Selected quad for the lemma: earth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
earth_n	great_a	heaven_n	saint_n	5,831	5	5.8038	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A56751	The unlawfulness of stretching forth the hand to resist or murder princes with the principal cases about resistance, considered, in two sermons : the first preacht upon the last thirtieth of January, the other, upon the day of thanksgiving, for the deliverance of the King and kingdom from the late treasonable conspiracy / by William Payne ...	Payne, William, 1650-1696.	1683 (1683)	Wing P912; ESTC R22908	23,488	47

necessary for the good of the World and for his Wise Designs so far they shall go and no farther but like Earthquakes and Tempests and Inundations we have no security against them but from the Providence of God These are the chief Cases and Objections against the Duty of Non-Resistance or not Stretching out the hand against the Lord 's Anointed and by these however Magical Delusions the Evil Spirit of Rebellion has been conjured up and still haunteth this Nation and fills it with Plots and Treason with Noise and Mischief and Disturbance and I know no such way to lay it from ever rising again as a full and clear Resolution to those fore-mentioned Cases which I have endeavoured to give As to the other way of Stretching out the Hand to take away the Life of the Lord 's Anointed that is so Horrid and Villanous that one would think it should have none to defend it though it have had some to commit it but there is no cause of interest so bad but it has had its Advocate and when ever there has been a Clement or a Ravilliac there has been a Confessor to incourage if not a Pope and an Infallible Orator to commend him the Opinions of the Jesuits are well known to be positive in the case and others have fashion'd their Weapons at the Forge of those Philistines which are to take away the Lives of Princes and though they are not come to Consecrate Daggers for the purpose and that because they are against the Ceremony rather then the Villany yet Pistols and Blunderbusses are thought to be Blessed Instruments for doing the great Work though they expect not to be Sainted for it and adored in Heaven yet they expect what they will hardly allow the Saints themselves to have their Images erected upon Earth and Statues set up to their honour and to the memory of such Noble Atchievements Like Herostratus they design to make their Names Famous by doing some extraordinary Villany and by daring to be wicked beyond the rest of Mankind The committing such a Wickedness as others are astonisht to think of is to be an Hero in Villany and they want nothing to out do what has been ever done or ever thought of but with the old Gyants to pluck God out of his Throne and so to put down all Rule and all Authority and Power both in Heaven and Earth I cannot think that Men can seriously argue themselves into such Villanies as these but it must be the very same thing that makes the Devil a Rebel to God which makes these Men Regicides and Traytours to their Sovereign a Proud an Envious a Discontented and Diabolical Spirit that infinite Power cannot awe nor infinite Goodness oblige but the Devil and a Scotch Conventicler are such Sophisters as can set off the most Horrid Villany and represent this as an Heroick Bravery and a sort of Gallantry that the Grecians and the Romans thought fit to be rewarded with Crowns and Statues and publick Insigns of Honour the killing of Tyrants was thought a Vertue like that of Hercules who destroy'd abundance of those Monsters nihil usitatius quam eorum interfectores in Caelo collocari says Tully ad Attic. l. 14. Ep. 16. Harmodius and Aristogiton and others were commended to the Skyes for these very Performances and not only the Greeks and the Romans did thus commend and honour them but even in Scripture Jael and Judith and Ehud Barack and Deborah and those Jewish Deliverers of their Country stand all upon the Records of Fame and the Divine Approbation for Murdering Kings and Tyrants that were the Enemies of God and his peculiar People and when the Cause of God and His People the Cause of Religion and Conscience is the great thing that is to be carried on who that has a Zeal for those would not do any thing that is necessary for so glorious an end Lucifer himself could hardly have instilled worse Principles into the Angels when he persuaded them to turn Devils and to forsake their first Station I shall give a particular Answer to the three Parts that it consists of 1. As to the Grecians and the Romans when they affixt such worthy Names and Honours to the killers of Tyrants they did not mean by Tyrants their lawful Princes but Vsurpers that by force and violence assumed an unjust Power to themselves contrary to the regular form of Government that was established among them such as had no just Title to rule by the Laws of their Country but invaded the Rights of their proper Governours and over-turned the whole Frame of the Common-wealth and against such as these they were empowered by the establisht Laws of their Country by the Lex Solonis among the Greeks and the Lex Valeria among the Romans and if any were guilty of doing this to their lawful Governours it must be reckoned as part of that Ferity and barbarous Ignorance which was in those Nations before Christianity taught them better when to kill themselves was accounted as Heroic a Vertue as to Murder a Tyrant but the Soberest amongst them taught otherwise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says Aristotle in his Politicks the very Doctrine of Non-Resistance and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says Plutarch Agis Cleom. The very words almost of David It is not lawful to stretch forth the hand against a Prince and we have Examples even amongst both the Greeks and Romans of the same Punishment against those who were concerned in the Murder of their Princes that David inflicted upon the Amalekite for the Death of Saul 2 Sam. 1.16 Alexander put him to Death who kill'd Darius that was his Sovereign though he had been a great while Alexander's Enemy and so did Domitian Nero's Freeman who was but accessory to his Masters Murdering of himself 2. As to the comparing this Villany with the actions of Jael and Judith and Ehud and others who destroyed those their Enemies with whom they were in a State of War or had particular Commissions from God to authorize them in the doing such extraordinary Atchievements they might as well and with as good reason argue that because David kill'd Goliah and destroy'd the Philistines that therefore he might have taken away the Life of Saul nay that he might have made no more to kill him then the Lyon and the Bear for God's Anointed are accounted by these Men but as a sort of Wolves and Tygers and Beasts of prey that ought to be destroyed and they may as well make use of the Example of Abraham to Sacrifice and Murder their Children when they please as of Jehu and others in Scripture to destroy the House and Family of their Sovereign 3. As to the last thing that they may do anything for the carrying on a good Cause and Design as they will be sure to call what they are promoting that if it be the Work of the Lord and the maintaining the true Religion and the Protestant interest the keeping out

be of no Religion at all Treason in Papists is like Original Sin to Mankind they all have it in their Natures though many of them may deny it or not know it and tho' it break not out in all to the same outward Extravagancies but in Protestants it is like the Italian Distemper it was first brought from another Country and is no way natural to our own tho' the Infection has been taken by too many who had an ill Temper prepared for it and others if they take not Care are liable to catch it by the Lewdness of Ambition Revenge or Discontent There is no Church in the World that I know of but the Romish which teaches Treason I wish I could say there were no Men but they who did so but if there be too many it cannot however with Justice be charg'd upon any Protestant Church who all disown it any more than Atheism or Polygamy can be charged to the Church of Rome because some of their Members have defended and beenguilty of those Crimes but where ever it is in Pope or Presbyter in Conclave or Classis in Jesuite or Fanatick 't is to be abhorred detested abominated by every good Christian and he that can think upon it without doing so and not let his Heart and his Tongue rise up against it may in time I doubt be brought to commit it Stretching out the hand to resist the Prince is most plainly unlawful as I showed you formerly from the Examples and the Principles of the Christian Religion from the Constitution of our own Government and from the consideration of the publick Good and Peace of the World and that to Murder or take away his Life is the most horrid guilt that can be I then understood that Phrase of Stretching out the hand in both those Senses and so it takes in both the Parts of this present Conspiracy and indeed though Monsters do not use to be alike yet this does so much resemble that other Treason in its main parts and in its manner of production that I could think of nothing fitter to shew the Villany of this and to antidote mens minds against the like for the future then by reviving the same thoughts in your minds and by proceeding further on the same Subject and especially in that Method which shall meet with those Objections which are brought against that Duty of Nonresistance those are chiefly some outlying Cases as they account them which come not into this general Duty but are Exemptions from it and these are they by which Men are generally drawn into Treason which is a Sin too ugly in its looks to tempt Men if it wore not a Vizard 'T is these Cases which by a Rebellious Witchcraft are cast like Mists before Mens eyes and so they are jugled and seduced into the saddest Treasons and Conspiracies though a great many of them are like the Proposals of Mathematicians to move the Earth if you grant them such and such Postulala and allow things to be so ordered as they would suppose which can never be really done and the Earth is in no danger to be moved for all their Demonstrations yet these Men do really move the Kingdom and turn it out of its place by fancied and Romantick Cases which it is impossible perhaps should ever come into practice But I intend to consider such Cases as are thought more probable and plausible and which are the common Stumbling-blocks that lie in the way of this Duty and cause a great many as they did our present Conspirators to fall into that Treasonable Gulph which wholly swallows them up if they come too near the brink of it They are these four The Case of Religion The Case of Legal Rights The Case of Natural Defence and the otherwise Remediless Case of Mankind by the Encroachment of Princes 1. The Case of Religion which is the greatest and most important Concern to Mankind wherein their Souls and their Eternal Fortunes lie all at stake and both they and their Posterity may loose what is more valuable then their Lives or Estates if they stand not up sometimes and fight for their God and their Altars which were Considerations that always inspired Men with the greatest Courage and Resolution If a Prince shall set up a false and Idolatrous Religion and attempt to destroy the true Worship of God here they think both a Zeal for him and Religion and a Care of their own and their Posterities Salvation calls loudly upon them to resist him to the utmost and with the noble Maccabees to shed the last drop of their Blood for their Religion and their Temple If the Protestant Religion be like to be overthrown and Popery to be brought in this is such an allarum to those who love the one and hate the other as will not fail to bring in vast numbers forcibly to Resist that Prince who shall ever attempt it and think it their duty so to do To which I shall give this general Answer That we may show our Zeal and our Love to our Religion a better way then by thus Resisting and Fighting for it for that is to do what our Religion expresly forbids which can no way consist with that love we should have for it They who are such Gallants for their Religion as immediately to draw and fight for it do commonly abuse and prostitute it to some ill and Carnal ends and are seldom such chaste and constant and pure Lovers of it as they pretend Our Saviour and his Apostles had without doubt as much love for Christianity and were as zealous to preserve and maintain it as we can be but yet never thought fit to show it this way by Resisting the Authority that then was though it did all it could to destroy it There is another and a much better way to demonstrate the highest Affection for our Religion and that is by suffering for it and enduring all manner of Evils rather then forsaking it and this is a likelier Method to preserve and propagate it and to transmit it down to Posterity both with safety and credit By this very way Christianity has come down to us in a Channel of blood indeed but that drawn from its own Friends and Professors who laid down their Lives for it but not the least drop from its Enemies The Maccabees were zealous indeed for their Law and fought for it but not against their own Lawful Prince but an Enemy that invaded them for such was Antiochus who used all manner of provoking Impiety and barbarous Cruelty against the Jews who were not his rightful Subjects and might therefore rescue themselves from his Oppression and unjust Usurpation At other times when any of the Jewish Kings set up Idolatry and Worshipt Baal or other False Gods none of the Prophets who were the mo●st zealous Lovers of their Law and rebuked the Princes for those Faults to their very Faces did yet ever call upon the Elders or encourage the People