Selected quad for the lemma: authority_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
authority_n	ecclesiastical_a	jurisdiction_n	spiritual_a	4,670	5	7.0518	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A67700	A discourse of government as examined by reason, Scripture, and law of the land, or, True weights and measures between soveraignty and liberty written in the year 1678 by Sir Philip Warwick.	Warwick, Philip, Sir, 1609-1683.	1694 (1694)	Wing W991; ESTC R27062	96,486	228

considerable in the Government even the Multitude or Vulgar or lowest sort of men being very considerable in respect of their very number The Clergy are an order of men set apart among all Nations for the divine services of the God of the land Clergy for the Gentile and Barbarians never wanted their Brachmans or their Druides and every where they were men of prime rank for the natural reverence that was due to their calling gave such an authority to their persons that most commonly they were conversant in the most important affairs of the Nation for here we mention them only in relation to the Civil society none being fitter to interpose betwixt Prince and People than those that interceed with God for both And the respect that is paid to them is a reverence paid to God for upon the same ground Princes Ambassadors are treated with those observances they meet with upon the same are God's Ministers In this order of men God becomes in a manner visible unto us for when we find he hath Servants peculiar to himself a Court or Temple and revenues appropriate for maintenance of both we straight conclude of a surety God is in this place or he is the Lord of this people So as there is no greater evidence that piety decays in a Nation than that they are apt to contest or disrespect their Priests or Ministers Now as this is a valuation due to the Minister of God's word so he himself is to pay a respect unto his own calling and to appear worthy of it and fitted for it for duties are reciprocal and he is God's husbandman and therefore must cultivate his People and if he truly discharge his office in fitting them for another world he fits them best for society in this world and for subjection to the Prince and there is no such way for him to procure the dignity that is due to himself as to exercise the proper virtues of his calling Other tyes or compliances with the humors and manners of a People or becoming like them with them in common conversation begets familiarities but not reverence Piety in themselves and endeavors to make their flock pious or of orderly lives discretion in being friendly and helpful or ready to advise and do good offices a private information or admonition at home or a conversation which recommends that unto particular men out of the pulpit which is preached unto them in it this attracts their good will whilst being unconcerned with or conforming their company to the irregular or negligent habit or custom of others removes the inward esteem they should labour for This ought to be very sincerely Pursued I will no be so uncharitable as to say it is artificially so done by some of the Romanists and by some of the Presbyterians though I believe one gains much of his authority by his indulgences and easie absolutions and the other by his assurances that they carry God's brand to mark the elect with only I wish our Country Clergy would be more strict to follow the rules they receive and I have often heard given them by their Bishops in their visitations for when they influence their flock towards God's service they lead them the easier to be subject chearfully to their Prince's laws and commands And if this Order of men will expect as justly they may the Prince's protection for themselves they owe it him as a duty to keep themselves so in esteem and friendship with their congregations as they may dispose them to his service for if they fall into the envy or disesteem of their Parishioners they who should be an ease and coadjutors of their Prince make their protection a burthen to him or they become as an useless body In this quarrelling and examining age the Governors of the Church should endeavour to make matters of faith treated on with plainness and not mingled with too many distinctions that matters of good life be taught as much by the example of the teachers as his expositions or precepts that their Visitations and Courts of Jurisdiction be not only formal or in maintenance of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction or gain or rather for shewing their Orders and paying for it as I have heard no mean men among themselves say than for keeping them in good order especially that their excommunications be upon weighty matters and somewhat that is purely Christian For though contumacy to a Court be a great fault and that this Ecclesiastick Court have no other penal or legal censure yet when the subject matter on which the excommunication is grounded is some civil or mixt concern then this being a spiritual punishment seems so remote that it makes excommunication seem light and draws neglect rather than respect or obedience to the Jurisdiction These good Fathers should be known to be forward to divert a Prince from laying great or unnecessary burthens on their Subjects which if it be perceived by the Subject then this temper in the Clergy will get such a disposition in the Layety as will lead them respectfully to hearken to such doctrines as invite them patiently to bear grievances or pressures since it is an eminent virtue in a Christian Subject to bear with the errors of a remiss Government Thus a Clergy must make themselves as useful as they can in secular affairs both to Prince and People if they would gain upon them in their spiritual concerns and this we may say is an incumbent duty upon them as they are members of a Politick body And in this sense it is that nothing more concerns a Prince in respect of the influence this order of men have on his Subjects than that he provide as God hath done for him that his Clergy depend on no body but himself for if either in the Prince's Ecclesiastical affairs they pretend a Superior authority to his as making themselves depend on a Pope and thereby exempting themselves from the Prince's jurisdiction or that they can wrest themselves into his secular affairs as they have some relation to Spiritual or Ecclesiastical concerns which even Presbytery hath set up a claim unto then this Prince's State and his Subjects obedience will be very precarious and dangerous and his condition not much bettered if Junius Brutus and Buchanan or the Schoolmen and Jesuits be the Interpreters of St. Paul's thirteenth Chapter to the Romans or of St. Peter's 1. Ep. 2. ch v. 13. And the like he may expect from an Enthusiastical Teacher who will be but binding him in chains and his Nobles in links of iron He must not be ignorant therefore that his office supervises theirs and when he hath not encroached upon that spiritual part of their office to which they are properly said to be set apart and consecrated as administring the publick Offices of the Church of praying for and preaching unto and administring the Sacraments then to oversee these Overseers in the good or male-administration of their Offices is his duty and his security And

was Gods Anointed as well as David Another sort of them say 2. None have right unto the creature but the godly though God makes his sun to shine and his rain to fall on the bad as well as the good and they will judge likewise who are those and then what becomes of the property of their fellow subjects whom they account usurpers thereof 3. An impulse of a brain-sick or vindicative spirit must be by a third sort a command from God and who then is secure of life Neither doth there want those who would be as holy in other mens opinions as they are are in their own and therefore their words must be accepted as an oath and so government lamed in a principal sinew and the reverence and awe which mankind hath ever exprest of God's name to extract truth must be laid aside that their sanctity might be justified But such men as these by their superstitions may contradict sense philosophy natural and instituted religion and fall so low in their very demeanors as are our Quakers and Seekers outward carriage that that which is ridiculous and irrational must be accounted religious or the government must be overthrown 4. Nay a soberer sort of men will so venerate their own interpretations and dogma's that if Civil or Ecclesiastical authority restrained the divulging their opinions though contrary to that of their national Church their petty and small truths if truths must be justifications to them to disquiet the peace of the government Upon this whole representation besides condolement which might lead all these sorts of men unto some modesty what have we to say but that all this is contradictory unto that Gospel-spirit most of these men pretend unto for if Christ in his own person and his Apostles in theirs would not resist secular Governors for that great truth on which all other Evangelical truths depend i. e. that God was reconciled unto the world by his Son Jesus Christ but chearfully submit themselves unto authority and undergo the punishent that was laid on them then if Pope Presbyter or Phanatick would now think themselves bound to the same submission it might be well thought it would prove the best cure for the two first 's usurpations and the last's delusion But in order to a remedy if we will hear a wise man's opinion there is no better way to stop the rising of new Sects than to reform I have forgot his words gross and known abuses or troublesome niceties and to compound smaller differences and to proceed mildly rather by gentleness than violence and to convert or win over the principal Authors by some countenance or preferment than to imbitter them by scorns But all this is to be meant towards modest Dissenters and such as revile neither governments for if God lead his people by the hand of Moses and Aaron and have ty'd men to them by religion or religious observances of them and any sort of men in matters that are not immoral may rise up against them and say ye take too much upon you ye sons of Levy or what have we to do with Moses all government is at at end And when the religion established in a land is rent by discords and the holiness of the Professors of that religion is much abated and grown hypocritical and so to honest minds scandalous as it was about Mahomet's time for then the Nestorian and Arian heresies much abounded both in Asia and Africa then says this great Chancellor you may look not only for a new Sect but possibly for a new religion And no disobediences to government are so dangerous as those that are grounded upon religion nor no Sect so likely to prevail as those who complain of the present management of affairs and promise great liberties and exemptions I am far from believing The mind cannot be forced yet it may be restrained there is any power in a Prince or a Church to force a man to believe for no man can force himself but in civil or ceremonial concerns if a Prince or a Priest require that which another thinks not prudent or is of an indifferent nature in it self Subjects are bound to nothing or they are bound in matter of this nature to submission for such compliance can never truly wound conscience A Prince may make a civil law about Husbandry which an experienc'd Husbandman may know will not work its end and yet he is bound to an obedience and the Church may enjoyn an imprudent rite and Christian liberty may censure it so and nevertheless it requires an outward conformity And thus we see how religion conduces to civil quiet by admitting a liberty in judging the injunctions of authority and yet making innocent the obedience thereunto For if God in things relating to his own honor exempted not the subject from the civil authority but submitted him to a passive obedience then it is reasonable to judge he doth it much more in all things which concern only mens sociable and civil concerns And this is enough to prove how strong a pillar religion is unto the house of government It is a great observation of Valerius Maximus's whatever the Augurs declared from the Gods the Senate determined not against Religionique summum imperium cessit omnia namque post religionem nostra civitas duxit etiam in quibus summae majestatis conspici decus voluit And they took care religion should be truly taught amongst them insomuch that they gave to the forreign cities under their government Sons of their Prophets to instruct them says this good Author Decem filii singulis Etruriae populis percipiendae sacrorum disciplinae gratia c. Scipio Africanus is said never to have gone about any business but first he went to the temple Governments or bodies politick are as subject to diseases as bodies natural are for a State may be free from violent convulsive fits and yet may fall into a paralytick or hectick distemper or an atrophy for it is an ill sign in a State when subjects dare not rebel and yet grow sullen for such mutinies make no noise and yet loosen all the joynts and ligaments of policy Besides these hardly to be discerned sicknesses of State there are periods of times and revolution of things which have ripened a State for a death even when it seems in a good condition of health or whilst it hath marrow in its bones or a good condition of plenty and peace for so was the time of our late change begun in 1640 when we saw in few years after that there was but one step betwixt the highest and the lowest condition So as unless Providence keep the City the Watchman waketh but in vain and nothing keeps Subjects out of the way of rebellion nor Princes in the way of justice as doth religion Justice the next pillar of Government Justice religion and justice both spring immediately from God for it was the eternal wisdom that formed the ligament or bond

which we call religion which should tye as by a law every rational creature to perform the justice of his nature which other creatures observe by instinction man by choice So as a law is but a rule what things the creature should follow and what fly Thus the eternal Wisdom wrote natural laws in the very essence or rationality of man and by this rationality this creature was capacitated to receive from him positive laws When man offends against the natural law his conscience checks him and when he offends against the positive some known revelation or unquestioned tradition or written word of God must be his accuser Hence laws usually are divided into Moral which are those which flow from the law of nature or ceremonial which are those which flow from some positive law of God or judicial which should imitate the justice of Natural laws and were given to some men as unto the Jews by God himself or from the law of Nature and the rationality of man unto all others and are framed by men in order to the exercise of justice among themselves and are made as conformable as may be unto the law natural and eternal and have for their end the common good of that society which is under the authority of the Head or Soveraign of that society So as every such law ought to be honest and possible to be kept every such law containing in it two powers viz. directive in what it prescribes and coactive in punishing offenders against it Justice natural and civil Now justice is but a performance of some act which some law requires And as we said on the former head religion was either natural or instituted so we must say on this it is either natural or civil Indeed natural justice is an essential part of natural religion and so is inbred in man Why natural justice so far exceeds civil and that is the reason natural justice so far exceeds civil or what human laws prescribes For human laws cannot extend their sanction or rewards and punishments unto desires and concupiscences out of which all civil injustices arise and some offences or injustices seem unto Legislators so trivial that there is no law or sanction against them Yet natural justice prohibits even such offences which made the great Naturalist and Statesman Cicero say It was a narrow or a mean thing to be just only as far as civil law required quam angusta est innocentia ad legem bonum esse or quanto latius officiorum patet quam juris regula for humanity and liberality c. are left out of the publick Tables of the Romans Indeed both Tables of the Decalogue are but parts of natural justice so as a man may be a good Citizen Vir bonus est is qui consulta Patrum c. when he is not a good man or when he narrows that justice which he owes to men unto civil sanctions Justice is concerned in making executing obeying laws 1st In making them Justice in making for the Legislator must sincerely be convinced the law is beneficial for the Government and for the Governed for if it serve only personal ends as that the Prince and Governors by it singly reap the advantage and that it conduce not to common good it wants the best character of a law The like it doth if an unruly multitude force a law from him in prejudice of the good constitution and strength of the Government or Royalty Secondly if laws be made unto good ends Executing and not executed they become a snare for usually the breach of a civil law carries with it some profit and advantage and so one man to his loss observes that law which another through his disobedience gains by And non-execution of laws leads men to the neglect of the Government for they think it a foolish thing to be tied by that cord Obeying Laws which others so easily break Thirdly therefore when laws are made subjects must make a conscience to obey them for it is a debt they owe unto their Prince and unto the whole society and to every particular man of it So as a Legislator must make a law no snare a Magistrate must impartially execute it and a Subject conscientiously obey it The law of nature is the rule of all human and civil laws Tully could say Nos legem bonam a malà nullà aliâ ratione nisi Natura norma dividere possumus And Baldus Imbecillitas est humani intellectus in quacunque causa legem quaerere ubi rationem naturalem invenires A law therefore must be suitable to religion agreeable to the natural not humorous disposition of the people and must tend unto publick good And thus civil and judicial laws made by men are manifest proofs of moral laws written by God in man for they ever confirm those laws and conform themselves thereunto and are adapted to civil cases only Laws therefore are made both in defence of the Government and Governors Laws in defence of the Government and Subject as well as of the Governed in their several concerns of life liberty property and good name fame or reputation and the breach of these laws falls under several penalties higher or lower Penalties as the offence is for it is treason and misprision of treason to offend against the Government or Prince and it is excommunication to offend against Ecclesiastical authority and it is murther and felony or a capital punishment to take away a mans life or rob him of his goods and he falls under a pecuniary or corporal punishment that robs a man of his liberty or good name Thus justice whether it be political or private is the defence of the Head and Body in society How laws oblige the Prince and how the Subject and obliges the Prince by the directive part of the law tho' not the coactive for therein he is subject only unto God to be just unto and tender of the subject and by the directive and coactive part of it obligeth the Subject uniformly and impartially to honor aid and obey him in his government Nay a man by it is defended from himself as well as from others for men by excesses and penury are often unjust unto themselves and unto their relations And this restrains a man from using even his own to his own private detriment as well as unto the publicks for the publick has a right both in his person and private possessions and all this ne Respublica capiat aliquid detrimenti This virtue guides men in peace and regulates them in war and frames all sound council It is that in the Politick Body which consent of parts makes in the Natural for it gives amongst the members thereof a fellow-feeling of each others state It makes the foot content to support the body and the body the head and the head to influence by its animal spirits all the members It admonishes the stomach not wilfully to