Selected quad for the lemma: duty_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A41815
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A reply to A vindication of a discourse concerning the unreasonableness of a new separation &c.
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Grascome, Samuel, 1641-1708?
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1691
(1691)
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Wing G1576; ESTC R31730
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40,185
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31
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true where the Matter is unlawful in it self but not where the Obligation comes to cease And this I grant also to be true but then a Man ought to be very well assured that the Obligation doth cease for otherwise all the Arts and Shifts in the world will not absolve him from Perjury And I insisted on the first as being our Case and therefore his Instance of the Shew-bread is beside the Matter For though as dedicated to God it belonged to the Priests yet it was never unlawful in it self for a Man to eat Bread nor did such Dedication hinder the Priests from being Charitable and in case of necessity relieving a good Man from being starved And though it he the fashion of our days not only to make Men poor but by all means possible to hinder them from any Relief that they may starve yet he needed not to have gone to the Jews for an Instance but might have told us of Christian Bishops who in times of Famine have sold the Riches of their Churches to buy Food for the Poor and Posterity hath honoured their Memory for it As for his Story of Jaddus I will not trouble my self to call it in question it will be somewhat to the Purpose when he can prove these three things 1. That Jaddus and the Jews took an Oath to Alexander I find no such thing in the Story and he knows that we do not deny all manner of Submission to Force 2. That Darius was living when Jaddus made the Submission 3. That we have the same Authority Warrant and Directions which Jaddus and the Jews had as to which last he may do very well to address himself to a certain Person whom he very well knows and try if he can find it in the Revelations The next Instance is of the Parents Part to Children as to which he cites these words from his Author If Parents instead of regarding the Good of their Children do openly design their Ruine none will say but that they are bound to take Care of their own Wellfare They are so but yet even then there is a Duty owing from those Children to those Parents But in order to take off my Answer there given as if he had received a double Portion of Hugh Peters's Spirit he falls to his blackening Arts and with the help of Flam-Supposals and notorious Falshoods represents as indulgent a Father as perhaps lived as if he were another Saturn who devoured his own Issue and then he thinks the Child may enter upon the Estate and keep Possession against his Parent c. and then tryumphantly asks this question May not all this be done and the Fifth Commandment stand in its full Force Yes Sir the Fifth Commandment will be in force and you and others some time or other will find so but as you order the Matter here you make it either of no Force or of Force to very ill purpose for so I take it to be when it lays no other Obligation upon the Child but to dispossess the Father of his Estate or to knock out his Brains Do not you think you have done an Heroick Act thus to dispute away the fifth Cammannment But at this rate I am afraid you will paint White-Chapel black and make People doubtful how he is a Preacher of Righteousness who devises Tricks to take away the Oblâ—gation of God's Commandments The third Instance is of Masters and Servants Victors and Captives and in these his Author says there is a Regard had to the Benefit of those who are in Subjection This I did grant but withall deny That any Consequence could be drawn thence which would be for his turn But here he accuseth me of Ignorance Nonsense Blunders and what not and all along after speaks in such insolent language as I think is only fit to be despised and therefore I will not do him the Pleasure to take any farther notice of it Only I think it disingenuous to cite my Words by the halves and then cry out of Nonsense and Inconsistencies But it was impudence assoon as this was done to repeat the following Words which both make them Sense and take away all Inconsistency But to my Argument he answers That being under Government rightly so called doth not Metamorphose us into Beasts yet mere absolute Power comes very near it I know not what he means by his Government rightly so called I hope it is not Usurpation That Parenthesis would better have become another than him But his Answer is neither to the purpose nor true For there neither is nor can be any Government but somewhere there is lodg'd in it that which he calls an absolute Power and thus in his way of Arguing he hath near Metamorphosed all Mankind into Beasts unless there be any such as are under no Government at all I as heartily wish as he or any other Man can That Power may be well used and yet I think I ought to be content to allow my Governours their Failings without mutinying against them and displacing them This would be not only endless but to condemn our selves for if it were said to us he that is without Sin let him cast the first stone I doubt you would scarce find one to begin the Work His Distinction of a private Injury from that wherein the Publick is concerned is not practicable upon his Principle For let it be made lawful on any account to depose the supream Governour and the least and most private Injury imaginable shall be interpreted a Breach of the Subjects Privilege in general and consequently against the Publick Good But there will be no need for this according to his Principle For if the antecedent Good as he calls it be so the Measure of the Obligation as to dissolve it when that is wanting every Man will be prone to think his own particular Good to be as much that antecedent Good as any thing he can call publick and consequently if he be wronged will take himself to be absolved from his Allegiance This is an admirable way to make Government firm and stable The last Relation he mentions is between Princes and their Subjects as to which the only material thing he says is That the Nature of Political Oaths is such that they are reciprocal Now though I do not think this will hold yet to what purpose should I enter into a Discourse about Oaths when our Business is with the Duties which were antecedent to the Oaths and to the Performance of which we are more strongly bound by those Oaths These undoubtedly are not reciprocal For if the Subject will not do his Duty or absolutely deny it doth this deprive the King of his Right to Sovereignty At this rate indeed we may depose Kings and transfer Allegiance at pleasure It were a very happy thing if the Duties of Relations were always justly and mutually paid but if there be as too often there is a Failure on the one part it doth not
discharge the Obligations of the other Children owe a Duty to wicked Parents Servants to hard Masters Subjects to severe Kings though it were much better if they had more Encouragement to perform their Obligations Every Cur will be snarling at the dead Lyon whom otherwise he durst not look in the Face The Actions Writings and Reputation of Dr. Hammond and Bishop Sanderson were enough to blast these Proceedings and therefore almost every Scribler for the late Treachery doth all he can to lessen their Esteem in the World I had particular occasion to vindicate Bishop Sanderson but he tells me I mistake between what the Consent of the absent Prince is founded upon and upon what the Casuists found their Opinion of the Obligation that lies on Mankind to do what tends to the Publick Good under a Vsurpation and this he calls teaching me A. B. C. and indeed I think he is much fitter to teach A. B. C. than so great a Congregation unless he had more Conscience and Honesty However I will not learn my A. B. C. of him if it were only for this Reason that I have no mind to learn it backward But if he please to look into his Author again with a more impartial Eye he will find that he invidiously and maliciously endeavours to charge and undervalue Bishop Sanderson as founding the Actions of Subjects under a Usurpation on such a Reason as other Casuists did not and as if he made the presumptive Will of the Prince the sole Reason And in this Case I think I had Reason to urge That he founded the presumptive Consent of the Prince upon the Publick Good and I shall not willingly suffer so great a Person to be scandalized let him put his B's and C's how he will The last Head he propounds is of Obedience to Authority which if it had been more thought of and better observed there had been no occasion to dispute about it now And I wonder with what face those Men can name Obedience to Authority who make it their whole Business to justifie Disobedience to Authority Here after some little Wit and much trifling and the Charge of some Mistakes upon me which I think might be easily returned but I will not spend time about it because they come not up to the Case at last he replies to my Answer concerning the Case of the Jews And this is the only thing material he offers under this Head My first Answer That the Jews being governed by one of their own Brethren was designed as a Blessing the contrary was a Judgment he doth not deny But he would thence infer this Consequence That therefore they might not lawfully transfer their Allegiance from their own Blood to a Foreigner And this he thinks he can prove false But I do not know how that Consequence follows from my Words The Jews spontaniously wantonly and by their own Authority could not transfer their Allegiance but when God for their Sins deprived them of a particular Privilege and Blessing and put them under the Power of others and they knew it was his Will it should be so they were then bound to obey And thus Nehemiah might serve as Governour under Artaxerxes and Jaddus take an Oath of Fidelity to Darius And hence you see on what Right the Oath was founded Next I urged that they were under a state of Conquest this he doth neither deny nor own it to be our Case and unless he doth this latter whatever he infers thence whether true or false cannot affect us And therefore I am not further concerned to answer a Man who labours to make acts of Violence to be standing Rules for all Seasons In the third place I did as he says urge That the Question to our Saviour was not concerning Oaths but Tribute which he grants all Casuists do allow may be paid even to an Vsurper But then he says I know what Vse and what Gain too my Adversary made of this But if he made an ill Use of it how can I help it Must I Answer for that As for his Gain if he mean a Bishoprick it is something but as to the Merits of the Cause I cannot see that he hath Gained any thing But after all both the Use an Gain is an Argument borrowed from Dr. Burnet which runs to this purpose if Submission may be testified one way why not another If Tribute may be paid why not promised If promised why not sworn And then he asks Is it not as a Token of Allegeance The Answer is plain I may submit wherein it may be done lawfully but not wherein it is unlawful I may pay Money to a Thief I may promise it yea such may be my Streights and Dangers that I may swear to do it and yet this is not as a Token of Allegiance which all that time is due to my King and ought not to be made over to a Thief it is the Redemption of my Life or Goods and the choosing a less Evil rather than a greater in a case wherein I may do it without Sin For in such case I think I may lawfully part with my own though it is unlawful for the other to take it And if this Answer will not please him he may still call me Fool as he here doth I like the Title much better than Knave though I am fond of neither Lastly With respect to Tiberius it was urged that no Man had jus potius and that there was no prior Oaths in bar against him as to which he Answers That Agrippa Posthumus was then living one much nearer to Augustus and that seem'd designed by him to succeed him What he means by seem'd designed I cannot tell Was he really designed or not It is a common thing for Relations to waver in their Thoughts which way they shall bestow their Favours and sometimes it is a piece of Art but if Tiberius was designed as he calls it at last the Cause is so far cast But because this will not do he says That there was a jus potius in the Senate from whom even Augustus was willing to receive it But if Augustus who was before Tiberius did receive the Senates Right then their Right was gone before Tiberius's time and so the jus potius is good on his side still Beside by their own Laws they might make a Dictator and they had actually made Julius Caesar perpetual Dictator who was before them both and in that very act gave away their Power so that their giving up to Augustus was but Selling their Estate twice And after all his Author confesses they swore Allegiance to Tiberius and where was then their jus potius As to the prior Oaths he asks me What I think of the Oath of Jaddus to Darius c. And in requital I ask him again What is that in bar to the Title of Tiberius So that if Tiberius was as bad a Man as he represents him and indeed I never thought him a Saint though for his Art in Dissimulation he might have been qualified for one in these times yet in spite of our Author his Title will prove the best he can set up As to the better Title which he saith he will adventure to set before me he may keep it to himself he hath offered his Ware to a wrong Chapman But for his Kindness I will leave him this Remark That when the Childeren of Israel forsook the living God to worship Graven Images the greater part were always more zealous for their Idols than for the true God In the Conclusion I find that our Author is supositions of the force of his Arguments for he will not leave me to the Tribunal of Heaven but threatens me with being called to account here and I do not question but that he will do his endeavour nor do I crave any Favour at his Hands He that calls me to Sufferings I hope will enable me to bear them and in such case I have no other Remedy but to appeal to the just God before whom one Day we shall have a Rehearing And when it comes to my Thoughts how a Turk at Buda laying his Hand on his Brest promised not to yield up the Town but with his Life and in pursuance of his Word so Manfully defended it that it cost a victorious Army dear and took up almost two Summers Work and when the Place was Untenable any longer might have made honourable Conditions yet rather than break his Promise chose to stand in the Breach in his Drawers and tempt and desie Death it amazeth me to think who shall rise up in Judgment against this Treacherous and Perfidious Generation O God of Goodness and Compassion in the midst of Judgment think on Mercy have Pity upon this poor distressed Church and give Men a Sense of that Simplicity Sincerity and Integrity which thy Law so highly extols and strictly requires of all who call themselves Christians FINIS