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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
hand_n	call_v	left_a	right_a	6,194	5	6.0677	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61099	Certain considerations upon the duties both of prince and people written by a gentleman of quality ...	Spelman, John, Sir, 1594-1643.	1642 (1642)	Wing S4937; ESTC R28174	19,781	30

be the judges what commaunds are lawfull and what not what things good and what evill so they make obedience arbitrary and government by pretending conscience at the discretion of the Subject yea though the things whereat they take check be of their own nature indifferent or doubtfull and therefore not matters of faith yet will not they submit themselves nor their opinions unto any no not to the judgement of the Church they live in no not to the judgement of the Church Catholique nor to the authority of it even in the purest times thereof But they from the authority of their own opinions or from the authority of such Teachers as they themselves have chosen to themselves to be their guides they will both censure condemne disobey and revile the Ordinances of their Church and the Governours thereof so secure in opposing imaginary or at least unproved superstitiō as they will not see how incompatible self-will presumption disobedience arrogance and railing are with true Religion nor that the false Teachers and their Disciples which our Saviour and his Apostles foretold should be in the last and perilous times and which St Peter calleth cursed children are not only described by this that they have a forme of Godlinesse but deny the power thereof That they are in sheeps clothing but are inwardly Wolves That the fruit they beare is not answerable to the tree they seem to be That their way of working is after the way of private insinuation creeping into houses and leading silly Women captive Having itching eares and after their own liking heaping to themselves teachers That they be they that separate themselves and the like But they are especially described to be Traiterous Heady high-minded to be such as despise government as are presumptuous self willed and not afraid to speak evill of dignities And again that they despise dominion and speak evill of Dignities And that they Perish in the gainsaying of Corah now we know that the sinne of Corah was that he being a Levite and countenanced by an hundred and fifty Princes of the assembly famous in the Congregation and at least fourteen thousand seven hundred of the people upon his own private opinion to which also his followers adhered that both he and all the Congregation were holy and might offer incense before the Lord as well as Aaron Charged Moses and Aaron that they tooke too much upon them and that they exalted themselves above the Congregation of the Lord and therefore they holding themselves in a parity of authority with them would not appeare on their Summons nor be obedient unto them Yet as if these passages of Scripture nothing concerned our times we are nothing shie of those things whereof they doe admonish us There be some that justifie that private men may resist authority when it would doe that which is hurtfull to the Church of God yea that it is then their duty to resist it that such resistance is no disobedience no rebellion no sinne at all These swallow that which may not be granted viz that they are competent Iudges of the Churches hurt and besides they make the rule that our Saviour gave us for discovering teachers of false Doctrine to be nothing worth Our Saviour tells us we shall know them by their fruits as granting fruit to be a thing apparant knowne of all and unchangeable but these men make the fruit to alter according to the diversity of the tree that beares it though otherwise it have the same shape taste and vertue For example disobedience resistance of authority sedition and rebellion are by the law of God and by the law of nature agreed both by Christians and Heathens to be evill fruits But these men and Iesuites tell us that resisting authority and raising force against it thereby to worke the good and safety of the Church of God though done by Subjects is no resistance no rebellion no sinne The fruit has lost his own nature which in it selfe was nought and takes a new nature of goodnes because it was brought forth by the good tree of piety toward the Church of God So our Saviours precept is made of no effect and we must learne of the Iesuite to un-know a knowne thing and know it for some other thing then ever we knew before and that by a new way too viz by that which is not to be known of it selfe We must know the fruit by the tree We deny not but that authority may commaund things that by no meanes at all ought to be done and that then we must not doe them but those things are such as are manifestly contrary to the expresse word of God and principles of Religion And even in them we are only simply to refuse the doing of the evill commaunded without any actuall resistance otherwise and so doing our not obeying is not to be counted disobedience because it being necessary obedience to the expresse word of God the primitive Soveraign of all authority it can never be disobedience as to the derivative But where authority commaunds nothing against the expresse word of God and principles of Religion as in things disputable it doth not there except the Governours that are the derivative be obeyed God the primitive is disobeyed For he strictly commaunds obedience to his Vice-gerents even in every ordinance of man But we are also to take heed we play not the hypocrites with God When thinking to doe a good office to the Church or State we resist authority that presses us with that which as we suppose threatens depravation of true Religion or due liberty For what know we but that by wrongfull suffering whereto all are called God calls us to a tryall of our faith patience and obedience in that way which if we doe not shew by keeping close to his command not turning on the left hand to doe any evill though commanded nor on the right hand to resist authority with violence although it hath commanded evill we then refuse Gods tryall and with an unseasonable zeale for Religion and for our wordly rights we contrary to Gods commaund resist his lawfull Vice-gerents the excuse we have for it is little better then like the Pharisees to say Corban God shall have profit by it in the good that we shall doe his Church thereby and make the precept of God of no effect and antevert the glory that god seemed to seeke in our tryall And having so justified our resistance we must then call it pious and an act of duty and such as God requires and so make God the author of our sinne and lodge it where we can never repent us of it There may undoubtedly be such pressures laid upon Subjects as that humanity cannot but commiserate and perhaps in some part excuse their impatience and resisting of them But the pittifulnes of the case cannot make the resistance lawfull though we remit much to the doers we must

none of them but as if he would shew he should be a King in fact not in right in some way in which God would own nothing but the permission only he bad him as one would say be his owne carver and take ten peices to himselfe What the progresse of the story was we all know when the people had made a King of their own then they and their King must have a Religion of their own fitted to their new framed Kingdome and to effect that the old Priests of God must be sent away as absolute impediments to the setling of their new government and when that was done then were they absolute indeed and had as much authority over their God as they before had taken liberty against their King so it followed that when the People had made an usurper King their King and they made a Calfe their God and the summe of the peoples reforming their Kings misgovernance and relieving their own grievances was they made them selves a King that made them all castawaies he himselfe the reproach of Soveraignty and an infamous stigmatique to all posterity and his sinnes for ever adhering to the People till they had caused their utter extirpation and till of free-borne Subjects under a King of their own they became perpetuall slaves to the Subjects of another Kingdome So unpleasing to God and so pernitious to the people themselves are the fruits of those reformations which only or principally are managed by the popular inclination in which though for the most part a desire of doing justice or preserving true religion be pretended yet private discontent in some and ambition in others is commonly the chief and radicall incitement of the work The means that belongs to private men to use for reforming of Kingdoms is that which the Apostle shewes Let prayers saith he and supplications be made for Kings and all that are in Authority that we may lead a Godly life The people must not with impatience and puffed up mindes invade Gods peculiar right of calling Kings to account but every man betaking himselfe to the reformation of himselfe and to prayers unto God must seek of him that has the hearts of Kings in his hand to dispose the Kings heart to the desired reformation Many think this way long and tedious and like better that the people should Offer themselves willingly and help God in some readier way But truly if such private reformation and prayer be the right means of publique good and be too long neglected that is the peoples own fault and they may not by their fault gaine a power which before they had not Yet true it is that in great misgovernances God often uses the peoples hand to doe his work of Iustice but that we may know the way is not right as not agreeable to his revealed will we shall finde that the work of justice that he so beginneth by them he endeth not till he hath finished it on them and his hand is never more heavy then against that rodd that in the way of injustice hath done his justice service But will you heare God himselfe taking cognisance of the misgovernance of Princes and determining of it In the 81. Psalme God declares himselfe to stand in the congregation of Princes and to be judge among Gods so calleth he Kings there Then he expostul●teth the matter with wicked Princes How long will ye give wrong judgement and accept the persons of the wicked Then he complaineth They will not be instructed but walk on in darknesse the foundations of the earth are out of square The misgovernance is great and the consequence of it desperate but does God in that case give the people power to reforme No clean contrary God without any revocation still affirmes I have said ye are Gods and ye are all children of the most high persons sacred not to be approached by the prophane hands of the people but to awe and restraine Princes he tells them that though he has made them Gods yet they shall dye like men when they must make account to him of their misgoverning so that God reserves the judgement of them to himselfe and no whit authorises the people to have any thing to doe with their misdoeings This is not to flatter Princes to say God has appointed men no meanes to relieve themselves against their misgovernment but only praiers to be made either to them or for them and that men have not otherwise to meddle with the right of liberty and duties of Princes then only by way of supplication Nor is this a security for Princes for though in a lawfull and ordinate way there be no other means yet no examples are more familiar then those in which the sinne the injustice and violence of wicked Princes are in this world punished by the sinne injustice violence of wicked people sometimes their own sometime others subjects Gods extraordinary and supream justice is tied to none of those regulations with which he has circumscribed his ordinary justice committed to the administration of man but as we said before we may still observe Gods indignation not more fatally incensed against any then against those whose wickednesse has put them forward to be the instruments of his extraordinary justice upon others But to pursue the examination of the right that people may have in questioning and reforming the rule of Kings Let us farther examine what we find in Scripture David sinning by numbring the people was enforced to his choice of one of three plagues Famine Sword or Pestilence Deus malum avertat this is but a dolefull instance for the people The King sinnes and God laies all the punishment upon the people Nay he gives not them so much as the choice of the punishment which they must suffer for the King but the sinning King must choose which of the three plagues the innocent people must undergoe this is strange did not the great judge of heaven and earth doe right yes undoubtedly and the matter was the wickednesse of the people had grievously provoked God so as the King must be let goe and suffered to fall into sinne that way may be made for the peoples punishment This seems no lesse strange on the other side that because the people sinne therefore the Prince should be let fall that for the transgressions of the land the Prince as wee have it in another place should be punished with division and diminution and many should be the Princes of the land Nay that for the sinne of the people the Prince should be cast away as in that place If ye doe wickedly ye shall perish you and your King All this were strange indeed should we consider Prince and people as persons strangers in interest to one another but therefore these places shew the strict union and indivisible mutuality of interest that they have in the doings and sufferings each of other beyond any thing that can be created by the