A39678:424
The reasonableness of personal reformation, and the necessity of conversion
The reasonableness of personal reformation, and the necessity of conversion; the true methods of making all men happy in this world, and in the world to come Seasonably discoursed, and earnestly pressed upon this licentious age. By J.F. a sincere lover of his native country, and the souls of men.The reasonableness of personal reformation, and the necessity of conversion; the true methods of making all men happy in this world, and in the world to come Seasonably discoursed, and earnestly pressed upon this licentious age. By J.F. a sincere lover of his native countrey, and the souls of men.
London: printed for Thomas Cockerill, 1691
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Expectation I.
First, Reason and Conscience in your selves and others, will expect it from you, that you of all Men living should be most precisely and punctually Obedient to all those just and goo• Laws you live under, since your Zeal burn• so hot against those that comply not punctually with them. For those that make so much Conscience (as you seem to do) of other Mens Offences against the Laws, must be presumed (if your Profession be sincere) to make at least as much Conscience of breaking any of them in your own Persons; else neither Reason nor Conscience will ever admit this Plea of yours for sound and good.
Now the Laws sometimes appoint Punishments for Non-conformity to the Rites and Ceremonies, affixed to the public National Worship; and so they do always for convicted Swearing, Drunkenness, and Adultery. All these Laws have the very same Sanction by the Authority we live under. They forbid, and punish the one as well as the other. And if there be any difference, it lies in this, that these latter are expressly forbidden and threatened by God, antecedently to the Magistrate's Prohibition of them, which hath no small weight in the matter under consideration.
Now the Laws sometimes appoint Punishments for Non-conformity to the Rites and Ceremonies, affixed to the publick National Worship; and so they do always for convicted Swearing, Drunkenness, and Adultery. All these Laws have the very same Sanction by the Authority we live under. They forbid, and punish the one as well as the other. And if there be any difference, it lies in this, that these latter are expresly forbidden and threatned by God, antecedently to the Magistrate's Prohibition of them, which hath no small weight in the matter under consideration.