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of his time, and one of the most laborious theological students; as indeed his works show him to have been. The work which it particularly concerns us to notice at present is entitled, The whole Treatise of Cases of Conscience, distinguished into three books, taught and delivered by Mr. W. Perkins, in his Holyday Lectures. In this work we already see the different spirit of the Casuistry of the Reformed and the Romish Church. The editor of Perkins's work (for it was a posthumous one) says, "We have just cause to challenge the Popish Church, who in their case-writings have erred, both in the substance and circumstances of their doctrine:

“First, because the duty of relieving the conscience is by them commended to the sacrificing priest...

"Secondly, they teach that their priests, appointed to be comforters and relievers of the distressed, are made by Christ himself judges of the conscience, having in their hands a judiciary power and authority truly and properly to bind or loose, to remit or to retain sin, to open or to shut the kingdom of heaven...

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Thirdly, that a man may build himself on the faith of his teachers, and for his salvation rest contented with an implicit and unexpressed faith"... To which other objections are added.

Instead of this transferred responsibility, this submission of the conscience to an earthly tribunal, this reliance on a human foundation, the Reformation taught individual responsibility to a heavenly Master, and removed all other foundation than his word and will. The conscience was subject to no subordinate authority: it might be instructed by man, or enlightened by God; but it had a supremacy of its own for each man. It was, as Perkins declared, (p. 11) “in regard of authority and power, placed in the middle between man and God, so as it is under God, and yet above man.”

In consequence of this change in the authority and force previously ascribed to the decisions of moral writers con

cerning Cases of Conscience, which was thus brought about by means of the Reformation, the mode of treating the subject was also changed. Since the assertions of the teacher had no inherent authority, he was obliged to give his proofs as well as his results. Since the conclusions in each case derived their weight from the principle which they involved, it became necessary to state the principle and to show its application. Since the examples were thus of value, not in themselves, but as they illustrated the moral or religious truths which dictated the decisions, it was no longer useful to accumulate so vast a mass of instances, or to attempt to exhaust all possible cases. The teacher's business now became, not to prescribe the outward conduct, but to direct the inward thought; not to decide cases, but to instruct the conscience. In the title of his work, (Cases of Conscience) the attention had hitherto been bestowed mainly on the former word; it was now transferred to the latter. The determination of Cases was replaced by the discipline of the Conscience. Casuistry was no longer needed,

except so far as it became identical with Morality.

Accordingly, we find that the collections of cases of conscience by writers of our Church are, in fact, treatises of Moral Philosophy. This is the case even with the earliest of them, that of Perkins, which I have mentioned; as is noticed by foreign writers upon this subject, among whom his reputation has generally been greater than it has been in his own country. Thus Staüdlin says of him, "He wrote a treatise on Casuistick, yet did not prescribe any definite limits to his subject; but solved questions which cannot be called questions of conscience, and produced well nigh a Christian Ethick."

*

We may perhaps discern one reason why Perkins produced no great direct effect upon the studies of English *Gesch. der Christ. Moral. p. 423.

divines, if we turn our attention to his pupil, also an eminent writer on this subject, William Ames. Ames was, like his master, of Christ's College in this university. "I gladly call to mind the time," thus he begins his address to his reader, "when being young, I heard worthy Master Perkins so preach in a great assembly of students that he instructed them soundly in the truth, stirred them up effectually to seek after godliness, made them fit for the kingdom of God, and by his own example showed them what things they should chiefly intend, that they might promote true religion in the power of it, unto God's glory and others' salvation." Ames goes on to say of Perkins, that "he left many behind him affected by that study, (the study of Cases of Conscience) who by their godly sermons (through God's assistance) made it to run, increase, and be glorified throughout England." But probably many of these, like Ames himself, belonged to the party of the Puritans, and had their influence in England crippled by their unhappy dissensions with the Established Church. In the pulpit of St Mary's, Ames expressed a vehement disapprobation of the festivities by which the season of Christmas was then celebrated at some of the colleges in this University; relicts, as he declared them to be, of paganism. And cards, which at that festival are tolerated by some of our ancient statutes, he pronounced to be an invention of the devil. With so severe and hostile a view of practices which seemed to the majority of his countrymen at that time innocent recreations, he might naturally be not unwilling to migrate to a country where the reigning opinions were more in accordance with his own. He accepted an invitation sent by the States of East Friesland to become Professor of Divinity in their university of Franeker; and from that place he became known to the literary world, under the name of Amesius, by his treatise De Conscientia, ejus jure et Casibus, published in 1630.

Although Ames's book is an important one in the history of the science, I shall not dwell upon it; but proceed to subjects more closely connected with English literature.

Another eminent English writer, who shortly after this time wrote upon Cases of Conscience, was Joseph Hall, Bishop of Norwich in the time of Charles the First. He was educated at Emmanuel College, of which he also became a fellow. His book, entitled, Resolutions and Decisions of divers Practical Cases of Conscience in continual use among men, was published in 1649, while he resided at Higham, near Norwich; his bishopric having been sequestrated by the Parliamentary Commissioners. This work is, mainly, the resolution of forty separate Questions, many of them relating to the common conduct of life, and affecting individual consciences; as, "Whether the seller is bound to make known to the buyer the faults of that which he is about to sell,"-" Whether, and how far, a man may take up arms in the public quarrel of a war." But others of these questions are really discussions, not so much concerning the application of moral rules, as concerning the validity both of moral rules and of civil laws -as, "Whether tithes be a lawful maintenance for ministers under the Gospel," "Whether marriages once made may be annulled." Thus, though this book on Cases of Conscience is not, like others which our Church has produced, a treatise of Morals in general, it still is, for the most part, a series of moral disquisitions, in which questions are decided, not by authority or arbitrary selection, but by reason and Scripture; and in which the individual is supposed to make himself acquainted with the foundations as well as the result of the reasoning.

Bishop Sanderson's Cases of Conscience are in a great measure of the same nature as Bishop Hall's; except that they bear still more strongly upon their face the impress of the times in which the work was written; reminding us

of the peculiar conjunctures and relations to which the civil and religious dissensions of the time gave rise. Among the cases which he discusses are, the case of marrying with a recusant; the case of a military life; of a bond taken in the king's name; of the engagement by which fidelity to the Commonwealth was promised; of the Sabbath; and of the Liturgy. These were questions in which the minds of a large proportion of Englishmen were intensely and practically interested. Even these, however, are in some respects general questions of morality, rather than special cases of conscience. But besides these, Sanderson wrote upon morals in a more general form. His treatises De Obligatione Conscientiæ, and De Juramenti Obligatione, were of great repute in their time, and exhibit well the foundations of the morality of conscience. In the outset, he examines the opinions of those who hold that Conscience is an Act, a Power, and a Habit; and decides that it cannot be considered any of these with so much propriety as a Faculty, partly innate and partly acquired. Sanderson was intimately acquainted with the casuists and other moral writers who had preceded him; and we find in his writings something of the subtlety and technicality of the scholastic writers; but this is very far from preventing their exhibiting great moral acuteness and much sound reasoning *.

The tendency of the Casuistry of the Reformed Churches to become systematic Morality, was apparent in other countries, as well as in our own; and the questions thus brought into discussion being treated with a predominant reference to scriptural authority and religious doctrines, the subject was naturally termed Moral Theology. Treatises with this title became very common in Germany towards the end of the seventeenth century; but, for reasons already mentioned,

* I have recently published an edition of Sanderson's work De Obligatione Conscientice, with Notes in which I have endeavoured to point out his characteristic merits.

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