Selected quad for the lemma: conscience_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A41194
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Whether the preserving the Protestant religion was the motive unto, or the end that was designed in the late revolution in a letter to a country gentleman as an answer to his first query.
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Ferguson, Robert, d. 1714.
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1695
(1695)
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Wing F766; ESTC R35674
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40,307
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48
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then as they superadd the Divine Sanction to human Legislative Authority thereby to oblige and enforce us in Conscience to yield all that Reverence Loyalty and Obedience to our Sovereigns which the lawful and just Laws of the Kindom do impose upon and exact from us And therefore and thence it is That the same Texts of Scripture do bind and oblige some Nations to yield a more universal unlimitted and unreserved Obedience to their Rulers 〈◊〉 they can be construed and applied to require those of other Countries to perform For those Places of the Holy Bible are designed to influence and operate upon Conscience in proportion to the different degrees of Prerogative and Sovereignty vested in Princes and according to the respective measures of Liberty preserved unto Subjects by the Rules and Laws of their several and various Constitutions The Scripture was not given and designed to teach us Politicks or to prescribe the Forms of Government and the several Limitations of them farther than that all Governments were to be for God and the good of Mankind and of Societies But all Relative to Civil Government in Scripture is to require and oblige Subjects under the Penalty of eternal Wrath to yield Obedience in proportion to the respective Terms upon which the Government is founded under which they live and according to the several Laws by which it is to be upheld and exerted And the same Divine and Revealed Commands which oblige us in England to submit to Monarchy and be obedient to the King according to the Municipal and Statute Laws of the Kingdom bind them at Venice to acquiesce in Aristocracy and be in subjection to that Authority and Power and to pay obedience to all the Laws of the Republick if they be not inconsistent with and contradictory to the Laws of God No Man will say That the same Things were Lawful for the Persians or Babylonians to do against their Kings which the Lacedemonians under the Protection and Authority of the Ephori might have done against theirs or which those of Arragon were heretofore empowered to do at the Command and under the Jurisdiction of a certain Person chosen and appointed to be the Custos and Guardian of their Rights and Privileges and who had Power by the Law and Constitution to controul and resist their Kings in case of their invading and going about to overthrow them Whereupon it is no Sin in the King of France to take upon him and assume the whole Legislation without the assent and concurrence of the Three Estates whereas it would be otherwise in a King of England whilst he stands limitted as he doth by the Laws of the Constitution and Government and restrained by his Coronation Oath The French Monarch is guilty of no Offence in exacting Taxes of his Subjects without a previous Gift and Grant of them by their Representatives But I cannot say that according to the present Form of our Government the King of Great Britain would be Innocent in the Sight and Esteem of the Supreme Sovereign should he Levy Mony of his People without their own antecedent Consent in Parliament So that I will affirm with the utmost Confidence as knowing I do it upon the greatest Certainty That every Declaration and Intimation in the Bible relative to the Subjection and Fealty we should pay to Sovereign Rulers are intended to bind and oblige us in Conscience and out of Fear of Divine Wrath to be obedient to them actively as far as is enacted and required by the Laws of our Country if those Laws do command nothing inconsistent with and repugnant to the Laws of God and to be passive in all Cases save in those in which the Rules of the Constitution and the Statutes of the Realms where we live give us Liberty Right and Authority to withstand and oppose them And I will presume to add with the fullest Assurance that Law and Reason can give me That in no Circumstances of Danger into which our Religion and Civil Liberties could be brought nor under any Hazards we could fall into of losing and having them supprest were we either permitted or empowered by the Fundamentals of our Government the Rules of our Constitution or by the Common or Statute Law of the Kingdom to rebel against the King or to dethrone or drive him away Nor did the having the Protestant Religion established and secured unto us by Law nor its being incorporated among our Franchises and made a part of our Birth-right to possess it peaceably and practise it openly authorize us to take Arms against the King divest him of his Sovereignty and banish him from his Dominions though we had been furnished with the most clear and indisputable Evidence that he was fully resolved to extirpate it For though the Laws give us a Title to it as our Heritage and a Right to claim the Exercise of it as our chiefest Blessing and most valuable Privilege yet no Law or Contract existent in the King's time had provided that we might fly to Arms to prevent its being supprest or for the securing the Continuance of it to us and our Posterity Yea instead of that there were divers express Statutes then in being by which it was made and declared to be Treason to take up Arms against him upon any Pretence whatsoever So that had the preserving the Protestant Religion been the real Motive and End of our raising War and of dethroning the King yet it was not a Lawful nor a Justifiable Inducement and Design for doing it Nor can it be thought so by any who seriously consider and look upon the Laws of the Land as the Standard and Measure of the Peoples Subjection and Obedience and that whatsoever the Municipal and Statute Laws of our Country restrain us from or confine us unto provided it interfere not with that which either the Laws of Nature or those of Revelation do indispensably require and exact that thereunto we stand bound limitted and obliged by the Laws of God and the Doctrines both of the Old and New Testaments and this upon no less penalty than Damnation Which let no Man upon the Testimony of a Flattering or Mercenary Priest or the Authority and Verdict of a Prophane and Atheistical Statesman think he will or can escape without unfeigned Repentance evidenced in sincere and hearty Endeavours to restore the King Nor are you to be surprised to hear this kind of Theology and Politicks from me seing that according to Dr. Sherlock's Phrase as no Man is forbid to grow wiser than he was so I blush not but glory to confess and have deeply bewailed it That I have been heretofore misled by false Notions and have entertained Hypotheses about Government neither reconcilable to our Laws nor to the Peace of Communities but errando discimus non errare And as the preserving the Protestant Religion could be no Lawful and Justifiable Motive to the late Revolution so there were no just and sufficient Grounds administered by the
done and to extenuate and sweeten all that we have Lost and Suffered This is the principal Plea which he bears himself upon for his own Vindication and by which all those seek to warrant themselves who either Invited or Attended him hither or who at first Received and Joyned him at his Landing and on his March to London or that came in afterwards to Cooperate unto Concur with and Approve of what hath been done This is that by which your Judges do decoy on the People tamely to pay their Taxes and trapan and wheedle them to persevere in their Rebellion in their Harangues at Assizes instead of entertaining them with those obsolete Things relative to Law Righteousness and Equity with which their Predecessors used at those times to furnish and adorn the Charges which they gave Witness Treby's Oration at Kingston the last Circuit which wholy consisted of Romantick Praises of the Prince of Orange for having so Christianly and Heroically Stept in to save our Religion when at the brink of being lost and of Satyr and Invective against King James for having designed to overthrow it whereof among other Things he had the Impudence and Insolency to accuse him without regard either to Truth or Decency This is likewise that by which your mercenary and sycophant Divines who have translated their Pulpets into Stages and transformed themselves into Merry Andrews and Buffoons would Legitimate the Rebellion and instead of a Sin bind it as a Duty upon our Consciences and cantingly blow us into â—â—iumphs of Thankfulness and Joy when we ly Groveling and Starving under Slavery and Poverty Witness instead of edifying Sermons to confirm our Faith in the great Articles of Religion and to promote our Christian Obedience the many luscious and fulsom Panegyricks which have been Preached and Printed within these Six last Years and which are at that distance from Decorum as well as from Truth that they would be the Scorn of the Theatre and hissed at by the Pit This they reckon so bright a Colour in their Limning and Drawing the Usurpers that the dull Man selected to divert the Company at the Interment of the late Princess of Orange and who could dispence with his Conscience in saying several Things of her above the Standard and Proportion of Truth but had not Wit nor elevation of Thought to say any Thing that was Raptorous Decorous and Fine could not omit the making it one of the main Strokes in her Picture and that which was to give the lovely and lively Air and the ornamental Beauty to the whole namely That she was a wise and a good Queen and an incomparable Wise and one that had all the Duty in the World for other Relations which after long and laborious Consideration she judged consistent with her Obligations to God and her Country Which is as much as if Dr. Tenison had said That if it had not been for the preserving the Protestant Religion and the Liberties of England which were in danger to have been subverted she would have been an obedient Daughter to the King and would not have usurped his Throne and drove him and the vertuous Queen with the Royal and Innocent Infant her Brother out of their Dominions to be as Vagabonds in the World had it not been for the Generosity of a Neighbouring Monarch who has Received Entertained and Succoured them in their Calamity with a Deference Respect and Nobleness becoming his own Greatness and which hath carried in it a Recognition of their Grandeur and Sovereign Quality So that I do grant unto you That the preserving our Religion hath been the great Pretence for all the Injuries have been done his Majesty and the alledged Motives to all the disloyal illegal and immoral Things which have been perpetrated to compass and effect the late Revolution And I add That it is still made the Topick and Plea whereby to justify all the Villanies Crimes and Barbarities which have been practised since and not only that whereby to palliate all our Losses and Misfortunes but to be accounted for more than an equivalent of all the Distresses Miseries and Mischiefs which have ensued as the Effects and Consequences of it But should it be admitted that this was not only a pretended but a real Motive to the Revolution and to all that hath resulted from and attended it yet it hath not been hitherto made appear that according to the Rules of Christianity the Fundamentals of our Government and the Statutes of the Realm it is likewise a Lawful and Justifiable one and all that have written either of Ethicks or Politicks do tell us and the Principles of Reason as well as the Discoveries vouchsafed us by Revelation do set it in the brightest Light That neither the Goodness of the Inducement nor the Piety of the End will serve to legitimate an Action unless there be both a proper Authority to License it and a Goodness either Positive or Natural in what is to be done when cloathed with all its Circumstances Otherwise Men might Lawfully rob Temples and plunder Banks and Exchequers upon the Motive and Design of discharging their Debts and of paying their Creditors what they owe them Nay they may vertuously murther their Parents deflower Maids and ravish their Sisters upon the Inducement and in order to the End of getting into possession of Estates which they may lavish away upon the Saviour of our Religion and Liberties and towards the maintaining the Sacred War in which he is embarqued and for raising up a new Generation of Soldiers to defend the Dutch Barier against France Nor are there any Villanies named or practised on the Earth which these late and now common Tâ—picks of Argumentation will not serve to sanctify and to render them Actions highly meritorious But neither our Statesmen Lawyers nor Divines have thought sit to meddle with this and much less to take upon them to demonstrate that by the Laws of God and by those of the Kingdom we are allowed to dethrone Princes drive Kings from their Palaces into Exile and to involve Nations into blood if our established Religion be in danger of being supplanted and overthrown Though without a clear and uncontrolable Proof of this all they have said or can say about his Majesty's Designs in prejudice of our Religion were there as much Truth in it as there is Rancour and Falshood makes not what we have done to be Lawful but only proclaims them to to be Sophisters in Logick Hypocrites in Religion Debauchers of the Consciences of Men Panders to Villany and the Flatterers of Criminals in their Rebellious Wickedness who have had the Irreligion and Impudence to plead it For though I can readily grant that most of the Scripture Expressions and Precepts concerning the Duty and Obedience of Subjects to their Rulers do no further concern us than as they were either delivered and prescribed unto thâ—sâ— that were under Civil Constitutions of the like Species and Form with our own or