Selected quad for the lemma: conscience_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
conscience_n	humane_a	law_n	obligation_n	1,134	5	9.8189	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A43451	The charge of scandal and giving offence by conformity refelled and reflected back upon separation : and that place of St. Paul I Cor. 10:32 that hath been so usually urged by dissenters in this case asserted to its true sence and vindicated from favouring the end for which it hath beed quoted by them.	Hesketh, Henry, 1637?-1710.	1683 (1683)	Wing H1608; ESTC R227746	30,131	52

a more learned hand to which I have nothing here to adde but that our Brethren and all the several denominations of them do the same thing themselves and sufficiently confute their own Objection So hard is it for them to frame any argument against us which may not like a two-edged weapon wound themselves And time was when some of them found it sadly true the Arguments that they had used against the Church of England others galled their own sides with and they were forced to think those answers good for them which they will not allow to be so for us against them And what dealing that is I leave others to judge 3. No nor thirdly do I think it worth the while to stay to answer that trifling Objection That this command of men alters the nature of the things and sure the Church of England thinks them more than Indifferent or else it would not lay so much weight upon them nor make so very great a stir about them It is a great mistake to think that the commanding of things indifferent makes any alteration in the nature of them it alters them indeed with respect to us and our practice but the things remain the same and the Church commands them as things fitting to be done but Indifferent still in their nature and so the Church of England declares them to be after her commanding them And her publick Declarations and Rubricks sufficiently acquit her from all such thought and if men will not believe her own Protestations but still pretend that she believes contrary to what she solemnly professeth it is but another instance of some mens ingenuity and candour towards her and needs not be counted strange in this Age. Nor is her standing so stiff as men speak for these things any argument of her thinking otherwise of them for however a Ceremony be in it self a small thing yet Faction and Disobedience is a great one and ought with all care to be suppressed and that Church needs not be blamed for its sharpness against Dissentions about these which hath already by sad experience found that gratifying Faction in these hath in the issue been the utter overthrow of her whole Constitution If any Church may be excused in this certainly this may which hath already felt the smart of Indulging in them and cannot but be concerned when it sees the same practices pursued again and that too by those very men who trampled upon her with so much cruelty and scorn in the late time of her visitation The beginning of strife saith Solomon is as when one letteth out a River and so we have found Faction in these things to be also and therefore no wonder if the wisdom of the Church apply it self with so much care and quickness to obstruct the smallest beginnings in that as men do to repair the least breach in those Banks which keep in the waters of the other 4. Nor fourthly do I think I have any pertinent occasion here to assert the obligation of humane Laws or to dispute whether they oblige the Consciences of men in things that God hath left undetermined We need but consult Scripture for this which will be plain so long as the 13 Chapter of the Epistle to the Romans and the first Epistle of St. Peter shall remain in the Canon and not be expunged utterly by those men that truly would not be much more injurious to it in this instance than they are in some others But were there no Scripture for it I suppose we should not need to dispute it with any men that ever are in Authority There are few of these that will permit their own Authority to be disputed or Conscience pleaded against it by their Children or Servants or those that they have the conduct of And we are beholding to our Brethren for letting us know their minds in this For no men have been more rigorous in exacting obedience to all their Ordinances and reproaching and punishing all that dissented from them as Enemies to God and Christ than they know who in times past were Never were Institutions of men magnified more for promoting the honour of God exalting the Kingdom and Scepter of Christ nor men charged more strictly in point of Conscience with obedience to them So that the crying out against becoming the servants of men is but an artifice to pull down Government which when men have once leaped into they will by no means endure to be used against themselves 5. But that which I am more directly concerned here to shew is that the things related to in this Text were not onely indifferent but undetermined too I mean no Law had been made by the Church about them one way or other The truth of which it concerns me to make out not onely to serve my present purpose but because it may be something questioned from what we read Acts 15.29 where among the Canons of that Apostolick Council this is the first That ye abstain from meats offered to Idols which seems to be the very thing that the Apostle is discoursing of in this place And first it cannot be denied that in the beginning of the Apostles Discourse upon these things from v. 14. to v. 25. the same things are related unto that are prohibited by that Canon of the Council i. e. the eating in the Idolatrous Feasts of the Heathen and of those meats which they knew were by that Rite offered in Sacrifice unto their Idols For the Heathen Sacrifices were not finished onely at their Altar but the Solemnity was continued and compleated by their eating and drinking together upon the remainders of what they had actually offered and consumed in Sacrifice Just as some of the Jewish Sacrifices we know were from whom the Heathen transcribed many of their practices aping them in almost all their Institutions 2. But then secondly that which he takes occasion to discourse of afterwards and to which this Speech immediately relates seems to be very different from what he had been speaking of before and which is the thing prohibited by the Council of the Apostles Which will appear sufficiently from these two Considerations 1. That the Apostle here takes upon him a liberty to indulge a Latitude in these things which be sure he would never have done had it been in that very Case that the Apostles had determined before And this we may be the more certain of by considering the circumstances of that whole affair which so much as concerns our present business was briefly thus The Jewish Converts retained a great veneration for the Ceremonial Law to which they had been inured and educated in the observation of these being interspersed abroad in many places where many of the Heathens were converted to Christianity were greatly offended with that liberty which they saw the others took in the use of those meats which their Law prohibited as unclean This caused hot Contests and sharp Disputes between the two Parties to the breach