Selected quad for the lemma: conscience_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
conscience_n	high_a	power_n	resist_v	1,057	5	9.4839	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A57691	The bounds & bonds of publique obedience, or, A vindication of our lawfull submission to the present government, or to a government supposed unlawfull, but commanding lawfull things likewise how such an obedience is consistent with our Solemne League and Covenant : in all which a reply is made to the three answers of the two demurrers, and to the author of The grand case of conscience, who professe themselves impassionate Presbyterians.	Rous, Francis, 1579-1659.	1649 (1649)	Wing R2013; ESTC R15008	51,239	74

supreame Command we of the People may not obey any but the Husband or the King why then did the Presbyterian party for so many years oppose and not totally submit to their now supposed Husband Why did they Commissionate so many thousand Men who by accidents of Warre had the power though not the chance to kill him Nay in the Parliaments case it was alwaies conjoyntly argued by them that it was he the Husband that would have killed them the supposed Wife for which reason the Kirke of Scotland long ago sent him a bill of Divorce unlesse he satisfied for the blood of three Kingdoms Which of the two parties it was that at last killed him belongs not much to the satisfaction of us the people though here questioned because those parties as tot hat act differ'd no more if he will further argue it then dim n●tio and obtruncatio capitis doe for they who after a long Warre and by long imprisonment dispoyl'd him of that regall power here so much argued for did according to the terme of the civill Law diminuere caput Regis and they who in consequence of his civill Death tooke away his naturall life did obtrune are Caput Regis If he had been kill'd in an action of Warre before should the Souldier or he who gave the Souldier commission have answered for his life As for the submission of a Wife to a stranger as to her Husband which is indeed a sin I earnestly pray the Author seriously to consider whether he can excuse us and all our forefathers from sin ever since this Kingdome long agoe fell under the power of an usurping king if this his way of arguing be true As for the second Demurrer I consider he hath given account to another very worthy Pen which hath left little for my gleaning in such a field however I shall see what hath escaped his hand that the world may witnesse at last that truth hath lovers as well as errour and passion have Cham ions This Author and the grand case of Conscience begin with St. Paul Ro. 13. That wee must submit to higher powers not that wee may lawfully submit and that not for wrath onely but for Conscience sake which is of things necessary not of things lawfull Wherefore say they it is ill said that we may lawfully submit in lawfull things obedience as a matter of Conscience being a thing necessary I grant it either in lawfull or necessary things when obedience is required from those who actually have the whole Sepremacy of power in themselves If I hold this lawfull and he hold it necessary we are not contrary He onely makes what I allow more allowable But the reason wherefore the Apostle requires obedience to such Not onely for wrath which is onely in regard of the power which they who are supreàme have to destroy us but for Conscience sake is least by our resisting them we unnecessarily disturbe and draw calamity on others and likewise in regard of their Authority from God Tyrants even in title not arriving to the great Dominions of the Earth without Gods secret order God having clearly stated the Government of the world for ever in himselfe as his cheife Prerogative he not being known or feared any way so much as by Dominio n which made St. Augus in C. Dei rightly say Potestates omnes sunt a Deo non omnes voluntates so that the reason wherefore God permits sometimes such Princes to attaine to these powers is the same wherefore he permits Devils in his Government of the world a Nimrod or a Pharaoh a Caesar or a Herod an Antichrist or a Turke who as bad and as usurping as they are and seeme to us in exercising so severe though so secret a part of Gods Justice yet fulfill severall prophecies which shewes they come not to what they are meerely by humane contrivance by chance or accident The grand case of Conscience P. 3. distinguisheth betwixt Authority or Power and Rulers deputed to the exercise of that Authority The first is by Gods positive Ordinance the other bu● by his permission Here he grants enough as to our case which is of obedience for if he can assure me that it is consonant to Gods permissive will that such persons be my Magistrates I am well satisfied then that Gods will is I must be their Subject Gods free admission of one being the necessary exclusion of all the rest so that subjection is not a thing now of my choice but of my necessity But the Demurrer P. 3 would know what difference there is in popular obedience to lawfull powers and unlawfull powers if obedience be necessary to both I answer If the powers here supposed by him agree equally in their supremacy and absolutenesse and differ onely as one is got lawfully the other unlawfully then the difference of our obedience to either is onely in the difference of things commanded as they are either lawfull or unlawfull neither can the Author now arguing so much for a lawfull power conscienciously tell us that the lawfulnesse of the civill power commanding can make our obedience necessary to an unlawfull thing commanded but rather that it makes that power then become to us in some manner unlawfull and worse to us of the People then if we were under the absolute command of an unlawfull power which exacts nothing but lawfull things The knot of this point lies here Whither a civill circumstance such as is the Magistrate either lawfull or unlawfull can vitiate an Act of morall duty I believe his distinction P. 2 of a Government constituted or constituting serves nothing for the discovery of a supreame lawfull power in it selfe For I hold that whatever was once a sin may alwaies be called a sin though with rooting or without rooting Not but that God and we may make good use of other mens bad actions if they be such for which reason poore beggers may in their extremities receive necessary Almes from those who came to their estates by wrong and oppression the receipt whereof they do not justify the Title of such Estates much lesse doe wee justifie the unlawfull Title of a supreame Magistrate from whose care we receive necessary protection I say much lesse because cases of Estates are juris privati and have Courts to judge of them but the other is so much juris publici that there is no mortall Court to judge of it for which reason how will these Authors what Governours soever they desire evidently prove that they originally had lawfull Titles or that they at first did not forcibly take the people to themselves but that the people voluntarily resigned themselves to them which was not in Nimrods Case From whence this may be inferd to the satisfaction of the grand case of Conscience p. 3. That if he had that desired Governour yet according to himselfe he would not owne him long because he were not sure

to have in him a supreame power such as the Apostle Ro. 13. in his sence understands necessary for the Kingdome of England But in our sence of plenary possession which was the case of the Apostles time we can easily see first how our present power is the higher the whole Kingdome now receiving all law protection and subordinate Magistracy from them and how they may be in lawfull things obeyed according to the same Apostle and to the duty of our Creation and being in this world The case of conscience p. 3. acknowledgeth that a Government may be altered but it must be done still by the higher powers whom we ought equally to obey in submitting to an altered as to a continued for me But it is a sinne if a party forcibly lay the higher powers low and exact obedience as to the legall authority I thought that he who in his sence understood the Covenant in terminis Eternall would not have allowed a change of Government here no more then he might allow the Scots though upon never so much reason to themselves to change their Doctrine or discipline because we swore during all our lives to preserve that which was established among them at the time of our swearing But I now see we may well distinguish betwixt the Covenant it selfe and some Covenanters the Covenant being as open for one change as for the other Secondly If a Government though never so reasonably reformed or altered be never in any lawfull things to be obeyed termes which he did ill to leave out of his Argument unlesse by the concurrence of all the higher powers then farewell all the old consequences of Solis populi suprema lex and the Presbyterians form● Armes are unjustifiable How corrupt and Tyrannicall are most of the Governments of the world and yet how many of those supreame powers hath he observed to reforme themselves or diminish any thing in themselves to alter for the better although the taking away of something in a Government may be as necessary as continuing any old or new thing in it Certainly these Authors have read but few of Ionases who voluntarily renounce themselves to settle a Tempest Thirdly Our Alteration was made by the present supreame power of the people and the reason wherefore both Houses laid the exercise of Regall power aside for some yeares made the Commons as they have agrued it lay it aside for altogether viz. Salus populi suprema lex The laying of it aside for some yeares is argument enough to us of the people that it might be laid aside for more yeares and that one King might be laid aside as well as another For to us it seemes effectually all one Non esse non operari for a thing not to be at all and in this world to doe nothing at all If they sinned who did this is that any thing to any but themselves It is an Axiome of good Law Noxa sequitur caput Thus whilst his Argument should have been against our lawfull obedience it is against their exacting it as to the legall authority which yet is grosly false for they exact it not as to the old legall authority but as to the present supreame power of the people Non nomine Regis sed nominepopuli And yet in one good sence it may be still called the same legall Authority because we have still under it the same lawes for our properties as before and continued in life by them as our lives themselves are Case of Cons. p. 3. it is objected that this principle of obeying those onely who are in plenary possession of all supreame power is fit onely to destroy States for then should none Governe any longer then their swords and strengths could beare them up I conceive according to what is already proved that nothing can befound either more consonant to Christian charity or to the preservation of States then this our principle of obedience besides he knowes no Kingdome in the world where people doe not obey upon this same plenary possession Allegiance alwayes relating to protection And if according to his consequence we should suspend all obedience till we have infallibly found out that Per●on who derives a knowne and an undubitable right from him who was the first in compact because according to these Authors intermediate intrusions are violations of rights and may not be obeyed even in things lawfull then I pray you of what can we resolve lesse then certainly to extirpate one another which will come to passe ere we finde what we search for in such a blind scuffle and for feare of doing a lawfull thing under the inspection of one who is suppos'd to have done another thing unlawfully must we resolve of doing all unlawfull things by warre our selves and desert unnecessarily the cares of Wife and Children of Church and Neighbour For non-obedience in a State is but a Chimaera neutrality a State without relation there is no subsistence for it in any State and unlesse you will allow me to concurre with others and under others in lawfull things I must leave the world my subsistence being onely in a conjunction with others here in this jurisdiction The two Demurrers p. 3. p. 7. Except against this our present obedience beeause the present powers is yet new neither is there a totall cessation of all hopes of recovery Philosophers hold that the Definition of a man belongs to an infant as well as to one of many yeares Because after the Organization of the parts he is informed with the same principle of life and reason as a growne man is and having the same forme is the same thing Even so the present power hath possest all the parts of this Kingdome gives them life in the administration of publique justice and protection which are the soule of a State and the power which preceded this what did it infuse more vitall then this And now that that is taken away if this other did not presently enter into its place the Common-wealth were dead and each man were left in his naturals to subsist of himselfe and to cast how hee could in such a state of warre defend himselfe from all the rest of the world every man in this State having an equall right to every thing Wherefore let every man especially they who would informe consciences take heed of affecting popular revenge vvhich must also reach themselves at last for vvhen they have once frighted people from lawfull actions vvhat can they th●n commit but the un'avvfull Into what an unhappy transport are we fallen that such a principle should be derived from our Church the very Papists being ever ready to obey in things lawfull though the State seemed to them unlawfull These will judge better of the State now then of the Church the one inviting and incouraging us to lawfull things the other deterring us from them But to return to the Argument I