Selected quad for the lemma: conscience_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
conscience_n	evil_a	good_a	motive_n	1,128	5	11.3729	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A69842	An account of the first voyages and discoveries made by the Spaniards in America containing the most exact relation hitherto publish'd, of their unparallel'd cruelties on the Indians, in the destruction of above forty millions of people : with the propositions offer'd to the King of Spain to prevent the further ruin of the West-Indies / by Don Bartholomew de las Casas, Bishop of Chiapa, who was an eye-witness of their cruelties ; illustrated with cuts ; to which is added, The art of travelling, shewing how a man may dispose his travels to the best advantage.; Selections. English. 1699	Casas, Bartolomé de las, 1474-1566.	1699 (1699)	Wing C797; ESTC R21602	188,943	313

for 'em than for Dogs or Horses One would think they believ'd these People to have no immortal Souls but were uncapable of Rewards or Punishments in the other Life The Spaniards are no way qualified either to be Lords and Masters of the Indians or to teach 'em the Doctrin of the Gospel or to induce 'em to imbrace it by their Examples A considerable number of Indians were committed to the care of John Colmenero to be instructed in our Religion tho he was so ignorant that he knew not well how to make the sign of the Cross or give any tolerable account of his own Faith in so much that when he was ask'd what he taught those Indians under his Conduct he could make no other Answer than that he taught 'em to make the sign of the Cross but pronounc'd the words wrong that are us'd in that Ceremony When the Indians of one Province had brought all their Idols to the Missionaries with Protestations that they now detested that impious Worship and were resolv'd to serve the true God for time to come the Spaniards sold these very Idols to other Indians or exchang'd 'em for Slaves What concern of Mind can the Spaniards be suppos'd to have for the Salvation of these People when they only design to enrich themselves and thereby to be qualified for Employments above their Rank and when they are so ignorant that they don't know the Creed or ten Commandments They are sordidly covetous and indeed give themselves up to all sorts of Vices so that their Lives are infamous and abominable The Indians are comparatively more honest and virtuous than they are for tho they are Pagans and Idolaters yet are content with one Wife as Nature teaches 'em while they see Christians take fourteen or fifteen Women how expresly soever the Law they profess forbids it Many of the Indians scarce know what it is to rob one another to offer Violence to any one or to commit Murder Whereas they see the Christians guilty of all these against all Reasons and Justice and that they violate all their Oaths so that there is no ground to put the least confidence in ' em The poor Indians that are Witnesses of the Crimes of such as call themselves Christians think the God they worship is the vilest and most unjust God in the world because he does not immediately inflict some signal Punishment on those that pretend to serve him for their flagitious Lives They also think your Majesty the most cruel of all Princes because your Subjects are so abominably vicious they fancy as I have before said that your Majesty drinks human Blood and eats the Flesh of Men. And tho these things may appear strange and surprizing to your Majesty they are no news to us who have been accustom'd to ' em And we can't but wonder that some extraordinary marks of the Divine Anger and Indignation have not been inflicted on Spain to make her smart for the Crimes committed by the Spaniards in America Your Majesty may by this time very well perceive the Character of those Men to whom the charge and care of the Souls of the Indians is committed And 't is no wonder that there 's so little done either for their temporal or spiritual Advantage since the discovery of the Indies under such Conduct God is no more known there now than he was before unless it be in the Province of Mexico And that slight Instruction the People have had there has cost 'em very dear Tho the Son of God commanded his Disciples to give that freely which they had freely receiv'd The Indians were committed to the Spaniards on condition they would undertake to teach 'em the Christian Religion therefore since they have acquitted themselves so ill of that Commission they ought to make restitution of all they have taken from 'em under this pretext However God will not be mocked who sees all things and is a witness of all the wicked Actions of the Spaniards who have made it their business only to torment and inslave these poor People instead of taking care to inform 'em of the Truth And indeed these secular Men are not very proper to be made Preachers of the Gospel Your Majesty has been ill serv'd in not having had good Information given you of the ill deportment of your Subjects For 't is not to be doubted but your Majesty would have provided a Remedy if due care had been taken to give you advice of it Or if your Majesty had not done it you would have very much wrong'd your Conscience in sending such Men into the new World to preach the Faith and give testimony to the Doctrin of Jesus Christ who are absolutely uncapable of so honourable a Ministry and even decry and debase it by their scandalous Conversation 'T is therefore necessary that this Employment be taken away from Secular and committed to Religious Persons as agreeing better with their Character which may be done without giving these Ecclesiastical Ministers any occasion to claim a temporal Jurisdiction over the Indians for if that should be allow'd we should fall into the same Inconveniences we are endeavouring to avoid The corrupt Lives and evil Examples of the Spaniards do more hurt than the preaching of an infinit number of Priests and Monks can do good Therefore your Majesty is oblig'd in Conscience to deprive the Spaniards of the power they usurp over the Indians and never suffer 'em to make 'em their Vassals One principal Reason that proves this Proposition is that People ought to enjoy Peace and Tranquillity that they may be in a condition to attend the Worship of God and the good Works prescrib'd by the Christian Religion and not to be diverted from the Sacraments by being condemn'd to continual Labor Which state of Peace and Rest can't subsist without preserving to every Man his Property and guarding him from all the assaults of Injury and Injustice The Governors of Commonwealths are bound by the Law of God to remove out of the way all Obstructions to so necessary a Peace and speedily to allay those Dissensions and Troubles that may continue Discord among such as profess Christianity because 't is directly opposit to the end of God in creating Men for he sends 'em into the World to observe his Commands and to apply themselves to the exercise of Religion and good Works that they may thereby merit eternal Life This good order is necessary in every Christian Republic but there especially where the Christian Faith has been but lately entertain'd The Spaniards are too covetous and self-interested to have any Jurisdiction over the Indians granted 'em because they 'l never give 'em any respit or repose but go on to rob and torment 'em all the ways they can invent There is no kind of Injustice but they commit it to spoil these poor People and therefore there is no way to shelter 'em from their Oppressions but by annexing the Indies to the proper Inheritance

wild Beasts and would be a great piece of service to the World to reduce 'em to any tolerable Disciplin But as for the Indians that tho they have some extravagant Customs but not any good Policy yet they ought not to be look'd upon as properly Barbarians seeing they are of a quite contrary disposition being meek civil and tractable in their Manners that they are a numerous People who have Cities and Laws and understand divers Arts that they have Princes over 'em and live under a kind of regulated Government that they not only punish Sins against Nature but have Laws that award capital Punishments for some Crimes of lesser consequence That their Policy has its particular Rules that upon all these Accounts their pretended Barbarity is not a sufficient Reason for any to declare War against 'em but would be a piece of visible Tyranny and Injustice and that this Course would be so far from promoting the Gospel that 't would be the very way to cut off all hope of establishing Christianity among them That therefore the best expedient would be to send Preachers into the Indies to endeavour to convince some of the principal Indians of the truth of our Religion and to make Treaties of Peace with 'em to favour the entrance of the Europeans into the Indies by such a gentle and peaceable Method as this that if any danger should arise after this we might build some Forts upon the Frontiers and so treat with 'em with the greater Security and make 'em gradually relish our Religion by setting 'em good Examples The Royal Council for the Indies having heard this Dispute between the Bishop of Chiapa and Dr. Sepulueda concerning the manner in which the Indians ought to be treated order'd the Bishop to draw up his Thoughts of this matter in Writing whereby they should be the better able to determin this question Whether they might lawfully inslave the Indians or were oblig'd to set at liberty all they had hitherto reduc'd to slavery In answer to their desire the Bishop farther explain'd his Sentiments after the following manner All the Indians taken in the Indies since the discovery of the New World to this day have bin unjustly inslav'd and the Spaniards who retain 'em in bondage against their wills can't do it with a good Conscience because they had no right to declare War against 'em for it follows by consequence they could not lawfully deprive 'em of their Liberty nor were they ever authoriz'd by their Prince to make War upon ' em Now there are but two Motives that can render any War just namely some righteous Cause or the Authority of one's Prince And what just motive then could the Spaniards have to declare War against the Indians who never did 'em any wrong nor ever gave 'em any disturbance They were people they had never seen they had never made any descent into any Country that belong'd to the Spaniards to spoil and ravage it they had never profess'd Christianity as the Moors of Africa had done who were Christian in the time of St. Augustin or as the Kingdom of Grenada the Empire of Constantinople and the Kingdom of Jerusalem did formerly Nor can we justly reproach the Indians as declar'd enemies to our Religion or that they ever attempted to destroy it by open Persecutions or secret Perswasions by Presents or any other manner whatsoever that can be used to engage Christians to renounce their Faith and turn Idolaters For neither the Law of God nor that of Nations ever permitted War to be made against any People merely to establish Christianity among ' em Unless any one will pretend that the Gospel of Christ which abounds with Charity Meekness and Humanity ought to be introduc'd into the World by Force like the Religion of Mahomet The Spaniards can't say that they had no other end than that of protecting the Innocent seeing they have made it their whole business to rob pillage and murder the poor Indians taking upon 'em to usurp their Goods and Lands Besides if the War they undertook had bin in defence of those poor Wretches the Indians unjustly put to death for Sacrifices it would not have bin carried so generally thro' the Indies but would have bin a sort of Civil War kept up only in some particular Places Nor would the Spaniards have had right even in such Places to have made Slaves of those whom they took in such a War They can't so much as pretend that ever they had a Command or Order to this day from their Prince to declare War against the Indians 'T is easy to evidence such a Fact as this for the Governors and Generals have nothing to do but to show their Commissions if they have any There 's not one of 'em who has any fear of God or respect for his Prince that will pretend to shew any such Commission except the Vice-Roy Don Antonio and Don Sebastian Ramire Bishop of Cuenza all the rest that have made War on the Indians are Thieves and Robbers Murderers and declar'd Enemies of Mankind Seeing then the Spaniards have had no lawful reason to support their Declarations of War against the People of America nor have bin authoriz'd in such Proceedings by their Prince it evidently follows that the War they have made is injust and contrary to the Laws of God and Men and consequently that the Indians ought not to have bin treated as Slaves All the ways the Spaniards have us'd to compass this end of inslaving these People have bin monstrously wicked made up of nothing but Fraud and Treachery unlawful Tricks and Artifices and such unheard of Villanies as can't but fill the Minds of all that hear 'em with astonishment and horror Some to insnare the poor Indians that liv'd among 'em have constrain'd 'em to own themselves their Slaves in Courts of Justice after which extorted Confession the Governors have order'd the King's Arms to be fix'd upon their Skin with a hot Iron tho they were not ignorant what an unlawful Course had been taken to abuse the poor Creatures Others hir'd the Indians with a little Wine or a Shirt or by giving 'em some other trifle of small value to bring 'em fatherless and motherless Children whom they put on Shipboard and transported into other Countries where they were sold for Slaves especially into New-Spain the Islands of St. John and Cuba or other neighbouring Islands But at first the Spaniards us'd open Violence attacking the Indians that liv'd peaceably in their Houses setting their Towns on fire massacring some and after the exercise of all this Cruelty carrying away those they could take alive to sell 'em for Slaves They us'd without any formal process to brand 'em with the King's Arms which was enough to make 'em pass for Slaves and accordingly they were sold from one hand to another till they were transported into the Islands These were all the forms of Justice the Spaniards observ'd in carrying away the Indians from

Sin Therefore while the Mind hesitates and doubts whether the Action on which one thinks be sin or no we ought necessarily to abstain from it The very desire of doing such an Action is contrary to right Reason and to the Love of God because it would be to expose one's self to the hazard of transgressing the Divine Will to do that concerning which one labors under an uncertainty whether it be lawful or forbidden And the Doubt when one thus ventures to sin is no longer a mere Doubt but most certainly becomes an Offence against God because we are always oblig'd to take the safest course When it falls out that we meet with two ways and are uncertain which is the right we ought always to chuse that which is the least dangerous according to that Maxim of St. Augustin in his penitential Book Take what is certain and leave what is uncertain The Rules of the Civil Law which are confirm'd by Reason by the Law of Nature and that of Christian Charity admit of a Dispensation in some cases when there is a prospect of some great Good to which a greater strictness would probably be prejudicial But 't is a general Rule that when a Man deliberates on two doubtful things he is to determin his choice on that side where he may avoid Sin where there are the fewest Inconveniences and where his Neighbour's Interest runs the least hazard Upon this Principle Clergy-men ought not to be oblig'd to retire and live separatly from their Mothers Grandmothers or Sisters or to forsake their Father's House because such a Separation may be very disadvantagious to 'em tho there may possibly be some Inconvenience likewise in their dwelling together That man retains a thing with an evil Conscience about which he is in doubt whether it be lawfully gotten or which he has receiv'd of one who had no right to it or who had reason to doubt whether it belong'd to him or no. Whatever is possess'd under such circumstances is kept contrary to the Rules of Justice and against both the Law of God and Nature Therefore the Spaniards who keep those Indians in slavery concerning whom they are in doubt whether they have bin bought or given to those of whom they had 'em act contrary to Justice and to the Law of God in retaining 'em while under this doubt Every one knows that a man is oblig'd to restore whatever he does not lawfully possess and whatever he has receiv'd from one that had no just right to it because a man can't communicate a right to another which he has not first himself Thus when any one buys or receives any thing from a Person who sells or gives it and yet has no right to it he is unjust if he keeps it and is oblig'd to make restitution The Reason is evident because 't is no less than the commission of Theft wilfully to retain any thing against the will of him to whom it appertains And tho this thing should have past through a thousand hands before it came to you you would have no right to withold it from the proper Owner because these were all unlawful Possessors and consequently ought to have made restitution And tho some human Laws give permission to retain a thing which one has bought with Mony that is coin'd with the King's stamp and is current in the Commonwealth yet this is no lawful Title to it because human Laws must not prescribe contrary to the Law of God and Nature nor to good Morals which forbid Theft and the witholding of another man's Goods against the consent of the rightful Owner Inferiors and such are Kings themselves in respect of the Divine Majesty can't justly establish any thing in prejudice to the Law of God which is superior to all other Laws He that buys stolen Goods knowingly is an Accessory in the Robbery and if he does but suspect they are stolen and has not bin so diligent as he might have bin to inform himself whether they were lawfully gotten he can't keep 'em with a good Conscience because no man can innocently do that which exposes him to Sin And if we will not take the pains to inform our selves whether that which is sold or given to us be lawfully gotten when we are in doubt about it we can't be the lawful Possessors because this is a culpable and wilful Ignorance Those who have in such cases consulted Men capable of giving information are excusable unless themselves be of such a Character as obliges 'em to be acquainted with Law and Equity as Civilians Judges and the like or when they ask advice content themselves with consulting only one Person tho they have opportunity of advising with many or ask counsel of interested Persons and such as will not answer according to the Dictates of their Conscience instead of consulting Men of Integrity who will give advice according to the Rules of Law and Equity or when they address themselves to Persons whose Honesty is suspected upon good grounds A Man is not excusable under such Circumstances as these tho he ask Counsel of the Learned in the Law and after having taken their Advice acts contrary to Right and Equity These four Circumstances being regarded may be of great use to ease scrupulous persons of their doubts and to give 'em peace of Conscience And by these Principles it may be easily known that the Spaniards unjustly retain most of their Indian Slaves against the Law of God and if they have a right to any of 'em the number is very small and they have reason to doubt whether these have been lawfully made Slaves because those they have had from the Indians have been brought to 'em as a Tribute extorted from 'em against their will by Fear Menaces and Torments so that they have no just Title to 'em or if they have bought 'em of Indians they have us'd unfair tricks to procure 'em having terrified the Caciques and constrain'd 'em by Tortures to deliver up their Subjects into their hands threatning otherwise to acuse 'em to the Judges for worshipping and offering Sacrifices to Idols so that the poor Caciques when they could not give the Spaniards as many Indians as they demanded us'd to steal 'em where they could 'T is true when these Disorders came to be known to his Majesty he expresly forbad any such ways of inslaving the People for the future As for those few Slaves which the Indians have voluntarily sold tho the Spaniards have hitherto made no question that they had a lawful right to 'em they have had however reason enough to doubt it and they ought by no means to have taken possession of 'em till they had first us'd all necessary diligence to get information whether they might do it with a good Conscience and if after all their inquiry the matter remain'd dubious they ought not to have bought 'em while under that scruple So that all the ways they have taken to procure themselves great