Selected quad for the lemma: conscience_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
conscience_n	ordinance_n	power_n	resist_v	1,861	5	9.7674	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A74854	Two treatises concerning the matter of the Engagement. The first of an unknown author, excepting against Mr. Dureus Considerations for the taking of the Engagement, to shew the unsatisfactoriness thereof. : The second of Mr. Dureus maintaining the satisfactoriness of his considerations against the unknown authors exceptions.	Dury, John, 1596-1680.	1650 (1650)	Thomason E615_12; ESTC P1074	53,095	64

submitted unto as Gods Vice-gerents in their places for Conscience sake or in him that doth nothing of all this but making himself a Judge of the Powers that are over him and of their proceedings doth resist them as Usurpers denying all obedience even in the best and lawfullest things commanded for publick safety by them doth despise their government and speak evil of their dignity and doth admit of none to have the right to Supream power but whom he hath determined should have it which of these hath most of the spirit of Antichrist judge ye As for that which you call a peremptory determination of the forfeiture of Right in those that were before posse essed of an undoubted title I can say this to it that if you can shew me that I make any peremptory determination of any thing in particular I shall confess a fault but if I do nothing more then represent the undenyable cleere general grounds of natural equity upon which Rights may be forfeited without making any special application thereof unto circumstances or pronouncing a definitive sentence for or against any as a Judge in the Case then your censure will be found unjust and inconsiderate and to see your errour in it look upon that which I have said unto your second observation To the judgement of Discretion which I allow with a limitation that it ought not to be set up so high within ourselves or over others as to oblige our Conscience to follow it as the onely Rule and drown the thoughts of all other rules in point of obedience to the powers who are visibly over us you say that blind obedience is better then such use of light that when I believe I see my way I have no allowance to follow it This is a great mistake of my meaning for so far as I allow to judge I allow to follow light I allow to judge that is to discerne and observe rationally who are in the visible possession of superiority how they declare their own right and with what power they stand these things must be taken notice of that men may be able to judge their own present station under whom they stand whom God hath set over them Concerning the judgement of discretion a definitive judgement about what matters they are conversant and unto whom they owe obedience for Conscience sake so far as this judgement doth discover actual superiority I oblige the conscience of every man in his particular actions to walk in the light thereof as a dutiful Subject but I allow him not in the disquiry of matters concerning his superiors to go so far as to judge peremptorily of their proceedings in their places whether they do right or wrong and whether their title be good or bad in these things because he cannot have that light which is requisit to settle a definitive judgement therein and because he is not called to be a Judge of such matters therefore I allow him not to oblige his Conscience to be intangled into any such judicature or to suspend the acts of his civil and Christian obedience wherein Conscience is to follow other cleere Rules upon his own or other mens observations of such things In a word I allow all men to seek out their way and when they have found it to follow it conscionably but they are to be directed that in seeking their way they presume not above their line their Line is to discerne to whom they owe the duty of a Subject what the thing is which by their superiours is required of them whether it be answerable to the Law of God and nature yea or no within this line their judgement is to walk for themselves but beyond this Line to make such observations of their Superiours ways or to give way to the apprehensions which may be suggested unto them concerning the same from others so far as to make those observations and apprehensions a rule to their conscience to walk by is in my judgement irregular and the very snare wherein at this time you and many others are taken in unawares whiles you distinguish not between your own line and the line of others and btween the judgement of discretion peremptory judgement which are to be exercised about different objects and have a different relation unto Conscience the things whereof I am no competent judge I may diseern with an observation of indifferency leaving the determination thereof unto others to whom the judicature properly belongeth Concerning the Rule which I give whereby Superiours may be discerned as agreeable to sense to reason and to conscience you object 1. That if this Rule were right Israel whensoever they were made Servants to their enemies to Cushan Rushataim to Eglon to Jabin to Midian to Ammon and to the Philistims should have been bound up in bondage from seeking deliverance nor any endeavour must have been used to recover lost rights The difference between a State and v private man in opposing oppressive powers over them I answer that this doth not follow at all 1. For the case of a private man is not the same with a whole state this hath a right to govern it self independently but no private man in a State can pretend unto this therefore a State may endeavour to recover its right and liberty whensoever it can get strength to cast off the Government which is over it but no privat man may intend to make himself independent from all superiour powers he ought then to take notice of those that God hath set over him to do his duty towards them 2. In a whole State when it is oppressed by Forraigners as when God sent those enemies to bring Israel into bondage there was no doubt or need of a Rule to know who were their superiours but here a particular man is supposed in a civil division to be in doubt between two competitors to whom he is to perform the duty of a Subject the Rule then is only fitted for this case and not for the other 3. In the deliverance of Israel from the oppression of their enemies it is said that God raised them up Judges and that he was with the Judge whom he raised Jud. 2.16.18 therefore it followeth that he put publick Authority upon their deliverers and consequently that he did not allow private men to be otherwise then in subjection as when he brought Nebuchadnezar against the Jews who brought them away Captive into Babylon he did Command all private men to be in subjection and to pray for the peace of the place where they were Captives Jer. 29.7 even as the Apostle doth injoyn all Christians to be subject to the Roman Emperours Rom. 13. who for the most part were all usurpers Secondly How Subjects are to behave themselves towards these Powers whether claiming superiority by Contract or by Conquest you object against that which I say about a Contract which makes a Law between Rulers and Subjects and a

agitur quibus tot suppetunt remedia it shews that no cure is wanting though the disease may seem desperate for if the supposition which I make were wholly yielded unto as I make it there would be no full opposition between the Covenant and other oaths found otherwise then in the mistaken apprehensions of some that scare themselves at the Engagement without a just cause my labour therefore is not lost if things misunderstood may be rectified as surely they may and I hope by this time in some degree are You admit that that which is extinct made void can no more oblige with this limitation provided that those who are obliged have no hand in extinguishing that which doth oblige them Corcerning the matter of an Oath how it may be extinguished or not extinguished to worke out their own disobligation this limitation I do admit and your instance in Davids case to Jonathan for preserving his seed I allow Yet if God had appointed Mephibosheth to dye and David to have given the sentence in the way of justice do you thinke that David would have been guilty of the breach of oath made to Jonathan for the preserving of his seed it is true we say the King dyes not that is the supream executioner of Laws dyes not but the King in his person was Civiliter mortuus as to his office when he was Voted close prisoner in the Isle of Wight and if there was just cause for it in the Judgement of the Supreame power of the Nation their oath for his preservation being limitted to a condition they will be able to answer before a higher Judge then you or I for what they have done The case which I suppose is concerning a private man who is no Judge in publique affaires who had no hand in sentencing him and therefore although in the preface of the Covenant mention is made of the King and his Posterity yet by his death the matter of the oath relating to him is extinct and by the cause of his death the Law hath involved his posterity That which you say here concerning Parliament-Priviledges being always the same and unalterable is onely said and not proved in like mauner when you tell me that we have now no Parliament actually existing you begge the Question and overthrow the fundamental position of a full House to be in the number of forty Trustees which I believe may be six times told in the List of those that now present themselves to that Assembly Your comparison of a Phisitian who cannot preserve except he recover strength doth suppose many things which are not granted therefore I shall not think them worthy of any larger answer then to tell you that the Covenant never meant that private men of whom I speak should be Judges of Parliament-priviledges or Phisitians to the publick diseases of the State Now whether my friend hath any just cause to scruple further neither you nor I are competent Judges but the impartial Reader the third man to whom and to your own second thoughts I shall leave this matter Upon the second part of my discourse to my friend you make some observations wherein you rather touch matters as it were in transcursu exceptiously then pitch upon a settled exception You tell me first that in stead of cleering the title of the present Powers as just and lawful and acquitting it from usurpation I make it unlawful to inquire and determine concerning it To this I say what the duty of Subjects is to their superiors till you make it appear that it is lawful for every private man to judge definitively of the Titles Rights and Actions of the Powers that are over him so as to oblige his Conscience to abstain from all lawful actings in his Calling under them till he be satisfied in all his scruples concerning them I must still for mine own part abstain from presuming to be their Judge in such matters and diswade others from that practise and perswade them to do their own affaires quietly and pray to God for their superiour Powers Then you blame me for holding forth the Rule by which I walk as if I did intend to make my self in all things my friends president or supposed him to be ready to follow me in all things I see nothing can be so well meant and done but it may be ill taken when men seek to make exceptions and not to edifie I thought the best way of edification was to hold forth the rules by which God doth teach us to walk and because I would have no man to follow me further then he seeth a Rule therefore I am interpreted to have an ambition to get followers truly I shall follow you gladly if you will shew me your Rule to be answerable to the word of God and why shew you not a fault in the Rule it self if it is lyable to exceptions but if you can except nothing against it why are you not so ingenous as to beare witness to the Truth but when we hunt after contradictions this is the Genius which leads us we look not to the thing but to experiences and in their wrong and worst side afterward you say that I have been found a transgressor of mine own Rule I see you allude to that which you said in your second exception but when you shall have answered that which I have said there to rectifie your mistakes then you will give me cause to think that you have a mind not onely to tell me that I have transressed my Rule but also to redress either me or my Rule if either be faulty for which I shall thank you when you intend it as you ought to do Concerning the Character of AntiChrist you deny nothing of that which I say but you desire me to take it into my serious consideration to whom that Character doth belong whether to those that seek out carefully to what power it is they owe justly subjection that they may submit themselves thereunto or to him who doth peremptorily determine of the forfeiture of Rights in those that before were posessed of an undoubted title Concerning the spirit that exalts itself above Magistrates where it appeares most and disobliging Subjects from their Obedience To this I say that I have considered seriously the matter and find that the answer is easie if the Case be stated as you offer it upon a mistake in the second part but let the Case be truly stated and then consider you also where the Character of a Spirit exalting it self above Magistrates doth most appear whether in him that submits himself to the higher Powers which God hath actualy set over him and without disputing their title or making himself a Judge of their actions doth all things just and lawful in his place under them as under the Ordinance of God because he doth believe that all Supream powers that are actually existent in the world are ordained of God and ought to be