Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	according_a	good_a	word_n	1,776	5	3.8038	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A37074	Just re-proposals to humble proposals. Or An impartiall consideration of, and answer unto, the humble proposals, which are printed in the name of sundry learned and pious divines, concerning the Engagement which the Parliament hath ordered to be taken Shewing, how farre those proposals are agreeable to reason, to Christianity and to policie. How the proposers thereof may receive satisfaction therein, in all these respects. Hereunto are added, The humble proposals themselves; because they are not currantly to be found. Written by John Dury. January 7. 1650. Imprimatur, Joseph Caryl.	Dury, John, 1596-1680.; Reynolds, Edward, 1599-1676.	1650 (1650)	Wing D2868A; ESTC R205390	24,964	38

imply an approbation of the manner of the present Establishment Whether as effected by a full and free Authority yea or no whether yea or no it doth imply an active Concurrence and a ratifying consent of the People thereunto further then what hath been already acknowledged to be due to the Powers in actual possession by all that are in subjection under them and depend upon their protection and whether yea or no and how far it fastens an obligation to act to the strengthening and promoting of the Government which is at present or may be hereafter established by the advantage of possible power we say that to trouble our own or other mens weaker Consciences with these or such like doubtfull Conjectures to colour the suspension of our own or occasion the aversion of other mens affections from yielding obedience to a clear and confessed duty is not onely preposterous and contrary to the aime of healing breaches and of advancing a publick good in this time of distraction but inconsistent as to our reason with the obvious meaning of the words which are to be subscribed and disagreeing as to our affections with the Charity due no lesse to superiours then to other men which is not to think evill when good may be thought of them And lastly it is opposite as to our spirits unto that wisdom which is from above the Rule of our walking teaching us to have pure and peaceable thoughts in all our actings to perform duties in Godly simplicity and without worldly wisdom to be gentle and easily intreated to do good works without partial scrupulosity and without hypocrisie And upon these principles of true wisdom which we humbly conceive are not laid to heart by our Brethren in the third Paragraph of their Proposals we professedly wave all those scruples and the stumbling-blocks which they have laid to themselves and wherewith they have puzled others upon this clear Account that whenever the consideration of these things which are said to be implyed in the Subscription which we see not shall come before us to be circumstantially considered for the edification of others or the clearing of our own way we then shall be most ready to declare our sence therein according to known principles and the circumstances which God shall offer but in the mean time we think it answerable to the Duty of Christianity that we should acquiesce in this plain and generall Resolution that whatsoever hereafter shall appear to us in any of these doubtfull Cases to be a truth or a duty to be asserted or performed for the good of the Common-wealth under what forme or without what forme soever we find it established we shall hold forth the same freely in word and deed towards all behaving our selves therein accordingly in a peaceable manner Because to do otherwise we think it so far from following a known Rule of Christianity in uprightness and simplicity that it tends to nothing else but a prejudicate forestallment of our own and other mens thoughts by the laying of snares and stumbling-blocks before them The thing then which we re-propose to our brethren is this That as we ingenuously conceive there is no difference at all between the things which they themselves have mentioned to be duties of Subjects to Superiours and the Subscription required by the present Authority to the obvious sence of the Engagement So we say to that which they call a difference that notwithstanding this Subscription it is free for us in Conscience to think differently of the manner of the Establishment according to that which our judgement and light doth or shall dictate unto us in reference to changeable circumstances if onely at all times and in all circumstances however changeable we engage our truth and faithfulness towards the publick good of the Common-wealth under the same whence we do acknowledge that upon this Engagement these consequences will follow as to our Consciences First That we are bound to approve of the present establishment so far as the manifestation of our truth and faithfulness to the Common-wealth doth oblige us in our places to follow quietly our own Callings whether the Authority over us be full and free or no Secondly That we ought not to suspend and denie our active concurrence and ratifying consent to any thing which in the present establishment shall be offered and found lawfull and necessary for common safety being offered to us by the Authority which is especially because it is declared that the Originall of all just power is in the People therefore conceiving that our consent is required hereunto as being some of the People we judge it our duty in this sense to give it least we become accessary to the causes of disturbing our present peace or future settlement Thirdly That we ought to be obliged in things lawfull necessary and expedient for common safety to act at all times in all places and capacities to the promoting and strengthening of the Establishment which Gods providence hath set over us and he hath inabled to afford us just protection And seeing by this Engagement we think not our selves bound up by any words expressed therein to the particulars Of a full and free Authority of the consent of the people and of the strengthening of another establishment which may set it self up c. implyed and mentioned in the Proposals but meane to declare by our subscription thus farre only as we have said our approbation of our ratefying consent unto and our obligation towards the present establishment therefore we conceive not that we do violate any of our former Oaths Protestations or solemne League and Covenant whereunto by the former Commands of Parliament we actually were or implicitely could be obliged but we remember very well and consider concerning the Covenant both the time when and the manner how and the matter whereunto we were engaged by it and the sense wherein we then took it and the asseverations that we should never be drawn from it by any terrour or combination whatsoever and the durable obligation brought upon our selves by it even all the dayes of our life and the consideration which we had before our eyes in the taking of it namely the Glory of God in the first place the advancement of the Kingdome of our Lord Jesus Christ in the second place the happinesse of the King and his Posterity as subordinate and in order thereunto by the liberties of the Nation preserved in the third place all which things as we did formerly so we do still duely consider and find by the changeablenesse of publick affaires upon circumstances which Gods providence hath ordered for judgement over some and for mercy towards others and by the unsut●blenesse of the late Kings wayes with the Kingdom of Jesus Christ and the inconsistency of his course with the publick welfare of this Nation that the present frame of the State which now is though different from what then was

the Act of subscribing to the words according to that prejudice which the vulgar hath taken up against them in a generall notion Herein then the subtilty of the Policy doth lye that the matter should be couched in such a way as doth most commodiously favour that notion and strengthen it which in men of learning conscience and piety feeking a clearing of doubts doth not seem to be faire and plaine dealing and therefore may be thought to have somewhat of a Collaterall designe Secondly we may observe also that if the thing clearly professed in the second Sect. of the Proposals to be a known duty had been really intended and resolved upon to have been practised at this time no lesse then in generall termes acknowledged to be a thing at some time lawfully practicable there would not have been any inclination to do two things which here are done not without some contrivance First the performance of duties confessed to be due to such Superiours as are in places over us and by a people in our case under them would not have been per indirectum denied to be due by us unto them Secondly the words of the Engagement upon which the whole stresse of the scruple is said to lye and for which that which is confessed to be due to others is denyed to our Superiour Powers would not have been suppressed and left in the dark as they are but clearly mentioned and alleadged as they are not lest the falacy of the pretended scruple should appear For if the duty acknowledged in Thesi had been applied to the Hypothesis of our present condition and the duty required in the words of the Engagement had been compared therewith the pretended matter of scruple would by the full agreement of the one with the other havebeen found apparently impertinent but it may be conceived that the matter is laid thus before the pre-possessed Reader or weak discerner of such contrivances to the end that upon a full acknowledgement of a just duty and a willingnesse to perform the same in a case like to ours the iniquity of that which is supposed to be required of us by the Engagement may be heightened in mens apprehensions who are easily swayed to receive the worst impressions of those that are in places of power over them by how much then they seem to yield to a rationall duty and be of an equitable disposition towards their Superiours by so much they prevaticate against the intention of the Engagement to make it to be thought altogether contrary to reason and to justice by a slye concealing of the words and a suspitious interpretation thereof suggested as containing matters very far different from the acknowledged duty and wholly opposite to former Engagements Whereas in truth and deed there is no such thing aimed at by the Engagement nor implyed in the words thereof So that from the third paragraphe of the Proposals to the end thereof the whole matter and contrivance of the discourse may be thought and yet without doing injury to the Authours nothing else but a Politicall Stratagem and Sophisme grounded upon the mis-application and mis-interpretation of the Engagement and Covenant to entangle weake and undiscorning consciences and to keep up the spirit of dis-affection in the mindes of the multitude under the pretence of scruples of that kind The thing then to be offered to obviate the deceit of this politicall contrivance of the bosinesse and to give satisfaction if it can be admitted to this politicall scrupulosity of conscience is this that the words of the Engagement in their plain sense which imports a clear duty are to be confronted with that which in the second Sect. they confesse to be consonant with the will of God with the light of nature with the judgement of the Learned with the practise of former Christians and with their own principles and former Engagements and then if the Duty mentioned in the Engagement doth run wholly parallell as the case now stands with us to that which they yield to be a Duty as they State the case in generall themselves then they should be made to reflect upon themselves that they ought to be satisfied in this that by taking the Engagement nothing is farther required of them then what they proclaime themselves to be a performable duty in such a case But if their Politicall contemplations of the meaning of the Engagement through the sinister prospectives jealousies which they take up and foment against their Superiours by an uncharitable mis-construction of their aimes will not suffer them to acquiesce in this parallelisme of the Engagement with what they acknowledge to be lawfull then a further course may be taken and shall be offered unto them if they will intend to bring matters to a faire tryall and issue and that is this that the consequences which they say are implyed in the words of the Engagement may be taken into consideration and examined in three respects First How far the words of the Engagement do import in the ordinary acception by an indifferent Judge any such matters as they say are implyed therein Secondly How far if the words should import any such matters in any sense the performance of the Engagement in that sense is agreeable with the Duties mentioned by themselves in the 2. Sect. performable by Subjects towards their Superiours in the case they are supposed and wherein now we are Thirdly How far the Covenant and former Engagements wil be contradictory or not contradictory to this Engagement although the consequences here said to be implyed therein should be granted to follow thereon In all which matters if upon known grounds and principles of Christianity and Rationality a regular way of disquiry may be followed as it becometh Divines within their bounds in reference to Conscience modestly and not as it becometh States-men in reference to interests suspiciously and if they will ingage to stand or fall to the issue of that disquiry I dare in the fear of God undertake to let them see satisfactory grounds whereby their scruples will be cleared and wherein consequently their Consciences ought to acquiesce if they will not subordinate the inclinations thereof to an affected scrupulosity for the love of a party For that all this contrivance of the Proposals is like unto the hand of Joab in the mouth of the woman of Tekoah to bring about a designe rather then to receive a single-hearted satisfaction for themselves is neither irrational to think nor uncharitable to say but just and equitable in prudencie to suspect and here we have a clear example of a smooth and handsome conveyance of a State-business under a ministerial cloak and pretence of Religiousness not in but out of the Pulpit which is one of the things which in another larger Treatise I have shewed to be one of the main causes of our present distempers and confusions namely when Ministers meddle with State-matters either in their Pulpits a●… were