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	know_v	law_n	1,535	5	4.6917	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A48024	A relation of the death of the primitive persecutors written originally in Latin by L.C.F. Lactantius ; Englished by Gilbert Burnet, D.D., to which he hath made a large preface concerning persecution.; De mortibus persecutorum. English	Lactantius, ca. 240-ca. 320.; Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715.	1687 (1687)	Wing L142; ESTC R234919	60,272	167

of their Pastoral Authority as if that had been given them to Worry their Sheep and not to Feed them objected Articles to their Prisoners upon suspition and required them to purge themselves of them by Oath and because Bishops were not perhaps all so equally Zealous and Cruel some of them being Persons of great Quality so that some remnants of a generous Education and of their lay pity might still hang about them that Bloody Man Dominick took this work to task and his Order has ever since furnished the World with a set of Inquisitors compared to whom all that had ever dealt in Tortures in any former times were but Bunglers So far has this Melancholy Speculation of the Degeneracy of the Church of Rome carried me they at last came to extol a Zeal against Heresie as the highest Act of Piety towards God and since Heresie is reckoned by S. Paul among the Works of the Flesh it seemed as just to punish it in the severest manner as it was to punish any of the other Works of the Flesh and since all Hereticks were looked on as Persons damned all Tenderness towards them and Pity for them was as far exinguished as it was possible For a false Religion will not easily have the better of good Nature so entirely as to root it quite out tho it must be acknowledged that the Roman Religion has done more towards that than any other that has ever yet appeared in the World. All the room that was left for good Nature was the favourable Definition that was given of Heresy by which Obstinacy was made its peculiar Character that distinguished it from Error which lies in a more Innocent Mistake concerning Divine Matters and as many have explain'd this Obstinacy it amounts to a continuing in Errour after one is convinced of it This Notion of Heresy which has been received by many of the greatest Men even in the Church of Rome it self seems to agree well with that of St. Paul's ranking Heresy among the Works of the Flesh for if it is meerly a mistake in the Judgment in which one continues because he cannot overcome his persuasion nor see Reasons that are strong enough to oblige him to change his Mind such an adhering to Error may be called any thing rather than a Work of the Flesh. But if a Man from a Principle of Interest Pride or Discontent either throws himself into ill Opinions or continues in them after his Mind is better enlightned so that he stisles and denies that inward Conviction then the Reason is very plain why such an ill Temper of Mind should be reckoned a Work of the Flesh because it plainly arises out of a depraved Nature I will not here enter into so troublesome an Enquiry as it would be to examine how far an Erroneous Conscience acquits one before God for that must be left to Him who will judge every Man according to his Works and who best knows how far he will accept of a general Repentance of unknown Sins and of a general Act of Faith even of Truths that are yet unknown but as for the Judgments of men certainly when the other parts of ones life make it clear not only to a Judgment of Charity but even to that of Discretion that he is sincere and that he means well it is hard to know when he is Obstinate and when his Errors become Heresies that is to say Works of the Flesh. So far have I been led upon the consideration of the Spirit of Persecution that is not only warranted by Custom and a long continued Practice but is by the Authority not only of Popes but even of General Councils established into a Law on the Church of Rome I am carried next into a Scene of Thoughts that are more particularly suted to the Doctrines of the Reformed Churches and here it must be acknowledged that Persecution is a more justifiable thing according to the Principles of the Church of Rome than it is according to our Tenets for the Church of Rome that pretends to be infallible has a better Right to demand a blind Submission from all its Subjects and to treat those roughly who refuse to grant it than a Church that pretends to nothing but a Power of Order and Government and that confesses she may be mistaken Our being Subject to Error is unreasonably urged when men would carry it so far as to make us doubt of all things yet it ought at least to have this effect on us as to keep us from being too ready to judge hardly of those who are of another mind or to use them roughly for it since it is possible that they may be in the Right and that we may be mistaken at least they may have very probable Reasons for their Opinions which if they do not quite justify their Mistakes yet do very much excuse and lessen them It is likewise visible that all severe Proceedings upon the diversity of Opinions how effectual soever they may be on base-minded men who will alwayes make Shipwrack of a good Conscience when it comes in competition with the Love of this present World yet work quite contrary wise on men of awakned Understandings and generous Souls instead of gaining on such Persons these Inspire them with horror at a sort of men who go about to ruin companies of people that never did them hurt It is from this that those Violent Hatreds arise among men of different Persuasions Every man is not capable to understand an Argument or to be much disturbed at it and tho Divines that carry their Speculations further into the Consequences of Opinions whether Real or Imaginary grow hot and angry at one another upon those Heads yet the people understand them little and feel them less but every man feels an Injury and Nature makes her Inferences very quick upon it and concludes that those who use us ill hate us and there must be a great degree of Regeneration to keep men from hating those that hate them upon this arises all the Animosity that is among the several Parties for every one reckoning himself a Member of that Body to which he associates himself thinks that he is obliged to resent all the Injuries that are done to his Fellow-members as much as if they were done to himself in particular and by the same natural Logick he casts the Guilt of the Wrongs done his own Party not only on those Individuals of the other Party from whom they did more Immediately arise but upon the whole Body of them and so here a War is kindled in mens Breasts and when that is once formed within it will find some unhappy occasion or other to give it self a vent Those who are ill used are in a State like that of a Mass of humours in the Body which roul about less perceived till some unlucky Accident has weakned any part of it and then they will all discharge themselves on the part that suffers Men that are

supports and governs all things VI. Aurelian that was naturally Violent and furious seemed to forget what had befallen Valerian or if he remembred his Captivity he did not seem to reflect on his Crimes or to consider that as the Punishment of them and so he likewise drew down the Divine Displeasure on himself by his Cruelty but he lived not long enough to execute what he had designed and he ended his days in the beginnings of his Rage For before his Edict against the Christians was sent over all the Provinces of the Empire he himself was killed at Caenophrurium a Town in Thrace by some of his own Domesticks upon some ill-grounded suspitions that they had conceived of him It might have been expected that the succeeding Emperours should have been restrained by so many and such signal Examples But they were so far from being terrisied by them that they acted yet with a more daring Boldness against God. VII Diocletian that was the Contriver of all our late Miseries as he ruined the Empire by his ill Administration so he could not be kept in from acting likewise in Opposition to God. His Avarice and his Cowardise joined together had produced great Mischiefs He assumed to himself three partners in the Empire having divided it into four parts and he did so encrease the number of his Troops that every one of the four had a greater Army than the former Emperours had who alone governed the whole Empire and the number of those who received his pay growing greater than that of those who payed him Taxes there was such an increase of new Impositions that those who laboured the ground being exhausted by them they deserted the Empire and by this means the best cultivated Soils were turned to Deserts and Woods and so severe was his Government that he erected a great many new Charges and Imployments The Provinces were divided into many separated Jurisdictions many new Presidents and Courts Auditors and other Magistrates were set up both in Towns and Countrys who took little care of the Administration of Justice their time being all imployed in Condemnations and Attainders and they laid so many Taxes upon all sorts of things that as the Burdens under which the People groaned were encreased every day so in the levying of them great Violences were likewise committed All this had been more tolerable if the mony so raised had circulated among the Souldiers but the Emperours Avarice was such that he could not endure to see his Treasure any way diminished and therefore he was always contriving new ways of raising Money that so his Exchequer might be always full and that tho his Expence was great yet his income might so answer it that he should never lessen that stock of Mony which by his Exactions he had brought together After that the many Oppressions which he put in practice had brought a general Dearth upon the Empire then he set himself to regulate the Prices of all vendible things There was also much Blood shed upon very slight and trifling accounts and the People brought Provisions no more to Markets since they could not get a reasonable price for them and this encreased the Dearth so much that at last after many had died by it the Law it self was laid aside To all these Diocletian added an Inclination to build great Fabricks and this brought a new Charge on several Provinces both for furnishing of Labourers and Artisicers and of Wagons for Carriage He built Palaces for himself for his Wife and for his Daughters and to these he added a Hippodrome an Arsenal and a Mint house so that in a little while a great part of Nicomedia being filled with those Buildings many of the Inhabitants were forced to leave the Town with their Wives and Children as if it had been taken by an Enemy And when he had finished a piece of Building at the cost of ruining some of the Provinces by it he found some fault or other in it and then he pulled all down and gave orders to rebuild it in another manner nor was this second Building secured from a new caprice upon which it might be likewise perhaps levelled with the ground So madly expenceful was he in the design that he took into his head of making Nicomedia equal to Rome it self I pass over the Ruin of many who were brought under severe Judgments that so a colour in Law might be found for seising on their Estates for this was become such a common practice that the frequency of committing it had almost authorised it And this was certain that wherever a man was the Master of a rich piece of Soil or of a Noble Building that seemed to be Crime enough and a Pretence was quickly sound out for condemning the Owner as if it had not been enough to seise his Estate without taking away his Life likewise VIII His Colleague in the Empire Maximian surnamed the Herculian was not unlike him Nor could they have been cemented into so entire a Friendship if they had not been both of the same mind the same Thoughts the same Inclinations and the same Designs In this they differed that Maximian had more Courage as well as more Avarice than Diocletian who as he was fearful so perhaps from that Principle he was less Ravenous Yet Maximian's Courage consisted rather in a daring to commit Crimes than in a generous Nobleness of mind And tho his share comprehended not only Italy it self the Seat of Empire but likewise those rich Provinces of Africk and Spain yet he was not so careful in the management of his Treasure as was necessary But as oft as he wanted Mony the richest of the Senators were accused by some Witnesses that were suborned to swear against them of some practices for the Empire and thus every day there were new Arts set on foot to get rid of the Eminentest men of the Senate so that the ravenous Exchequer was often full of this ill-acquired Wealth That accursed man did also let loose his Appetites not only in those unnatural and hateful Disorders with Boyes but likewise in the debauching the Daughters of some that were of the first rank For whensoever he was in any Journey as he past he had Instruments at hand to bring Virgins to him by force in the very sight of their Parents It was on these things that he built his happiness and he reckoned the chief Felicity of Empire to consist in this that he denied himself in nothing to which either his vitious Appetite or his Lusts carried him I say nothing of Constantius because he was so very unlike the rest and did indeed deserve that the whole Empire should fall into his hands IX But the other Maximian who married Diocletians Daughter was not only worse than the two formerly mentioned but did exceed the wickedness of the worst Princes that ever were There was a Barbarous Brutality in his Temper together with a Cruelty not known to those that were of