Certain disputations of right to sacraments, and the true nature of visible Christianity defending…

Reputation doth much with many even that are Godly, to make sin seem great or small: with us now a Swearer is reputed so great a sinner, that he is reckoned with Adulterers, and Drunkards; but Censoriousness, Backbiting, Church-division, disobeying those that rule over us in the Lord, spiritual Pride, &c. that are greater then some swearing, do not so brand a man, nor make him odious with us. But God judgeth not of sin thus by the custom of Countries, but according to the nature of the thing. In England a Sabbath-breaker is taken for a sin inconsistent with Grace: In the Low-Countries, Helvetia, France and most other of the Reformed Churches, much of it taken for no sin at all, but we are censured for superstitious herein. Every one is not ungodly there that lives and dies in that sin, without particular Repentance. Men that have not heard much of the evil of some petty oaths, may not understand the evil of them; and custom may do much. And it is not inconsiderable, as to the extenuation of some mens sin, that its not a little doubtful whether it be indeed swearing, if a man do use those words which are the ordinary matter of an oath, and doth not know it to be an oath, nor intend the form of an oath in it: As if one use the terms of an oath in Latin or another Language which he understandeth not, he is not formally a Swearer: And if men do know it, and yet do not at that time intend ⟨p. 331⟩any such thing as a calling any creature to witness, or appealing to them as sufficient to avenge a lye, but only use a customary term inobservantly, it is a sin; but whether formally swearing, may be questioned. But if it be the Name of God that they abuse in swearing, or if they indeed put any creature in his stead, appealing to it as the Avenger of a lye or perjury, that is a heinous sin, and cannot easily be done in ignorance. 2. It is judged by Divines that David lay a twelve month in his sin of Adultery and Murder unrepented of: Certain it is that he was long contriving and executing that horrid murder of Uriah, that his own shame might be covered, and he might enjoy his wife▪ How long Asa or Solomon, sinned we know not: Nor can any man possibly determine just how long a man may live in the practice of such a sin, and yet have true special Grace, and a state of Justification.

Reputation doth much with many even that are Godly, to make sin seem great or small: with us now a Swearer is reputed so great a sinner, that he is reckoned with Adulterers, and Drunkards; but Censoriousness, Backbiting, Church-division, disobeying those that rule over us in the Lord, spiritual Pride, &c. that are greater then some swearing, do not so brand a man, nor make him odious with us. But God judgeth not of sin thus by the custom of Countries, but according to the nature of the thing. In England a Sabbath-breaker is taken for a sin inconsistent with Grace: In the Low-Countries, Helvetia, France and most other of the Reformed Churches, much of it taken for no sin at all, but we are censured for superstitious herein. Every one is not ungodly there that lives and dies in that sin, without particular Repentance. Men that have not heard much of the evil of some petty oaths, may not understand the evil of them; and custom may do much. And it is not inconsiderable, as to the extenuation of some mens sin, that its not a little doubtfull whether it be indeed swearing, if a man do use those words which are the ordinary matter of an oath, and doth not know it to be an oath, nor intend the form of an oath in it: As if one use the terms of an oath in Latine or another Language which he understandeth not, he is not formally a Swearer: And if men do know it, and yet do not at that time intend