Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n
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A45417
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Of conscience by H. Hammond.
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Hammond, Henry, 1605-1660.
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1645
(1645)
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Wing H549; ESTC R25406
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35,832
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32
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holding out against and resisting the whole office of the Holy Ghost and all those gracious methods consequent to it 38 To which I shall only adde in reference to my present purpose that there may be no place of doubting even to him which will not receive my interpretation of this place that even by those which conceive it to be some speciall kind of finne yet the unpardonablenesse of it is acknowledged to arise from thence that it is impossible for any such to repent yet not for any that repents to find pardon and mercy which is sufficient for the confirmation of my present proposition 'T is true indeed that he that is sold a slave of sinne the unregenerate carnall man is whilst he is so in a most hopelesse comfortlesse estate and if he have any naturall conscience left him it must needs be a kind of seind and fury with him No peace to such wicked saith my God and it is as true that the recovery of such a man out of the grave of rottennesse that Lazarstate in sinne is a miracle of the first magnitude a work of greatest difficulty Christ groanes at the raising of him that was 4 dayes dead and putrified in the grave and costs the sinner much dearer to be raised out of it Saul is strucke down in his march towards Damascus blind and trembling before his conversion but yet still when this conversion is wrought he may have a good Conscience what ever his foregoing sins were 39 And although the Apostles Censure Heb. 6. 6. and 10. 26. light yet heavier upon those who after the knowledge of the truth and gust of the life to come and participation of the holy spirit relapse to their former sinnes it being there affirmed that there is no possibility to renew them or as the Greeks read it for them to renew or recover to repentance and consequently the sacrifice for sinne {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} no longer belonging to or remaining for them yet doth not this hinder the truth of the present proposition for I those places to the Hebrews belong not to the sins of the unregenerate life which only now we speak of but of the relapse after the knowledge of the truth 2. even in those places speaking of those sinnes the doctrine is not that there shall be any difficulty of obtaining pardon for them upon repentance for the Subject of the Apostles Propositions is the {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} and {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} men considered exclusively to repentance as abiding in sinne unreformed impenitent and to such we designe not to allow mercy but that this is so great a grieving and quenching of the spirit of God that it becometh very difficult and in ordinary course impossible for them that are guilty of it to repent {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} again to recover to repentance It being just and ordinary with God upon such sinnes of those to whom he hath given grace to withdraw that grace againe according to his method and oeconomy of providence exprest in the parable of the talents from him that hath not made use of the grace or talent given shall be taken away even that which he hath and Wisd. 1. 5. the holy spirit of discipline will not abide where unrighteousnesse cometh in and so being thus deprived of that grace it is consequently impossible that those should {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} in a neutrall sense renew and recover or in an active reciprocall renew or recover themselves to repentance though yet for God to give a new stock of grace it is not impossible but only a thing which he hath not by revealed promise obliged himselfe to do and therefore whether he will doe it or no is meerly in his own hand and dispositive power and that which no man hath ground to hope and title to challenge from him All which notwithstanding our present proposition stands firm that where there is repentance or true thorow change those former retracted acts or habits are reconcileable with good Conscience 40 The second this that Sinnes of weaknesse of all kinds whether first of ignorance or secondly of naturall infirmity the one for want of light the other for want of grace or thirdly of suddaine surreption such as both by the law of Si quis praecipiti calore in the Code of Iustinian and by the municipal laws of most nations are matter of extenuation to some crimes to discharge them from capitall punishment at least to make them capable of pardon or fourthly of dayly continuall incursion either for want of space to deliberate at all or because it is morally impossible to be upon the guard to be deliberate always opere in longo fas est obrepere somnum or fiftly which through levity of the matter passes by undiscerned and the like are irreconcileable with a good conscience because againe be a man never so sincerely resolute and industrious in endeavour to abstaine from all sinne yet as long as he carries flesh about him which is such a principle of weaknesse that ordinarily in the New Testament the word flesh is set to signifie weaknesse such weaknesses he will be subject to such frailties will be sure to drop from him This I remember Parisiensis illustrates handsomely first by the similitude of an armed man provided with strength and prowesse and wrestling with another in lubrico on a slippery ground who though neither weapons nor strength nor courage faile him yet may be very probably fall the slipperinesse of the footing will betray him to that or secondly by an horseman mounted on an unmanaged or tender-mouth'd horse who cannot with all his skill and caution secure himself from all misadventures the beast may upon a check come over with him or getting the bit into the mouth runne into the enemies quarters or thirdly by a City that is provided for a siege with workes and men and victuals and ammunition and yet by a treacherous party within may be betrayed into the enemies hands there is a principle of weaknesse within like that slippery pavement that tender-mouthed beast that insidious party which will make us still lyable to such miscarriages and nothing in this contrary either to courage or diligence to resolution or endeavour And for such as these frailties ignorances infirmities c. So they be laboured against and the meanes of preventing or overcomming them sincerely used which if it be done you shall find them dayly wain in you and if they doe not so in some measure you have reason to suspect and to double your diligence there is sure mercy in Christ to be had obtaineable by dayly confession and sorrow and prayer for forgivenesse of trespasses without any compleat conquest atchieved over them in this life It being Saint Pauls affirmation very exactly and critically set downe Rom. 5. 6. that Christ {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}
of God yet that zeale is a passion still one of those which Aristotle hath defined in his Rhetoricks being not {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} according to knowledge or conscience Rom. 10. 2. for the Hebrew word as I told you is rendred by those two words promiscuously {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} and {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} knowledge and conscience Or 23 Fourthly diabolicall suggestion or infusion it may be an enthusiasm of that black spirit as it is or of some thing as bad in effect infallibly whensoever Rebellion Sedition Murther Rapine Hatred Envy Vncharitablenesse Lying Swearing Sacriledge c. come to us under the disguise of Religion and Conscience and therefore the Spirits must be searcht whether they be of God or of the Devill and no surer way to doe it then by these and the like Symptomes these fruits and productions of that infernall Spirit which so perfectly represent and owne their parent that none but blind or mad men or daemoniacks can beleeve them in earnest to come from God Or 24 Fiftly False doctrine it may be and that againe set off either by the authority of the teacher or by the dignity of some eminent followers and practicers of it and then the Apostle calls it having mens persons in admiration or by the earlinesse of its representation being imbibed and taken in first swallowed and digested before the truth was offered to us and then it is prejudice or prepossession and this again alwayes assisted by the force of that old axiom Intus existens c. and by that which is naturall to all habits to be hardly moveable and yet further improved sometimes by pride and obstinacy alwayes by selfe-love which makes us think our own opinions i. e. which we are already possest of the truest which in this case is in effect to think our luck the best luck and the same which was observed in one worst sort of Heathens who whatsoever they saw first in the morning worshipt that all the day after a choosing of perswasions as country men choose Valentines that which they chance to meet with first after their coming abroad 25 Besides these many other things it may be and so 1. It is oddes enough that it will not be conscience which pretends to be so and 2. It is certainly not conscience unlesse it produce some law for its rule to direct us by And this was the Negative or first thing 26 The second or the Positive thing which followes from the premises is this that Conscience of duty in any particular action is to be ruled by that law which is proper to that action as for example The Christian law is the rule of Conscience for Christian actions the law of reason or morall saw for morall the law nationall municipall or locall for civill the naturall law of all creatures for naturall actions and the law of scandall a branch of the Christian law for matters of scandall and the law of liberty for indifferent free actions And as it is very irregular and unreasonable to measure any action by a rule that belongs not to it to try the exactnesse of the circle by the square which would be done by the compasse and in like manner to judge the Christiannesse of an action by the law of naturall reason which can onely be judged by its conformity with the law of Christ superiour to that of nature So will there be no just pretence of conscience against any thing but where some one or more of these lawes are producible against it but on the other side even in the lowest sort of actions if they be regulated by the law proper to them and nothing done contrary to any superiour law even by this God shall be glorified 1 Cor. 10. 31. a kind of glory resulting to God from that readinesse of submission and subordination of every thing to its proper rule and law to which the great Creator hath subjected it and of all lawes to that supreme transcendent one the law of Christ And though some touches there are in the Scripture of each of these lawes some fibrae or strings of them discernibly there so farre that there is nothing almost under any of the heads forementioned but by the Scripture some generall account may be given of it and againe though that of Scripture be the supreame law of all and nothing authorizeable by any inferiour law which is contradicted or prohibited by that yet is not that of Scripture such a particular Code oâ— Pandect of all lawes as that every thing which is commanded by any other law should be found commanded there or be bound to prove its selfe justifiable from thence any further then that it is not there prohibited or thereby justly concluded to be unlawful 27 From whence by the way I conceive direction may be had and resolution of that difficult practicall probleme what a man may doe in case he be legally commanded by his lawfull superiour to doe what he may lawfully doe which yet he is perswaded he may not doe or doubteth whether he may or no For in this case if he be not able to produce some plaine prohibition from some superiour law as from that of Scripture he cannot be truly said to be perswaded in conscience which implyes knowledge of the unlawfulnesse of that thing nor consequently hath he any plea for disobedience to that lawfull command of his Superiours All that may be said is that he may from some obscure place misunderstood have cause or occasion to doubt whether he may doe it or no and then although doubting simply taken i. e. where no command interposes may keep me from doing what I doubt yet it ought not to be of that weight as to keep me from my lawfull Superiours lawfull command because that very command is a sufficient ground to supersede my doubting when I have no plaine prohibition of Scripture to the contrary which in this case I am supposed not to have for if I had Then first it were not a lawfull command and secondly I should not doubt but be assured it being my duty and part of my Christian meeknesse in doubtfull matters to take my resolution from those whom God hath placed over me and it being the sinne of dogmatizing to affirme any thing for me or others to doe which some law of God c. still in force doth not prohibit which sin being added to that other of disobedience to my lawfull Superiours will sâ—re never be able to make that commence virtue which was before so far from any pretentions to that title 28 Having proceeded thus far in the search of the ground of Conscience 't were now time to reduce this operation to practice and shew you first What directions Conscience is able to afford from every of those lawes for the ruling of all actions of that kind and secondly What an harmony and conspiration there is betwixt all these