Selected quad for the lemma: law_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
law_n	moral_a	nature_n	positive_a	4,914	5	10.3383	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A34735	The counter-plot, or, The close conspiracy of atheism and schism opened and so defeated and the doctrine and duty of evangelical obedience or Christian loyalty thereby asserted / by a real member of this most envy'd as most admired, because, best reformed Protestant Church of England.	Real member of this most envy'd, as, most admired, because, best reformed Protestant Church of England.	1680 (1680)	Wing C6522; ESTC R10658	41,680	44

affronted either slighted by the ingratitude of some or justled or perhaps assaulted by the perverseness of others or betrayed by her own goodness if she were not sometimes attended and guarded by severity Without this how easily might she be stroakt and softned into a cruel and dangerous impunity by indulging not the weaklings or fearful ones but the stout and stubborn the obstinate and malitious the designing and incorrigible offenders such as corrupt themselves with goodness and turn the flat of indulgence into the edge of presumption and at the next turn into the point of direct enmity The Prince sees all this and more than this when he considers his Purple of so pure a dye that the smallest soil will spot it and the least spot will discolour it his Crown of so fine a make so eminent a site such a transparent splendour that even a mote of imperfection may be seen in it much more would any cloud be notorious which besides what it gathered of its own from any noxious morbifick exhalations would not fail of some malevolent aspects to thicken it into the darkness and then spread it into the inauspiciousness of some strange and prodigious Eclipse Prognosticated by the conjunction caused by the inter-op-position and harangued into the defection of some great bodies So much need and use has the Prince of this true glass to see himself when so many false ones are made by others to see him with Hitherto we have beheld the Prince viewing himself impartially and looking graciously upon all his Subjects that are or should be such and they again beholding their Prince in the same glass but not with the same eyes some with an eye of reverence or religious fear and love some with an eye of jealousie or fear designed for hate as that for destruction and these because they look not like those directly from God to the command and from that to the duty but asquint or across from God obliquely or in pretence but then most directly to the Party or Interest and from that cross again upon the prescribed duty we cannot see them sufficiently who look so many several ways at one view Sometimes they amuse us with close and warm insinuations of fears and jealousies and so scatter the seeds of discontent thus by a pretended Tyranny they make way for Anarchy and by fictitious for real Popery the Devil and shame together teaching them to colour Schism with Zeal and to sute their mediums of suggestions or accusations with their ends of ruin and destruction Sometimes like Tumblers they see best with one of their eyes their left eye sharp-sighted enough when their right eye is full of darkness thus they obtrude upon us worldly wisdom which we see they have for divine light which we know they have not Thus they teach humor and confidence instead of Conscience and act accordingly through thick and thin they 'l boggle or stop at nothing when the devil rides them i. e. as they love to mistake it when conscience overacts them then shew them if you can those impieties which they dare not act to make them sure of their Election In this carier they have done such feats in our memory so black and execrable exploits so exactly Theatrical and infernal that their own Father might learn to act after them that charity it self could do them no greater kindness than to make them if not penitently innocent less nocent unavoidably that so if they will not chuse the honour or comfort they might be mercifully compelled to enjoy the common benefits of obedience so that however they will perish by other sins they might not be able to damn themselves by Rebellion Popish Schismaticks Some of them that have traded longer than the rest and set up for whole-sale have ingrost that most comprehensive falshood Infallibility as the surest staple error to advance trade and help off the rest 't is odds but some of them heretofore were near choaking for I think they eat bones and all with their Transubstantiation and this infallible crust was first prepared to cure them and ever since administred to all for prevention of the like danger surely a most soveraign remedy for by keeping the gullet thus at stretch and the swallow wide enough open it makes all safe Pope Pius the IV. in Counc of Trent Since that they have been able to take down XII Articles more than ever the Apostles took up into their Creed prescribed by one of their infallible Doctors and prepared by his trusty Trojans his Apothecaries of Trent they can swallow the whole 24 together at one gulp without check or chewing and can we think now they should stick or strain at a Bolus of one man the man Jesus Christ they are foully wrong'd if they be not now endeavouring to do as much by St. George for England and his horse too Some of them look cross upon the whole Law of Moses Antinomians as if our freedom from the rigour of that were our exemption from the bond of all humane Laws and licentiousness of life were the true Christian liberty or as if that liberty were not a manumission from the bondage and dominion of sin and Satan but from the yoke of Christ and the precepts of Christianity and from the not only Positive but Moral Law of Moses which we know is the Law of Nature and of Christ too as if they were free to regulate the Laws by their own humours and not these by those as if no errours of judgment no not blaspheming or denying God were to be corrected or restrained by Laws as if it were not the sin but the duty of the Magistrate when he beareth the sword in vain Some look upward with such bold and fixed staring upon the decrees of God as such absolute irrespective and irreversible things Predestinarians as do eternally determine both the end and the means and necessitate both our sins and our punishments and therefore warrant us to live as we were born without care for that our vices cannot hurt us if Elect nor our vertues help us if Reprobate for that either we cannot repent if we would or that we must repent do what we can that whatever comes to pass was antecedently unavoidable and we thereby fully discharged of any farther care or solicitude concerning our actions or our ends and may therefore as our complexions dispose us go merrily or despairingly to hell but go however whereas would they but consider themselves as bound in duty not to think or speak any thing unworthy of God or any thing which they would be ashamed should be thought or spoken of themselves they could not but conceive and acknowledge that God's promises and threats are general and conditional that his decrees are just and so inclusive of his dealing with all men according to their deeds and exclusive of any respect of persons and therefore that justification doth not precede Repentance nor repentance avail

ne ipsa delet iniquitas as St. Aust speaks that Law written in mens hearts which sin it self could not blot out This was that Law to which a penalty was annext in case of Transgression to be taken upon the verdict or testimony of Conscience i. e. that reflection the Soul makes Conscience what and the judgment which by that reflection it passes upon it self according to Law without which Law as there could be no guilt so without guilt there could be no Conscience Therefore if the Law makes not distinctively good or evil we can neither do well or ill or have either comfort or regret in the sense of one or other Conscience can never act without respect to a Law and to the Maker and Judge of that Law Its reflexion would be an useless and idle thing if all other things were indifferent because the sense of guilt would be incompossible with the praeclusion of Law and therefore every mans experience as it feels the one so it proves the other Witness the perplexity that haunts the Soul of the most cautious and closest sinner Witness the lashes that the Monarch feels from the hand of Conscience though freed from the touch of any other patiturque suos mens conscia manes Witness the fears and horrors of dying men who are then most afraid of this when they are nighest out of the reach of all other punishment But besides the testimony of Conscience we have the universal consent of Mankind there having never yet been any Nation so barbarous that believed every thing naturally alike or that had not some Principles and Practices too of Morality And indeed were it not thus were not good and evil made such by nature distinctly and antecedently to humane Laws these Laws could signifie nothing for were there no antecedent obligation to obey those Laws Rebellion would presently be as lawful as obedience is necessary Vain names of Oaths of Allegiance or Promises of Fidelity if it be not first a duty in it self to keep ones word I wonder who would then be a Subject that could hope to better himself by being otherwise Besides were it not thus how should humane Laws bind as we see they do in those places where Revelation has not yet been if the Obligation of Conscience to Obedience in such places be not resolv'd into the Law of Nature enjoyning Obedience as due to Governours Yea precluding the Law of Nature I speak now with becoming reverence how could God himself bind us to obedience by any Positive Law for unless it be first my duty to believe God because of his Veracity I am after the clearest Revelation left at my liberty to believe whether the Law be from God or no and if I should be so kind as to believe him yet if nothing be good or bad in it self then to despise the authority of God cannot be evil and therefore I may chuse as an indifferent thing whether I will obey him or not Yea why may not men if they please invert the very frame of all moral things and turn Vice into the place of Virtue So absurd as we have seen is this false and dangerous Hypothesis so directly thwart to the first Principles of Reason and to the common sence of mankind so plainly effective and introductive of all the evil and misery that can be done or suffer'd in the world that if it could be reasonably believed that the Author a man I doubt not eminently Learned should not be aware of what so follows thereupon it might also be charitably hop't that he would have denyed himself upon the first sight of such mischievous consequents were it not that we see many other and some not unlearned men who while they abhor the Principles in terms yet embrace those inferences which must needs come from them in course Tell the Schismatick there is no God oh Abominable that 't is abominable and the Atheist shall feel his arm but tell him Kings are not or obedience due to them is not Gods and you may shake his hand Suum euique tribuaere Tell him there is a natural or original Law of justice c. out upon these Atheists he 'l say so too tell him right reason is that instrument by which we discern this Law to be given to our natures still he 's content but tell him that therefore Obedience is both rational and natural and he begins to start what do you mean Sir Tell him that therefore it is due to man as Governour i. e. as the Ordinance of God you amaze him what though he be a Papist where by the way we cannot but acknowledge this same though Modern Papist or Infidel c. to be so much the more considerable as it carries with it an Emphasis of the loudest and harshest sound Papist in our English Reformed Translation being in a manner the same reading with Infidel or Mahometan but whilst I think it the severest I may also suspect it for the unjustest too as being a supposition however made at first God knows not I yet since that time manifestly as enviously urg'd and improved by some to such a popular height that it now seems more than probable they had rather suppose it though false than truly not suppose it and that they would not quit their advantage or exchange the pleasure of fixing the guilt and odium for my comfort in or my hope of the improbability of that imputation Their busie floating upon the top or surface of common fame will not let them sink to the depth and bottom of such humble reflexions as supposing what they suppose would certainly help us more and become us better for whether is more Evangelical think we the language of Ashdod or the speech of Canaan that roaring clamour he is Popishly affected and shall never Reign c. or that still remorseful voice righteous art thou O Lord and thy judgments are true and as we sin'd by thrusting out as we did a Protestant King and Nursing Father so shouldst thou punish us by bringing in the contrary yet still righteous art thou O Lord c. But besides that we may be jealous of this jealousie as seeing no more sufficient ground than we think they have good cause for it and that we are not to suspect rashly without such ground or tumultuously and irreverently with it methinks we have this good reason against it that it got no higher than a Supposition there where we doubt not it would if it could have been lifted up to an Assertion and I know some very near the subject of this praedicate that know no more of it than I do and I now thank God that thus I do not know it and thence may infer my duty not to believe it my duty I say and the rather because I believe verily such a Supposition can hardly be well made of any man or Christian without making another of the ignorance or unsincerity of the same man

more learned and this so much the rather if it be well considered that however Christians ought to serve one another in love yet obedience to inferiours is grievous and not without some excuse for being so whereas that of Superiours as of Christ who according to his humane nature was a subject to Caesar is a most noble natural and necessary duty as that which supports the whole Fabrick of the Church and of all the Kingdoms upon earth and in Heaven too that which is so equally essential to Policy and Religion that 't is plainly impossible either for Saints to be Schismaticks or Rebels or for such to be Saints without making our Faith our Scriptures our Religion vain without a downright welcome to Anarchy and farewel to all Society The contempt of Authority linked with an obstinate contumacious and seditious humour is so very a monster that it makes an error of judgment which might otherwise have been venial in it self a diabolical and damning quality So that if Schism were no such sin as it is yet it were worth the parting with for the purchase of publick peace of which rightly improved piety and prosperity strength and safety are the genuine and precious fruits It was for this that our Lord himself complyed in some things both with Jews and Gentiles that he might gain both It was for this that we find the like complyances of St. Paul of whom we should all be followers as he was of Christ yielding to circumcise Timothy Act. 15.28 29. and refusing again to circumcise Titus To gain the Jews he denyed himself the use of his Christian liberty and resum'd it again to gain the Gentiles It was for peace and to unite dissenters that the Apostles made that conciliar establishment of things indifferent by a Law whereby they induced a necessity à parte post upon things indifferent à parte antè And this Apostolical practice as it plainly informs our judgments in the true subject matter of humane Laws and whereabout they are properly conversant and as plainly directs our practice of obedience in such cases so will it never be made to serve their purposes who by binding the whole force and weight of it upon their Governours shoulders so as they themselves may not touch it so much as with one of their own fingers would make it a ground of exception from the general rule of submission and a warrant to dispute at least and as it constantly follows to deny at last that obedience which they pretend according to this practice should not have been commanded as if the condescension and indulgence of Governours were not to the ignorance or frowardness to the intellectual or moral infirmities of dissenters as if the Jews had not been culpable in their tenaciousness of the Law of Moses when St. Paul purposely stoopt to them and approved its observance by his own practice as if the bowels and forbearings of any injur'd and incens'd Parent did not make it more the childs duty to love and honour him and should not make it more his shame and grief to displease him more his sin and guilt to disobey him as if not presently to take the forfeiture were reasonably to avoid the debt or cancel the debtors obligation or as if it were equally of duty as it is of power in the Prince to suspend the execution of a known Law for some weighty reasons of State and upon the prospect of publick benefit and to tolerate a practice against Law and without hope of any common good and not without just apprehensions of the greatest experience of the contrary and therefore against all the reason in the world but that of his own courtesie and meer pity 'T is true indeed when Kings are said to be Gods we best understand how they are such when they are said also to be nursing Fathers and therefore without fear either of contradiction to sense or of courtship against reason we can say they are humane Gods their deity best asserted by their humanity and both by a joynt supremacy of power and goodness and we cannot chuse but wonder at the Anti-supremacy of Schism that our ready obedience should not confess the one as irresistible as our rebellions have prov'd the other 'T is as true that there is no such mirrour so clear and true to look in no such optick or perspicil to see with as is the Crystal of the Word of God a glass of such virtue that it not only most perfectly discovers the object but also disposes the medium and directs the faculty a glass that will never suffer us to behold any thing with or through prejudice or base interest or without Christian charity and meekness a glass that never shews us the spots of others but by reflexion upon our own in this glass we can neither behold the virtues or vices of our fellow-subjects with envy or without pity nor the blemishes or beauties of our Governours without a reverence becoming both a reverence I say as being a mixt affection of fear and love by which I fear the power whilst I love not the fault of the person and love the person whilst I fear the evil whether sin or punishment of the fault In this glass we see what we must piously bewail yet may not proudly censure in our Superiors what we must reprove with caution and without arrogance in our equals and what we must judge and condemn impartially positively absolutely and irrespectively to any though more scandalous sins of others in our selves St. Paul was the greatest of sinners with the greatest assurance of Salvation and the Publican was a sinner with more comfort than the Pharisee was not a Publican In this glass the most absolute Soveraign Prince may best see himself in the fullest proportion he sees by and for whom he reigns absolutely and without whom he reigns not independently he sees that his Government is arbitrary as that is supream and unquestionable by man but not as any way unaccountable but as every way most strictly and most especially accountable to God for he sees him that is properly and originally King of Kings under whose most supreme and comprehensive Title and by vertue of whom he sees himself constituted and authorized and accordingly to which he is to be directed limited and subordinate and therefore by no means to intrench upon the Prerogatives Royal of his Lord Paramount and therefore not to govern by his own Will which is Gods peculiar a rule to himself and a Law to the Sons of men the root and source of all Government which so spreads and runs it self through the whole nature of man that it makes Government not more divine in it self than connatural to us and as effective of our well-beings in Societies as of our social and conjugal propensions and therefore as old as Paternity it self or the First of the First-born making every man naturally sociable 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Supremum medium