Selected quad for the lemma: earth_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
|
A45158
|
Cases of conscience practically resolved containing a decision of the principall cases of conscience of daily concernment and continual use amongst men : very necessary for their information and direction in these evil times / by Jos. Hall.
|
Hall, Joseph, 1574-1656.
|
1654
(1654)
|
Wing H371; ESTC R30721
|
128,918
|
464
|
wine save onely at Gods Table or a man that findes himselfe apt to be miscarryed by his appetite confines himselfe by his vow to one dish or to one meale for the day or a man that findes himself given to the pleasure of gaming to the losse of his time and the weakning of his estate curbes himselfe by his vow never to play for money or a man that findes his prayers weak and his flesh rebellious vowes to tame his unruly desires and to stir up his duller devotions by fasting And as the matter of your vow must be carefully regarded so also your intentions in vowing for if you vow to doe good to an ill end your thanke is lost and danger of judgement incurred as if you vow to give almes for vaine-glory or ostentation or if God shall prosper your usurious or monopolizing project you will build an hospitall your vow is like to be so accepted as the story tells us the prayers were of that bold Curtizan who coming to the shrine of S. Thomas of Canterbury as that traitour was stiled devoutly beg'd that through the intercession of that Saint she might be graced with so winning a beauty that might allure her paramours to a gainfull courting of so pleasing a Mistresse when suddainly as my author tells me she was stricken blinde and certainely so it might well be for if a supposed Saint were invoked it was God that was highly provoked by the sinfull petition of a shamelesse harlot and it was most just for him to revenge it and so we may well expect it shall be with whosoever shall dare to make use of his sacred name to their owne wicked or unwarrantable purposes Since therefore our vowes must be for their matter as Casuists well determine De meliore bono and for intentions holy and directed onely to good it plainly appeares that many idle purposes promises resolutions are wont to passe with men for vows which have no just claime to that holy title One sayes he vowes never to be friends with such a one that hath highly abused him another that he will never come under the roofe of such an unkinde neighbour one that he will drinke so many healths to his honoured friend another that he will not give the wall or the way to any passenger one that he will never weare suit but of such a colour another that he will never cut his haire till such an event These and such like may be foolish unjust ridiculous selfe engagements but vowes they are not neither therefore do bind the conscience otherwise than as Sampsons cords and withes which he may break as a thred of tow Iudg. 16. 9. 12. But as for true vowes certainly they are so binding that you shall sin hainously in not performing them It is not better than dishonesty to fail in what we have promised to men but to disappoint God in our vowes is no lesse than sacriledge That of Solomons is weighty Eccles. 5. 4 5 6. When thou vowest a vow unto God deferre not to pay it for he hath no pleasure in fooles pay that which thou hast vowed Better it is that thou shouldst not vow than that thou shouldst vow and not pay it Suffer not thy mouth to cause thy flesh to sin neither say before the Angel that it was an errour wherefore should God be angry at thy vow and destroy the worke of thine hands If therefore a lawfull and just vow have passed your lips you may not be false to God and your selfe in not keeping it But if it shall so fall out that there proves to be some maine inconvenience or impossibility in the fulfilling of this your solemne promise unto God whether through the extreme prejudice of your health and life or the over-swaying difficulty of the times what is to be done surely as under the law Numb 30. 3 4 5. it was left in the power of the parent to over-rule the vow of the childe so I doubt not but under the Gospel it is left in the power of your spirituall fathers to order or dispense with the performance of those vowes which you would but cannot well fulfill neither was it spoken in vaine nor in matter of sins onely which our Saviour in way of authorization said to his Apostles and their successours Whatsoever ye shall binde on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven Mat. 18. 18 In this case therefore I should advise you to make your addresse to your spirituall pastor and freely to lay open your condition before him and humbly to submit your selfe to his fatherly directions in that course which shall be found best and sasest for your soule Think it not safe in a businesse of so high nature to relye upon your owne judgment and to carve out your own satisfaction but regard carefully what God hath said of old The priests lippes should keep knowledge and they should seeke the law at his mouth for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts Mal. 2. 7. CASE V. Whom may we justly hold an Heretick and what is to be done in the case of Heresie THere is no one point wherein the Church of God hath suffered more than in the mis-understanding of this question How many thousand innocents have in these latter ages of the Church perished in this unhappy quarrell yea how many famous Churches have beene most unjustly thunder-struck with direfull censures of Excommunication down to the pit of hell upon pretence of this crime which have bin lesse guilty than their Anathematizers And even amongst our selves how apt we are to brand one another with this hatefull mark where there is no true merit of such a reproach It much imports us therefore to know who may be deservedly thus stigmatized by us I have elsewhere somewhat largely insisted on this theme whither I might spare some lines to referre you But in short thus To let passe the originall sense and divers acceptions of the word An heresie is no other than an obstinate errour against the foundation All truths are precious but some withall necessary All errours are faulty but some damnable the naynousnesse of the error is according to the worth of the truth impugned There are Theologicall verities fit for us to know and believe there are Articles of Christian faith needfull to be known and believed There are truths of meet and decent superstructure without which the fabrick may stand there are truths of the foundation so essentiall as that without them it cannot stand It is a maime to the house if but a tile be pulled off from the roofe but if the foundation be razed the building is overthrown this is the endeavour and act of heresie But now the next question will be what doctrines they are which must be accounted to be of the Foundation Our countrey-man Fisher the Jesuite and his Associates wil tell you roundly that all those things which are defined
the hearts of too many Christians as if the contributions to their ministers were a matter of meer almes which as they need not to give so they are apt upon easy displeasures to upbraid But these men must be put in minde of the just word of our Saviour The laborer is worthy of his wages The ministery signifies a service a publique service at Gods Altar whereto the wages is no lesse due then the meat is to the mouth of him that payes it No man may more freely speak of tithes then my selfe who receive none nor ever shall do Know then ye proud ignorants that call your Ministers your almes-men and your selves their Benefactors that the same right you have to the whole they have to a part God and the same lawes that have feoffed you in your estates have allotted them their due shares in them which without wrong ye cannot detract It is not your charity but your justice which they presse for their owne Neither think to check them with the scornfull title of your servants servants they are indeede to Gods Church not to you and if they doe stoop to particular services for the good of your souls this is no more disparagement to them then it is to the blessed Angels of God to be ministring spirits Heb. 1. 14. sent forth to minister for them who shall be heires of salvation Shortly it is the Apostles charge ratified in heaven that they which labour in the word and doctrine should be remunerated with double honour that is not formall of words and complements but real of maintenance which he laies weight upon his Timothy to enioyn 1. Tim. 5. 17. 10. And surely how necessary it is that we should bee at som certainty in this case and not left to the meere arbitrary will of the givers it too well apears in common experience which tell us how ordinary it is where ministers depend upon voluntary benevolences if they doe but upon som just reproofe gall the conscience of a guilty hearer or preach som truth which dis-relishes the palat of a prepossessed auditor how he straight flies out and not only withholds his own pay but also withdrawes the contributions of others so as the free-tongued teacher must either live by ayre or be forced to change his pasture It were easy to instance but charity bids mee forbeare Hereupon it is that these sportulary preachers are faine to sooth up their many masters and are so gaged with the feare of a starving displeasure that they dare not be free in the reprehension of the daring sins of their uncertain benefactors as being charmed to speak either placentia or nothing And if there were no such danger in a faithfull and just freedom yet how easy is it to apprehend that if even when the laws enforce men to pay their dues to their ministers they yet continue so backward in their discharge of them how much lesse hope can there be that being left to their free choyce they would prove eyther liberall or just in their voluntary contributions Howsoever therfore in that innocent infancy of the Church wherein zealous Christians out of a liberall ingenuity were ready to lay downe all their substance at the Apostles feet in the primitive times immediately subsequent the willing forwardness of devout people tooke away all need of raysing set maintenances for Gods ministers yet now in these depraved and hard hearted times of the Church it is more then requisite that fixed competencies of allowance should by good lawes be established upon them which being done by way of tithes in those countries wherein they obtaine there is just cause of thankfulnesse to God for so meet a provision none for a just oppugnation CASE VIII Whether it bee lawfull for Christians where they find a countrey possessed by savage Pagans and Infidels to drive out the native inhabitants and to seize and enjoy their lands upon any pretence and upon what grounds it may be lawfull so to doe WHat unjust and cruel measure hath been heretofore offered by the Spaniard to miserable Indians in this kind I had rather you should receive from the relation of their own Bishop Bartholomaeus Casa then from my Pen. He can tell you a sad story of millions of those poor savages made away to make room for those their imperious successors the discovery of whose unjust usurpation procured but little thanks to their learned professors of Complutum and Salamanca Your question relates to our owne case since many thousands of our nation have transplanted themselves into those regions which were prepossessed by barbarous owners As for those countries which were not inhabited by any reasonable creatures as the Bermudas or Summer-Islands which were only peopled wih Hogs and Deer and such like bruite cattle there can be no reason why they should not fall to the first occupant but where the land hath a known master the case must vary For the decision whereof some grounds are fit to be laid No nation under heaven but hath som Religion or other and worships a God such as it is although a creature much inferiour in very nature to themselves although the worst of creatures evil spirits and that religion wherein they were bred through an invincible ignorance of better they esteem good at least Dominion and propriety is not founded in Religion but in a naturall and civill right It is true that the saints have in Christ the Lord of all things a spiritual right in all creatures all things are yours saith the Apostle and you are Christs and Christ is Gods but the spirituall right gives a man no title at all to any naturall or civill possession here on earth yea Christ himselfe though both as God and as Mediator the whole world were his yet hee tells Pilate My kingdom is not of this World neither did he though the Lord Paramount of this whol earth by virtu of that transcendent soveraignty put any man out of the possession of one foot of ground which fell to him either by birth or purchase Neither doth the want of that spirituall interest debar any man from a rightfull claim and fruition of these earthly inheritances The barbarous people were lords of their owne and have their Sagamores and orders and formes of government under which they peaceably live without the intermedling with other nations Infidelity cannot forfeit their inheritance to others no more then enmity professed by Jewes to Christian Religion can escheat their goods to the Crownes under which they live yea much lesse for those Jewes living amongst Christian people have or might have had meanes sufficient to reclaime them from their stubborn unbeleefe but these savages have never had the least overture of any saving helps to wards their conversion they therefore being as true owners of their native inheritances as Christians are of theirs they can no more be forced from their possessions by Christians then Christians may be so forced by them certainly in the same