Selected quad for the lemma: nature_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A53703
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Indulgence and toleration considered in a letter unto a person of honour.
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Owen, John, 1616-1683.
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1667
(1667)
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Wing O763; ESTC R18063
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21,605
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32
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countenance can be given to this severe Principle and Opinion either from the Scriptures of the Old or New Testament or from the Example of any who ever endeavoured a Conformity unto the Rules of them This is the state of the Controversie as by these Authors formed and handled nor may any thing else be pretended when such Multitudes are ready to give Evidence unto it by what they have suffered and undergone Do but open the Prisons for the relief of those Peaceable Honest Industrious Diligent Men who some of them have lain several Years in Durance meerly in the pursuit of Excommunication and there will be Testimony enough given to this state of the Controversie This being so pray give me leave to present you with my hasty Thoughts both as to the Reasonableness Conscience and Principles of pursuing that Course of Severity towards Dissenters which I find so many Concerned Persons to plead for And also of the way of their Arguings and Pleas. And first as unto Reason and Conscience I think Men had need look well unto the Grounds of their Actings in things wherein they proceed against the Common Consent of Mankind expressed in all instances of the like occasion that have occurred in the World which is as great an Evidence of the Light and Law of Nature as any can be obtained For what all Men generally consent in is from the common Nature of all We are not indeed much concerned to inquire after the practise of the Heathen in this matter because as the Apostle testifies their Idolatrous Confusion in Religion was directly and manifestly against the Light of Nature and where the foundation was laid in a transgression of that Law it is no wonder if the proceeding upon it be so also There was a Law amongst the Romans reported by the Orator to be one of those of the Twelve Tables forbidding any to have private Gods of their own But this regarded the Gods themselves the Object of their Worship and not the Way of Worshipping them which was peculiar and separate to many Families and Tribes amongst them and so observed Scarce any Family or Tribe of note that had not its special and separate Sacra Besides they seemed to have little need of any new Authorized Gods seeing as Varro observed they had of them they owned no less than thirty thousand And I have often thought that Law was imposed on them by the craft and projection of Satan to keep them off from the knowledge of the true God For notwithstanding this Law they admitted into their Superstition all sorts of Idols even the folly of Egyptians themselves as having Temples in Rome unto Isis and Scrapis Onely this Law was pleaded to keep off the knowledge of the true God Act. 18. 13. And of him they had the highest contempt calling the place of his Worship the Land Dei incerti And the Custome among the Athenians not to admit any strange Objects of Worship any Unwarranted Devotion was never made use of but to oppose the Gospel unless it were when they destroyed the Wisest and Best Man that ever the City bred for giving some intimation of the true God and not consenting with the City in Opinion about their Established Devotions Other use of these Laws there was none It is true when any Sacra or Superstitious Observances were actually used to induce Men and Women to Sin and Wickedness contrary to the Light of Nature the very Being of Civil Societies the Romans severely animadverted upon them Otherwise this Law was not made use of but onely against the Jews first and the Christians afterwards whereby it was consecrated to the use of Idolatry and rendred unmeet for the Churches Service or Reception The Jews were those who were first intrusted with the Truth of Religion and the Worship of God And it is known what was their Law their Custom their Practice in this Matter Whoever would dwell amongst them if they owned their Fundamentals they afforded them the Blessing and Peace of the Land All that they required of such Persons was but the Observation of the Seven Noachical Precepts containing the Principles of the Light of Nature as to the Worship of one God and Moral Honesty amongst Men whoever would live amongst them of the Gentiles and took upon themselves the observation of these Fundamentals although they subjected themselves to no instituted Ordinances they called Proselytes of the Gate and gave them all Liberty and Peace And in those who submitted unto the Law of Moses who knows not what different Sects and Opinions and Modes of Worship there were amongst them which they never once supposed that they had any Rule to proceed against by external Force and Coercion The Case is yet more evidently expressed in the Judgement and Actings of the first Christians It will be utterly superfluous to shew how that for three hundred years there was not any amongst them who entertained thoughts of Outward Force against those who differed from the Most in the things of Christian Religion It hath been done I perceive of late by others And yet in that space of time with that Principle the Power of Religion subdued the World and brake the force of that Law whereby the Romans through the Instigation of Satan endeavoured with Force and Cruelty to suppress it When the Empire became Christian the same Principle bare sway For though there were mutual Violences offered by those who differed in great and weighty Fundamental Truths as the Homousians and Arians As to those who agreeing in the important Doctrines of the Gospel took upon themselves a peculiar and separate way of Worship and Discipline of their own whereby they were exempt from the common Course and Discipline of the Church then in use never any thoughts entered into men to give unto them the least disturbance The Kingdom of Aegypt alone had at the same time above forty thousand Persons Men and Women living in their private and separate Way of Worship without the least controul from the Governours of Church or State yea with their Approbation and Incouragement So was it all the World over not to mention the many different Observances that were in and amongst the Churches themselves which occasioned not Division much less Persecution of one another And so prevalent is this Principle that notwithstanding all their Design for a forcing unto an Uniformity as their peculiar Interest yet it hath taken place in the Church of Rome it self and doth so to this day It is known to all that there is no Nation wherein that Religion is inthroned but that there are thousands in it that are allowed their particular ways of Worship and are exempt from the common ordinary Jurisdiction of the Church It seems therefore that we are some of the first who ever any where in the World from the Foundation of it thought of ruining and destroying Persons of the SAME RELIGION with our selves meerly upon the choice of some Peculiar Ways of
his Holiness cannot force such an assent seeing it implies a Contradiction Namely that a man should assent and not assent to the same Proposition at the same time Neither can a man himself force himself neither can all the men in the World force him to understand more than he doth understand or can do so Men do not seem to have exercised many reflect Acts of Considertaion on themselves who suppose that any can command their Understandings to apprehend what they please or to assent unto things at their will These things follow Conviction and Evidence and so God himself procures the Assent of Men unto what he revealeth and otherwise the Understanding is absolutly free from all imposition If a man then cannot understand these things to be approved of God and accepted with him suppose they are so yet if a man cannot apprehend them so to be what is the next work that Conscience will apply it self unto Is it not to declare in the Soul that if it practise these things God will judge it the Last Day and pronounce Sentence against him For Conscience as was said is a Mans Judgement of Himself and his Moral Actions with respect unto the future Judgement of God And I am perswaded that this is the condition of Thousands in reference to the present Impositions Their Apprehensions and Judgements of themselves in this Matter are to them unavoidable and insuperable It is not in their power to think otherwise than they do nor to judge otherwise of themselves in reference unto the the practise of the things imposed on them than they do Neither can all the men in the World force them to think or judge otherwise If ever Light and Evidence unto their Conviction of the Contrary is imparted to them or do befall them they will think and judge according to it in the mean time they crave that they may not be forced to act against their Light and Consciences and so unavoidably cast themselves into destruction All then that some desire of others is That they would but give them leave to endeavour to please God seeing they know it is a fearful thing to fall into his Hands as an Avenger of Sin God deals not thus with Men for although He requires them to believe whatever He reveals and proposes as an object of Faith and to obey whatever He commands yet he gives them sufficient evidence for the one and Warranty of his Authority in the other and himself alone is JUDGE of what Evidence is so sufficient But men can do neither of these They can neither give Evidence to their Propositions nor Warrant to their Authority in their Impositions in Spiritual things and yet they exact more than doth God himself But so it is when once his Throne is invaded his Holiness Wisdom and Clemency are not proposed to be imitated but a fond abuse of Soveraignity alone is aimed at To impose Penaltics then infercing men to a Compliance and Acting in the Worship of God contrary unto what they are Convinced in their Consciences to be his Mind and Will is to endeavour the inforcing of them to reject all respects unto the future Judgments of God which as it is the highest wickedness in them to do so hath not God Authorized any of the Sons of men by any means to endeavour their Compulsion unto it For the former of these that men may Act in the things of God contrary unto what they are perswaded he requires of them I suppose none will ever attempt to perswade themselves or others Atheisme will be the end of such an Endeavour The sole Question is Whether God hath Authorized and doth warrant any man of what sort soever to compell others to Worship and serve him contrary to the way and manner that they are in their Consciences perswaded that he doth accept and approve God indeed where men are in Errours and Mistakes about his Will and Worship would have them taught and Instructed and sendeth out his own Light and Truth to guide them as seemeth good unto him But to affirm that he hath Authorized men to proceed in the way before mentioned is to say that he hath set up an Authority against himself and that which may give controule to His. These things being so seeing Men are bound Indispensibly not to Worship God so as they are convinced and perswaded that he will not be Worshiped and to Worship him as he hath Appointed and Commanded upon the Penalty of Answering their Neglect and Contempt herâ—of with their everlasting Condition at the last day And seeing God hath not Warranted or Authorized any man to inforce them to Act contrary to their Light and that perswasion of his Mind and Will which he hath given them in their own Consciences nor to punish them for yeilding Obedience in Spiritual things unto the Command of God as his mind is by them apprehended if the things themselves though mistaken are such as no way interfere with the common Light of Nature or Reason of Man-kind the Fundamental Articles of Christian Religion Moral Honesty Civil Society and Publike Tranquility especially if in the things wherein men acting as is supposed according to their own Light and Conscience in difference from others are of small Importance and such as they probably plead are unduly and ungroundedly imposed on their Practice or Prohibited unto them it remains to be considered whether the grounds and ends proposed in Exercise of the Severity pleaded for be agreeable to common Rules of Prudence or the state and condition of things in this Nation The ground which men proceed upon in their resolutions for Severity seemes to be That the Church and Common-Wealth may stand upon the same Bottome and Foundation that their Interest may be every way the same of the same breadth and length and to be mutually narrowed or widened by each other The Interest of the Kingdome they would have to stand upon the Bottome of Uniformity So that the Government of it should as to the beneficial ends of Government comprehend them only whom the Church compriseth in its Uniformity and so the Kingdoms Peace should be extended only unto them unto whom the Churches Peace is extended Thus they say that the Kingdom and the Church or its present Order and Establishment are to be like Hypocrates Twins not only to be Born together and to Die together but to cry and laugh together and to be equally affected with their mutual Concerns But these things are evident mistakes in Policy and such as Multiplied Experience have evidenced so to be The Comparison of Monarchie or the Fundamental Constitution of the Policy and Government of this Nation with the present Church-Order and State Established on a Right mutable and changeable Laws And which have received many alterations and may at any time when it seems good to the King and Parliament receive more is expressive of a Principle of so evil an Aspect towards the solid Foundation of the