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
A67470	The lives of Dr. John Donne, Sir Henry Wotton, Mr. Richard Hooker, Mr. George Herbert written by Izaak Walton ; to which are added some letters written by Mr. George Herbert, at his being in Cambridge : with others to his mother, the Lady Magdalen Herbert ; written by John Donne, afterwards dean of St. Pauls.	Walton, Izaak, 1593-1683.	1670 (1670)	Wing W671; ESTC R15317	178,870	410

of the Church and owe it a protection and therefore God forbid that You should be so much as Passive in her Ruines when You may prevent it or that I should behold it without horrour and detestation or should forbear to tell Your Majesty of the sin and danger of Sacriledge And though You and my self were born in an Age of Frailties when the primitive piety and care of the Churches Lands and Immunities are much decayed yet Madam let me beg that you would first consider that there are such sins as Prophaneness and Sacriledge and that if there were not they could not have names in Holy Writ and particularly in the New Testament And I beseech You to consider that though our Saviour said He judged no man and to testifie it would not judge nor divide the inheritance betwixt the two Brethren nor would judge the Woman taken in Adultery yet in this point of the Churches Rights he was so zealous that he made himself both the Accuser and the Judge and the Executioner too to punish these sins witnessed in that he himself made the Whip to drive the Prophaners out of the Temple overthrew the Tables of the Money-changers and drove them out of it And consider that it was St. Paul that said to those Christians of his time that were offended with Idolatry yet committed Sacriledge Thou that abhorrest Idols dost thou commit Sacriledge Supposing I think Sacriledge the greater sin This may occasion Your Majesty to consider that there is such a sin as Sacriledg and to incline You to prevent the Curse that will follow it I beseech You also to consider that Constantine the first Christian Emperour and Helena his Mother that King Edgar and Edward the Confessor and indeed many others of Your Predecessors and many private Christians have also given to God and to his Church much Land and many Immunities which they might have given to those of their own Families and did not but gave them as an absolute Right and Sacrifice to God And with these Immunities and Lands they have entail'd a Curse upon the Alienators of them God prevent Your Majesty from being liable to that Curse And to make You that are trusted with their preservation the better to understand the danger of it I beseech You forget not that besides these Curses the Churches Land and Power have been also endeavoured to be preserved as far as Humane Reason and the Law of this Nation have been able to preserve them by an immediate and most sacred Obligation on the Consciences of the Princes of this Realm For they that consult Magna Charta shall find that as all Your Predecessors were at their Coronation so You also were sworn before all the Nobility and Bishops then present and in the presence of God and in his stead to him that anointed You To maintain the Church-lands and the Rights belonging to it and this testified openly at the holy Altar by laying Your hands on the Bible then lying upon it And not only Magna Charta but many modern Statutes have denounced a Curse upon those that break Magna Charta A Curse like the Leprosie that was intail'd on the Jews for as that so these Curses have and will cleave to the very stones of those buildings that have been consecrated to God and the fathers sin of Sacriledge will prove to be intail'd on his Son and Family And now what account can be given for the breach of this Oath at the last great day either by Your Majesty or by me if it be wilfully or but negligently violated I know not And therefore good Madam let not the late Lords Exceptions against the failings of some few Clergy-men prevail with You to punish Posterity for the Errors of this present Age let particular men suffer for their particular Errors but let God and his Church have their right And though I pretend not to Prophesie yet I beg Posterity to take notice of what is already become visible in many Families That Church-land added to an ancient Inheritance hath proved like a Moth fretting a Garment and secretly consumed both Or like the Eagle that stole a coal from the Altar and thereby set her Nest on fire which consumed both her young Eagles and her self that stole it And though I shall forbear to speak reproachfully of Your Father yet I beg You to take notice that a part of the Churches Rights added to the vast Treasure left him by his Father hath been conceived to bring an unavoidable Consumption upon both notwithstanding all his diligence to preserve them And consider that after the violation of those Laws to which he had sworn in Magna Charta God did so far deny him his restraining Grace that as King Saul after he was forsaken of God fell from one sin to another so he till at last he fell into greater sins than I am willing to mention Madam Religion is the Foundation and Cement of humane Societies and when they that serve at Gods Altar shall be exposed to Poverty then Religion it self will be exposed to scorn and become contemptible as You may already observe in too many poor Vicaridges in this Nation And therefore as You are by a late Act or Acts of Parliament entrusted with a great power to preserve or waste the Churches Lands yet dispose of them for Jesus sake as the Dono●s intended let neither Falshood nor Flattery beguile You to do otherwise but put a stop to Gods and the Levites portion I beseech You and to the approaching Ruines of his Church as You expect comfort at the great day for Kings must be judged Pardon this affectionate plainness my most dear Soveraign and let me beg still to be continued in Your favour and the Lord still continue You in his The Queens patient hearing this affectionate Spe●● and her future Care to preserve the Churches Rights which till then had been neglected may appear a fair Testimony that he made hers and the Churches Good the chiefest of his Cares and that she also thought so And of this there were such daily testimonies given as begot betwixt them so mutual a joy and confidence that they seemed born to believe and do good to each other she not doubting his Piety to be more than all his Opposers which were many nor his Prudence equal to the chiefest of her Council who were then as remarkable for active Wisdome as those dangerous Times did require or this Nation did ever enjoy And in this condition he continued twenty years in which time he saw some Flowings but many more Ebbings of her Favour towards all men that opposed him especially the Earl of Leicester so that God seemed still to keep him in her Favour that he might preserve the remaining Church Lands and Immunities from Sacrilegious Alienations And this Good man deserved all the Honour and Power with which she trusted him for he was a pious man and naturally of Noble and Grateful Principles he eased her of

worthy of noting That these Exceptions of Mr. Travers against Mr. Hooker were the cause of his Transcribing several of his Sermons which we now see printed with his Books of his Answer to Mr. Travers his Supplication and of his most learned and useful discourse of Justification of Faith and Works and by their Transcription they fell into the hands of others and have been thereby preserved from being lost as too many of his other matchless writings were and from these I have gathered many observations in this Discourse of his Life After the publication of his Answer to the Petiton of Mr. Travers Mr. Hooker grew dayly into greater repute with the most learned and wise of the Nation but it had a contrary effect in very many of the Temple that were zealous for Mr. Travers and for his Church Discipline insomuch that though Mr. Travers left the place yet the seeds of Discontent could not be rooted out of that Society by the great Reason and as great Meekness of this humble man for though the chief Benchers gave him much Reverence and Incouragement yet he there met with many neglects and oppositions by those of Master Travers Judgment in so much that it turned to his extreme grief and that he might unbeguile and win them he designed to write a deliberate sober Treatise of the Churches power to make Canons for the use of Ceremonies and by Law to impose an obedience to them as upon her Children and this he proposed to do in eight Books of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity intending therein to shew such Arguments as should force an assent from all men if Reason delivered in sweet Language and void of any provocation were able to do it And that he might prevent all prejudice he wrote before it a large Preface or Epistle to the Dissenting Brethren wherein there were such Bowels of Love and such a Commixture of that Love with Reason as was never exceeded but in Holy Writ and particularly by that of St. Paul to his dear Brother and fellow Labourer Philemon than which none ever was more like this Epistle of Mr. Hookers so that his dear friend and Companion in his Studies Doctor Spenser might after his death justly say What admirable height of Learning and depth of Judgment dwelt in the lowly mind of this truly humble man great in all wise mens eyes except his own with what gravity and Majesty of speech his Tongue and Pen uttered Heavenly Mysteries whose eyes in the Humility of his Heart were alwayes cast down to the ground how all things that proceeded from him were breathed as from the Spirit of Love as if he like the Bird of the Holy Ghost the Dove had wanted Gall let those that knew him not in his Person judge by these living Images of his soul his Writings The foundation of these Books was laid in the Temple but he found it no fit place to finish what he had there designed and therefore solicited the Arch-Bishop for a remove to whom he spake to this purpose My Lord When I lost the freedom of my Cell which was my Colledge yet I found some degree of it in my quiet Country Parsonage but I am weary of the noise and oppositions of this place and indeed God and Nature did not intend me for Contentions but for Study and quietness My Lord My particular contests with Mr. Travers here have proved the more unpleasant to me because I believe him a good man and that belief hath occasioned me to examine mine own Conscience concerning his opinions and to satisfie that I have consulted the Scripture and other laws both humane and divine whether the Conscience of him and others of his judgment ought to be so farr complyed with as to alter our frame of Church Government our manner of Gods worship our praising and praying to him and our established Ceremonies as often as their tender Consciences shall require us and in this examination I have not onely satisfyed my self but have begun a treatise in which I intend the Justification of our Laws of Church-Government and I shall never be able to finish it but where I may Study and pray for Gods blessing upon my indeavours and keep my self in Peace and Privacy and behold Gods blessing spring out of my Mother Earth and eat my own bread without oppositions and therefore if your Grace can Judge me worthy such a favonr let me beg it that I may perfect what I have begun About this time the Parsonage or Rectory of Boscum in the Diocess of Sarum and six miles from that City became void The Bishop of Sarum is Patron of it but in the vacancy of that See which was three years betwixt the Translation of Bishop Peirce to the See of York and Bishop Caldwells admission into it the disposal of that and all Benefices belonging to that See during this said vacancy came to be disposed of by the Archbishop of Canterbury and he presented Richard Hooker to it in the year 1591. And Richard Hooker was also in the said year Instituted July 17. to be a minor Prebend of Salisbury the Corps to it being Nether-Havin about ten miles from that City which Prebend was of no great value but intended chiefly to make him capable of a better preferment in that Church In this Boscum he continued till he had finished four of his eight proposed Books of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity and these were entered into the register Book in Stationers Hall the 9. of March 1592. but not published till the year 1594. and then with the before-mentioned large and affectionate Preface which he directs to them that seek as they term it the Reformation of the laws and orders Ecclesiastical in the Church of England of which Books I shall yet say nothing more but that he continued his laborious diligence to finish the remaining four during his life of all which more properly hereafter but at Boscum he finisht and publisht but onely the first four being then in the 39 th year of his Age. He left Boscum in the year 1595. by a surrender of it into the hands of Bishop Caldwell and he presented Benjamin Russel who was Instituted into it the 23. of June in the same year The Parsonage of Bishops Borne in Kent three miles from Canterbury is in that Arch-Bishops gift but in the latter end of the year 1594. Doctor William Redman the Rector of it was made Bishop of Norwich by which means the power of presenting to it was pro ea vice in the Queen and she presented Richard Hooker whom she loved well to this good living of Borne the 7. of July 1595. in which living he continued till his Death without any addition of Dignity or Profit And now having brought our Richard Hooker from his Birth place to this where he found a Grave I shall onely give some account of his Books and of his behaviour in this Parsonage of Borne and then give a