of Canonical Obedience Q. 153. May we lawfully swear obedience in all things lawful and honest either to Usurpers or to our lawful Pastors Answ If the King shall command us it is lawful So the old Non-conformists who thought the English Prelacy an unlawful Office yet maintained that it is lawful to take the Oath of Canonical Obedience because they thought it was imposed by the King and Laws and that we swear them to them not as Officers claming a Divine Right in the Spiritual Government but as Ordinaries or Officers made by the King according to the Oath of Supremacy And if Prelacy were proved never so unlawful no doubt but by the Kings Command we may swear or perform formal Obedience to a Prelate Read Bradshaw against Can concerning this Pag. 181. Christ Direct 2d Edit Of the Holiness of Churches Q. 170. Are Temples Fonts Utensils Church-lands much more Ministers Holy And what reverence is due to them as Holy Answ Temples Utensils Lands c. devoted and lawfully separated by Man for Holy uses are Holy as justly related to God by that lawful separation Ministers are more Holy than Temples Lands or Utensils as being nearlier related to holy things and things separated by God are more Holy than those justly separated by Man And so of Days every thing should be reverenced according to the measure of its Holiness And this expressed by such Signs Gestures Actions as are fittest to Honour God to whom they are related And so to be uncovered in the Church and use reverent Carriage and Gestures there doth tend to preserve due Reverence to God and to his Worship 1 Cor. 16. 20. Of the Power of the Magistrate in Circumstantials We flatly affirm that the Kings Laws do bind the Mind Soul or Conscience to a conscionable performance of all his lawful commands Apol 4. We are so tender of obeying our Rulers that we will do any thing to obey and please them except disobeying God Page 111. We doubt not but Magistrates may restrain false Teachers from seducing others and drawing them to Sin Of Episcopacy Page 193. Princes and Rulers may for Orders sake distribute their Christian Kingdoms into Parishes which shall be the Ordinary Bounds of particular Churches And such distribution is very Congruous to the ends of the Ministry and Churches and conduceth to Order and Peace Non-confor Plea Pag. 31. When Pastors by Concord or Magistrates by Laws have setled lawful Circumstances or Accidents of Church Order or Worship or Discipline though they be in particular but Humane Institutions it is sinful Disobedience to violate them without necessity as Parochial Order Associations Times Places Ministers Scripture Translations c. Page 49. God's Laws bind us to keep Love and Concord and the Agreement of Councils may determine of the matter in alterable Points and so absent and present Bishops may for Concord sake be obliged by God's Law to keep such Canons and they are matter of Duty Page 266. The true interest of a meer Non-conformist requireth him to live in Loyalty Peace and Patience and in Love and Communion with the Parochial Churches Page 251. N. 11. I deny not but Magistrates may moderately drive Men to hear God's Word and to do the immediate Duties of their Places Of Episcopacy Page 144. Those Modes or Circumstances of Worship which are necessary in genere but left undetermined by God in specie are left by God to humane prudential determination else an impossibility should be necessary It is left to humane determination what Place the Publick Assemblies shall be held in And to determine of the time except where God hath determined already and what Utensils to imploy about the Publick Worship Of the Surplice Some decent Habit is necessary either the Magistrate or the Minister or associated Pastors must determine what I think neither Magistrate nor Synod should do more than hinder indecency if they do and tye all to one habit and suppose it were an indecent habit yet this is but an imprudent use of power it is a thing within the Magistrates reach he doth not aliene work but his own work amiss and therefore the thing in it self being lawful I would obey him and use that garment if I could not be dispensed with Yea though secondarily the whiteness be to signifie purity and so it be made a teaching sign yet would I obey And see no reason to scruple the lawfulness of the Ring in Marriage for though the Papists make a Sacrament of Marriage yet we have no reason to take it for any Ordinance of Divine Worship more than the solemnizing a Contract between a Prince and People All things are sanctified and pure to the Pure And for Organs or other Instruments of Musick in God's Worship they being a help partly naturally and partly artificial to the exhilarating the Spirits for the praise of God I know no argument to prove them simply unlawful but what would prove a Cup of Wine unlawful or the Tune and Metre and Melody of Singing unlawful Here therefore we thus conclude Page 423. That every misordering of such great Affairs is the Sin of them that do it yet the Subject is not exempted from Obedience by every such mistake of the Governour And § 67. If the Mischoosing of such Circumstances by the Governors be but an inconvenience and destroy not the Ordinance it self or frustrate the ends of it we are to obey for he the judge of his own Works and not we The thing is not sinful though inconvenient Page 398. Of Five Disputations § 25. Prop. 12. It may be very Sinful to command some Ceremonies which may lawfully yea must in duty be used when they are commanded And Prop. 14. Certain things commonly called Ceremonies may lawfully be used in the Church upon humane imposition and when it is not against the Law of God no Person should disobey the command of their Lawful Governours in such things If the Prince command one thing not contrary to God's Law and the Pastors command the contrary we must obey the Prince before the Pastor We must obey the Magistrate We know not that their Commands are lawful as long as we have no sufficient Reason to believe them unlawful Page 356. of Holy Common-wealth and Page 357. Of Holy-Days The Holy Doctrine Lives and Sufferings of the Martyrs and other Holy Men hath been so great a Mercy to the Church that for any thing I know it is lawful to keep Anniversary Thanksgiving in remembrance of them and to encourage the weak and provoke them to constancy and imitation No Christian should refuse that which is lawful nor to joyn with the Church in Holy Exercises on the days of thankful Commemoration of the Apostles and Martyrs and Excellent