A69235:110
A treatise against lying Wherein is showed what it is, the nature and causes…A treatise against lying Wherein is shevved vvhat it is, the nature and causes…
A treatise against lying Wherein is showed what it is, the nature and causes of this sin, the divers kinds of it; and that all of them are sinful, and unlawful, with the motives and means to preserve us from it, or to cure us of it. By John Downame, B. of D. and preacher of Gods Word.A treatise against lying Wherein is shevved vvhat it is, the nature and causes of this sinne, the divers kindes of it; and that all of them are sinfull, and unlawfull, with the motives and meanes to preserve us from it, or to cure us of it. By John Dovvname, B. of D. and preacher of Gods Word.
London: printed by Felix Kyngston for Nicolas Bourne, 1636
Title page typeset from the transcription.
A TREATISE AGAINST THE SIN OF LYING. › Chapter 9A TREATISE AGAINST THE SINNE OF LYING. › Chapter 9
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.
But though it be unlawful by lying to prevent 1sin in others; yet perhaps it may be lawful, yea commendable to use it, when we may thereby prevent greater sins not only in others, but also in our selves. As suppose that a virtuous Matron or chaste Virgin should be assaulted by an adulterer with violence to defile or deflower them, and they might escape the rape, by putting him off with a lye, is it not lawful to do it in such a case to prevent so great a mischief? I answer, that ⟨p. 85⟩though a stony heart could not choose but relent and be much affected to hear of such a villainy, and though the tentation be so strong that it is scarcely to be expected, humane strength should be able to resist it, yet in clearing of the truth we must not consider what we would, but what we should do being so assaulted and brought into such straits. Indeed if it were a sin to be mere patients in the sin of others, the question were easily answered; but it is not so, for the greatest sin in others is not the least sin in us, if we only be the subjects of their sin, through unresistable violence, and do not give the least consent unto it. For here it is all one as in the case of persecution, oppression, murder or robbery, all which though they be heinous sins in the agents, yet none at all in the patients, when they have no will to consent or allow the commission of such sins, nor power to prevent or shun them. Yea in such cases that is lawfully suffered, which cannot but unlawfully be avoided; and no act is to be judged sinful if the will be wholly averse unto it. For it is the very form that giveth unto sin its life and being, to be in some kind or degree voluntary, and though the will give not its consent in all sins, yet it hath some kind of operation in or about it, as in sins of ignorance, though we do not consent unto sin as knowing it to be so, yet we consent to that action which is sinful, the will being misled through the error of our judgement. And so in concupiscence which goeth before consent, there is that which we call inescation, or the baiting of the hook of sin with some pleasure, profit or ⟨p. 86⟩other allurement, which is Satan's tentation, and not imputed unto us as sin if we wholly resist it;
But though it be unlawfull by lying to prevent