Selected quad for the lemma: authority_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
authority_n	king_n	pope_n	rome_n	6,182	5	6.7588	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A37274	Sermons preached upon severall occasions by Lancelot Dawes ...; Sermons. Selections	Dawes, Lancelot, 1580-1653.	1653 (1653)	Wing D450; ESTC R16688	281,488	345

in Purgatorie The Beasts of the Land that is the men of this world The fowles of the heaven that is the souls of the blessed which the Pope hath canonized Here are two swords that is the Pope hath the managing of both swords Civil and Ecclesiastical an Exposition not altogether so harsh as that which Baronius brought of late to prove that the Pope had authority not only to feed Christs Sheep but also to punish with death such as resist his Papal dignitie because he which said Peter feed my sheep said also Arise Peter and kill if he had pressed the Text a little further he might by the same Argument have proved his Holy Father to be an Antropophagus or Caniball because it is not simply said Arise Peter and kill but Arise Peter kill and eat unless he had Bellarmines wit who proveth the Popes Supremacy not from the first word kill but from the second word eat But the main fault in Religion which hastened Gods judgements upon Jerusalem was her idolatry She changed her God She forsook the fountain of living waters and digged unto her self even broken pits which would hold no water she played the harlot upon every high mountain and under every green tree She said unto a tree thou art my father and to a stone thou hast begotten me Whether Rome go not beyond her in this particular he that hath but half an eye may plainly see Cur natos toties crudelis tu quoque falsis Ludis imaginibus We do not read of many Idols that were famous amongst the Jews there was Ashtoreth the God of the Sidonians and Milcom the abhomination of the Moabites and Chemosh the abhomination of the children of Ammon and Baal and a few more but the Idols which Papists have invented are so many that Rome can scarce finde room for placing them She is more like to the old Gentiles who did acknowledge one chief Jupiter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And Jupiter Omnipotens qui res hominumque Deûmque Aeternis regis imperiis But he had three hundred under him which they worshipped as gods though the Papists acknowledge one supreme power yet are there three hundred to whom they perform that worship which is due onely unto God and as they had twelve which they counted greater gods which Ennius containeth in these old verses Juno vesta Minerva Ceres Diana Venus Mars Mercurius Jovis Neptunus Vulcanus Apollo Whom they hold to be of Gods Privy Councel but many lesser gods and goddesses for particular purposes as for their waters Lympha for her Gardens Pomona for their grounds Terminus c So the Papists have the twelve Apostles which with the Platonists they use as Mediatours betweene them and the high God unto which they have added the Virgine Marie thinking especially by her intercession to have their desires as the Trojans in the Poet used the mediation of Venus to obtain favour of Jupiter Now for particular matters there is scarce any thing but they have a God or Goddesse for it When they are in feare of the plague they pray to Sebastian against the falling sicknesse to Valentine against sudden death to Christopher against the Ring-worm to Anthony Now then as Pythagoras from the print of Hercules his foote in the games of Olympus did collect the bignesse of his whole body So from these few things which have been spoken you may gather how far Rome hath declined from her former purity and how well she may paralel with Jerusalem in my Text. I might take occasion to speak of that preheminence which the Pope challengeth over all Christian Kings Gods immediate Deputies on earth by reason of a supposed Authority given unto Peter whose successor he pretendeth himselfe to be the very same argument in substance by which the Turk claimeth the Westerne Empire because he succeedeth Constantine or hee that married Tullies wife laid claim to his learning because hee had married his executor all Pinces must hold their Scepters from him all Nations must couch downe before him and all kingdomes must doe him service Here Jerusalem dare not stand out in comparison with Rome her high Priests were never come to that height of impudencie as to set up their heads above the Lords anointed When Tyberius observed the base servitude which the Romanes used towards him hee could not chuse but crie out O homines natos ad servitutem he that considereth how vilely and servilely she which sometime was the Emperesse of the World doth obey him which is stiled a servant of servants he may well use Tyberius his words or those of the Poet. Roma tibi quondam suberant domini dominorum Servorum servi nunc tibi sunt domini but this onely by the way From her religion let us come to her conversation and manner of living Ierusalem was as corrupt in life as she was in religion She did steale murther and commit adulterie and sweare falsly Her Inhabitants from the least to the the greatest were given to covetousnesse and from the Prophet unto the Priest they all dealt falsly In the wings was found the blood of souls of the poor innocents How farre Rome goeth beyond Ierusalem even in this also wee may have a little taste in our holy English Catholicks the remainder of the Romish Church and the onely true Professors if yee will believe them of the ancient faith in this Kingdome but trie them by the works of regeneration the principall bodie of true Christianitie and you shall finde that in prophanation of Gods Sabbath in swearing and blaspheming in lying and cozening in drunkennesse and whoredome in oppression and all unconscionable dealings they are for the most part the very scumme and excrements of this land And why should they make conscience of these sinnes seeing their holy Mother is as it were a faire royall Exchange where any sinne may be bought at a reasonable rate Nothing more common then what do you lack or what will you buy c. A pardon for your sinnes past or for any sinne you shall hereafter commit a toleration for common Stewes for but I dare not name it dispensation for incestuous marriages or any thing else you shall have it if you can agree for the price shall I say all in a word She is a hell of impieties a habitation of Devils and the hold of foul spirits and a cage of every uncleane and hatefull bird And therefore I lesse marvell why Friar Mantuan should be so bitter against her corruptions in his time Sanctus ager scurris venerabilis ara cinaedis Servit honorandae divum Ganimedibus aedes And he saith further Nullae hic arcana revelo It was no shriving secrets the Fryar did disclose but such things as all the world could witnesse to be true Bernard is more sharpe against the abuses of his time though the rotten hmours were but then in

a dead letter It is like a sword in the warres without a souldier to draw it Many make no more account of transgressing it then Remus did of going over the furrow which Romulus had caused to be drawn Or the frogs in the fable of skipping over the Lion when he was fast a sleep Therefore God hath added the Magistate as the life and soule of the law as a Captain to manage this sword Him he hath made if I may so speak the summum genus of the common-wealth by two generical differences of poena and praemium to coarct and keep his inferiours in their several ranks that as Jehu and Jehonadab went hand in hand together for the rooting out of Ahabs posterity and destruction of Baals Priests so the Magistrate being as Aristotle cals him a living law and the law being a mute and dead Magistrate should joyn hand in hand and proceed valorously to the rooting out of sinne the suppression of Idolatry the protection of justice and maintenance of true religion 4. Now that they have this authority only from God it is a point which I hope in this place I shall not need long to insist upon For if every good and perfect gift be from above even from the father of lights much more this excellent and supereminent gift of governing Gods people must proceed from this fountain And to think otherwise is but with the Epicures to be of opinion that though God made the world yet the government thereof he leaveth to fortunes discretion to be directed by her One of the stiles wherewith God is invested is this that he is the authour of order and not of confusion if of order then of Civil government seeing that an Anarchie is the cause of all disorder and confusion in the state Insomuch that the reason of all the sinnes that were committed in Israel is often in the book of Judges ascribed unto this that they wanted a Magistrate There was at that time no king in Israel Judg. 17. 6. 18. 1. 19. 1. 21. 25. It is a miserable life to live under a tyrant where nothing is lawfull but farre worse to live in an Anarchie where nothing is unlawfull But I shall not need to trouble my self or to tire out your attention by heaping up multitudes of reasons for proving of this point seeing it is a conclusion so plainly averred by the holy Ghost by me kings reign sath the wisdome of God by the mouth of Solomon and Princes decree justice by me Princes rule and the nobles and all judges of the earth As if he had said it is not by the wit and policie of man that the governments of states is committed unto kings and other inferiour Magistrates it is effected by the wisdome and providence of God With which the Apostle agreeth when he tels us that there is no power but of God and the powers that be are ordained of God It was sometime said of Nebuchadnezzar that great king of Babylon that whom hee would he pulled down and whom he would he set up But it is alwayes true of the king of heaven who is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the King of Kings and Lord of Lords he pulleth down one and setteth up an other he disposeth of their rooms at his pleasure For if the hearts of kings much more their kingdomes are at his disposition This is a truth to which the very heathen themselves have subscribed It was God alone that did exalt Solomon unto the throne of his father David so the Queen of the South affirmed that did exalt Cyrus to the kingdomes of the earth so he himself confessed Agreeing with that of the prophet David Promotion comes not from the East nor from the West no nor yet from the South And why God is the judge he putteth down one and setteth up another 5. And is this true Here then first the Anabaptists come to be censured which withdraw their necks from the yoke of civil government and condemn it as not beseeming the liberty of a Christian man A lesson which they never learned from the prophet Esay who foretold that in the time of the gospel an assertion which they cannot away with for though they graunt that the Jewes at Gods appointment had their Magistrates yet they think it not fit for a Christian to be subject to such slavery in the time I say of the Gospel he will appoint kings to be patrons and propugnators of his Church Kings shall be thy nursing fathers and Queens shall be thy nurses Nor from our Saviour Christ who though he told his disciples when they strove for superiority amongst themselves that one of them should not domineer over another as did the kings of the nations yet it was never his meaning to withdraw them from obedience to superiour governours but that Caesar should have that which did belong to Caesar Nor from Peter who commands us to honour the King Nor from Paul who commands us to pray for Kings and all that are in authority and that to this end that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godlinesse and honesty God knowes better what is meet for Christians then the Anabaptists do Hee knowes that wee are strangers on earth and not angels in heaven And being strangers and pilgrims stand in as great need of these helps as of fire of water of aire of apparel of any thing which is necessary for the sustentation of our lives seeing that they are not onely the means that we are partakers of all these while they effect that we may live together in civil society but also the promoters of true religion the advancers of vertue the rewarders of piety the punishers of sin the destroyers of Idolatry superstition and all misdemeanours amongst Christians So that as God said unto Samuel concerning the Jewes when they disl●ked their present government they have not cast thee away but they have cast me away that I should not reign over them so I may say of these fanatical spirits it is not the Magistrate but God himself whom they have rejected that he should not reign over them 6. There is an other sort of men who though not directly with the Anabaptists yet indirectly and by a consequent crosse my proposition I mean the Papists These do not altogether take away the civil Magistrate but they tie his thums and abridge his authority It must be only in temporalibus for spiritual matters he must have no more d●alings with them then Vzza had to touch the arke of God This they willingly grant that the Magistartes are Gods but as the Aramits said of the Israelites that their Gods were Gods of the mountains and not Gods of the vallies so say they the civil Magistrates are Gods of the montains and not Gods of the vallies they are Gods of the Laity but not of the Clergy This