Selected quad for the lemma: friend_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
|
A94192
|
Two cases of conscience: resolved by the Right Reverend Father in God Robert Sanderson Late Lord Bishop of Lincoln.
|
Sanderson, Robert, 1587-1663.
|
1668
(1668)
|
Wing S643A; ESTC R201215
|
19,017
|
99
|
papers rather when you have transcribed them transmit enclosed in a Letter or by some Friend that will be sure to deliver them safe with his own hands to my Son in London to whom I shall write shortly that he may expect them Sir I desire that my best respects may be presented c. God endue us all with grace and wisdom fit for these evil times to whose mercy and blessing commend us all I rest Your loving Friend and Servant B.P. Dec. 20. 1650. The Case of a RASH VOW Deliberately Iterated The Case A Gentleman of good Estate hath Issue one only Daughter who placing her affections upon a person much below her rank intendeth Mariage with him The Father hearing of it in great displeasure Voweth and confirmeth it with an Oath that if she Marry him he will never give her a farthing of his Estate The Daughter notwithstanding Marryeth him After which the Father sundry times iterateth and reneweth his said former Vow and that in a serious and deliberate manner adding further That he would never give her or any of hers any part of his Estate QUAERE Whether the Father's Vow so made and so confirmed and iterated as abovesaid be Obligatory or not The Resolution My opinion is That the Vow was Rash and is not at all Obligatory 1. The Question here proposed is concerning the Obligation only yet I deem it expedient to declare my opinion concerning the Rashness also and that for two reasons First Because there seemeth in the proposal of the Case to be some weight laid upon the after iterations which were more deliberate as if they added to the Obligation And Secondly Because I think it needful that the Vower should as well be convinced of the greatness of his sin in making such a Vow for the time past as satisfied concerning the present and future invalidity of it 2. It is easie to believe that the Gentleman when he first made the Vow was possessed with a very great indignation against his Daughter for her high and inexcusable disobedience to him in so very weighty a business And truly it must be confessed he had need to be a man of a very rare command over his own Spirit and such as are scarce to be found one of a thousand that could so contain himself within the bounds of reason upon so just a provocation from an only child possibly some other aggravating circumstances concurring as not to be transported with the violence of that passion into some thoughts and resolutions not exactly agreeable with the dictates of right reason It can therefore be little doubted but the Vow made whilst the Reason was held under the force of so strong a perturbation was a rash and irrational Vow 3. Nor will these after-acts in confirmation of the first Vow though having more of deliberation in them be sufficient to redeem either it or themselves from the imputation of Rashness understanding rashness in that latitude as the Casuists do when they treat de Voto temerario under the notion whereof they comprehend all such Vows as happen per defectum plenae disâ—ussae deliberationi as they express it For it is to be considered that when an injury disobedience or other affront is strongly resented it many times taketh a very deep impression in the soul which though after the first impetus have a little spent it self it begin somewhat to abate yet it doth so by such slow and insensible degrees that the same perturbation which first discomposed the mind may have a strong influence into all succeeding deliberations for a long time after Even as after an acute Feaver when the sharpest paroxysmes are over and the malignity of the disease well spent although the party begin to recover some degrees of strength yet there may remain for a good while after such a debility in the parties as that they cannot exercise their proper functions but with some weakness more or less till the party be perfectly recovered Sith therefore the after-iterations of the first Vow in the present case did proceed apparantly from the rancor and malignity remaining in the mind as the dregs and reliques of the same perturbation from which the first Vow also proceeded they must upon the same account to wit per defectum plenae deliberationis undergo the same censure of Rashness with the first Vow The same I say for the kind some difference I grant there is for the degree but Magis Minus non variant speciem we know And the consideration of that difference is only thus farr useful in the present Case that the more deliberate those after-acts were the more culpable they are and the less capable either of Excuse or Extenuation and consequently doe oblige the party to so much the more serious solemn and lasting Repentance 4. But concerning rash Vowes in as much as the knot of the Question lyeth not there it shall suffice to note these few points First That every Rash Vow is a sin and that upon its own score and preâ—isely as it is rash although it should not be any other way peccant All acts of Religious worship by the importance of the third Commandment are to be performed with al due sobriety attention and advisedness how much more than a Vow which is one of the highest acts of worship as being a sacred contract whereunto God himself is a party See Eccl. 5. 1 c. Secondly That Rash Vows are for the most part besides the Rashness peccant in their matter also For they are commonly made in passion and all passions are evil Counsellors and Anger as bad as the worst The wrath of Man seldom worketh the righteousness of God Thirdly That a Rash Vow though to be repented of for the Rashness may yet in some cases bind As for example A man finding himself ill used by a Shop-keeper of whom he had formerly been accustomed to buy voweth in a rage that he will never buy of him again This is a Rash Vow yet it bindeth because if the party had never made any such Vow at all it had neither been unjust or uncharitable nor so much as imprudent in him for to have done the same thing which by his Vow he hath now bound himself to do So if a man impatient of his ill luck at Cards should Vow in a heat never to play at Cards any more he were in this case also bound to keep his Vow because there neither is any sin in keeping it nor can be any great necessity why he should break it That therefore Fourthly if at any time a Rash Vow bind not the invalidity thereof proceedeth not meerly nor indeed at all from the Rashness which yet is a very common error amongst men but from the faultiness of it otherwise in respect of the matter or thing Vowed to be done when that which is so Vowed is either so evil in it self or by reason of circumstances becometh so evil that it cannot be performed without