Selected quad for the lemma: conscience_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
conscience_n	liberty_n	papist_n	protestant_n	1,212	5	9.6046	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A80413	What the Independents would have, or, A character, declaring some of their tenents, and their desires to disabuse those who speak ill of that they know not. / Written by John Cook of Grays Inne Barrister.	Cook, John, d. 1660.	1647 (1647)	Wing C6031; Thomason E405_7; ESTC R201877	9,934	18

suspects his own heart and thinks that possibly some men live at a very high rate in spirituall enjoyments being wholy at rest in God and have the lesse need of Ordinances and for those that thinke the Saints are here in full perfection of grace and glory his sinfull heart tels him it is an errour yet he will not judg any tree to be evil but by its fruits He knows no hurt in a million of millenary-like errours who would not be glad to see Jesus Christ That Christ died for all he judges to be a great error for then all must be saved or possibly none may be saved yet there are prudentiall reasons and motives for it as the Papists have for good works if not meritorious why commanded If he dyed not for all why is he preached to all Yet the maintainers ayme is thereby to honour and exalt Christ which is the great designe of the Father and thereby his greater study so by different opinions he learns to doe things upon clearer principles and so to walke in love and peace as seeing him who is invisible and knows no reason why their brethren by the good leave of the maof the family and Parliament may not live lovingly together He thinks it very absurd that Popish Bishops should ordain Ministers as if the sheep should have no shepherds but such as the Wolves appoint the rather for that the Apostles did not abridge the people of that liberty of choosing an Apostle much lesse may a Synod deprive them of choosing their own Officers He desires no Toleration for any Errours against Religion or State-policie but of some errours in Religion which do not raze the foundation conceiving liberty to be the best means to cure all such differences and that the Sword hath no capacity to settle Religion being not sanctified to that purpose and if imprisonment cure an heretick 't is but like his curing an enemy by letting out the Impostume when he thought to kill him for mysticall Wolves are to be kill'd mystically and therefore marvels that any politick Christian should oppose his desires for why may not he which five years since was for Bishops considering the wheeling vicissitude and revolution of things five years hence be an Independent Hee thinks compulsion is the onely way to make Hypocrites and if Church Papists were ever accounted most dangerous he wonders why men should be forced to go to Church He thinks it strange that Christians should have most wars who can least justifie them but conceives it is for want of liberty of conscience The Turke hath more colour to come with three or foure hundred thousand men to invade this Kingdom because we are not of his Religion then one Protestant hath to persecute another And he verily beleeves that if every man might take his Religion upon choyce and tryall thousands would be saved which dye securely making no question of their salvation He thinks it is a soloecisme for Ministers to bid men search the Scriptures when they may not profess that which they find to be true He finds that this Kingdom hath had litle peace since the Bishops banished men into New England where Independencie hath bin so far from being the root of evill as it hath cured Schismes and Heresies He conceives the rigid Presbyters are notable Polititians to put the Parliament between themselves and the envy of the people for they do but untie the poynts and deliver the party to the Magistrate to be whipt as the Papists doe who put Protestants to death because Protestants delight in persecution but wishes they would be moderate if they intend to last for the rigidness of the Bishops was their ruine He doth not finde any punishment in Scripture for tender consciences and by that politique Law which puts Idolaters to death their cattell also were to be destroyed He would gladly conforme to the present government if he had his conscience at command in his own power and knows no reason why carnall professors should oppose liberty but because they desire not to be troubled about Religion but have it put into their mouthes by authority which they hope will stand between them and harme He conceives variety of opinions in circumstantials is but as one star differs from another difference in hearts cannot hurt nor difference in heads need not breed difference in hearts and understands not why Covenants should be made to repaire Castles in the aire and since the moderate Disciplinarians agree that every congregation in America hath intirenesse of jurisdiction intrinsecally within it selfe hee wonders that any man should hold that Churches are in worse condition where the Magistrates professe christianity or that it is not a favour that corporations may determine differences within themselves but he looks not at the likelynesse of the means but Christs institution who is onely King of the conscience and conceives that all the world hath no more power over the conscience then a Tinker hath which can be no disparagement to say that a stone hath as much life as the Sun Hee conceives that Mat. 18. Tell the Church are very plain words but that learned men have invēted distinctions to make them intricate and that Christ hath intrusted the keyes to hang rather at his Spouses girdle then with the Stewards and that a Churches censure being ratified in heaven there can be no appeal on earth to any other Church He conceives that such a liberty will wonderfully indeare all conscientious men to the Magistrate the King and Parliament will gain the hearts of the people without which all obedience will be uncordiall Compulsion can no more gain the heart then the fish can love the fisher-man As for those arguments of disorder and confusion the two Theologicall Scar-crows he conceives they are but imaginary vain fears yet have been so drunk with the bloud of the Saints that like Lycurgus Vines he would never have them more urged for an Heretike is but to be rejected and as Luther said to be burnt with the fire of charity nor should we send them to hell who give no signes of repentance He is an irreconcilable enemy to tyranny and popery and it is the joy of his heart that God may have glory though in his confusion He counts every godly Presbyterian to be his deare brother but not to be preferred before the truth He conceives that whosoever is above his brother in spirituall matters unlesse impowred is a pre ate the onely way to make the Assembly more victorious then Alexander is by reason and gentlenesse to conquer consciences without bloud He conceives that Magistrate in probability to be more religious that will suffer diffring opinions cōsisting with the publike peace then he that Haman-like will have all to bow and stoop to his sheaf and that all the wars in Christendome have sprung from this one depraved principle to suffer no opinion but his own for how can truth appear but by argumentation He

thinks it a sin either to follow an erring conscience or to doe against it but to oppose it the greater sin for he that will doe the least sin against conscience is prepared in disposition to doe the greatest He marvels any man should hold Independencie not to be Gods Ordinance and yet a nationall Assembly to be Apostolicall which is most Independent He thinks there are many Deer without the pale straying sheepe without a fold and when all is done there will be wolves within lambs without but think that to honour Christ is to do his wil is most troubled to consider how one sheep should bite and persecute another He beleeves the government of the Church lies upon the shoulders of Jesus Christ and that the Pope may as well maintaine a Priesthood under the Gospel after the example of Aaron as that Magistrates may punish different opinions after the example of the godly Kings of Ifrael and Judah who were types of Jesus Christ and directed infallibly and yet suffered Herodians Alexandrians Saduces and Pharisees unlesse the errours be of a morall and capitall consideration that may indanger the peoples welfare He verily beleeves that the ardent endeavours of the godly Presbyterians and Independents are to conserve the Ordinances in purity and purging of the Church from scandall and would fain beleeve that the difference between them is but small that the union may be the more easie and sees it most apparently that the interest of all honest godly men is wrapt up in a speedy union to love one another entirely though of different judgements otherwise Gods people are likely to be in a worse condition for their liberties then ever they have been He has ever been a faithfull wel-willer to King and Parliament an enemy to all oppression and cruelty a reall friend to speedy justice and urbanity and thinks hee is no good neighbour that desires it should onely raine in his Garden hee thinks all the delight in this World without the liberty of his conscience is a burthen intolerable And judges Christs Kingdom to be onely there where his Laws are in force for that County is no part of a Princes Dominion which is not regulated by his Laws He is a homager to King and Parliament for the exercise of a good conscience not to beg liberty from man to be a Christian nor to settle the divine right of worship but to be protected in the free exercise of it hee cannot act contrary to his light received without manifest ruine of his owne soule nor practise but by the Magistrates permission without apparant hazard of his person and family therefore intreats all Christian spirits who have any credit with the Magistrate and have felt the weight of an oppressed conscience to mediate for him as Men Christians fellow-sufferers and fellow-helpers Some think it the greatest miracle in the world that any generation of rigid men should be so unnaturall to kill their own fathers and persecute their own brethren who but lately suffered with them but concludes that superstition is an unreasonable thing and that Pride and Covetousnesse in some men are enough to make a man of the Indians minde by any means not to be of the Spaniards Religion Hee marvels any man should be an enemy to tender consciences the want whereof is the plague of this wicked world and that rich man that cannot feast till his poore neighbours have bread to eat hath a tender conscience He knows no Injustice in an errour or opinion and marvels why believers should contend about the faith which they have already and can never lose and thinks it far better that Protestants who in a Parish are of three opiniōs should rather have three severall meeting places then fight and live in perpetuall jars with one another therefore reckons Liberty of Conscience to be Englands chiefest good because nothing else can procure love and peace for did God for the safety of a sheep dispence with his own law and are men so Wolvish to prefer an inferiour Law of uniformity to the royall law of love which is the life of a Kingdome but men may ruine themselves they can never ruine the truth He thinks it a very uncivill part for any man not to yeeld to a civill government but in matter of opinion thinks it misery enough to refuse Christ Jesus and salvation and that to tye up the outward man unlesse he be turbulent or unjust is a reformation for dogs and bears He thinks it is but dissembling for young people to contract themselves and after aske their friends consents to fast and pray for that which is already resolved upon and believes that never did any bloudy Bonner persecute any man under the notion of a Saint but as an instrument of evill or disturber of the State He thinks it strange that none but in office may preach and yet one may preach to get an office and how Beza who was never ordained could ordaine others but he thinks there is lesse need of an accessory solemnity then of the peoples salvation and marvels why a man may not greach by his tongue as well as by his pen the rather for that Jehosaphat sent to his Princes to teach in the City of Judah Princes have preached in Geneva and Lairds in Scotland not to be a Minister without an outward calling but having an inward call to preach to edification though the line of ordination were never stretcht over him he thinks him not zealous of mens salvation that murmures at all mens preaching that are not fashioned in his shop and wishes that Me●chants would send men to preach Jesus Christ to the Indians as well as Factors for he thinks the true interest of England is the Protestant cause to be as zealous to advance that as the Spaniard is for popery He thinks it impossible that the civill peace of a Kingdom should be broken unlesse the Laws be violated and how Lillies should scratch and Lambs tear Wolves and Doves persecute Hauks and Virgins scold are things that lie very remote from his intellect He thinks nothing more hinders a reformation then taking things upon trust not supporting authority by solid reason He wishes that every ingenuous man would disclaim all practices specially in matters of law that are against the law of true reason a confident adherence to authority and a ready prostration to Antiquity preferring old Errours to new discoveries of Truth being prime causes of all injustice and oppression as if an Argument from Authority were any proof to a wiser man a Generation of rigid Formadists making Religion overthrow it self by destroying mercy and Humanity 'T is well for many scandalous Railers that he is a man of a peaceable spirit and all the hurt that he wishes to the Kingdom is that Independents were the worst men in it He draws his sword for publike Liberties which being substantially setled by King and Parliament and secured He will gladly sheath it and say The Lord hath done all and hope that no ingenuous man will envy him those Liberties which were purchased for him by the bloud of Christ knowing that a Communion in Unity will be a glorious supplement to the rent of Uniformity which may seeme strange for a time but will quickly be embraced by all honest men A solid Reason will at any time convince him and hee loves to read discourses which are rationall therefore to charge him with wilfulnesse and obstinacy is a supercilious and censorious severity if not an uncivill and unchristian offence for God is the searcher of all hearts To whose grace and goodnesse he commends the courteous Reader FINIS