Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n
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A59546
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A discourse of conscience. The second part Concerning a doubting conscience.; Discourse concerning conscience. Part 2.
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Sharp, John, 1645-1714.
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1688
(1688)
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Wing S2974; ESTC R221827
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66,391
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76
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can pronounce after our best enquiry being no more than this that it may be there is such a Law and it may be there is not And therefore we may reasonably presume that if there should indeed be such a Law of God it is either not of such consequence that we in our Circumstances were bound to know it or if it was that we had no sufficient means to come to the Knowledge of it in each of which Cases as I said a Mans Ignorance doth excuse the violation of the Law. But now on the other side if in such an Instance as this we disobey Authority when it hath peremptorily laid its Commands upon us we venture upon a much greater danger For in that Case we run the hazard of transgressing a Plain Law of God a Law of which no man can or ought to be supposed Ignorant and withal a Law it is of such Importance and Consequence to Mankind that we may truly say the very Being as well as the Happiness of all Societies depend upon it Supposing now this to be a true Account of the hazard we run in Acting on one side or the other in our present Question I leave it to any indifferent person to Judge whether it be not much safer in such Circumstances as we here speak of to obey our Lawful Superiours with a Doubting Conscience than to disobey them with a Doubting Conscience Fourthly If there yet remain any dispute in this matter let if you please our Saviour's Rule determine it As ye would that men should do unto you even so do ye unto them We desire no more favour for our Superiours than this eternal Law of Equity will oblige us to If a man will but be so impartial as to pass the same Judgment in the Cause of Authority when he is a Subject as he doth in his own Cause when he is a Superiour we believe there would be presently an end of this Controversie For let men talk as gravely as they please about the danger of obeying the Publick Laws with a Doubting Conscience you I dare appeal to themselves whether they would not think it very unreasonable for any Domestick of theirs over whom they have Lawful Authority to live in Contradiction to the Private Rules and Orders of their Family upon a pretence of doubting whether those Orders were Lawful or no. If a Parent for Instance should command his Son to sit uncovered before him He would not take it for a good Answer from the young man to say Sir I am doubtful whether it be not unlawful to use any such Ceremonies to Men and therefore I pray excuse me if I do not pay you that respect you require If a Master should order his Servant to provide Dinner for him on the Lords Day and he should reply I would do it with all my heart but that I am in doubt whether it be not forbidden by Gods Word to do any Work on the Sabbath I am not indeed perswaded that it is forbidden but in the mean time I am not satisfied that it is Lawful and therefore till I be resolved in this Point I pray Sir be pleased to Pardon me Would now a Parent or a Master think these Answers Reasonable would he take them in such good part as to think his Son or his Servant had done nothing but what they were bound to do in thus refusing to obey his Commands No I dare say he would not but on the contrary would tell them you are my Son or my Servant and you must leave it to me to judge what is fit for me to command and for you to do I will take care to command you nothing but what is lawful and justifiable But in the mean time you must not think by your foolish Doubts and Scruples so long as you confess you know nothing unlawful in what I bid you do to controul my Orders and Commands that I think neither becomes you to do nor me to suffer I dare say most men would judge this a very fitting and just Reply in such a Case And if so it is a strong Argument that we are all naturally apt to think that in purely Doubtful Cases our Superiour is to be obeyed notwithstanding our Doubt and that if in any Case we think otherwise it is where our own Liberty and Interest are concerned and where consequently we may be justly presumed unequal Judges as being prejudiced in favour of our selves Fifthly Let me add this one Consideration more and I have done If in meerly Doubtful Cases our Superiours have not a Power of Determining us what will their Authority signifie If it be not of weight enough when the Scales hang even to turn the Ballance it is truly the lightest thing in the World. Indeed it is worth nothing and there will not be left Power enough in those that are to govern us for the securing in any tolerable degree the Peace and Happiness of the Society they are to govern For I pray consider What can there be so wisely Commanded or Provided for either in a Family in a City or in a Kingdom but may be liable to exception and become a matter of Doubt to some person or other There is nothing in the whole compass of indifferent things and such chiefly are the Matters of Humane Laws but some Person or other will be found to doubt whether it be fit or lawful And if such a Doubt be a just Reason to deny Obedience to the Law or the Command in what a condition are all Families and Corporations and Societies in the World What will be the Consequence of such a Principle Why certainly nothing but perpetual Jars and Disturbances and Confusions For Instance If whenever a Prince declares War against his Enemies it should be supposed Lawful for any Subject to withdraw his Assistance from his Soveraign in Case he doubts whether that War be a Lawful War or no in what a sad case would that Prince or that Kingdom be that is to be supported and protected upon these Terms Every man is hereby made a Judge of the Merits of a War and though he be never so Ignorant never so Unexperienced never so unable to make a Judgment of these momentous Affairs of the Kingdom yet if some Rumours or uncertain Stories have reached his Ears that make him doubt whether this War was lawfully begun or no Why he is upon this Principle warranted to deny not only his Personal Service but his Contributions towards the Charge of that War. But these Consequences are intolerable and therefore the Principle from whence they flow must needs be thought intolerable also III. Having thus given the reasons of our Assertion I come now in the Third place to answer the Arguments that are brought on the other side All the Arguments I have met with against the Doctrine we have been establishing may be reduced to Three and of those three the First I have prevented by my stating the Question the Second
with any Impartial Conscientious Man out weigh all the Probabilities on the other side so long as they are not so great as to create a Perswasion and make it reasonable for him rather to Conform how strong soever his Doubt be about the Lawfulness of Conformity so long as it is but a Doubt than to continue in Separation Vide Third Proposition about a Double Doubt pag. 27. This is the Issue upon which we will try the Point before us and I refuse no indifferent Man that will but have the Patience to hear what we have to say to be Umpire between us and our Dissenting Brethren as to this Controversie In the first place let us suppose and admit that the man who hath these Doubts and Suspicions about the Lawfulness of our Established Worship doth really Doubt on the true side and that he would indeed be a Transgressor of the Law of God if he should Conform to it But then it must be admitted likewise that That Law of God which forbids these things in dispute is wonderfully obscurely declared There are no direct Prohibitions either in the Law of Nature or the Book of God about those things that are now Contested so that the unlawfulness of them is only to be concluded from Consequences And those Consequences likewise are so obscure that the Catholick Church from Christs time till our Reformation was wholly ignorant of them For though it doth appear that either these or the like Usages have always been in the Church Yet it doth not appear in all that compass of Time either that any Particular Church ever condemned them as sinful Or indeed that any Particular Christian did ever Separate from the Church upon the Account of them And even at this Day these Consequences by which they are proved unlawful are not discovered by our Governours either in Church or State. No nor by as Learned and Religious Divines of all Perswasions as any in the World. The most Divines by far the most and those as Pious and as Able as any are clearly of Opinion that there is nothing Unlawful in our Worship but that on the contrary all things therein prescribed are at least Innocent and free from sin if not Pure and Apostolical So that if it should at last prove that they are all mistaken Yet the Law of God which forbids these things being so very obscure and the Sense of it so hardly to be found out it is a great Presumption that a man may very innocently and inculpably be Ignorant of it And if so it will be a very little or no sin at all in him to act against it Because if it was not his Duty to know this Law it cannot be his Sin that his Practice is not according to it And if it was his Duty to know it yet it being so obscurely delivered and only to be gathered by such remote Consequences it can at most be but a Sin of Ignorance in an ordinary Person where so many of the best Guides are mistaken if he should transgress it And then farther This must likewise be considered That if Conformity to our Liturgy and Worship should prove a sin in any Instance Yet the Evil Consequences of it extend no farther than the Mans Person that is guilty of it There is no damage ariseth either to the Christian Religion or to the Publick Interest of the Kingdom by any mans being a Conformist But on the contrary as things stand with us Unity and Conformity to the Established way seem to bring a great advantage to both as I hinted before and to be a probable means to secure us from many Dangers with which our Reformed Religion and the Peace of the Kingdom is threatned Well but now on the other hand Let us suppose the contrary side of the Question to be true viz. That our Governours in this matter are in the Right and we are in the Wrong That there is nothing required of us in the Church of England as a Term of Communion but what is very Innocent and Lawful however it be our misfortune to Doubt that there is and in a zealous Indulgence to these Doubts we take the liberty to live in open disobedience to our Lawful Governours and to break the Unity of the Church into which we were Baptized I say admitting the thing to be thus what kind of Sin shall we be guilty of then Why certainly we are guilty of no less a Sin than causlesly dividing the Body of Christ against which we are o severely cautioned in the New Testament We are guilty of the Breach of as plain Laws as any are in the Bible viz. Of all those that oblige us to keep the Unity of the Spirit in the Bond of Peace that Command us to Obey those that are over us in the Lord to be subject to the Higher Powers to submit to every Ordinance of man for the Lords sake to be subject not only for Wrath but for Conscience sake I say these plain Laws we disobey for Conscience sake and we disobey them too in such Instances where we have the whole Catholick Church of old and far the greatest and the best part of the present Church of a different Persasion from us Well but as if this was not enough What are the Consequences of this our Sin For by the Consequences of a sin the greatness of it is always to be estimated I speak as to the Material part of it with which we are here concerned Why they are most Terrible and Dreadful both with respect to our selves and others By this unnatural Separation we do for any thing we know put our selves out of the Communion of the Catholick Church and consequently out of the enjoyment of the ordinary means of Salvation We maintain and keep up Divisions and Disorders in the Church and lend a helping hand to all those Animosities and Hatreds all that bitter Contention and Strife and Uncharitableness which hath long torn the very Bowels of Christs Church and given occasion to that Deluge of Atheism and Profaneness and Impiety which hath over-spread the Face of it We put Affronts upon our Lawful Governours who should be in the place of God to us We give Scandal to all our Brethren that make a Conscience of living Peaceably and Piously And lastly as we offer a very fair Handle and Pretence to all Discontented and Factious men to Practice against the Best of Governments So we take the most effectual course to Ruine the Best Constituted Church in the World and with it the Reformed Religion in this Kingdom This now being the Nature and these being the Consequences of our Separation from the Established Church among us I leave it to any indifferent man to Determine whether any Doubt about the Lawfulness of our Communion though that Doubt be backed with greater Probabilities than do appear on the other side nay if you will with all the Probabilities that can consist with the nature of a Doubt can have weight enough to Ballance against such a Sin and such Consequences as Separation in our Case doth involve a man in I think there is no unconcerned Person but will pronounce that supposing where there are Doubts on both sides a man is to chuse that side on which there is the least appearance of Sin he is in this Case certainly bound to chuse Communion with the Established Church rather than Separation from it And that is all I Contenâ—â—â— for But now after all this is said it must be acknowledged that if there be any man who hath other apprehensions of these matters and that after a Consideration of all things that are to be said for or against Conformity it doth appear to him upon the whole matter both more probable that our Communion is sinful than that it is a Duty and withal that to Communicate with us will involve him in a greater sin and in worse Consequences than no continue in Separation I say if any man have so unfortunate an understanding as to make such an estimate of things we must acknowledge that according to all the Rules of a Doubting Conscience such a man is rather to continue a Non-conformist than to obey the Laws of the King and the Church But then let him look to it for his acting in this Case according to the best Rules of a Doubting Conscience will not as I said before at all acquit him either of the Guilt or Consequences of Criminal Schism and Disobedience Supposing that indeed he is all along under a mistake as we say he certainly is and that there is nothing required in our Communion that he might not honestly and lawfully comply with as there certainly is not Unless in the mean time the man fell into these mistakes without any fault of his and God Almighty who is the Judge of all mens Hearts and Circumstances doth know he had not means and opportunities to understand better FINIS ADVERTISEMENT 1. A Discourse concerning Conscience the first Part. Wherein an Account is given of the Nature and Rule and Obligation of it And the Case of those who Separate from the Communion of the Church of England as by Law Established upon this Pretence That it is against their Conference to joyn in it is stated and discussed 2. A Resolution of this Case viz. Whether it be Lawful to Seporate from the Publick Worship of God in the Parochial 〈◊〉 lies of England upon that new Pretence which some Men make of the Case being much 〈…〉 from what it was when the Puritans wrote against the Browâ—â—â—s and the Presbyters against the Independent 3. Resolution of two Cases of Conscience in two Discourses The First Of the Lawfulness of Compliance with all the Ceremonies of the Câ—â—â—â—s of England The Second Of the necessity of the use of Common-Prayer in Publick All Three Printed for Walter Kettilby