Selected quad for the lemma: sense_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
sense_n	body_n	power_n	soul_n	5,623	5	5.5945	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26911	The defence of the nonconformists plea for peace, or, An account of the matter of their nonconformity against Mr. J. Cheney's answer called The conforming nonconformist, and The nonconforming conformist : to which is added the second part in answer to Mr. Cheney's Five undertakings / by Richard Baxter.	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1680 (1680)	Wing B1238; ESTC R10601	97,954	194

thing here said by you And your citing my limited and conditional approbation of the Assemblies Catechisms and the Synod of Dort's is certainly no Reason for my absolute and unlimited professing to Assent and Consent to all things in Books which have so much more which I dissent from CHAP. XXX § 1. YOur 29th Section containeth your unproved Opinions and false Devices for stretching Subscriptions Covenants and Professions And first you tell us of the difficulty of using any words that may not seem doubtful But yet if there be not a satisfactory intelligibleness in words Humane Converse is overthrown and Oaths of Allegiance and all Contracts are of little use unto their ends § 2. You say Though there be in this Volume which we call the Common-prayer-Book many Matters Sentences and Words bound all together yet do we Assent and Consent to no more but that which goes under the name of the Service of the Church and the Rules and Orders touching the same and the Rites and Ceremonies thereof Ans. If you say All things contained in it means not all things indeed tell us what difference there is between the Equivocations of the Jesuits and this of yours So one tells me that when we profess to Assent to all in the Bible the meaning is To all the Precepts Promises and Words of God in it but not that there is no Humane Errors in Numbers and Chronologie Genealogie History or Citations And so you may say I will swear not to endeavour any alteration of the Government of the State but I mean not to alter Monarchy And what may not one thus say and swear 2. But yet I think it is no great number of Matters Sentences and Words which are neither Service Rules Orders or Rites Rubricks and Calendars and some Prefaces belong to these But it is a strange Interpretation which would exclude Doctrinals such as the Article of Faith of the certain Salvation of all Infants baptized and dying before actual Sin Your Citations signifie nothing for your purpose but tell us what you would have them signifie § 3. But now I come to Sampson's Hair the very strength of all your Book page 115. The Preface saith When Doubts arise in the Use and Practice of the same to appease all such diversity if any arise and for the resolution of all Doubts concerning the manner how to understand do and execute the things contained in this Book the Parties that so doubt or diversly take any thing shall always resort to the Bishop of the Diocess who by his discretion shall take order for the quieting and appeasing of the same so that the same Order be not contrary to any thing contained in this Book Whence you gather that the Law makes the Bishop the common Expositor and if he gives a good Exposition or by silence shew consent all is safe and you may Conform I confess this Reed is the strongest support of your Cause that I have met with And I am not censuring others that lean upon it I doubt not but they may be better Men than I But I will tell you why I cannot 1. It is a help to those that be in doubt But I am out of doubt in many of the Reasons of my Non-conformity and therefore it is no help to me 2. The words expresly limit the Bishops Exposition so that his order be not contrary to any thing in the Book If it be not contrary to the Book it will give me no satisfaction If it be contrary it is of no force 3. It is only about the things contained in the Book that the Bishop must resolve us Now either the Acts of Uniformity are part of those things or not If yea then it is the Acts also that I must Assent and Consent to which you as well as I are far from And you maintain that the Act is no part of the Book If not then the Bishop hath no power to expound the Act And the forms of Assent and Consent and Subscription imposed are parts of the Act. 4. The words make not the Bishop the publick or common Expositor of the Law or Book as Judge but only as a Teacher who bindeth but so far as he tells the truth The Bishop must teach his ignorant or divided Clergy how to understand what they understand not And this is not about their Subscriptions but matters of Use and Practice as where the Table shall stand and such like That it maketh not the Bishop the obliging Judge of the Law appeareth 1. Because here is no such word 2. The foresaid limitation speaketh the contrary 3. Else there might be as many Religions Doctrines or Practices as Bishops or many at least I will give you all the little Money in my Purse if you will get me under the hand of Bishop Morley Bishop Gunning Bishop Sparrow and Arch-Bishop Stern their approbation of your Expositions of the parts of Conformity written in your Book And I suppose you know how zealously many write as well as Doctor Saywel against tolerating diversity of Forms and Rites and Orders of Worship And this would be to set up as many Sects or Ways as differing Bishops pleased This Case was notably tried between Arch-Bishop Laud and the Church that followed him and Williams Bishop of Lincoln about the Table or Altar 4. Else Bishops would have the Legislative Power For the sense of the Law is the Law And if the Parliament form but the Letter or Body of it and the Bishop may give it what Sense or Soul he pleaseth it is he that will be the chief Law-maker 5. Else Bishops might corrupt and change our Religion and Church under pretence of Exposition Bishop Godfrey Goodman of Glocester who was a Papist might have set up Popery in his Diocess by putting a Popish sense upon Subscription Words and Practices And the Bishops by agreement might set up Popery in the Land by the same means Or a Bishop might set up Non-conformists by gratifying them by his Expositions The thing meant in those words is no such dangerous power but only an Instructing and a Pacifying informing of the Clergy when they ignorantly differ about some dark Word or Circumstance or Practice the Bishop must teach them the true sense of the Book but do nothing against any thing therein 6. Is it not called An Act for Uniformity and imposeth all the heavy Penalties on purpose to procure Uniformity Would they have Silenced and Ruined two thousand Ministers for Non-conformity if Uniformity had not been thought of more worth than their Ministerial Labours And can you think that after all this they meant to leave it to the particular Bishops whether there should be any Uniformity or not You think one Bishop will say You are Parish Bishops and may publickly admonish and reprove the Scandalous and Excommunicate them Excommunicatione minore You may give them the Sacrament that conscienciously scruple Kneeling you may Baptize them that conscienciously scruple the dedicating Cross

you feign them to speak Nonsense or to Tautologize You say You Assent to all but not that All is true Which is a Contradiction or Equivocation § 4. Prove say you that there is any one thing in the Book which may not in the course of Conformity be godly used Ans. To some Men I will undertake to prove nothing If there be no proof in the Book which you write against when you have got leave to Print it you are likely to have more Till then to call for proof when you have it and speak not sense against it is too easie a way to satisfie the Just. § 5. III. I told you by word of Mouth that your Catholicon of trusting to the Bishops Exposition of the Book yea to his silence so gentle and tractable are you become is no relief to you for expounding the Assent Consent Subscription against the obligation of the Vow and about Arms c. because these are part of the Act of Uniformity and you say that Act is no part of the Book To this you Print your Answer that you Have another string to your Bow viz. That the Bishop is by Law the Ordinary to Ordain and take Subscriptions and may admit Ministers to subscribe these Tests with such Explications Meanings and Allowances as will well stand with the words justly and fairly construed Ans. 1. The Bishop is not made the Expounder of the Law but the Receiver of your Subscription according to the Law 2. If you will confound Indulgent Connivance and Conformity must we do so too This is Mr. Humphrey's project And I freely confess to you That if you can meet with an Indulgent Bishop it 's a fairer way to intromit a Dissenter than any that you have named in your Book All words are ambiguous The sense is the Soul of them If e.g. I were commanded to say that The Scripture is not God's Word and I had leave to expound it 1. All Scripture or Writing is not God's Word but the sacred Bible is Or It is not God's Eternal Coessential Word which is Christ were it not for Scandal this might be said as true And some think the Scandal is sufficiently avoided if you give in your sense in Writing and make it as publick as is your Subscription But I think that the very subscribing such scandalous Words will scandalously harden others and encourage Tyrannical Imposers more than your Exposition can Cure and therefore I would not use them And if I would I could cast in such an Expository Writing whether the Bishop will or not And if he accept it I pray better understand that This is not Conformity but Indulgence Connivance Toleration or Prevarication You might as well say He Conformed that by the King's Indulgence was excused from Subscribing and Declaring You put a Supposition that you had gone to Bishop Sanderson and askt his sense according to his Rules de Juramento Ans. I doubt your Party will think you betray their Cause by Prevarication 1. I told you how publickly in a meeting of Bishops Bishop Sanderson gave his judgment about Baptism against you 2. I cited the words of his Rules de Iuramento in the Book which you answer as being plainly against Conformity And you give no answer to it and yet suppose them to be for you This is too supine neglect to satisfie us § 5. You come over your foresaid sense of the Declaration again and pag. 160. You have better bethought you and will take the Debate of the Lords and Commons as useful to know the meaning of the Law Ans. What shall we do then by your Useful Error Why you now say You know nothing in the Book but what may be assented to as true Ans. And why was this so much disclaimed before When you put us to the trouble of Confuting you you Confute your self by changing your Cause and so we labour in vain Your Repetitions of the same things with saying and unsaying and bare saying without proof are so many that I will not wrong the Reader with Confuting any more of them save only to give you some account why I am sorry 1. That you retract your saying that Oaths are stricti juris 2. And that while you pretend to own Bishop Sanderson's Rules de Iuramento you renounce this which is one of the chief of them And I will tell you the reasons of my dissent from that and most of your Book IV. By stricti juris is not meant the meer Literal Sense as different from the less Proper which is more notified but strict is contradistinguished from loose and stretcht I told you the Rule that we go by in this and it pleased you not to Confute it Thus much I repeat 1. We must take Oaths Covenants and Professions imposed by Authority in the sense of the Imposers as near as we can know it 2. But if they discover their Sense in words so unmeet as that in the Vulgar Sense they seem false or wicked we must number such with unlawful words unless we can by the publick notifying the Exposition avoid the Scandal 3. We are to take the Laws and imposed words of Rules especially in Oaths Covenants and Professions in that sense as those words are commonly used and understood in that time and place by Men of that Profession Unless the said Rulers make known that they use them in a different unusual sense 4. We must not presume that they mean not as they speak by an unusual sense upon dark and uncertain Conjectures especially dictated by our Interest but only by Cogent Evidence These are our Rules The reasons why we cannot Swear or Covenant or profess in your Laxe and stretched sense nor call that sense honest as you do especially on pretence of a Bishop's Exposition contrary to what I have reason to be fully satisfied our Law-makers meant are those which I gave you in the thirty Aggravations Sect. 16. which it did not please you to contradict These few I repeat I. The words of the Third Command are dreadful God will not hold him guiltless that taketh his Name in vain or falsly II. Such licentious stretching of Oaths and Professions overthrow that mutual trust which is necessary to Humane Converse III. It depriveth the King of his due security of his Subjects Loyalty and of his Peace and Life I much fear lest relaxing and stretching the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy but as much as you relax and stretch the words of the Subscription Declaration Liturgie c. may untie the Consciences of Rebels and King-killers so far as to make way for and consist with Rebellion and killing the King IV. It seemeth to me most dangerously to expose the Lives of all the Subjects of the Kingdom to the will of their Enemies and to be a Vertual Murdering of many or any if not all Persons that have Enemies For while two false Swearers may take away a Mans Life if Men are taught to stretch Oaths and