Selected quad for the lemma: conscience_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
conscience_n	case_n	church_n	resolution_n	1,650	5	9.9602	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A96113	A scribe, pharisee, hypocrite; and his letters answered, separates churched, dippers sprinkled: or, A vindication of the church and universities of England, in many orthodox tenets & righteous practices. Whereunto is added a narration of a publick dipping, June 26. 1656. In a pond of much Leighes parish in Essex, with a censure thereupon. By Jeffry Watts B.D. and Rectour of Much-Leighes.	Watts, Geoffrey, d. 1663.	1657 (1657)	Wing W1154; Thomason E921_1; Thomason E921_2; ESTC R207543	280,939	342

unclean or unholy But now saith he by your dwelling tegether and owning your former marriage which was lawfull they are holy and clean This in short is the genuen genuine meaning of the Holy Ghost in this Scripture This neither in short nor at length is the meaning of the Holy Ghost in this Scripture for according to this meaning all the children of Heathens and Pagan-Parents lawfully married as they may be and many of them be may be said to be holy and each of the Parents sanctified to the other by their dwelling together and owning their Marriage which was lawfull Which things are nothing pertinent to the Corinthians Question or the Apostles Answer and quite wide and fardistant if not wholly repugnant to the scope of the words and meaning of the Holy Ghost in this Scripture To let pass the non-sense of some part of your Relation and the confusions thereof as to the Question and Answer and your shortning or rather curtailing of them I will set it down to the full because upon this depends as upon a prop or pillar the Frame and Fabrick of all Reasons and Arguments These Corinthians before they received the Gospel and their conversion were of the civil Heathens and Pagans amongst whom the men had their wives and wives their husbands joyned together in lawful Matrimony according to the Customs and Laws amongst them Now when amongst these married couplet sometimes the husband was converted to Christ and became a believer the wife abiding in her unbelief and sometimes the wife was converted to Christ and became a believer the husband rentaining in his Idolatry the Spirit blowing where it listed and grace being free the believing party began to have some scruple of Conscience occasioned it may be upon their knowledge of the Law in Hug. 2.12 and 13. or remembring the fact of Ezra 9 and 10. Chapters or considering its faith and the others infidelity how ill they would comply together and thereupon sent to the Apostle to have his resolution and answer whether they might retain dwell and live with their unbelieving consorts to which the Apostle answereth that if the unbelieving party be pleased and willing to live and dwell with the believing parcy the believing party should not depart and leave the other and giveth them this reason for that the unbelieving party is sanctified by the believing party the which he asserts by this reason Else were your children unclean but now they are holy Or else this may go for a second doubt and scruple of the Corinthians resolved here by the Apostle for so sure when they scrupled whether their married society as husband wife were lawful in this respect because one party was an Infidel and unclean they doubted next concerning their children whether they should be holy with the believing Parent which was within or unclean with the unbelieving who was without the Church and its Privileges and therefore the Apostle in his answer speaketh to the Case of children also so born as well as he had done to the other concerning the Parents that their children also were holy and not unclean Now it seems the Corinthians rested well satisfied in their Consciences with this Apostolical resolution of this double doubtful Case for he spake as unto wise men able to judge what he said and meant as himself testifieth of them 1 Cor. 10.15 But we have sought out many inventions and though they might be plain Cases with us being thus determined aforchand long ago by an Apostle we have folded them and perplexed them with many intricacies about the senses and meaning of the Canons of that Apostle As what is that sanctification and how the unbelieving wise is sanctified by the believing husband and what is this holiness and how the children of such Parents are said to be holy and not unclean You have already and soon shot your bolts at both at once and thus give the Genuine sense and meaning as you boast of the Holy Ghost in this Scripture that the former resolution Apostolical is to be taken of Matrimonial sanctification as thus the unbelieving Wife is sanctified by the believing Husband so that they are lawfully Husband and Wife And the latter resolution Apostolical is to be taken of Natural holiness as you call it in your third Consideration so as the children of such Parents were not unclean but holy that is not bastards but Legitimates And now I must skip over to that third Consideration mentioned to finde out either some Text of Scripture or some sound of reason there being none betwixt this and that There indeed I finde cited by you 1 Thess 4.3 4. Wherein thus you proceed in the 3. verse the Apostle saith For this is the will of God even your sanctificaion or holinesse What is this sanctification or holinesse it is laid down in the latter part of the verse in those words that you should abstam from Fornication so that from hence it appears what holinesse the Apostle meant before even a Natural holinesse or clean e● cleanness that is not born of Fornication and the reason is in the 4. verse that every one of you should know how to posese possesse his vesel vessel in sanctification and honour speaking of Natural holinesse and cleanness of keeping their body c. and so their children come to be clean and holy else were they unclean and unholy First What a Reasoner are you your self may see by making the 4 verse a reason of the 3. verse which is only an explication of it as to the persons to whom he prescribed the duty of abstaining from Fornication and to the means thereof that every one should keep his vessel or body in sanctification c. which is the same thing in substance with the former Secondly You mis-name the thing as well as mistake the reason For it is not a natural holiness or cleanness that the Apostle speaks of or for but a conjugal or civil or moral one nor is Fornication or uncleanness here any natural but a moral civil or conjugal thing or otherwise an unconjugal uncivil and immoral as all other vices and sins are Thirdly If this Text must prove the former Text of the Corinthians to be meant only of Matrimonial sanctification for I hope now you will leave off your Natural holiness Why then this text of the Thessalonians I mean and the uncleanness and holiness there must be restrained to Fornication and chastity but this cannot be because other sans are named and mentioned in that place besides it as that no man go beyond defraud his brother in any matter at the 6. verse and then the Apostle at the 7. verse gives this as a reason common to both and all particulars because God hath not called us to uncleanness but to holiness so that by holiness there is meant not only chastity but justice also and integrity and by uncleanness in justice also fraudulency For the will of God is first

generally set down at the 3. verse and specified in two particulars the one of chastity along to the 6. verse in whcih verse is another particular of justice and at the 7 verse the reason of both is yielded For God hath not called us to uncleanness but holiness which if understood only of Matrimonial uncleannes which is Fornication and holiness which is chastity then the Argument must run thus let no man go beyond his brother in bargining for God hath not called us to fornication but to chastity and so you alone shall run with it for me and follow the consequence thereof which I hold to be of no consquence And fourthly Such another consequence is this uncleanness and holiness or sanctification is put by St. Paul to the Thessalonians for fornication and chastity suppose it so though I grant it not so and therefore the same is meant by St. Paul to the Corinthian when he saith the husband is sanctified by or in or to the wife else the children were unclean but now they are holy as if the same words may not bear divers senses in scveral Text of Scriptures according to the diversity of the matter and scope and how will you shew that chastity among the Heathens and unbelievers is ever called sanctification in Scripture the spirit only being the Spirit of sanctification and the bodies of Heathens and unbelievers being not the Temples of the Holy Spirit and yet you see the Heathen or unbelieving husband or wife is said to be sanctified in or by the believing wife or husband And Fiftly and lastly The Apostle speaketh to the Thessalonians grown persons converted to Christ and tells them for the present and time to come that it is the will of God they should abstain from uncleanness and fornication from fraud and injustice for the one of which you cite Heb. 13.4 also the only t●xt you ci●e according the sense of it and what 's all this to the unbelievers being sanctified by the believers or their childrens being holy Here was no such mixt conjugal societies of Christians and Gentiles or Heathens and children born of them as appears in that the Apostles saith Let every one of you possesse his vessel in sanctification and not in the lust of Concupisence even as the Gentiles which know not God I am sure the Apostle neither speaks nor means a natural holiness or cleanness that is not born of Fornication as you strangly and inconsiderately blurt out which words I leave to you to put into some Genitive Case for the birth of I know not whom the fathers or children of these Thessalonians for you make no Genuine sense here either of fathers or childrens Natural holiness or cleanness There is a parcel of your third Consideration clapt in by you not belonging to the matter in hand there which according to my custom of right ordering and methodising of your confused stuffe I reserve untill anon to come in its due and proper place I proceed now that I have answered your Allegation for a Natural you would say if you were acquainted with the best spoken of your Sect Matrimonial sanctification Holiness and cleanness to give you my Reasons to the contrary of your Opinion 1. When the Apostle saith the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife c. and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband this cannot be meant of Matrimonial sanctity and holiness that their Marriage was good and lawful and chaste for both parties knew that of themselves before nor needed they nor did they here propound any such Quaere unto the Apostle Whether they were at first or still rightly man and wife or were joyned in lawful way of Wedlock whilest they were Heathens And that case was also determined before by the Apostle as the 9 and 10. verses let not the wife depart from the husband and let not the husband put away his wife But the Quaere here was whether the believing party might depart and seperate from the unbelieving party a Brother or a Sister as its more explicated at the 12 and 13. verses so that it seems this Quaere arose from something in difference of Religion that troubled the Conscience of the believing party after his or her conversion as whether it would not be defiled in remaining joyned to Idolaters and Infidels Now suppose the Quaere had been sent to you for answer for I will see how good you are at answers who are so much in Quaeres what will you answer to these Corinthians why thus you do Be content Sirs you have a natural holiness cleanness or your Matrimony is lawful notwithstanding the difference in faith you may live together for all that you are no Adulterers and Adulteresses increase and multiply your children are no bastards but Legitimates But Sir do you think this would have answered their Quaere satisfied their scruple or pacified their Conscience would they not have replyed to you in the words of Job to his Friends We have heard many such things miseralbe Comforters are ye all Job 16.2 Tell us that we know not answer us to that we Quaere you speak that we have not heard we have heard many such things we know all this that we are lawfully man and wife and our children are no Bastards but Legitimater if this be all you can say as good hold your peace for you speak no peace to Conscience Miserable comforters of Conscience are ye all or as in the margent troublesome comforters of conscience are ye all and by this your resolution make our Consciences more troublesome and miserable than before they were Our doubts are whether we that are converts and believers may put away or go from our husbands or wives which are Infidels and unconverted and also his or her children as not belonging to God for part of his people or seed and being as a grief and vexation if not pollutionto us what do you tell us of lawfulness of our Marriages or Legitimacy of our children Can you shew us there is any sanctification betwixt us and our unbelieving consorts whereby we may be induced to live and dewell together any holinesse of our off-spring and children that we may own them as members of the Church of God do this and do somthing else it s nothing you say But I will take off these Corinthians from you Sir and from baiting of you for which you may thank me and will direct them to a more happy and peaceable Comforter ever their own Apostle St. Paul who here fully answereth their doubts and quiets their Consciences telling them that the unbelieving husband is sanctisied by or in the word in the Original beareth all the wife and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by or in the husband meaning though not expressed the believing husband and the believing wife I blamed you Sir before for expressing it in the text where the word believing is not for mentioning it as the fense and scope which my self

them and Prayer to worke down Gods blessing upon them and then also in the fourth verse Thanksgiving to send up glory to God for them all which the Heathen and unbeliever were not capable of or able to and this Sanctification is not their lawfull use of the Creature but a peculiar holy use of them which the Believers and Saints have And so this Exposition of Paul to Timothy makes the other of Paul to the Corinthians clear and stronger for some of your Sect hold That the Sanctification of the unbeliever here in the Corinthians is such a Sanctification as is parallel with that there in Timothy and therefore I may infer that as the sanctification in Timothy is peculiar onely to Believers and more than a lawfull use of the Creatures which Heathens are also capable of so the Sanctification in the Corinthians is a holy use of the unbelieving Consort unto the Believer and more than a lawfull or Matrimonial Chastity which the unbelievers may and do enjoy amongst themselves This that I have set down is the same in effect with that which our latter Divines call Instrumental Sanct fication they mean and so would have the Apostle to mean when he saith that the unbelieving Consort is sanctified by or to the believing Consort that is sanctified instrumentally to the precreating of issue or children which the believing Consort doth sanctifi●● and so both together the unbeliever sanctified by or in the Believer do make a holy root to produce a holy branch For its evident that this sanctifying by the believing party here mentioned respects the issue as the Apostles reason sheweth else were your children unclean but now they are holy And you and your Sect acknowledge as much by your grounding and building a legitimation of issue thereupon Briefly the Infidel party is sanctified by and in the other both for a holy Conjugal Society and for raising up of a holy Seed unto God so it is but relatively for absolutely all are sanctified onely in Christ Jesus And so I should and would have come to the Corinthians second Scruple or Case of Conscience about their children but that I remember a parcel or Clause of your third and last Consideration reserved hither because it was clapt in there disorderly and impertinently and it is this as you deliver it Again if it ware ment were meant otherwise then might the unbelieving wife be saved and enjoy any Church-privilege by the faith of the husband or the husband by the faith of the wife as well as the child by the faith of the Parents and that by the Apostles rule in this Verse If it were meant otherwise you mean I suppose if the being sanctified of the unbelieving Consort by or to the Believing one were not meant of your natural holiness or cleanness or others Matrimonial Chastity and Sanctity for I will give you in this as an overplus but of our either the Believers holy use of his unbelieving Consort or his unbelieving Consorts being instrumentaly sanctified to the procreation of children together with the Believer What then then might the unbelieving wife be saved and enjoy any Church-privilege by the faith of the husband and the husband by the faith of the wife as well as the child by the faith of the Parents For the General it s a non-sequence and then a non-sense Once more I must tell you of your non-sense of natural holiness or cleanness you did well to joyn them together otherwise were it not for your cleanness you were clean gone as to your holiness and must go off uncleanly from your natural holiness for the Apostle never intended any of your natural holiness or cleanness nor the others Matrimonial but either a Moral or Ceremonial or rather Instrumental or Sacred-usual if I may so speak And another non-sense of yours is your putting of Salvation and enjoying of Church-privileges together when as many are saved that enjoy none of them and some enjoy many of them and yet are not saved yea and putting Salvation before enjoying of Church-privileges when as ordinarily Church-privileges and the enjoying them go before saving and Salvation These things carry not sense in them besides they are not according to the sense of the Apostle and his Text which speak onely a word of sanctifying and not of saving a syllable And now again from being sanctified especially the unbelieving husband or wife's being sanctified to their being saved whilest unbelieving is one of your greatest non-sequences you have made in your two sheets though you understand it of any of the sanctifyings mentioned mine or yours Once more and lastly The unbelieving husband or wife though sanctified by and in the believing Consort any of the waies yet may not be saved and enjoy Church-privileges as well as the born child of a believing Parent because this child hath present capable Right and real Title to a Church-privilege which is Baptism and all other Privileges of the Covenant as he shall grow up to them yea and to salvation it self whereas the unbelieving husband or wife hath not just plea in present to any of these until forsaking their unbelief they embrace Christ and make preofession of their faith and so come into Covenant with the believing Consort and its child or children Therefore I say not so well as a Christian child may an unbelieving husband or wife be saved or enjoy Church-privileges by the faith of the believing Consort and you did not as well as you might to say so especially seeing children born of Christian Parents are not unbelievers or Infidels but Believers rather as I have formerly shewed as also how and in what way and sense such children may be said to enjoy Church-Privileges and to be saved by the faith of their Parents to which I refer the Reader and your self You write something of the Apostles rule in this Verse by which it would follow which you presume of but whil●st you apply it ill here it begins to be your rule and you being the Authour of the misapplying are also the Master of misrule I know no rule here but the Proposition and Resolution of the Apostle that the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband and the unbelieving husband is sanct●fi●d by the wife The Apostle saith not as you is saved or enjoyeth Church-privileges by or in the believing Consort whilest he is an unbeliever and yet so it may fall out that the unbelieving Consort may be brought off from its infidelity by the believing Consort and so may enjoy all Church privileges and in the end be saved for so Verse 16. What knowest thou O wife whether thou shalt save thy husband he speaks to the believing wife of her unbelieving husband Or how knowest thou O man whether thou shalt save thy wife so he speaks also to the believing husband of his unbelieving wife The which Text may be a satisfying reason for the comfortable and hopeful continuance of marriage-society and cohabitation as which

have the sign of water and discern the sign in the very act with the eye of his flesh and yet be a grosse heritique and a vile hypocrite yea a very reprobate So an infant may be and but once Baptized and that in its infancy and want your discerning of the sign and yet when he comes to years of discretion prove a holy pious honest orthodox and worthy Christian But now that according to our agreement you and others have spoken first all you had and have to say for your legitimal holiness to be here meant against the federal holiness of children of Christians Baptized which all is but very little very nothing it is my turn now to say something for our federal holiness to be 〈◊〉 a meant and against your legitimal holiness which 〈…〉 also little yet something onely a small addition to whom have already enlarged upon in my answer to you hereabouts to be as a conclusion to the premisses and a performance of my promises I say then that the Apostle speaking of the children of Parents of whom one is a believer the other an infidel and saying that they are not unclean but holy doth not mean holiness by legitimation as thus your children are not bastards but lawfully begotten and born as you and other of the separation do expound it insisting in the steps of the Jesuites and in the way of Rome from which and whom notwithstanding you pretend a seperation as much yea have taken a solemn Covenant for the extirpating of Popery It is true such a holiness is here spoken of and meant as is opposite to uncleanness but to what uncleanness the uncleanness of Idolatry and Paganism for so these are called in Scripture phrase uncleanness and even spiritual Adultery and Fornication and all Idolaters and Heathens are called harlots and said to go a Whoring after other gods but you and your genuine Expositors oppose that holiness to anothers uncleanness onely which is bodily adultery fornication and uncleanness and so give us as the genuine sense of those words else were your children unclean that is bastards but now they are holy lawfully born and no bastards a genuine sense indeed as you call and according to the lust of the fl●sh more than the minde of the Spirit as you boasted in the beginning of your exposition of this verse If this had been all the matter the Corinthian couples know this particular better than the Apostle himself who knew more than they all of this matter of holiness they needed not to have sent to him for his opinion and resolution to know whether their children were bastards or no who knew themselves being of the civil Heathens to be lawfully married according to the Laws and Customs of their Nations and so their issue to be legitimate they were so fully assured of that and this that they could have made evidence and given satisfaction to the Apostle rather then needed to have the one or take the other from him And whereas it s held of you and all of us that the Apostle here answereth a scruple or case of Conscience which the believing party joyned with an unbelieving yoke-fellow propounded unto him as before about their conjugal society so about their natal or natural issue whether it was to be counted to the people of God after the believing party or as alien from God after the unbelieving party he answereth it clearly and pertinently their children were not unclean but holy by which if he had meant they are not bastards but legitimates the incomparably learned and Logical Disputer St. Paul had not answered to the business and question propounded for they made no question of the legitimacy of their issue but of the holiness of their state and the exquisitely prudent and Theological discerner had very meanly resolved their doubt and but very cloudily elucidated their scruple and afforded no peace as all to their Consciences in this but rather involved them in farther troubles For the whole City of Corinth and all the Heathen Regions and conjugal couples emongst them would have been disturbed and disquieted in their Consciences at this case of Conscience so resolved by the Apostle and would have been filled with confusion ready to have laid hands on Paul where they could meet him and to say of him This is he that hath turned the world up-side-down and is come hither also to be a setter forth of strange resolves and doctrines yea to take and apprehnd him and bring him unto Areopagus the greatest Court of the Heathens for calling them all Whores and Adulterers and their children bastards and illegitimates by this his resolution if it were according to your interpretation Look to it Sir for you are in danger to be called in question for this daies uproare and this trouble of Conscience amongst the poor Heathen there being no cause whereby you can give an account of this con-course and rugged interpretation For observe it I pray if the Apostle saying the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband and the unbelieving husband be sanctified by the wise else were their children unclean did mean else were they bastards according to your interpretation doth not he or rather do not you make him call all those children bastards whose both Parents were or are unbelievers it is palpable you do for if the unbelieving party were not sanctified by the believing then were they unclean that is bastards you say and in so saying you say thus much That all children of those Parents whereof the one is not sanctified by the other are unclean that is bastards for the former proposition being conditional and hypothetical were not true if this proposition which is pofitive and categorical were not true or more plainly I will resolve the truth of the Apostles sequel the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife c. else were your children unclean into this proposition from which it floweth namely All the children of an unbeliever are unclean unless the unbelieving husband be sanctified by a believing wife or the unbelieving wife be sanctified by a believing husband for generation and coition as I have said Now give you the sense and bring in your interpretation of it All the children of an unbeliever are bastards unlesse the unbelieving husband be sanctified by a believing wife or an unbelieving wife be sanctified by a believing husband for generation and coition and then tell me whether you do not make the Apostle say or rather say your self that all the children of the Heathen and unbelieving Parents of which the one is not sanctified by the other believing are bastards notwithstanding born of both Parents in lawful wedlock according to the Laws and Customs of Nations If the Apostle Paul had preached this doctrine that you by your Exposition would seem to make him he would have been in many more perils and hazards whilest he passed through the Pagan and Heathen Nations than he was and would not have converted