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A33722
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Liberty of conscience, asserted and vindicated by a learned country-gentleman ...
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Care, George.
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1689
(1689)
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Wing C503; ESTC R21541
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21,512
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30
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LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE Asserted and Vindicated By a Learned Country-Gentleman Humbly offered to the Consideration of the LORDS and COMMONS in this present PARLIAMENT LONDON Printed for Jonathan Robinson at the Golden Lion in St. Paul's-Church-Yard 1689. THE PREFACE Courteous Reader MY Purpose in the following Treatise is not to satisfy all the Questions which may be put as What if any one should preach in the Pulpit in terminis that Jesus is not the Christ or against the Resurrection of the Dead or any other Article of our Faith which all who call themselves Christians do acknowledg or affront the Minister at the Communion and pull the Cloth and Vtensils off the Table such things by the place and manner of doing them may be reduced to moral Impiety and punished as Crimes against natural Light. But my Business is to assert a just Liberty in such controversial things of Religion as they who have forsaken the Church of Rome do differ in and have as they suppose some able and learned sober and Godly Men of their Persuasion supposing that in the mean time they behave themselves peaceably and live without any Civil Injury for my own part I am so sar from thinking that any of these Sects ought to be punished that I believe they might communicate each with other notwithstanding any Opinion in Religion which they hold if that be all had they but Charity enough to bear with and forbear one the other for he who believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God 1 John 5. 1. and is built upon the Rock Matth. 16. 16 18. Although I will not deny but I should prefer a purer Church before a less pure and perhaps one that is not of my own Persuasion before one that is for other causes but I cannot communicate with any Church which will require me to subscribe to or by my Practice and Gesture to justify any the least thing which I judg to be unlawful or else I shall not communicate for Example The Baptism of Infants is not so material a thing either way as that Men should break Communion upon it for there is for it neither Precept nor Precedent On the other side it is not forbidden but if he who thinks it unlawful to baptize his Infant shall not communicate except he doth he cannot lawfully communicate and the Schism is on their part who will force it as a necessary Condition of Communion for they cause Divisions Rom. 16. 17. I think there are in our Church others who deserve Toleration less than any Dissenters whom I know as notorious Prophaners of the Lords Day Haunters of Ale-houses at unseasonable times of the Night or when according to their Consciences they should be at Church and other debauched Persons whom we hear daily in the Streets cursing and swearing bidding God to damn themselves and others Now that they are grosly mistaken who tolerate such Persons as these that offend against their own Consciences and yet severely punish Dissenters in matters of mere Religion will be sufficiently proved in the following Discourse G. C. Of Liberty of Conscience QVI bene distinguit bene docet it will therefore be requisite to premise a word or two for distinction's sake And First We need not trouble our selves to define Conscience logically but taking that word grosly and as it is vulgarly understood we mean by Conscience any Man's Perswasion of what he is to believe and practise which may be of two sorts 1. Either first of such things as may be known by the common Light of Nature Or 2. Such things as are known only by Divine Revelation And these are of two sorts 1 st Such as concern the revealed Will of God under the Old Testament which is called the Law Or 2 dly The Revealed Will of God under the New Testament which is called the Gospel And Secondly By Liberty we mean an Immunity from Punishment and that is either 1. Divine viz. the just Judgments of God. 2. Humane and those are twofolde 1. Civil and Temporal Punishments by loss of Life Limb or Estate c. 2. Ecclesiastical by the Admonitions and spiritual Censures of the Church These things being premised the Truth concerning Liberty of Conscience will be cleared by the proof of the following Propositions I. First then if the Conscience be erroneous by any great Fault against the common Light of Nature we cannot assert any Freedom to it For God will punish it and the King will punish it and so should the Church too by her spiritual Censures and the greater the Error is as to the clearness of the Light against which it is committed or as to the Mischief and Malignity of it the more punishable it is for else we should introduce a Liberty for professed Atheism Blasphemy Murther Adultery Theft c. for Catilines and Ravilliacks c. for Punishments in such cases may be proper and more likely to amend the Delinquent and save the Community from such Mischiefs as such Errors tend to bring upon it Yet do not good Magistrates write all their Laws in Blood but decree Capital Punishments only against Capital Offenders and especially for such Offences as are against the second Table which Magistrates are better able to judg of and strike at the Root and Being of Civil Societies as Murther Paricide c. I mentioned gross Errors in the Proposition for as Aquinas saith in his Summes All Faults against natural Light belong not to the Cognizance of the Civil Magistrate who is a publick Person but are to be corrected by Oeconomicks and Ethicks so for the most part the Faults of Children are to be corrected by their Parents Besides some gross Errors may be excepted as they may be circumstantiated or over-ruled by Education and Religion therefore the Christians did not persecute the Heathens as the Heathens persecuted them although the Idolatries of the Heathens were contrary to common Light nor do the Protestants persecute the Papists as the Papists persecute the Protestants though some of the Errors of the Papists as Transubstantiation are grosly against the common Light of Reason and Sense it self but more tolerable as Errors meerly than paying Peter-pence to the Pope is in Civil Government II. Prop. Such Jews as lived in the Times of the Old Testament were not to have the Liberty of their Consciences as to humane Punishments though a great part of that Law consisted only of the revealed Will of God for God's Will was likewise revealed that they should be punished Now these Ordinances unto which the Jews were bound were mostly concerning the outward Man and very clearly revealed Besides the Jews had their Vrim and Thummim their Priests and Prophets whom God according to his Promise Deut. 18. 18. raised up from time to time for their Direction whom the People were bound to hear under penalty of Excision neither were the Strangers that dwelt in the Land and were but Proselytes of the Gate to be tolerated in
Soveraign Authority I see not how they could be justly blamed for such a Petition VI. My sixth Argument shall be drawn ab absurdo from the absurd Consequences which follow that detestable Opinion of forcing Mens Consciences to say nothing that the National Churches are yet very imperfectly reformed and therefore very unlikely to manage the Sword well some of them punishing one thing and some another and some of them in the same Church in divers times punishing diversly as several parties accidentally get into Authority The Sword will cut only the Honest and Consciencious who dare not dissemble the rest for the most part will temporize and run home again when they see their Opportunity and revenge themselves upon them who were so rough with them and shamed them so much and this temporizing and turning merely for lucres sake and to save themselves makes Religion very ridiculous and weakens the Repute and Authority of the Professors as but Atheists and Men of no real Religion as truly the Atheists have the Advantage of all Men in this Regard for to be sure their Consciences are not so scrupulous but they can subscribe to every thing they can dissemble and comply for their own ends with all Times and Parties yea and under the Disguise of Religion help to make all true Religion odious by persecuting Men as Hereticks and Schismaticks not because they have no Religion but because they have as they think too much and are religious in good earnest and then these Men applaud themselves and think they have got a great Argument for their Atheism when they see other Men make Religion but a Daunce after the Pipe of the Times Then to force Men to the Service of God makes often but Hyprocites whose presence there should be voluntary or else it is neither acceptable to God who requires the Heart nor to good Men who must needs desire the greatest Unanimity and Freedom of Consent that may be in their joynt Addresses to the Throne of Grace which in worldly things is otherwise for if a Man doth not pay his Debts with a good Will it matters not so the Creditor be paid he is satisfied Again except the Persecutions be more severe than good Natures can endure to execute and the Sectaries but few they either make Sects or make the Sectaries obstinate who otherwise might come to the publique Assemblies were they not exasperated by the Violence of them who would bring them thither and their Rigioties when they come there Now how should they worship God together who are Persecutors one of another who bite and devour each other and for that Reason can hardly think one another to be Christians as indeed a Persecutor will have much ado to defend himself to be a true Christian as great a Zealot as he may take himself to be for the Christian Religion Likewise Persecution gives way to the Rabble to deride and insult over Men much better than themselves and to other Men to get some part of a base Livelihood by informing or to vent their private Malice and Revenge upon old Grudges and the Heats and Inflammations of Disputation that so they may have their Wills over them whom they could not overcome in Controversy also to the Cruelty of covetous Men who are too timerous of losing their own Preferments or lurch a 〈…〉 other Mens Then it often makes Magistrates but the Ministers Executioners and that in things which they neither understand nor have reason to understand from their Age Sex manner of Education meanness of Parts Passion Employment c. and which they who study all their Lives and as far as we know without prejudice cannot agree about and in things which Magistrates have no reason to trust other Men as they may in Physick and Civil Causes In what a horrid manner was Q. Mary abused by the Priests And I have read in the Life of King Edward the 6 th that when Archbishop Cranmer urged him to sign the Warrant for the burning Joan Butcher an Arian the King vehemently refused but at last yielded through much importunity saying it was Cranmer's doing and he should answer for it which the Historian saith brought him under Censure he being afterward burnt himself for an Heretick If they make themselves suspicious who choose to sell their Wares in a dark Shop what do they do who sell them by the Light of such Fires The Lord Falkland and Dr. Hammond excuse the Protestants from much of this barbarous Cruelty confessing a little to be too much To this Head I may reduce an Argument ab incommodo as that it makes the Magistrates to make themselves parties in the Factions of their Subjects and many times run needless Hazards from the ill humours of their People and makes the several Parties to bandie against one another and against the Government which will make work enough for the wisest Man in the World to know how to govern such unruly People who are always striving to get the Civil Sword into their Hands not for common Defence but to oppress their Antagonists often quarrelling about Questions in themselves perhaps not very material to Religion which have been long disputed and may be disputed sine fine as the Controversies about Free-Will Election and Reprobation have been Nor is it for the Magistrates Interest that Men who might live usefully in the Common-Wealth should be kept in Jails for disciplinary notions in Religion which are uncertain or manifestly false supposing Men to be Churches or pure Churches which are not so like making Shoes for all Men by one Last and the same Prayers to serve for Men of contrary Tempers and in contrary Circumstances as we have lately experienced It destroys trading when Men cannot go freely about their business and lay out their Stocks with security nor dare Neighbours freely lend Monies to others for fear they should be beggared by Religious Fines Lastly It could not reasonably be expected that Reformation from such a huge mass of Errors and Confusion should be perfected simul semel but though all Reformers cannot agree in their Judgments about some weighty things in Doctrine and Discipline yet except they make account all to be destroyed by the common Enemy it is most certainly the Interest of all who have departed from the Roman Pontific to join all together as one Man so far should they be from persecuting one the other and say I am as thou art my Horses as thy Horses c. Which I say not to propagate the true Faith by Force but by such honest and lawful means as God hath wonderfully put into their Hands to defend themselves against their bloody and implacable Adversaries who have lately appeared in their Colours and gone about to destroy all the Northern Hereticks with a Vengeance as it is phrased by a late learned Author of a Treatise concerning Civil and Ecclesiastical Laws who hath displayed the Cruelty of their Decrees and Canons and clearly proved that