Selected quad for the lemma: conscience_n
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A35080
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A sermon preached to the gentlemen of Yorkshire at Bow-Church in London, the 24th of June, 1684, being the day of their yearly feast by Tho. Cartwright ...
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Cartwright, Thomas, 1634-1689.
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1684
(1684)
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Wing C705; ESTC R4837
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24,490
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43
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yield to the Supreme Gods Minister to the Master and Maker of us all and therefore though it may be sometimes necessary not to obey the King actively as it hapned to the Captive Jews under Nebuchadnezzar and to some of the Apostles under the Roman Emperors for they could not obey God and the King too and then the Case of Conscience was easily resolv'd in as much as his Commands were countermanded by an higher and greater Power and the Obligation of such irregular Precepts rescinded by a more indisputable Authority and a more indisputable Law than his even by the clear express word of God which is the Standard of Obedience both to him and the King and yet even then a passive Obedience was and is necessary in the Judgment of the first and best Christians who when they could not obey with Piety did dye with Patience and lay quietly down under the burden which they durst not bear they patiently expected a redress of such unusual Emergencies from the good Providence of God for whose sake they suffer'd them But alas In our Iron-Age a little Loyalty and less Religion serves most Mens turns there is nothing more pretended to nor any thing less practis'd than either and they who are most forward to dispute who is to be fear'd God or the King first or most are usually the Men who for all their tender Consciences which serve for nothing but to mischeif others and themselves seldom fear or obey either for if they did they would observe a little better than they do 2ly The close Connexion between God and the King 't is so near that there is no Disjunctive but a meer Copulative between them My Son fear thou God and the King 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and be disobedient Sept. or contumacious to neither of them If there were not a God in Heaven there would be no Gods on Earth nor would Mankind subject themselves to Government but that there is something of the Image of God in it to which they are bound by an Inherent Principle which Religion improves to pay a Natural Homage Our Civil Peace would soon be turn'd into a Civil War if it were not for this and therefore there never was any Nation so Impolitick and Bruitishly Barbarous but that they embrac'd and establish'd some Religion or other among them as knowing how great Influence it had on the Body Politick Religion when pure and undefil'd hath always prov'd a good Friend to Government and that Religion will at last be found to be best which befriends and strengthens it most and the better Christians Men are the better Subjects they will be for the Integrity of Christian Loyalty as Arnobius proves against the Gentiles is greater than that of any other Religion which was ever received in the World Vos Conscios timetis nos Conscientiam You are subject for fear your Disloyalty should rise up in Judgment against you before Men but we for fear our Consciences should accuse us before God 'T is the fear of him which begets in us the fear of the King who represents him and exercises his Authority over us Our Religion allows not the least opposition to be made by any private Man or any Body of Men to their Superiours but strictly and indisponsibly requires our Subjection to the Authority of the Worst Princes and forbids our laying violent hands on them though they were Tyrants and Invaders of the Peoples Liberties the very Worst of Men as well as Kings looks not upon their failings to be any abatement of their Power nor admits any Asylum for their Assassinates or Murderers And I may venture to say in all places without the hazard of a Quarrel That the Principles of the Church of England are as innocent and peaceable and at least as Auxiliary to the Civil Government as the Maxims and Articles of any Church under Heaven and much more than those of the Church of Rome or Geneva in respect of their extravagant Papal or Popular Power of the Conclave or Synod directly or indirectly exercis'd by either of them in Ordine ad Spiritualia and the Exemption of their Clergy from the Coercive Power of Princes Our Principles are and have in all Ages been truly serviceable to the Government of Civil as well as of Religious Societies and our Protestant Religion establish'd by Law hath the promise of this life and that which is to come and may justly be term'd the best Reason of State Nor can any thing be of greater importance to the Security or Ruine of the Kingdom than the well or ill Administration of it Most certain it is that no Society can be upheld without Oaths Promises and Engagements which are the Highest Security of which Mankind is capable nor can any of them hold unless Religion bind us to it and therefore in Machiavel's Judgment who was none of the best Friends to it 't is of great Importance to a State to preserve a worthy esteem of it And wise Princes will both in point of Gratitude and Interest cherish the National Religion which is a part of the Government and being bred up with it will be sure never to give it any disturbance by prohibiting and restraining all strange and new Religions which will only serve to exercise the Kings patience and keep him in breath with the Disturbances they will create among his Subjects of which the late times have been an unhappy instance for the prevention whereof God hath put the Sword into his hands and he must not bear it in vain but use it whilst he has it as a proper Instrument for the preservation of Peace and Piety in his Dominions This is that which makes his Authority so Sovereign and his Person so sacred that the Historian hath placed him next to God himself as well as Solomon Proximus Diis habetur per quem Deorum Majestas Justin 1. vindicatur There is but one fear in my Text which is due both to God and the King the Almighty hath joyn'd them together as well as Solomon and he would have us do so too therefore neither the Popes nor the Speakers Chair must be set between Gods and the Kings Throne no just Interposition of any third Person and Power for our Debt to God and the King commences from our Birth and the Duties of Obedience to God and of Allegiance to the King are of the first and greatest Importance the Obligation whereof must be first paid or else an Everlasting Judgment will be entred against us in this Life and infallibly executed in the next Now there are three sorts of People who do attempt to disjoyn God and the King in this kind The Papal Jesuite the Protestant Jesuite and he who pretends to be a Royalist and yet disgraces so good a Cause by his prophane Life The two first are Fratres in Malo Twins of Rebellion the Elder is of the Ignatian Fraternity and Roman Conclave who puts the Pope the Younger
Bench is a much fitter place than the Royal Exchange By all which it will appear that the Changing of Religion under any Comprehensive Notion whatsoever is the most desperate Paroxysm that can happen to a sickly State and therefore Maecenas in Dio counsels young Octavian to worship God according to his Country custom and to compel others so to do but to hate and punish the Bringers in of strange Religions because they who bring in new Forms of Worship will also perswade Men to receive other Laws and bring in as fast as they can new Forms of Government And therefore when the National Religion comes to be question'd disputed and decryed 't is high time for the Supreme Magistrate to take heed that Popular Tumults and Disturbances do not sit hard upon the Commonwealth for Schismaticks are the Standard-Bearers of Sedition and the common Barretors of Mankind Traytors in Masquâ—rade and if their Power were answerable to their Spirits they would command Fire from Heaven to burn us all up in an instant And yet to our shame be it spoken we English-Men never know when we are well and are justly reproach'd by a Proverb for being given to change our Garbs and our Forms of Religion must be of the new Model Cut or Fashion many quarrel at the Principles of that established by Law and more despise the practice of it God has made us the Envy and we live as if we meant to make our selves the Scorn of the World Our Laws are good and many and we live as if we had none Our Religion is firmly established by them and we laugh it out of countenance and the Liberty of Conscience which we are so ready to contend for is design'd for nothing but a Cloak of Maliciousness I would to God it were not told in Gath nor publish'd in the streets of Ascalon Are you grown sick of your Religion and Loyalty and with an Inconstancy natural to Islanders do you affect a change for the worse if not why do you meddle with them that are given to it and why do you espouse their Cause as if it were the darling of your own Hearts or why will you run along with them into real and present to avoid possible future and imaginary mischeifs Would you change a Catholick Church into a sarm of Schismatical Conventicles a Flourishing Kingdom into a Fading Commonwealth Vniformity into Confusion the Antient Fundamental Laws of the Land into those Bloudy ones which the Arbitrary Sword shall give you a long and lasting peace into a more lasting War Fulness into Famine Wives into Widdows Children to Orphans bring your selves into your Graves and leave the English Nation behind you a hissing and reproach to all that are round about us Will no Charters please the Body Politick but such as may inable them to Sin with an high hand against the Father of our Country from whose bounty they derive all their Freedoms and Priviledges for all Corporations are the Creatures of the Crown and when their high Stomachs will not be satisfied unless they may devour their Makers Prerogative they need a Charter of Pardon in stead of that of Freedom Alas that Golden Liberty which you have been vainly taught to hope for by some busie Incendiaries who are now under the lash of the Law you would have found as the just reward of your easie credulity to have been nothing else but the Iron Fetters of the most Arbitrary Slaves in the World under the worst of Algerines your own fellow Subjects the gilded Antidote which these State-Mountebanks offer'd you would have prov'd a deadly poyson and it concerns you as much as your happiness comes to to take great heed lest by bogling at the shadow of Popery plac'd only in your own deceitful imaginations you open the door before you are aware to let in the Substance He that would see what will be let him seriously consider what hath been let him sum up the Total Account of the profit of all that Bloud and Treasure which was spent in our late unhappy Wars for promoting the Good old Cause Religion and Property the ordinary Common Places upon which Rebels declaim and satisfie himself that there are the same Desires Humours and Interests drove on in this age that were in the former and much more furiously now than then by hands and mouths as like to those in Forty Eight as one Egge can be to another The grand design of our late sawcy Clamarous Petitioners was the putting of the Government all out of Order and making so many gaps and divisions in the Publick Fences of the Kingdom that any seditious Person might leap over them or break through them at pleasure You had been fill'd ere this with your own desires if God and the King had not been merciful to you beyond your deserts and whatsoever you then vainly dream'd of when you are once perfectly awake you will find ten Rebels in Masquerade for one Romanist in Masquerade or else there would never have been so many Mechanical and Female Politicians so many Blew and White Aprons for the former are influenc'd by the later to inform and advise the King and his Privy Council when to call Parliaments and how to govern us How can you betray greater ingratitude to God and the King for the peace and plenty you now do and have so long jnjoy'd than by anticipating future evils and prejudging future providence and for preventing imaginary mischiefs running headlong into real ones They fright the common people out of their Wits and Duty together by fly-blowing their Heads with the buzzing of Plots and Designs in the Air against their Lives and Liberties by which 't is to be fear'd they design to teach them at last to pinion their own Happiness and to bring our Gracious Sovereign whom God long preserve to the same fatal Scaffold that they did King Charles the Martyr which no good Man can think of without the greatest abhorrence imaginable These Intestine Incendiaries are set on underhand by the Court of Rome and perhaps by another Court too both whose Interests depend on our Divisions and Distractions to disperse and foment Jealousies between the King and the Country by bespattering him with a design of Introducing Popery and Arbitrary Government and branding Men of more Sobriety Justice and Charity of much better Principles than themselves with Nicknames not fit to be mentioned here and endeavouring to run down the best Men and Counsellors with Noise and Tumult beyond all shame and reason as they attempted to do some of our Noble Countrymen who are the Glory of the North and their Reputation the more Glorious after such a Resurrection as God and the King have given it Things were lately come to that pass that he who was not factiously bent against his Majesties Prerogative and the Churches Patrimony and would not be such a thorow-pac'd Protestant as not only to forsake and oppose Rome but also to take his Freedom at