Selected quad for the lemma: sense_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
sense_n	meaning_n	true_a	word_n	6,122	5	4.4275	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A45159	The third step of a nonconformist, for the recovery of the use of his ministry with some occasional notice taken of the judgment and decree of the University of Oxford, past in their convocation, July 21, 1683 / by one of the followers of peace, and lovers of impartiality.	Humfrey, John, 1621-1719.	1684 (1684)	Wing H3712; ESTC R39280	17,273	38

to subscribe and are no Ministers For if I took a Living I must subscribe this Declaration again which I should not scruple to do in my former Sheets Explication but in my state that have no place to officiate in and seek none I suppose that in the mind of the Law-giver I am not yet bound so far and as for going to Church it is what I am wont to do without Subscription Neither is there any word in this Subscription that confines the Subscriber so to go to Church as that he may never go to other Meetings upon any occasion It were excessively rigorous to stretch the words so far and there is not one of a hundred that would rationally gather that this was the Parliaments meaning by this Subscription If it were I declare my Exception I must moreover signifie that in Subscribing I will Conform to the Lyturgy I do not oblige my self to every thing whatsoever that is enjoyned in that Book as I do in general to go to Divine Service in the Parish Congregation More particularly in the Preface before the Prayers it is required of all Ministers that they say daily the Morning and Evening Prayer either privately or openly not being let by sickness or some urgent Cause and I do not apprehend that by Conforming to the Lyturgy it was the Law-givers meaning I should be engaged to this who do not and will not engage my self to that which I shall never perform for I shall use my own Prayers at home Indeed I think that what Minister soever does make the Declaration of assent and consent to all and every thing contained in and prescribed by that Book he must be according to the Law-givers meaning engaged hereunto for he does consent to all in regard to the Use And I shall not lightly therefore ever I think make that Declaration in those words and no other In fine if the sense of this Clause comes to no more in my state than going to Church and of the other two to no more than I have delivered then may I very safely yield to this subscription and if I am to do what I can both in regard to the fifth Commandment and in regard to the uniting and strengthning the Protestant interest and in regard to the use of my Ministry I charge my brethren by the way to lay these three things with me well to heart for really I stick greatly for want of their company or at least the freer use of it to preach in publick then is it not only lawful but what it seems I am bound to do Nevertheless because I am not certain or at least not so certainly perswaded of the mind of the Law-giver as to be in regard to all particulars beyond doubt and because I shall be apt to be raising scruples after I must for the preventing my trouble and securing my peace fly to that refuge in regard to this Declaration which is set open in regard to the Oath in the Sheriffs Case And I do therefore make this present publick declaration I crave pardon for the necessary repetition that in this meaning which I have all along delivered supposing it the meaning of the Law-giver and with these explanatory limitations to the meaning if in any thing indeed it be otherwise I do subscribe the Declaration required to be subscribed in the Act for Uniformity whensoever I set my hand to the Bishops Registers book whom I desire by these presents with all other any way concerned to take cognizance of it And also when I give my assent to the 39 Articles if I give it I do assent with my First sheets foreprized explication I know there is no body of a deliberate understanding but he does and must make some Interpretation of the Articles to speak also a little of these in which he conceives them true or else he cannot assent to them according to his Conscience let it be as large as it will if he hath any at all But I must profess this is not satisfactory to mine without a declaration also of the sense of such of them which you may see in my former sheets as I do scruple I will as honestly give my reason and it is because if I assent to the Articles and say nothing my Conscience tells me I must Interpretatively be thought to assent to them in the sense of the Imposers that is as I have been used to think of the Majority of the Convocation that framed and decreed them and I do verily believe their sense to be such in some of them as I do certainly in my Judgment dissent from it I might instance in the 18th and the 11th Article but I refer to my Two first Steps It may be said it is true it was the Convocation decreed the Articles but it is the King that ratifies them and when the ratification is from his authority alone it is he is the sole Imposer I answer this is a notion but newly risen up in my mind and if it prove right after due canvassing then must we look into the Declaration of the King whether James or Charles or both which is set before the Articles to find out what that sense is which is there ratified and we have these words We will that no man put his own comment to be the meaning of the Article but shall take it in the literal and grammatical sense I must ask here in the first place what was the intent of the King when he saies he will have no man put his own comment on the Article Can any man indeed subscribe the Article and not make his own Interpretation This were not to subscribe with Truth or Judgment on only he must not make his sense to be the meaning that is his private sense to go for the sole publick Interpretation There is a latitude manifestly understood and allowed by the King in this literal and grammatical sense because it is supposed by him that all the Clergy though of different Judgments do subscribe them and every one pleads them in favour of his own opinion I must ask them next whether this literal and grammatical sense be to be understood with reference to the mind of the Convocation that decreed these Articles or without any regard to it All words we know are nothing but the signification of the mind that mind must be some bodies and an Article having no mind but they that passed them I should judge that the literal and grammatical sense of an Article is the meaning or mind of those that decreed it Interpreted or Understood by a Literal and Grammatical construction of the words wherein they have expressed that mind or meaning But if the Literal and Grammatical sense which is authorized by the King's Declaration be understood without any such reference so that a man may frame for himself any sense he can so long as he makes it hold true in a Literal Grammatical sense then must I confess here

THE THIRD STEP OF A Nonconformist For Recovery of the Use of his Ministry WITH Some Occasional Notice taken of the Judgment and Decree of the University of Oxford past in their Convocation July 21. 1683. By one of the Followers of Peace and Lovers of Impartiality Probitas laudatur alget Ju. LONDON Printed for Tho. Parkhurst at the Bible and Three Crowns the lower end of Cheapside 1684. The Third Step. THE Year Eighty Two presenting some rise to the Nonconformist for new thoughts about their returning into the Vineyard upon the Expiration of one Clause in the Subscription required by the Act for Uniformity which was of deepest Resentment to many and the greatest cause of their Ejection it seemed reasonable to me to apply my self to the Bishop of the Diocess upon that Errand It was not for any Preferment that I seek for I am not like to Conform so far but it was for a Liberty only of Preaching without Molestation as without Emolument which is in effect for the license only of exercising a piece of Self-denial in coming out of a state of quiet and case into a state of work of care of censure that if it so please God I might yet be some way serviceable to my Generation and my Old Age not altogether unprofitable Unto this end I Printed lately four or five Sheets entituling them Two Steps in order hereunto appointing my Bookseller as soon as they were done to send them to the Bishop and Archbishop with a Letter from me to both the Contents whereof were humbly to crave their pardon for my sending those Sheets and their leave to wait on them after due time of readding to know their pleasure signifying my unwillingness to surprise them but that they might consider beforehand and if it were good for them to deny or grant my request at first hearing it would be good to do the same after deliberation I stay'd ten days or thereabout and then went my self to both in person I found no pride and no offence but all the civility that becomes the gravity candour and dignity of such persons but I found they had not read my Sheets so as either to have understood what I sought or considered whether it could be granted Upon this I spared not to write again to both for the informing them in short and yet in full what it was I desired and I went again also to one of them thinking to have spoke with him but he sent me back word I must come another time he was then busie Whether this Message by his Servant did signifie his unwillingness to be pressed any further or that I should indeed take a better opportunity when he had more leisure I am in doubt but for the prevention of the frustrating an endeavour of this kind if it may be conscionably effected I do upon this further pause judge it expedient if not necessary to add a Third Step to my Two former before I go to any Bishop more in this matter For having by my self and friends made some tryal of the Inclinations of more than these two of them I am induced to a recollection upon the whole Design and to set my self if it be possible to come yet to a closer point with them than I have already about the same It is not I know for any Christian to judge of anothers Conscience which is know only to a man 's own self and God and much less is he to make his Judgment the standard or measure to another mans Conscience in this case is nothing else but the inward Judgment of a mans Soul whether such a thing be lawful for him to do in the sight of God or agreeable to God's will or not Every considerate man knows here his own Latitude and after many a day and years laying the thing to heart I will if I can tell you Mine in this Case The Rule I lay down in submitting to or refusing any Imposition of men is this We must sit down and consider what we believe to be the meaning of the Law-givers and if we can submit to it in that sense or meaning which we believe theirs we must do it but if we believe their sense to be such as we cannot take it in that sense we must forbear it and suffer See the Book entituled A Peaceable Resolution of Conscience touching our present Impositions and the Margin of the Sheriffs Case where that Book is cited The bottom is this The Law is the Will of the Law-giver and it is the Law-givers Meaning is his Will which you will also find in them both By the way here I cannot but take notice of the Seventeenth Proposition which is condemned in the late Decree of the University of Oxford July 21. 1683. An Oath obligeth not in the sense of the Imposer but the Takers for which they quote and condemn the Sheriffs Case when the Position or Rule that all Impositions of our Superiours must be taken in the sense and meaning of those that Impose them is the foundation of that whole Determinations These express words are laid down in the beginning of it and that they may be observ'd there is this Note in the Margin To this Rule there is a double extream The one is of those who think a man must take every Imposition in the strict literal Construction and can submit to it no otherwise The other is of such who suppose that if a man can frame any Interpretation of his own that is but reasonable he may take the words in that sense and be satisfied The first of these is so rigid that there is nothing to be Imposed but we shall strain at it and the last so loose that nothing can be Imposed but we shall swallow it Then is the true Medium offered there which you have here recited before If you ask now farther who this one and the other yet be I will tell you In the first Extream are most of the Nonconformists in the last are those of the Conformists which we used to call Latitudinarians The name rose up about the Uniformity Act and this is the reason of it A Latitudinarian is one that is or was against the Imposition of indifferent things that stumble people as well as the Nonconformist but he is for the Submission And this I say is the reason because of his Latitude in the Interpretation There was an excellent person eminent in Learning and of an incomparable Temper now with God the Reverend Dr. Whiscot the Father of this sort of men who was several times discoursing with me and maintaining the latter Opinion being liberally ready to affirm that a man might defend in Living with a Rational Construction of an Imposition by his Wit as he might is Purse by his Sword but I was alwaies for holding him to the Meaning of the Law-giver I have been sorry methinks very much that this superlative worthy man is not yet alive that I might talk

with him about this Decree at Oxford that hath here given Judgment for me against him in the business whom I would have had convinced really in Conscience because that Opinion of his was not to be held and I thought he did hurt others in holding it and I do therefore heartily thank the University that they have pickt up this Seventeenth Proposition into their Decree and condemned it being a Tenent of ill consequence when Declarations and Oaths shall hereby be rendred but as so many Cobwebs which may intangle a weak Judgment but those that have Wit shall break through them and the Magistrate shall have no hold-fast on any Nevertheless I thank not the University for gathering this Proposition from the Sheriffs case which professeth the clean contrary as they do And if any such Tenent therefore could be deduced from any occasional passage thereof by consequence or Logick so long as the Design and whole scope of it does bend de industria to the opposite thereunto such a Decree as affixes to a Book that Proposition against which it expresly declared and then to burn the Book for it if I may use the words of no less than a Bishop who had read both the Decree and Case must be very iniquitous I put it in these very words because they are anothers and he spake them not I will suppose in dishonour to the University but the rather because he was told it is some other Book they meant under the Title of the Sheriffs case and not this which I speak of and own as proposing the same Doctrine which they do and condemning the same Proposition To return if upon mature consideration according to this Rule I am persuaded that the meaning of the Parliament who imposed the Declaration which is to be subscribed by me if I go on was no more than I have tendred in the Explication of my former Sheets then do I not need to be beholding to any Bishop who can give my self the favour of subscribing and so require his Certificate of course But if indeed do what I can I find my mind still in some doubt I must on necessity think father It was some years before I could tell how to subscribe that Declaration at all especially as it was clogg'd till Eighty two with any Explication When I came to think on an Explication it was a good while longer before I could be satisfied how to do it unless I might put my Explication to the words of the Declaration and so set my hand to both together I endeavoured therefore and made tryal whether I might have leave to do so but could not obtain it I acknowledge the candid ingenuity and courteous good will of the Diocesan but he made higher inquisition I bethought my self hereupon of a less Request that if I might by the Bishops consent be but permitted to write these words According to a Paper given into the Bishop Isubscribe in the Registers Book as in the former Sheets it appeared to me in effect all one as to set my name to the words of the Declaration with my Explication so long as such a Paper was given in to him I have not been wanting therefore to try again with more than one Bishop whether so little a favour as this might be obtained and I have intimated my success so that the Condescension that a man may reasonably expect without a Parliament from any Bishop to trust to it is like to come to this to grant what the Law allows if some of them will yet do that Here are Two Steps then I have made and the Third I am to get up I cannot subscribe without an Explication but I can subscribe with one That was the First Step. If I subscribe with an Explication it is necessary that I declare my Explication but it is not necessary that my Explication and the words I subscribe be put together in one Paper or in the Registers Book If it be signified that I do it with an Explication it is as well and in effect the same thing This was the Second Step. If I may not signifie this in the Registers Book I come now to consider if I publish it in Print and so notifie it both to Bishop Register and all the World whether this really be not as well also as if I were suffered to do so and that for the substance which will go to the heart of all my scruples And if in the upshot this will serve there is none can hinder me this Last Step for I land methinks here upon my right or upon Law when my standing was but precarious before Well! I do consider in the Sheriffs Case to what Resolution or Latitude the Author of that Paper came about the Oxford Oath Let us suppose a man convinced that the Interpretation offered in regard to the Oath and in regard to this Declaration is probably the very meaning of the Law-giver but he is not persuaded beyond all doubt and he would have something for his relief in regard to that doubt For an alleviation to this man there is this passage in that Case If a man is persuaded in his Conscience the meaning of the Law-giver was no more than thus he may submit and make no stand but if he believes their meaning was otherwise or doubts that it was more than thus he cannot swear or subscribe but with limitations and he must declare those limitations or forbear But if he shall swear of subscribe supposing him one that doubts with making a declaration that he does it in this meaning supposing it the sense of the Law-giver and with these Explanatory Limitations to their meaning if in any thing indeed it be otherwise if the Justices admit him to the Oath after this Declaration for whether they admit the sense or not it is no matter because they have no power in it we are persuaded says that Paper that his Conscience may receive satisfaction thereby in his compliance with the Law in these Impositions By the way again from this place it is very likely the Oxford Convocation might gather the Proposition before cited out of this said Book but if so I must answer Unless they are of the Opinion that though a man refuse an Oath without admittance to take it with Limitation and then does declare his Limitations and so is admitted to it he is yet obliged to perform it being taken in the full sense of the Imposer notwithstanding those Limitations there is no difference between them and the Sheriffs Case in this matter But if that indeed be their Opinion let them speak it out and make this the condemned Proposition An Oath taken with a declared Limitation to the sense of the Imposer does oblige no farther than he hath declared beforehand that he will be bound when he took it This Proposition I own in the behalf of the Sheriffs Case if they condemn it I crave from them some illumination That an Oath in general