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
A27068	Whether parish congregations be true Christian churches and the capable consenting incumbents, be truly their pastors, or bishops over their flocks ... : written by Richard Baxter as an explication of some passages in his former writings, especially his Treatise of episcopacy, misunderstood and misapplied by some, and answering the strongest objections of some of them, especially a book called, Mr. Baxters judgment and reasons against communicating with the parish assemblies, as by law required, and another called, A theological dialogue, or, Catholick communion once more defended, upon mens necessitating importunity / by Richard Baxter.	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1684 (1684)	Wing B1452; ESTC R16512	73,103	142

meritorious cause but Christs righteousness but that righteousness justifieth not Infidels nor any but qualified Receivers and Faith is that qualification Is not this true And is it not enough If you would preach or write censurious disputes whether it be the Physitian or the Medicine or the Patients taking it that cureth him or the Meat or the Giver or the eating it that feedeth men take your course I had rather answer that and most of your Books w●th groans and tears than with disputing XV. As for his threatning to open my faults as fast as I discover them I may save him the labour and lament them my self Two I will confess now besides all heretofore 1. I fear I did sometime by connivence and by too oft preaching against the faults of the Bishops about 1640 encourage some that were set upon accusing and separating over much Tho I ever disliked and opposed that Spirit and fore●●w what Divisions and Sins attended 2. Tho when I took the League and Cov●nant it was not imposed but offered to Volunteers and I never gave i● but to one and kept the Countrie from taking it yet seeing now what I saw not then I repent that I took it Tho being taken I dare not say that it bindeth not as a secondary Self-Obligation to that which God bound me to before My reasons are 1. Because as after imposed no knowing man can believe that the thousands of ignorant people that took it who never understood the controversies of Prelacy could take it in Truth Judgment and Righteousness and so must sin 2. Because it cut the Nation in two parts on pretence of Union and engaged us against such excellent Persons as Vsher Davenant and against the greatest half of the Land when we should have united on the terms of the B●ptismal Covenant 3. Because being before by God and our Allegiance sufficiently ●lliged to the King by a further Vow of mens own making against his will they entangled the consciences of the people about the meaning and the obligation of it some thinking it bound them not to him and other that it bound them to fight for him and yet to oppose the Prelacy that he was for And now the Law for Corporations binds men to declare that there is no ob●igation at all from that O●th either for the King or against any sin XVI There are also more than one of my Opponents who tell me That because I live in prosperity my self and suffer not therefore I am insensible of the case of suffer●rs and add affliction to the afflicted and have not due compassion on them Ans If this be true it is a great sin But 1. why do the same men accuse me for perswading men to avoid sufferings as they think by ill means It is indeed to save men from suffering by mistake for that which was their duty to the injury of others and to reserve their patience for better uses being like enough to have need of it all 2. I thank God I am so far from being insensible of the sufferings of the church of Christ throughout the world that I may say with Paul Rom. 9.1 I have continual sorrow in my heart for the wars blood c●uelties exercised on them and much more for their own sin And sure all the wrath that is agai●st me for labouring to save this Land from division self-destroying and suffering 1661. and since might have been avoided had I been so self-saving as the accusers feign me 3. I thank God my suff●rings have been far less than I expected or deserved of God and not worthy to be called sufferings in comparison of thousands in foreign Lands And I humbly thank the King that they have been no greater but if they had all had been now almost at an end I am not willing to name them lest it seem to savour of impatience but remembring Pauls example to such accusers to the Corinthians I will briefly say 1. From 1639. to 1660. I suffered more assaults and oppositi●n than some of them by divers penalties for divers duties against iniquity 2. I think I was the first silenced since the bishops return And the hot displeasure against me for my pac●ficatory labour 1660. and 1661. is not unknown 3. Enquire whether there be more virulent and voluminous accusations printed against me or any one of them 4 I have had no P●storal maintenance these 23 years and no Church to maintain me nor any stipendary Lecture and for about 15. years I received no gift of money from any but one man which I could not without incivility refuse 5. When I went twice a day to their Church at Acton I was sent to the common Gaol accused for a Sermon for meekness and obedience and submission to Government and when I built a Chappel it cost me about 20 l. to get a Minister out of the prison that had formerly been imprisoned for the Kings service for preaching but one Sermon there when I was twenty miles off 6. All that I had was distrained on and taken from me all my books and the very bed I lay on for preaching after though bona fide they had been on just considerations given or made over to another and were not mine but the present use of them only reserved to me and this by many warrants as convict by the oaths of I know not whom nor when nor could ever know my accuser or witness nor was ever summoned to speak for my self much less to examine the witnesses 7. I have been put in city and countrey to remove my habitation about twelve times and my person twenty in the midst of my pains to my great cost and trouble 8. How many thousand pounds my conscience hath cost me in the loss of a bishoprick by the Lord Chancellor offered since 1661. besides all other losses and charges I leave you to compute and ask you which of you hath lost more tho I acknowledg with thankfulness to God that I never wanted food or raiment 9. And while I am now writing for Parochial churches and communion and know no Law of the land that I break I am hated and while I keep my bed in pain or my couch there are new assaults which I think not fit to publish 10. And all this is but as a flea-biting in comparison of the sufferings which I carry about me by continual pain or langour through age and many uncurable diseases And under the expectations of death how small a matter is it to me whether I dye in a Gaol for my duty to God or in my hired house out of which I have very few times gone these two years but it hath been a prison to me What difference but conceit and consent If our Rulers think it for the interest of any cause or party that I dye in prison I shall acknowledg Gods will in the effect of theirs and it shall not be in their power to make me suffer for any thing but

for another yet agreeing in the same ordinary external Communion one part may be called national as well as the other The question is de ●omine the name equivocal from diversity of relations I own 1. A Christian Kingdom 2. I own a national association of Parish Churches and Pastors 3. Tho these submit to Diocesan superiority and be parts of a Diocess but true single Churches I do not therefore separate from them 4 A national Church headed by one constitutive pastoral Head I disown call which you will the national Church But saith he of his approved parish Church P. 14. Such a Church a●●i●meth to it self all that past●ral p●wer that in pursuance of Canon and Statute Law is fixed in the Bishop Ans Incogitantly spoken Do all Independents assume the power of Ordination Jurisdiction over others Citations Licencing Subspendings Degradings silencings instituting inducting c. which are so fixed on the Bishop If none of this be pastoral power then the appropriating it is no depriving parish Ministers of pastoral power and to be under Magistrates power nulls not the pastors XLIX What he saith about unlawful terms of Communion p 21. c. in the instances of kneeling putting off the hat standing up c. I answer 1. The Author all along seemeth to forget that I am not accusing him not telling every man his duty but only giving the Reasons of my own and such others practice so they make a long ado to vindicate him whose Manuscript I answered and say His question was only whether it be lawful to communicate with the churches as setled by Law and not in other respects When I ever told them I meddle with none of their Questions but my own viz 1. Whether I and such other do well or ill in that communion we hold with the Parish Churches 2. Whether all Protestants in England are bound in conscience to renounce and avoid Communion in the Liturgy with all Parish Churches and Chappels and rather to give over all church worship I only gave my Reasons why that Manuscript divulged and boasted of as unanswerable changed not my Judgment and I answered that in his Arguments which went further than the question put by them and assaulted my own assertions having before in my Christian Directory and cure of Church divisions without naming him fully answered his printed Reasons to prove it unlawful to use an imposed form or Liturgy especially because Ministers must use their own gifts But if any man believe that it is a sin to communicate kneeling or standing or sitting unless he lye down as Christ did or at any time save at a feast or supper or any where save in an Inn or an upper room or with any women or more than twelve or if they think it sin to kneel at prayer or be uncovered or to sing Psalms in our Metre and Tunes whether these men should separate from all the Churches that will not receive them in their own way or how far they do well or ill that will not let every man do what he will is none of the case that I have before me It will not follow that I must separate from a Church that bids me kneel and be uncovered c. because you take it to be sin put not your measures on all others And here because same maketh Mr. Faldo the Author of the Vindication which I answered that I may so far vindicate him as to shew that it 's ●earce likely I ask whether if Mr. Faldo did well as a pastor to keep up a church at Barn●● many years which would not endure the singing of a psalm of praise to God but constantly forbore it tho his Judgment was against them besides that many of them were not only against Infant Baptism but f●rther differ'd in other things was this communion more lawful or laudable than with honest parish Ministers in the Liturgy Did he the whole office of a pastor What if the Bishop had forbid him to sing ●salms Is not the Church State more concerned in the whole congregation than in an absent Bishop what greater omission or defect is there in many Parish-Churches I again say that I am so far of the Judgment of Hildersham John Ball c. that I had rather joyn caeteris paribus in a Church that useth the Psalms Chapters and all the Lords-day Prayers in the Liturgy before Sermon than one that only giveth us one Psalm or none and a Pulpit-prayer and a Sermon without all the rest of Church Worship L. I will conclude all with repeating a little of the Explication of my misused writings I. The pastoral Oversight of the Laity by the Elders or Bishops of the several Flocks is of Christs Institution and belongs to all true Presbyters And tho in necessity it may be done by divers transient Ministers pro tempore most regularly every Church should have it s stated Pastors II. Where such Churches are large the work requireth many Ministers where each one hath but part of the Charge III. Reason and Church-consent among these made one a President over the rest and called him the Bishop pecularly if it were in Marks days as Hierom saith it was in John's And tho this be not essential to a Church it is lawful and fit and at last it grew to so great a Reputation and Opinion of necessity that all Churches had such Bishops and gave them a Negative voice and ordained not without them and defined Churches as essentiated by Relation to them Ecclesia est plebs Episcopo adunata If now such men as J.O. Mr. Nye Dr. Goodwin c. should have in one Church six or seven young men of their own training up to be their Assistant-presbyters I do not think an Independent Church would take it for any crime that he should have a Negative voice in acts of Order and Discipline or that they should ordain Ministers therein without his Consent IV. By degrees single Congregations increased to as many as our great Parishes that have Chappels and tho still they communicated in the chief Church at some special times of the year they ordinarily met in divers places and the Presbyters officiated some in one meeting and some in another at first whosoever the Bishop daily sent but after their particular Tyths or Chappels were assigned to each yet all together were esteemed but one Church governed by one Bishop and his Colledg of Presbyters V. When they increased yet more and more fixed Chappels were assigned to fixed Presbyters but not as distinct Churches but parts of the Diocesan Church tho at last they were larger than one Bishop and Colledg could guide according to the first Institution VI. Yet long every Christian City had a Bishop and Church and every incorporate big Town like our Corporations or Market-Towns was called a City not because it had a Market as a reverend Slanderer seigneth me to lay but because Custom the master of Language called all Corporations and great

discharged from obedience in lawful things by the addition of some unlawful commands that destroy not acceptable Worship and turn not our food to Poyson I tell those Ministers that publickly charge this on Nonconformists that they must not charge any Doctrine of Seekers or Anabaptists or such separatists to be the Nonconformists Doctrine I know not one meer Nonconformist of that mind What we of this Age thought of Ep●scopacy Liturgy and Magistracy all that would come in and own that cause openly with us have told the world in our published Proposals of 1660 and 1661 To which we refer them that would know their minds XI But when I oft alledged the example of Christ and the Apostles this Objector and Answerer saith p. 19. We make not Christ and his Apostles Hypocrites for we have proved that Christ never joined with false worship so much as with his presence at the place of it unless with this intent to bear witn●ss against it nor did he ever advise his disciples so to d● As for Moses Chair it was then Christs own Institution and he had th●n no other Church or Institution on earth Ans It was cautelously done to pass by the instances of the Apostles that neither separated nor commanded one man to separate from all the faulty Churches Rev. 2.3 Notwithstanding the Woman Jezab●●s Doctrine and that of the Nicolaitans which God hated and the evil practices nor from the Church of Corinth where were carnal Schisms Defraudings Lawsuits before Heathens incest unlamented Sacrament disorders even to excess of drink disorder in Church Worship c. Nor from any other faulty Churches Meth●n●s th●y that are so strict against any additions in Modes of Worship should not so much add or alter Scripture or accuse it of de●●ctiveness as to suppose the Apostles to have culpably communicated with such Churches as Co●inth Coloss Ephesus Sardis Laodicea Smy●na c. yea and with the Jews who by falsifying the Rules called it unlawful to eat with the Gentiles or to eat what Moses Law fo●bad and not to keep their days Pauls accomplishing of his Vow in the T●mple and becoming a Jew to the Jews was fully contrary to the opponents D●ctrine And as to Christs practice we said before you that he conformed not to any evil nor should you But did he not send the Lepers to a false ill-called corrupt sort of Priests to do by and with them what the Law required Did he not ord●narily joyn in the Synagogues in their worsh●p Could he have leave constantly to teach there if he had there used to cry down their ordinary worship Had the Ceremonious Pharisees no ill forms nor ceremonies in their Worship Again I say Their long Prayers which were the Cloak of their oppression were either ●xt●mporate or forms of Liturgy If extemporate then the worst of Hypocrites may constantly use long extemporate Prayers and it had been no injury to the Spirit in them to have perswaded them to use Christs form instead of them If they were Liturgies then Christ did not separate from such no nor reprove them at all when he reproveth the hypocritical abuse of them Yea seemeth to commend them while he nameth them as a Cloak to cover evil which nothing is fit for that is not good Obj. He had no oth●r Church Ans 1. Then most in England m●y go to the Parish Churches where they have no other Church to go to 2. But Christ had twelve Apostles and 70 or 72 other Teachers and many more Disciples Were these no Church nor matter for a Church XII Obj. Page 4. God hath not left it in our power to communicate with any society when they make that the condition of my Communion which I am convinced of to be sin to me that I question whether it be lawful or no c. Ans How oft have I answered this without any reply 1. If they make your consent to any sin the condition of your Communion you must avoid it But if they put no sin on you to be present when they sin is a condition to all Church Communion and to your own praying who sin in all your self you before excepted sins of ordinary infirmity as not warranting separation And when did you ever prove that the composing and imposing of the Liturgy much more the Obedient use of the Lords-day part is not a sin of infirmity as much as slandering it and the Churches and writing such Books as yours Accusing is not proving 2. If your taking it for sin be true you must forbear it If you mistake it for sin which is duty per se or per accidens you sin against God and truth by your mistake and by your Omission God bindeth you to alter your Judgment and so he doth if you take an indifferent thing for sin tho here it is safest to forbear An erring Conscience is no Lawmaker less then a Magistrate but a misconceiver and doth ligare non obligare XIII Obj. But none of the things are indeed Worship which you say men may command Ans That man shall be none of my guide that makes questions of bare names to seem to the people as if they were about the matter named They are such accidents of the Worship which God himself commandeth as are done in the outward expression of reverence and honour to God and the more decent and edifying performance of his own Institutions This is the description of them Kneeling being uncovered swearing with outward signs singing in Tunes Metre c. Agree to the thing and call these Worship or no Worship as you please You say False Worship is no Worship If so it is no bad Worship but all faulty Worship is not null XIV As for his general talk of me how much I have promoted Popery and being for Justification by works and merit c. I give him leave to ease his Stomach without an Answer and all those to be deceived by him that will take his word and not read mine especially my Treatise of imputed Righteousness Page 9. He saith When the Scripture speaks of justification by faith Doth any sound Divine or Christians understand it of the act of believing but that its the obj●ct of faith that justifieth Ans See how strictly these men stick to Scripture that will have it the sole Law of Circumstances and yet can deny it as Expositors at their pleasure when Paul over and over so often saith That we are justified by faith and faith is imputed for righteousness and Christ saith Thy faith hath saved thee It is not faith that they mean but Christ It is faith in Christ There is no faith but the act or habit of believing Rom. 3.21 The righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ on all that believe 25. Through faith in his blood 26. The justifier of him which believeth in Jesus Many ways such will be odiously perverted if you put Christ instead of Faith we are justified by no