Selected quad for the lemma: judgement_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
judgement_n	doctrine_n	scripture_n	sound_a	1,900	5	10.3484	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A75805	The Catholiques plea, or An explanation of the Roman Catholick belief. Concerning their [brace] church, manner of worship, justification, civill governement. : Together with a catalogue of all the pœnall statutes against popish recusants. : All which is humbly submitted to serious consideration. / By a Catholick gentleman.	Birchley, William, 1613-1669.	1659 (1659)	Wing A4242B; ESTC R42676	68,166	129

Council that we might once have an end of all strife and contention about matters of Religion others refer themselves without further instance to a Provinciall Assembly of Divines and very few but will prefer the judgment of the supreme Authority of this Nation before their own particular sense readily conforming to that Declaration which the Parliament shall hold forth to be the true meaning of the Scripture So that almost every one agrees in the acknowledgment of an external Authority to decide such Controversies as arise out of the different interpretation of Gods word which is the main exception against the Papists in that they pin their Faith upon the Churches sleeve and yield a blind obedience that is without appealing any further to her determinations And for the second branch I am sure many Protestants continue still those old customs of baring their heads when they come into a Church nay of bowing at the name of Iesus Practices that ly open to the greatest part of those objections whichour more godly and conscientious penns make against the Papists in the question of Pictures yet I hope there will never be the least thought entertained of imposing penalties upon the private and unscandalous use of any such Ceremonies rather let us apply our endeavours to open their eyes with a mild and gentle hand than beat them out with the club-fist of the Law But when I reflect upon the third conclusion in the Recusants paper I am astonisht to consider how education with a little mixture of Passion or interest makes every slight distemper amongst Christians so desperate that it often becomes irrecoverable and endangers both the health and life of Christianity Surely in many things we strangely mistake one another I professe sincerely I should be so far from seizing on the Estate of a Papist for refusing that part of the Oath of Abjuration wherein he is compelled to renounce the Doctrine of Merits that I am resolved to suffer a thousand deaths rather than abjure so great and manifest a truth according to the sense wherein they explain themselves or affirm so great and manifest an Errour according to the sense wherein we explain our selves For when we censure the doctrin of Merits we understand by that word our Deserts as they exclude the merits of Christ and abstracting from the Covenant God hath been pleased to make with us in his Son and in that sense we justly condemn all opinions of Merit even of the best works as presumptuous and Luciferian but I now see when the Papists affirm that good works are meritorious they include both the promise of God and the merits of Christ Iesus and in effect when all is summed up it amounts only to this that God hath graciously promised and will faithfully keep his word to reward all those with eternall life that believe in him and obey his commandements In this sense the Papists hold mercifullnesse to be meritorious or avaylable to salvation because the Scripture sayes Blessed are the mercifull for they shall obtain mercy Mat. 5. 7. In this sense the Papists hold patience in affliction to be meritorious or avaylable to salvation because the Scripture sayes Blessed are they who are persecuted for Righteousnesse sake for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven Mat. 5. 10. And this as I am informed by very understanding men amongst them is the reall truth of their Doctrine concerning Good works which in my judgment differs nothing from ours but only in the unsavory proud sounding word Merit The last Clause of the Papists Noat which I have transcribed is so full and satisfactory that if they will be as good as their words I shall neither fear to have such neighbors or need any Magistrat fear to have such subjects And to prove their trustinesse and fidelity in the observance of their Oathes I cannot imagin a more evident demonstration than that they make a conscience of what Oathes they take he that swears any thing without distinction may justly be suspected to be as false to men as he is fearlesse of God whereas no cleerer argument can be alleged in the behalf of any that they intend to keep all the Oathes they take than this that they will not take all the Oaths you offer surely if either the Pope or their own Consciences could give them this extravagant privilege to be bound by no Oath they might without difficulty take any and if they were allowed by their Religion to swear any thing certainly they are all worse than mad if they do not immediately post away to Haberd●shers-hall call for the Oath of Abjuration swallow it down quickly without any chewing and so save at least 50000 l. a year in a morning In the late Kings dayes many Papists were smartly punished for not taking the Oath of Allegiance none for observing it nay I have heard some Papist D●linquents argue for themselves that the utter ruine which now endangers their whole estates proceeds solely from their performing to the late King that service which he called Allegiance and this is yet a higher proof of their fidelity in their promises since they adventured with so much hazard to keep that Oath in substance which they refused with almost as much hazard to take because against their Conscience in some circumstance And now let any one judge indifferently whether they that firmly believe all the holy Scriptures of the old and new Testament worship and adore only one God rely upon Iesus Christ for their sole Mediator and professe it their duty to observe the Commandements of the Morall Law may not reasonably be suffered to live in their native Country with the peaceable enjoyment of their Consciences in their private houses especially those who will quietly submit to such cautions and restrictions as the Common-wealth shall require for prevention of scandall or disturbance of the publick peace Besides I am perswaded a farre lesse liberty will oblige the Papists than content any other because hitherto all liberty has been wholly denyed to them and wholly allowed to every one else So that they will gladly receive as a mercy and favour what others challenge as a right and their affections being once purchased at so cheap a price as a little private exercise of their Conscience free from the fright and smart of penalties I am confident they will neither be such fools as to forfeit their liberty nor so ungratefull as to forget them that gave it since out of all our Histories not one example can be assigned that they ever offered to move the least sedition in a time when they enjoyed but half the liberties of free-born English-men Therefore I shall close my thoughts upon this paper with a short and free conclusion which I conceive abridges in few words the whole difficulty betwixt subject and superiour The Magistrate that protects any sort of people in his dominions may justly require their service and safely rely upon their obedience but if he

such Papists as should disturb the publike peace Many and wonderfull are the deliverances which our good God has dispensed to his servants in reward of this their inclination to mercifulnesse yet amongst all the glorious appearances of the Lord for his people none can be found more eminent than the renowned victory over that rigid and severe Kirk-army of the Scots Septemb. 1650. who declining the mild counsell of our Saviour to possesse their Souls with patience deservedly lost their lives by violence a fatal argument deciding manifestly this very controversie in favour of meeknesse where the maintainers of compulsion were no lesse ingeniously than cruelly confuted whilest assuming to themselves a Power to force our souls they could not so much as defend their own bodies In memory of which great Salvation from the pride and fury of the Presbyterian Priesthood the Parliament as a new Covenant of Thanksgiving for so seasonable a mercy in the same moneth enacted an abolishment of divers rigorous and penal Statutes contrived on purpose by the haughty Prelats to break the hearts of those whose consciences they ●ould not bend which one Act has won more ●earts to acknowledge and love the authority of the Parliament than all their stupendious victories have ●rced bodies to confesse and fear their Power and 〈◊〉 it be not checked by limitations and partiality in ●e execution will render them absolute Masters of ●ll that understand their own felicity for what can 〈◊〉 imagined more welc●me to a Christian people ●ewly delivered from an Antichristian bondage than 〈◊〉 see themselves infranchised into a holy Liberty of ●oceeding sincerely according to their conscien●s in the Worship of their God Wherefore as we are full of joy for so excellent an Act by which as the Apostle saith we are called unto Liberty so we are full of hopes to be perfectly happy by the free and universall observation therof without the least self-interest or respect of persons being so conformable to the constant received Maximes and solemn deliberate profession of the Parliament as appears by the Declaration of the Lords and Commons in answer to the Scotch Papers 4. Mar. 1647. where folio 43 the Discipline of Ecclesiasticall Censures and all other punishments for matters of Religion are disclaimed as grounded upon Popish and Prelaticall Principles not to be revived under any image or 〈◊〉 whatsoever and a little after folio 63. they proceed in the same sense we shall not be afraid at the day of Iudgment that we have been more forward to set Christ a● liberty than to cast him in prison it being better in our opinion where the case is not very clear to leave God to deal against many errours than to use his authority for the suppressi●g of one truth the weapons of fasting and prayer being both more Christian and more available in such cases than those of force and violence and ye● more fully if possible in another Declaration in answer to the letters of the Scots Commissioners 17 Febru● 1648. As for the truth and power of Religion it being 〈◊〉 thing intrinsecall between God and the Soul and the matters of Faith in the Gospel being 〈◊〉 ●s no natural light doth reach unto we conceive there is no human power of coercion thereunto nor to restrain men from be●lieving what God suffers their judgements to be perswa●ded of Words of that solid weight and pretious value as deserve to be ingraven with letters of gold and religi●ously observed for ever by all tender consciences as a● Oracle Conformable to the aforesaid Principles is that ex●cellent Doctrine and advise set down by Mr. Parker an● his Brethren in their Examen of the late Synods Confession of Faith in these words pag. 128. Liberty of Conscience may be infringed first by seeking violent means to alter conscientious mens judgements and their present perswasion for it is the office of him who is the Lord of conscience to lighten and change mens minds when and how he pleaseth Phil. 3. 15. Let us therefore as many as be perfect be thu● minded and if in any thing you be otherwise minded God shall reveal this unto you 2. By inciting another by like forcible means to will and to Act against his Conscience and much more by imprisonment mulcts terrours or threats Rom. 14. 15 20 21. For this is to make him destroy his Soul vers. 20. 23. 3. We may not disturb the peace of mens Consciences or make their hearts sad with our invectives or menacing them causlesly with terrours from the Lord Ezechiel 13. 32. Because with lies ye have made the hearts of the righteous sad whom I have not made sad c. And in page 230. thus But we would not have you assume to your selves 〈◊〉 attribute unto others a Power to Lord it over mens Faith and Consciences especially when men walk obediently towards those that are in places of Rule and Authority and live a godly sober honest peaceable and unblameable life If men will do wickedly and defend a liberty in Christ so to do let them be lyable to the Sword of Justice for so doing But far be it from us so much as by example to draw a weak Brother a Saint and fellow servant of the Lord whom no man can accuse but for his differing judgment to do any thing against Conscience whereby he should ●ondemn himself as the Apostle speaks Rom. 14. How much more ought Governours to be tender and abstemious in the use of violent and coercive means to precipitate men into such perillous and destructive courses All authority is given of God for mens welfare and much more for the preservation and not the destruction of the soul By these considerations I conceive is clearly domonstrated the freedome of a Christian Soul in he● commerce for heaven which since the mercifull bounty of God holds forth indifferently to all the cruell covetousnes of man ought not to obstruct to any surely it is the worst of Monopolies to lay impositions upon the way to Paradi●e Christ by his death removed the Angel that chased from thence our first parents and shall any of us take the Flaming Sword into our hands to sheath it in the bowels of a poor Pilgrim who with a sincere heart travailes to the same Country only because he goes no● in our company In my Fathers house are many Mansions saies Christ why may there not be as many paths that lead to them If they that have no Law shall be judged without the Law ●ertainly they that unblameably mistake the Law shall be tryed according to those Expositions which appeared unto them to be the meaning of the Law-giver for the sense is the Law and not the letter specially having so gratious a Iudge who hath already declared by his Apostle 2 Cor. 8. If there be first a willing mind it is accepted according to what a man hath and not according to what he hath not Wherefore let us not by a suddain violence break into

pieces the consciences of our brethren but mildly tha● them into a cordial and ingenuous unity that righteousnes and peace may flow together in the same chanel and not as broken Ice dash one against another let us patiently expect till the Lord be pleased to take off the veil from their hearts that are otherwise minded and not by forcing their judgements add to their veil of ignorance a worser of hypocrisie it being now a common ●●eriment that generally the issue of compulsionary and forced conformity closes in this to make some few counterfeit Protestants and a great many reall Atheists whence it is clearly concluded that the onely true means of winning souls to God is the Gospellary way of meeknesse and perswasion and indeed it may worthily be esteemed the prime miracle of Christianity that a person so humble as our Saviour appeared without the help of Kings and Princes without the enchanting words of mans wisdome without the affrighting threats of fines imprisonments and deaths though all these were absolutely subject to his pleasure should conquer Powers and Principalities should out-charm the Magick of humane eloquence and by the admirable successe of his mildnes condemn all those politique Religions that confesse their own crazines by using cruelty to support them whereas to reduce the disobedient only with the spirit of gentleness and admonition or at most desertion argues indeed a Divinity in the Author and a Purity in the Ordinance and here we may fitly apply the words of our Lord John 14. If it had been otherwise I would have told you If the way of planting my Faith had been by imposing penalties on the hearers and not rather by exposing the Preachers thereof to dangers I would have told you If the meanes of preserving Religion had been by watering it with the bloud of refusers to embrace it rather than of those that sought to propagate it I would have told you either by my example all the world being in the power of my Deity or by my doctrine all justifiable proceedings concerning the government of my Flock being derived from the warrant of my Word Thus we see our gracious Law-maker faithfull and coustant in his own Principles The Son of man came not to destroy mens lives but to save them Thus we see our own duty to learn of him for he is meek and humble of heart let us not therefore judge one another any more but use our judgement rather in this that no man put an occasion to fall or a stumbling block before his brother Rom. 14. 13. Let us alwaies remember the advertisment which the beloved Disciple gives to all his fellow-servants of the Lord Christ John 13. 10. The servant is not greater than his Lord If you know these things happy are you if you doe them Of tender Consciences THese few unpolisht lines which I here present for incouragement of tenderness I desire may not be strechd to draw in a wild and extravagant licentiousnes since they aim no farther than to hold up a Liberty to such only as professe Christ and walk before the Lord in the integrity of their heart who by the following marks are easily discernable from all those that for their blasphemies in Doctrines and debauchery in manners are worthily excluded from the benefit of this Indulgence Supposing first as confest by all understanding men that tendernesse of conscience is not the same thing with truth of judgement else there could be but one only kind because truth is but one but it signifies a proceeding bona fide without sinister respects or dissimulation seeking before all things to know God and fearing above all things to offend him And secondly since in our enquiry to whom belong● so honorable a title we cannot pierce into the inward thoughts of men we must give sentence as they appear to us which rule in cases of this quality is in it self sufficiently certain however 't is the onely means God hath allowed our nature to guide her resolutions in the judging of others The signes then of tender Consciences are these If they lead regular vertuous and peacable lives If their Opinions be not justly accusable of self-interest or licentiousnesse but rather require of them a prudent and religious severity against the inclinations of corrupted nature If their judgements be steddy not fann'd to a new sense with every breath of wind If they continue in the same perswasions at their death which is no time for dissembling at least we ought to judge so If they not only die in their Faith but for it not only give away good part of their estates charitably but suffer all to be taken away patiently and all this for Christs sake or to speak more closely for that which they believe to be his will and commandment no higher testimony of a true and real sincerity can possibly be given or easily imagined and whosoever doubts after such evidence chiefly if many concur in the same way deserves to be condemned as the most passionate malicious and uncharitable person in the world for though one man may value his fancy above his life or estate yet it is very neer an absolute impossibility that many especially if they be discreet and rational in other negotiations should agree to undo themselves for a meer conceit did not they seriously believe it more imports them to keep their Faith than ●ole their Fortunes By these rules we may easily conclude the admission of those pious and religious persons who were imprisoned and persecuted by the late Prelates into the number of tender Consciences as also those precious servants of the Lord who by a voluntary banishment left their friends and country to plant the liberty of the Gospel amongst the savage Heathens of America Whilst I was finishing these lines aworthy friend of mine came to honour me with the civility of a visit to whom reading these last two or three confiderations he told me that as he believed the Characters I had given of a ●ender Conscience were most evidently true and to all unbaised-minds perfectly satisfactory yet they were appliable to a sort of people in this Nation whose being discountenanced is thought so profitable to the State and so pleasing to a certain froward part of the Ministery that he feared my Reasons might encounter some opposition unlesse they met with very ingenuous and dis-interessed Readers plainly telling me that the measures I had cut out for tender Consciences would fit the Papists as well as if they had been made for them For who live more peaceably with their neighbors says he who deal more justly with all men than they who are more constant in their Religion and more scrupulous in the observances of their Law than they who suffer for their Faith more than they nay at this time who besides them They submit their understandings to the definitions of their Church and their wills to the obedience of its Discipline in Fasting Confession and many other