Selected quad for the lemma: conscience_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
|
A26948
|
Mr. Richard Baxter's last legacy in select admonitions and directions to all sober dissenters.
|
Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.
|
1697
(1697)
|
Wing B1297_VARIANT; ESTC R25271
|
57,203
|
76
|
the Question in the little Parliament whether all the Ministers of the Parishes of England should be put down at once I have seen how confidently the killing of the King the rebellious demolishing of the Government of the Land the killing of many Thousands of their Brethren the turnings and overturnings of all kind of Rule even that which themselves set up have been committed and justified and profanely fathered upon God these with much more such fruits of love-killing Principles I have seen If you converse with Censorious Separatists you shall hear so many invectives against them that are truly Catholick and sober as will make you think that Love and Peace and Catholick Communion are some sinful and mischievous things The experience of Twenty six Years in this Kingdom may convince the World what crimes may stand with high professions such as the generation springing up will scarce believe What high Professors were the proudest overturners of all Government and resisters and despisers of Ministry and Holy Order in the Churches The most railing Quakers and most filthy blaspheming Ranters to warn the World to take heed of being proud of superficial gifts and high profession and that he that stands in his own conceit should take heed lest he fall I have much ado to forbear naming some high Professors known lately at Worcester Exeter and other places who died Apostate Infidels deriding Christianity and the Immortality of the Soul who once were Separatists And I have heard of some Separatists who when others of a contrary judgment were going to the Churches at London looked in at the Doors saying The Devil choak thee art thou not out of thy pottage yet I commend to all that of the Apostle Phil. 2. 3. Let nothing be done through strife and vain glory but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than themselves Read this Verse over on your Knees and beg of God to write it on your Hearts And I would wish all Assemblies of dividers and unwarrantable Separatists to write it over the Doors of their Meeting places and join with it Rom. 12. 10. but especially study James 3. In a word if God would cure the Church of Religious Pride the Pride of Wisdom and the Pride of Piety and Goodness the Church would have fewer Heresies and Contentions and much more Peace true Wisdom and Goodness The forwardness of many to keep open Divisions and to affect communion with none but such as say as they do is a down right mark of a Schismatick And I know that dividing Principles and Dispositions do tend directly to the ruine and damnation of those in whom they do prevail When Men fall into several Parties burning in Zeal against each other abating charity censuring and condemning one another backbiting and reviling each other through envy and strife when they look strangely on each other as being of several sides as if they were not Children of the same Father nor Members of the same Body or as if Christ were divided one being of Paul and another of Apollo c. and every one of a Faction letting out their thoughts in jealousies and evil surmises of each other perverting the words and actions of each to an ugly sense and snatching occasions to present one another as fools or odious to the hearers as if you should plainly say I pray you hate or despise these People whom I hate and despise This is the core of the Plague sore it is Schism in the bud S. 16. When People in the same Church do gather into private Meetings not under the guidance of their Pastors to edifie one another in holy exercises in love and peace but in opposition to their lawful Pastors or to one another to propagate their single opinions and increase their Parties and speak against those that are not on their side Schism is then ready to increase and multiply and the Swarm is ready to come forth and be gon S. 17. When these People actually depart and renounce or forsake the communion of the Church and cast off their faithful Pastors and draw into a separated Body by themselves and choose them Pastors and call themselves a Church and all without any just sufficient cause when thus Churches are gathered out of Churches before the old ones are dissolved or they have any warrant to depart when thus Pastor is set up against Pastor Church against Church and Altar against Altar this is Schism ripe and fruitful the Swarm is gone and hived in another place S. 19. If they shall also judge that Church to be no Church from which they separated and so cut off a part of the Body of Christ by an unrighteous Censure and condemn the innocent and usurp Authority over their Guides this is Disobedience and Uncharitableness with Schism A true Christian that hateth Fornication Drunkenness Lying Perjury because forbidden in the Word of God will hate Divisions also which are so frequently and vehemently forbidden Jo. 17. 21 22. Ro. 14. throughout Ro. 15. 12. 1 Cor. 1. 10. Eph. 4. 1 2 c. 1 Cor. 12. Phil. 3. 15. Ro. 16. 17 18. 1 Tim. 1. 4. James 3. The mischief of Divisions may be seen at large p. 739. Q. May or must a Minister silenced or forbid to preach the Gospel go on still to preach it against the Law Answ He that is silenced by just power though unjustly in a Country that needeth not his Preaching must forbear there and if he can must go into another Country where he may be more serviceable We must do any lawful thing to procure the Magistrates licence to preach in his Dominions How Humane Laws bind the Conscience Q. Whether the Laws of men do bind the Conscience Answ p. 37. Taking Conscience in a stricter sense as including essentially a relation to God's obligation the full sense of the the question is this Whether it be a sin against God to break the laws of man Answ It is a sin against God to break such Laws as Rulers are authorized by God to make First because God commandeth us to obey our Rulers God commandeth us to obey in general and their Law determineth of the particular matter therefore God obligeth us in conscience of his Law to obey them in that particular 2. Because by making them his Officers by his Commission he hath given them a certain beam of Authority which is Divine as derived from God therefore they can command us by a power derived from God therefore to disobey is to sin against a Power derived from God Man being God's Officer First his own Law layeth on us an obligation derivatively Divine for it is no Law which hath no Obligation and it is no Authoritative Obligation which is not derived from God 2. God's own Law bindeth us to obey Man's Laws Rom. 13. And it may be a good reason to perswade Obedience to our Ecclesiastical Governours because Preaching is a cheap and easie