Selected quad for the lemma: judgement_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
judgement_n	according_a	judge_v	law_n	4,033	5	5.2533	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A45126	A case of conscience whether a nonconformist, who hath not taken the Oxford Oath, may come to live at London, or at any corporate town, or within five miles of it, and yet be a good Christian : stated briefly, and published in reference to what is offered to the contrary, in a book intituled, A friendly debate betwixt a confirmist and a nonconformist : together with animadversions on a new book, entituled, Ecclesiastical polity, the general heads and substance whereof are taken under consideration : as also a peaceable dissertation, by way of composition with some late papers, entituled, Liberty of conscience, in order to the determining the magistrates power in matters of religion.	Humfrey, John, 1621-1719.	1669 (1669)	Wing H3673; ESTC R16379	28,077	32

warrant of God's will This is such Doctrine which is plain bottom'd and irrefragable He is the Minister of God for thy good saith St. Paul otherwise he is not God's Minister and hath to other purposes none of God's power Dr. Taylor in his Cases l. 3. p. 35. Quod necessariam non habet conjunctionem cum fine publici commodi non potest praecipi lege humana sayes Suarez from the Schools One difficulty onely there is which is this Who shall judge whether a Law be for the peoples Weal or not I answer The Magistrate must judge as to the making the Law and we must judge as to our obedience to it My Reason I give as readily Because God hath made every man the Judge of his own Actions and consequently of all the Circumstances whether they are agreeable or not agreeable to his will for his forbearance or doing of them So that it is not according to the resolution of any others Conscience but of his own or the Judgement of Private Discretion he shall be justified or not justified in his walking before him Let a Law then be promulgated wherein a man is concerned I thus determine If he deal uprightly that is as a Christian to use industriously this persons word and in his Conscience does judge that the Law is good I mean good for the general whether their spiritual or temporal good I do apprehend he is obliged in Conscience to the obeying that Law at least so far as his particular obedience is conducive to that good though the keeping of it otherwise be to his own disadvantage or private loss If he judges it not good I do suppose he may do well in prudence to be wasy and do perhaps as others do and not run himself into harm's way But really if he observes it not he is to make no Conscience of it as if the thing offended God whether he does it or leaves it undone And here is that very Mean indeed it self for ought I know quod desideratur To wit That the Laws or Commands of the Magistrate even in political and indifferent things does no less than bind the Conscience when he is the Executioner of Gods-Will But though the outward man out of the case of sin may be bound if you will the Conscience cannot be obliged and ought to be still kept free when he is the Executioner onely of his own Humans Laws says the fore-mentioned excellent Doctor and Bishop bind the Conscience of the Subjects but yet give place to just and charitable Causes Whi 〈…〉 competent and sufficient is not expresly and minutely declared but 〈◊〉 to be defined by the moderation and prudence of a good man I know not how this Author may receive this from whom I expect more ingenuity than from many others that is to yield to second considerations But methinks if he had not thought at first when he wrote of any thing besides he might at least have considered that there be Laws which of themselves grow out of date and that it is not Time so much that brings on them their decay as the apprehension of them to be unreasonable unfit or unprofitable to the Land When a Law therefore is by general tasit allowance and practise of the Nation had no longer in regard it is to be accounted as virtually obsolete and so it binds not There was a Law made this Parliament about Carts and Waggons for the better keeping the High-wayes which being found quickly inconvenient to the Waggoners and unanswerable we may suppose to the End it was scarce a Month or two but they heard no more of it I will put a Case now of Conscience to this Person Suppose a man whose living consists in his Waggon and unless he puts more Horses in his Team in his coming up to London than this Law will allow he must give off his Trade or be undone I ask What shall this fellow do By the Doctrine of this Book for ought I can see he can be no good Subject and consequently no good Christian if he goes on I will ask again What thinks the Author of those that die and are buried in the iniquity of Linnen Whether the Women generally of this Nation who cannot abide to have the dead wrapt in Flannel but being used so much to controul their Husbands at home will not be ruled by both Houses to do any otherwise herein than what they think is handsomest for all them are in capacity without their amendment in this point to be saved For my own part I think verily the latter of these Laws being intended tending directly to the particular good of the Nation it ought in Conscience to have been kept yet seeing the very humour only of the Women hath discountenanc'd it so that in the general usage it is annull'd I dare not say that any man does sin that observes it not I dare not say that Wife can be no good Christian that buries her Husband in his shirt As for the Act it self of Oxford I cannot pass methinks without the observation of God's providence toward that great Person who in his Speech that Session so industriously declared himself the Designer Since the Parliament at Oxford it hath been visible sayes he that my credit hath been very little He who had contrived the Banishment of others from their houses by that Act leaves this passage in his Letter at his own departure out of the Realm But though he might be forgetful in his prosperity and unsensible of those inconveniencies which he was bringing those into who had done nothing against him Yet do not thou O God for all he hath done against thee deprive him in his adversity of the favour of thy House nor forget to bring his soul out of trouble when thou shalt first have brought it in with the sense of what has been amiss in such doings For the Oath imposed as the condition of the Nonconformists lawful coming to this City or any other Corporation by that Oxford Act there are the Nonconformists Exceptions against it proposed in that Book entituled A Defence of the Proposition If the Author of this Debate or that ingenious Person who they say is writing something about Ecclesiastical Policy for the justifying present Impositions or that worthy Person his associate who is particularly engaged to it can Answer them let them try This I must say that I suppose the chief of those things which stick in good earnest upon the sober Nonconformist and which others do not or dare not speak out are there offered against that Oath and against Vniformity If they shall set down the words fairly and candidly and answer them satisfactorily they shall do well But if they do not after this notice the world shall account indeed they cannot and what they say otherwise must signifie nothing I will conclude with Grotius and return to my Theme Leges humanae vim obligandi tum demum habent si latae sint

ad humanum modum non si onus injungant quod à ratione natura plane abhorreat If you ask at last How this Sheet comes out thus alone without the rest against this Debate with it I must say What shall a man do when the Press is become so like the Hedge-hog's Den that when they have one door open still for themselves they will be sure to stop the other where the least wind can but blow upon them FINIS The Animadversions HAving written out the foregoing sheet and left it at the Press there is that Book newly come forth entituled A Discourse of Ecclesiastical Polity wherein the Authority of the Civil Magistrate over the Conscience of Subjects in matters of Religion is asserted containing eight Chapters which require this fresh labour The first is Of the necessity of an Ecclesiastical Power or Soveraignty over Conscience wherein he supposing a competition between the Power of Princes and the Consciences of the Subject gives a superiority to the Power of the Prince above Conscience The very Title of this Book as the flourishing stile does shew him a young man that writ it The Conscience of man is a judgment on his actions in relation to God that is a judging whether that which he is about to do is agreeable or not to his will and it is impossible that any mortal can have an authority over that judgment that the subject should do any thing against it That the Commands of the Magistrate for the peoples good do by vertue of the general Institution and fifth Commandment bind the Conscience so that if they are bound to the King by the Law of Nature or Word of God before this adds a new Obligation and if they be not this brings one on them will be confest I think by the most judicious and sober in this point but that the Authority of the Magistrate must take place of the Authority of Conscience when they stand in competition is a determination I suppose that is strange and unheard-of in the Orthodox VVorld Every single person sayes the Author is subject to two supream powers the Laws of his Prince and the Dictates of his Conscience and therefore if the supream power of the Prince must give place to that of the Conscience it ceases upon that score to be supream because there is a superiour authority that can countermand all its laws and constitutions And who is there that understands himself that does not know the sense of this spoken in modest and right terms as it ought is what is most true and what all are to assert The Supremacy of the King I hope is over the Subject as to their Persons and their Causes not over their Consciences If we were to conceive indeed of men that they might chuse what Consciences themselves pleased and then plead them against the Magistrate as the face of his words do carry it that which he sayes here would have reason and of all Villains the ill-meaning not the well-meaning Zealot as he speaks would be the most dangerous But when the Conscience that man hath is no other then what God hath placed in him and he hath no power himself over it which is and must and will be whether he will or no conclusive with him according to the Light of Nature and the Word of God there is no danger to the Migistrate though some of his Commands sometimes may not actively be obeyed in yielding that authority which is due unto Conscience And how indeed shall a man be subject to the Magistrate for Conscience sake if the command of Conscience had not in it a superiour and more prevalent Power than his It would be for his own sake and not for Conscience sake if his authority were greater than it I remember being discoursing with some about the Title of this Book presently after I had it a little Boy about ten years of age being carried belike to a Play that week which being never at one before had made some impressions in his mind Why Mother sayes he to her standing by Lacy hath confuted this Book for he acting the Tyrant said in the Play That Conscience was a greater King than he I will take this note from hence It is pity that Religion should be brought as it were on the Stage and made Comical in the Friendly Debate and that the Stage should speak more truly and tenderly of Conscience than this Book of Ecclesiastical Polity His Second Chapter is a more particular account of the Magistrates Power in the Affairs of Religion the extent whereof he endeavours to shew to be the same with his power over the Conscience in matters of Morality But this Person hath received no long information into his understanding I believe of these matters for he may be pleased to know that some perhaps of the best that have wrote on this subject will grant him freely that the Magistrate hath the same Power in matters that are Religious as in those that are Moral when there is none will say that that power is over the Conscience in either This very daring as accomplished young person too presuming on his own parts must be acquainted therefore That it is one thing to grant the King his Authority in matters Ecclesiastical as well as Civil and another to grant him any Authority over the Conscience in the least thing in the world If the Magistrate command any matter of Morality or of Religion or of Civil Affairs which are good for the People that which is commanded does oblige as well in the one as in the other But if it be evil which he commands that is if it be against the Word of God in Religion against vertue and honesty in Morals against the common good in Civils such things are to be forborn though Commanded and what or who can be judge if it be so but a man 's own Conscience And how irrational consequently as well as presumptuous are such kind of speeches That Princes may with less hazard give liberty to mens Vices and Debaucheries than to their Consciences unless the acts of men were to be bruitish and performed without judgment His Third Chapter is of the subject-matter of the Magistrates Power that is not the inward acts of the mind but the outward actions from whence he would state the Liberty of the Conscience to lye altogether in the freedom of a man's thoughts judgment or opinion and that Religious worship which is internal when as for his outward actions or practises in the Service of God as of all things else he would have men not so shy of granting the Magistrate power to use still his own language over their Consciences But this really is short of what here is to be said that is a few first thoughts taken into the Pen and written away glibly For though this distinction of the inward and outward acts of men is one thing requisite to the determining the Point in hand

this purpose are we to stand fast in our Liberty and not to be the Servants of Men. But if a thing be held necessary onely as commanded we are to distinguish of that necessity and of those things Things that are commanded we suppose them to concern Religion are either for Edification or not And this necessity is either in regard of Conscience or the outward Man If things commanded be for Edification or if we are convinced they are so then is there truly a necessity in regard of Conscience or an obligation on the Conscience to obey them as authorized from God If they are not tending to edifie or we in our Consciences so judge in sincerity then are they to be look'd on as not necessary in point of Conscience because the authority that the Superiour hath in such things is onely for Edification According to the Power given us of God for Edification And consequently they being not I say edifiing things those particular Commands have none of Gods Authority as I have said in my first sheet on another occasion before where what is wanting here may be supplied and cannot be obligatory in Conscience so as to be said upon that account necessary to be done Nevertheless there is a necessity in regard of the Outward Man that remains which is that rather than resist the Magistrate we must suffer and rather than suffer we are forced to chuse to do the thing And herein then are we I account beholding to that Liberty that the Lord Jesus Christ hath purchased that we may obey in indifferent things and are not put upon the necessity of suffering altogether His Seventh Chapter is of the nature and obligation of Scandal and the absurdity as he speaks of pretending it against the Commands of Authority wherein there are several things according to the fluent ability of the Author among which there is not wanting that perhaps which should be said but there is wanting a sensible judgement of the Case it self unto which what he sayes should be applied For notwithstanding all this he hath here about Scandal I do not find that really he yet knows or at least but at adventure what that Scandal is or wherein the Point of it lyes that pierceth the Conscientious in the business of Conformity that when there are some things which some of them otherwise might do as lawful according to their own Consciences they dare not but for bear them for the Conscience sake of others Conscience I say not thy own but of the others I will desire this Person to read or to read better that little Tract of Scandal writ by Dr. Hammond who will shew him wherein the Apostle to the Romans and to the Corinthians does place the matter of Scandal and the result will come to this That no man upon any terms may ever do that thing whereof he is satisfied himself of the lawfulness of it so long as he hath reason to be perswaded that by his example he shall induce others to do the same who being unsatisfied in their Consciences about it shall sin in the doing And if he sin against the Brethren and wound their weak Consciences he sins against Christ. This is the Case of Scandal with the Nonconformist A man may not sin against Christ for the Magistrates command But for some men to Conform will be to do thus Ergo. By this little may appear the insufficiency and impertinency of those things which this man and others do commoly offer for satisfaction in the case of Scandal The matters wherein Scandal is concern'd says he are only indifferent things but nothing that is not antecedently sinful remains so after the commands of Authority This expression sure can hardly hold sense but as for the meaning I Answer The doing the least indifferent matter in any particular whatsoever which is Scandal in the Apostles sense is antecedently evil and consequently this great Answer comes to nothing Again We encounter Scandal with Scandal sayes he The complying with Authority offends only the weak Brethren or a few of them but the refusing offends the whole Church and Magistrate I Answer The refusing is not doing that which the Apostle means when he gives us such a charge about Scandal according to Dr. Hammond's true interpretation thereof in that Tract nor what Christ means when he speaks so dreadfully of offending any of his little Ones in the Gospel Consequently this Answer comes to nothing likewise I will add It is better that a man offend the whole world with that offence which consists only in displeasure then to offend any one the least Christian in that sense wherein the Apostle and Christ forbids Scandal I know I have not framed my words here in such a style as to make them pungent but I have spoken to the matter which I chuse rather His Last Chapter is of a tender doubtful and unsatisfied Conscience wherein he endeavours to prove by that one Topick still from convenience and inconvenience and then to perswade us hereupon That in all doubtful and disputable Cases we should take the Commands of Authority for the Supreme Rule of Conscience and that to act against our own Scruples out of obedience thereunto is godliness and vertue A strange Chapter There is nothing hardly more manifest and uncontroulable in Practical Divinity than that a Christian may not do any thing with a Conscience unsatisfied of the lawfulness of what he does but that he is first to be perswaded thereof in his mind before he does it The Scripture is most express for this That in things indifferent he that esteems them unclean to him they are unclean He that acts not in Faith that is with a perswasion that the thing he does is lawful and will not displease God does sin And he that eateth and doubteth is damned if he eat I wonder therefore with what heart this Person here can use his Parts and Oratory in this Argument which is to prevail on People that by all means they would be contented and not be so shy or make any such matter as they are apt to do of it to be damned To do any thing against a mans Conscience how indifferent soever is to do that in the doing whereof a man is damned that is does commit a deadly sin But if I make the Command of Authority my supream Rule in indifferent things when Authority commands any thing against my Conscience I must act against my Conscience in that thing Consequently this Author hath bestowed this Chapter to perswade men to damnation I must confess the Man hath such a pretty glib and voluble expression that if he will speak friendly of any known sin or smoothly of Hell he may prevail no doubt with many to venture on both who really believe them nothing But if any indeed do believe his Religion true and contained in these Scriptures I must advise him for his life not to hearken to this young man's counsel but that fixing

lead unto darkness To these two Questions therefore I answer in the stead of those Papers As to the former I doubt not but men may and ought to be restrained oftentimes in many things unto which they think themselves to be obliged and my ground for it is given As to the latter I humbly do apprehend that in that point alone the Liberty which these said Papers have so ingeniously contended for is to be placed and so far an that comes to the Arguments they have tendred are prevailing It is not because a man's acts barely are Religious that I plead an exemption from the Magistrate as is still said but because of his Conscience Whether the acts be Religious Moral or Civil the man makes a Conscience of them and the Sword cannot reach to the inward-man or to the Conscience It does not me dole we know with mens inward acts at all and it cannot reach I say to compel outward acts against the Conscience because that were to use the Sword against God and the Magistrate is the Minister of God But it may reach to hinder or restrain outward acts which some men are about doing or think they ought to do according to their Consciences because their Conscience or judgment may deceive them And either the thing ought a or to be done or it may not be fit to be done If it be fit for themselves it may not in regard of others or the publick utility unto which they are to give place Let me yet use a few more words I crave pardon I have used so many for while words are onely to make the mind known I may express my self ill but no words are enough though multiplied till that be done Where the Conscience is erroneous I say Gods will lies in both these things That a man should not do against his Conscience because it is his Conscience and that he should not do according to his Conscience because it is erroneous but that he should lay down his Error and so act And this is the meaning of that which Divines do say That such a Conscience does ligare non obligare The Magistrate accordingly may not compel him to that which is positive to act against his Conscience but to that which is negative to wit not to act according to it Put a case in this point as high as you can any Suppose a man who is otherwise a very consciencious man hath imbibed such ill-shapen Fifth-Monarchy-Principles that he cannot own the present Powers that are over him and so dare not do any thing in the doing whereof he shall own them what shall the most tender Magistrate do with such men unless as we do with Wolves and wild Creatures that is lock them up that they may do no hurt I answer The Magistrate I think cannot compel this Fifth-Monarchy-man to any such actual owning of his Authority or to any such act whereby he owns him that does go against his Conscience he cannot compel a man to own the true God or Christ contrary to his Light but if he act according to his Conscience in disowning the Powers speaking against them resisting or rebelling he may be punished too justly upon the same reason because though it be Gods will a man should never act against his Conscience yet it is Gods will too that he should not act according to it when it is erroneous and wicked and for so doing he is punished The sum is The Magistrate may not many times use his Sword in the Positives when he may in the Negatives of his Commands or Laws which he exerts and enforces as Gods Minister for the putting the Divine Will in execution And after this I am very glad methinks to find the Testimony of two such persons as I do to this Determination Suspenso pede hic incedendum ut illi lpsi qui Divinae humanaeque ordinationi resistunt non tam cogantur benefacere quam malefacere prohibeantur Quae duo in hot ipso argumento Magustinus olim Con. Petil. l. 2. c. 83. provide distinxi● Grotius de Imp. Cir. sac c. 6. s 10. To draw then to an end In things agreeable to common Light and the natural Good of Mankind this coercive power of the Magistrate lies open In things Religious whether indifferent or necessary the use of the same Power appears justifiable upon the supposition that they are not against the Consciences of those on whom they are imposed as the service of the true God we are to suppose was not against any of the Jews Consciences or at least in their account was not when the good Kings in the time of the Law compelled them to it but if the Magistrate be inform'd that any thing either is in its nature or becomes grievous to the Consciences of his People the case is alter'd He may apply other Remedies as a Christian but as a Magistrate he may not upon the account declared compel any body to that the doing whereof is sin to him and so against Gods will that he should do it I will adde Power in the Root which in my Papers that lie by is made out is nothing else but Gods will that such a man should command But in these things which God hath prohibited it is not his will that any should command and much less use coercion also Consequently if the Magistrate command a thing against my Conscience that Command at least to me is void and without power Gods Vicegerent within me my Conscience makes his external Voice to cease So far as his power goes then we may grant it to be coercive but in things against the Conscience he indeed hath not any who must say hereof what Paul said of the Truth I can do nothing against it but for it and according to it I remember in the Life of Josephus when some of the Trachonites came in for rescue to the Jews where himself was Governour and the Jews would thereupon constrain them to be circumcized or else let them not abide with them he would not permit that injurious Zeal alledging That every man ought according to his own Mind and not by mans compulsion to serve God In our English Story to suit this when Ethelbert the first Prince that received Christianity of the Saxon Heptarchy was converted by Austin sent hither by Gregory and many thereupon came into the Church it is said He specially embraced those that came in but compelled none for he had learned that the Faith and Service of Christ ought to be voluntary and not of constraint It helpeth much to establish the publick Tranquility says the Imperial Edict of Constantine and Licinius for every man to have liberty to use and chuse what kind of worshipping himself pleases And for that intent is this done of us to have no man inforced to one Religion more than another A Prince who would draw his subjects divided into sects and factions to his Religion should not in my Opinion use Force says