Selected quad for the lemma: sense_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
sense_n	catholic_n	church_n	universal_a	1,773	5	9.0565	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
B04263	A second part of Observations, censures, and confutations of divers errours in Mr. Hobbs his Leviathan beginning at the seventeenth chapter of that book. / By William Lucy, Bishop of S. David's.; Observations, censures, and confutations of notorious errours in Mr. Hobbes his Leviathan. Part 2	Lucy, William, 1594-1677.	1673 (1673)	Wing L3454A; ESTC R220049	191,568	301

man performed his promise which he swore he would do it was no sin and it seems therefore to be spoken only of promissory Oaths not of such which were made to give Testimony of matters of fact if so then there is no prohibition of such Oaths which are for the decision of controversies commonly called Assertory Oaths and then again it may justly be conceived that they that is the Jews thought out of some tradition or other that it was only unlawful to swear by God but not by the Creature for our Saviours instances are only in them Thou shalt not swear by Heaven by Earth by Ierusalem by the Gold of the Altar or thy Head Which he sheweth relatively to reach even the Creator himself so that for these considerations it must be understood that it excludes not assertory Oaths vvhich decide controversies that it extends not to such Oaths vvhere God is religiously called to witness any thing And then for the second the affirmative precept it reacheth to our Communication and common conference one with another that Gods most Sacred Name be not slightly or in vain taken by us but that either some great business more than ordinary or else some supreme power must exact it from us So then this being thus expounded it must needs appear that in this case a man may justly depose his errour and he cannot be necessitated to sin when he hath an errour in his Conscience And truly it is an excellent rule for the practice of a mans life when he shall find a general practice of good and holy men in all Ages to practise any thing which he is offended at to suppress that averseness in himself and with study and pains to cast about which way he may reconcile himself to that common practice and not without strong and evident grounds which will hardly be possible oppose that which the universal practice makes us know that the universal Church understood as they practised for if there be an Error in such a practice a man may find something to excuse himself with erravimus cum patribus but in the other nothing but pride and self conceipt which makes him oppose these practices and surely in these cases it is a safe rule for any man when he finds a place of Scripture which seemingly opposeth the universal doctrine of the Church which is and hath been so heretofore to look about how that Scripture may be expounded according to the Analogy of faith and good manners or usage of the Catholick Church which then must be the sense and the other though more apparent at the first not the true meaning and by this means he shall not act contrary to his Conscience but if he do he must sin CHAP. XXIII SECT V. Every man Judge of his own Actions whether according to the positive Divine Laws or the Law of Nature Mr. Hobbs his consequencies observed and censured His absurd expression of a publick Conscience rejected Opinion and Conscience distinguished Thoughts not possibly to be regulated by humane Laws The external manage of Opinion The proper subject of Regulation The necessity of distraction from diversity of Opinions unless obtruded upon others This Argument retorted ad hominem HE proceeds And it dependeth on the presumption of making himself Judge of good and evil It doth say I for so every man will be in what concerns his own practice and must needs be so for else how can he judge that he doth right or no unless he may judge it and if there were no Law but what he speaks of the Civil he must judge whether his actions be according to that or no when he acts But Mr. Hobbs acknowledgeth a superiour Law to that to wit the Law of Nature and I have shewed another the positive Law of God and he must in both these use judicium privatum his private judgement whether his actions accord or no with these superiour Laws Now in all these he must judge and be responsible for that judgement whether he judge by such rules as ought to guide a prudent man but he gives a reason for what he speaks for a mans Conscience and his Judgement is the same thing and as the judgement so also the Conscience may be erroneous This doth not follow because he may erre therefore he should not be guided by it A man may have a false light shewed or his eyes may be weak as our eyes who are old men are must he therefore not make use of that light and sight which he hath Nay rather he must be more careful in the diligent using of his eyes and more seriously examining the light which is offered to them But in all these offers of reason which he makes in this Case they may be applyed to that judgement which he must make concerning the Law of Nature or the Civil Law which he allows a man must judge whether his actions be according to them and what is the meaning of them as well as what is the meaning of the positive Law of God and he must and will if he be a vertuous man act accordingly Therefore saith he though he that is subject to no Civil Law sinneth in all he doth against his Conscience because he hath no other rule to follow but his own reason yet it is not so with him that lives in a Common-wealth because the Law is the publick Conscience by which he hath already undertaken to be guided I cannot find how to apply this discourse closely to the question for he who is not imbodied in a Common-wealth saith he is ruled by his reason but hark you that reason ought to be ruled by the Law of Nature according to his own doctrine and according to mine by whatsoever is a known positive Law of God Likewise although there is no Civil Law And I will tell him farther that no Civil or Politick Law can have power to bind him to the breach of any of these and therefore what he speaks of a publick Conscience is an unheard of Language and not proper to be applyed to Conscience and most undoubtedly only educeable out of that before unheard of and most impossible principle of constituting a supreme which hath been abundantly confuted in my former discourses Let the Reader take notice that I am now in page the 169. Otherwise in such diversity as there is of private Consciences which are but private Opinions the Common-wealth must needs be distracted and no man dare to obey the soveraign power farther than it shall seem good in his own eyes In this clause he sets down the mischiefs as he thinks which may happen to a Common-wealth by diversities of Consciences or Opinions But before I proceed I will take notice of a mistake whereof he is guilty when he saith That private Consciences are but private Opinions To this I say there may be such Consciences which arise only out of private Opinions which ought to be overswayed with the greater weight