Selected quad for the lemma: law_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
law_n	gain_v	jew_n	weak_a	10,116	5	11.7630	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A41450	A serious and compassionate inquiry into the causes of the present neglect and contempt of the Protestant religion and Church of England with several seasonable considerations offer'd to all English Protestants, tending to perswade them to a complyance with and conformity to the religion and government of this church as it is established by the laws of the Kingdom.	Goodman, John, 1625 or 6-1690.	1674 (1674)	Wing G1120; ESTC R28650	105,843	292

fall in with their own humour For every peaceable man sees he must either go out of the world or set it all in flames if he will not subdue his own passion and castigate his heat That he must suffer shipwrack in the tempestuous Seas of dispute and contentions if he will not both take in his sails and lighten the ship by casting over-board the fardles of his private phancies and opinions He that will require all other men should assent to what he thinks and will conceal nothing he is perswaded of and yet expect to live in peace must either have very little wit or extraordinary fortune And he that will bear nothing that God hath not expresly imposed upon him nor part with any thing he may lawfully keep nor offer any Sacrifice to those touchy Deities received Custome and vulgar Opinion must expect often to feel the effects of their rage and power In summ he that will sacrifice nothing to publick tranquillity must be sure to live in perpetual flames here whatsoever become of him hereafter The Apostle was not certainly of this stubborn humour who declares of himself that he became all things to all men that he might gain some To the Jews he became as a Jew to gain the Jews to them that were without Law as without Law to them that were weak he became as weak too 1 Cor. 9. 20. He was now no longer a starcht inflexible Pharisee but a complaisant Christian or as some perhaps would have called him a Latitudinarian Apostle When a whole Council of the Apostles at Jerusalem Acts 15. which is a passage I have often occasion to mention and well deserves to be studied by every peaceable Christian when I say they decreed that the Gentiles should abstain from things strangled and from blood they deprived them of a great part of their Christian Liberty meerly to conciliate the Jews to them and required that to be done for peace that no Law of God otherwise required at their hands St. Greg. Nazianzen affirms of St. Basil that he dissembled the Coessentiality of the Holy Spirit and delivered himself in ambiguous terms on that great point lest he should offend and lose the weak which neither would that holy man have done nor much less his especial Friend and admirer have told of him if either of them had thought it to have been too great a price for the purchase But we need no other and can have no greater instance in this case than our Saviour himself who when he came into the world complyed with the Rites and Customs he found and condescended to the very humours of that stubborn people amongst whom he was he used their phrase in all his discourses he observed their Feasts he made his own institutions of Baptism and the Lords Supper as consonant to their Customs as it was possible to the end that he might not disturb them with Novelty but ingratiate himself and his Doctrine by these complyances When a certain Tribute was demanded of him he first proves that he was not obliged to pay it yet lest he should offend them determines to pay it and works a Miracle to make Peter to do it Mat. 17. 27. What shall we say to all this Are these Instances only to trace out an example of condescension in Magistrates and Governours to their Inferiours or are they not most certainly as Land-marks to all of what degree or condition soever to direct them how to steer their course and behave themselves in order to Peace Let me appeal to the Consciences of men Is it not plain from hence that although I be perswaded such a certain Rite is less commendable in it self yet if it appear to be an instrument of Accommodation that it is therefore in that case best upon that account And that such things as are indifferent or have no essential goodness of their own become not indifferent but good as they are useful or necessary to that end Or if I am perswaded that such an opinion is more true than that which is publickly received so long as the main Doctrine of Christianity is not in dispute I may not for all this conceal it rather than disturb the Church This was the counsel of the famous Constantine for the preventing and silencing disputes at the Council of Nice though the things in controversie there were of a higher nature than ours are But if any man be not satisfied with the Judgement of so great and good a Prince let him go and learn what that of St. Paul Rom. 14. 22. means Hast thou faith have it to thy self and that before God In short therefore it will be no hypocritical tergiversation no wrong either to our Religion or to our Consciences if when the case shall so require we change any phrase of speech how fit soever in our apprehension for one less fit but more acceptable and current any Rite or Ceremony that we have a great kindness for for one more grateful to others and that we may comply with the Laws in being so they be not palpably contrary to the Scriptures or common reason though we think better might be made in their room And that according to the saying of the Lord Bacon we may take counsel of the elder times what is best but of the present times for what as fittest And in a word that we part with all that which is no essential point of our Religion for Charity which is 3. Let us now for a Conclusion of this Chapter reflect back upon the aforementioned Catalogue of things in difference and see if they will not all appear to be of such a nature as we have hitherto supposed them that is such as may be fit to become a Peace-offering and sacrificed to the Magistrate the Laws and the Church And that we shall be easily able to resolve of by the help of these five following Remarques 1. That the things now scrupled in this Church are such as were heretofore submitted to by the most Leading men of those that now hereupon depart from it and if those things were in themselves lawful then they cannot change their nature by time and become unlawful now It will not be replyed That then they made no conscience of what they did lest it should be suspected they do but pretend it now for he that confesses a guilt of the same kind strengthens the suspicion of that whereof he is accused But if it be said they did it Ignorantly then and now having more light cannot outface it To this it will be as easie to answer That the ingagements of Interest and Prejudice are as lyable to be suspected now as Ignorance heretofore especially if we consider that there was no appearance of any extraordinary light breaking in when our troubles and divisions broke out but as soon as opportunity offered and occasion invited that is when Laws were laid asleep and Authority taken up with other cares then presently without further deliberation

and is far from the humour of pretending Conscience to advance his Gain or excuse his Purse If such a man cannot conform to the Laws yet he can pay the penalty if he cannot go to Church he can pay his Tythes otherwise it is his Money he is tender of and not his Conscience his God is his Gain and his Profit his Conscience He that comes up to these five points of honesty may be heard in his plea of Tenderness and no man else And now I will in the last place shew what consideration is to be had of such a case and that in these three particulars 1. Every private Christian is bound in charity and compassion towards such a man to deny himself of some part of his liberty to please and to gain him That is in those things that are the matter of no Law but left free and undeterminate there the rule of the Apostle takes place Rom. 15. 1 2. We that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak and not to please our selves And let every one of us please his neighbour for his good to edification I say in such things as are not the matter of any Law for I may not do evil that good may come of it I must not break either the Laws of God or man out of an humour of complaisance to my Brother for this were as we say to rob Peter to pay Paul or to commit Theft or Sacriledge that I may give Alms. But in such things as both the Laws of God and man have left me at liberty and at my own dispose I may then justly and ought in charity to consider his weakness rather than use my own strength and ought not to walk over Rocks and Precipices where I know the infirmity of others is such that they cannot follow me For though my own strength would bear me up yet it were very charitable to descend from that height which I know others cannot climb up to without giddiness To do all that I may do without danger to my self and not at all to regard what othes can comply with or to use my own liberty to the offence of others is to be unchristian and uncharitable It is to surfeit of my own abundance when my Brother is in want And in this sense only are we to understand all these discourses of the Apostle about Scandal and Offence In those times the Magistrate being Pagan took no care of the Church nor had passed any Laws concerning the manage of the Christian Religion therefore whatsoever God had left free and undetermined was so still so that the Christians had a great deal of scope and room for mutual condescension and accordingly the Apostle exhorts them that in all that materia libera they should by love serve one another And with great equity for he that will provoke his Brother to sin by doing that which he himself can omit without sin is guilty of sin in so doing But the case is quite otherwise when there is a Law in being for if my Brother will be offended unless I break a Law to comply with him in that case Charity begins at home as we say I must look to my self first and if he take offence he doth take it where it is not given for I do but my duty And as I may and must give Alms of what is my own and what I can spare from my own occasions but am neither bound to deprive my self of necessaries that I may serve any mans needs nor much less to rob another of his right that I may furnish him that wants so the same Charity requires that in all those cases where no Law of God or man hath restrained my liberty I there consider the infirmity of a another rather than the pleasing of my self And that this is it which St. Paul meant in all those passages appears by consideration of the instance he gives in himself and wherewith he concludes the argument 1 Cor. 8. 13. Wherefore if meat make my Brother to offend I will eat no flesh while the world stands The eating of flesh was under no Law and consequently he should not offend if he forbore it therefore he resolves that he would abridge himself of his own liberty rather than offend another 2. It becomes the wisdom and compassion of a Christian Magistrate so far to consider the satisfaction of peoples Minds as well as the peace and safety of his Dominions as not to make those things the matter of his Laws which he foresees mens weakness will make them boggle at unless there be weighty reasons on the other hand to counterballance that consideration Such as that the things which some scruple are nevertheless necessary to Government or grateful to a greater or more considerable part of his Subjects If without these considerations he shall however constitute such Laws I will not say such Laws are therefore null for the weakness of people doth not take away his power but I will say they are unkind and ungracious But those considerations being supposed that is if such Constitutions as are apt to be scrupled by some be yet either necessary to Government or very grateful to the more considerable part of his Subjects he hath then no obligation upon him to consider the offence of a few but the good and safety of the whole Yet when those interests are secured there is great scope for his compassion and consequently it is the duty of a good Magistrate as of a good Shepherd to drive as the Cattle can go 3. If it shall be found necessary upon the considerations before intimated or any the like to make such things matter of Law that were before indifferent in themselves and which being so made are likely to be scrupled by those who ought to obey It becomes a Christian Magistrate who considers he governs Men and not Beasts to afford means of instruction to such weak and scrupulous persons and competent time for those instructions to take place and in the mean time to suspend rigorous executions For it is not in mens power to believe what they list much less what others would have them and it hath alwayes been found that force without instruction hath been prevalent only upon the worst of men and set the more conscientious farther off by prejudice But after such instruction afforded and time allowed if then such persons be not rightly informed and satisfied yet the Magistrate is unblameable for he commands but what is reasonable in it self and he hath done what lay in him that mens Judgements might be convinced and Conscience quieted It is very observable that in the Council held by the Apostles at Jerusalem Acts 15. of which I have sometimes made mention whilst there was hopes of gaining the Jews to Christianity and until they had time to be sufficiently instructed in it if they would for so long time the Apostles used them with great tenderness and as it appears made