Selected quad for the lemma: king_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
king_n	aaron_n	apostle_n	priest_n	211	3	6.3417	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A48723	The churches peace asserted upon a civil account as it was (great part of it) deliver'd in a sermon before the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor in Guild-Hall-Chappel July 4 / by Ad. Littleton, presbyter.	Littleton, Adam, 1627-1694.	1669 (1669)	Wing L2560; ESTC R37938	36,810	50

been inlightned since and changed their mind they must know too that that power which gives men in publick place leave to act may upon publick inconvenience suspend their acting and if then they do act 't is an unjustifiable disobedience Nor is it with them as it was with Saint Paul Wo be unto me if I preach not the Gospel he had another kind of Call but for these there 's a Wo belongs to them if they do 'T is otherwise too now the Church is setled under Christian Magistrates and govern'd by Christian Laws then at that time when it was to be planted under the Government of Heathen Emperours The Church now with all her subordinations and dependencies in all her jurisdictions and powers owns the King her Supreme She challenges nothing to her self but what the favour of her Prince and the Laws of the land have allow'd her Thus Bishops as to the execution of their Office are sent by the King as Supreme and act in their Courts by the Kings power as Civil Courts do the King deputing Arch-Bishops and Bishops to be Judges under him in causes Spiritual and in his name to govern the Ecclesiastical State as he makes Lord Keepers Chief Iustices and other Iudges of the Land For had the Church any power in it self in Civil affairs besides what the Laws give her I dare say there 's ne're a Bishop in England but would speedily redress those scandals and grievances possibly brought into their Courts by Lay-Officers which people so much clamour against But now what can they do they are ty'd up by Law All of us that are of the Clergy own the Civil Power pay the same obedience to the Laws as any of you do and in First-fruits Tenths and Subsidies make as chargable acknowledgments as any of the populacy I know 't is said though what need of such a pompous costly Religion of a Church with so great an allowance of means This ample Revenue exhausts and weakens the State smaller stipends would serve turn very well But can any one with any shew of ingenuity fairly reason against the encouragements of Learning and the rewards of desert Let it be consider'd that several of this Order had they gone another way might with submission I speak it have sate in your Seats and been clad with your Purple After all our pains and time and strength and charges too spent in studies do not think that what the Law allows us we have by doing nothing for it These things are propos'd publickly as the Acquists of Industry and may be got and injoy'd as legally as any of your Estates And is it not fit do you think a National Church wherein the honour and reputation of Religion is to be kept up should be secur'd from poverty and that contempt which always accompanies meanness It were to be wish'd that as Kings are to be the Nursing Fathers of the Church so Princes and the Sons of Nobles would fit themselves for her dignities that they might bear up the honour of Religion with their personal attendence It has been so heretofore when the two great Offices were united in the same person Melchisedek King of Salem and Priest of the living God and they were kept pretty near in the persons of Moses and Aaron brethren and the Priest elder brother to the Prince And hence the Hebrew word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Kohen whence we have King signifies indifferently Prince and Priest whereupon the Apostle Rom. 13. calls the King in Ecclesiastical terms 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gods Minister say we for both 't is Gods Liturgie-maker and Gods Deacon to shew too that a Christian Magistrate as such has power to order religious affairs in the Service of God This I say has been and 't were well if it could be so with us however must the Church alone be held up by a precarious dependence Is it not this that makes Religion a Prostitute to the humors of the people when men of mean spirits and parts shall out of fear comply for a paltry livelihood to preach things that may please and others of ambitious minds and voluble tongues to serve an interest shall lead the people to their own hurt But some will say what would you have men do that are not otherwise considered since there is that unequal distribution of Church-favours that some go away with all and others get little or nothing Judge in your own case whether this be a reasonable ground of quarrel Shall the inequality of Estates amongst you make the meaner Citizens quarrel the Government of the City because they have not all the wealth of Aldermen Shall I or any of my brethren and companions because we have not that place and esteem in the Church as we out of the pride of our own hearts may think we deserve go in a sullen arrogance and set up for our selves in a distinct interest from the Church and flye in the face of our Mother and put undutiful affronts upon her for not being so kind as we would have her No. Gen. 49. 6. O my soul come not thou into such mens secret unto their private assemblies mine honour be not thou united Let them for me be divided in Iacob and scattered in Israel that in their anger and self-will practise such things To go on I know it has been seriously discoursed and p●inted too that the largeness of the Church-revenue in any Nation impoverishes the State sets the people behind-hand and puts them out of a thriving condition and no less then demonstration offered that if it were retrenched Trade would flourish Manufactures and growths receive wonderful improvements and the people generally grow rich apace But to Answer that Author those Common-wealths he speaks of and ours are not alike in the constitution and nature of the Government and God forbid they ever should But it may be ones wonder why our people cannot now with much more case make those improvements since the Church keeps little in her own hands and for the most part lets easie penny-worths nor can it be any reason that the Church drains the peoples money since if the Church had not what she has some body else would in the Churches right nor would the people be much the better How our Neighbour-States order their Church affairs I suppose ought to be no precedent of Policy to us though they to keep up a National Religion by which those they admit into publick trust are brought to test and for the securing publick peace amidst the differences of Religion maintain a standing Army Further why our dissenters should not upon their own bottoms be comprehended within the legal settlement of the Church they themselves give a very just occasion for the very best Party amongst them have such Principles of Policy and Government as are utterly inconsistent and incompatible not only with any other Form but with Monarchy it self as hath been clearly evidenced

upon the Lords day it self which he was about as Martin Bucer reports of him to have changed from Sunday to Thursday for the convenience of that people in their marketings Again hereupon it is from this liberty whereby the Churches may each order its own affairs in Christian Policy that the Reformed Churches themselves though agreeing as to the main in doctrinals yet in other things differ so much among themselves and yet with that fair regard nevertheless that as all the Reformed Churches abroad do highly magnifie the constitution of the Church of England and approve her Methods as being the main Rampart and Bulwark against the Romish Tyranny So on the other hand the English Church is very far from condemning them for accommodating themselves to the necessity of their conditions but embraces them all with a hearty friendship And herein I say if I mistake not lies the very ratio formalis the nature and extent of Christian liberty so much talkt of that the several Churches indeed may in externals and circumstantials square themselves to the necessity of times and places and order their affairs accordingly But to say that every particular person or party in the same Church has by vertue of his Christianity a liberty to disobey the publick Orders of that Church whereof he is a Member and to serve God as shall notwithstanding those Orders seem good to that party or person for as the Party breaks it will come to Persons at last to take Liberty as I said before in this notion is to make it but another name for confusion Wherefore since Churches are now constituted and 't is clear they are no more to be under the peoples Government then the Civil States are but that the ordering of both belongs to the Christian Magistrate as the Guardian of both Tables I say since 't is so it necessarily follows that for any man to affirm that what the Magistrate upon grave deliberation requires of us in Gods publick Service is an intolerable imposition upon conscience and that things indifferent and in their own nature lawful to be done being once commanded and recommended by lawful Authority become eo nomine upon that very account unlawful is a most absurd defiance and not to be endured For these are such Theses as although some have been bold to publish them and are still confident enough to act according to them yet have no footing either in the Word of God or in right Reason upon which two Societies are founded and the right of Government stands as being destructive at once not only to the Peace of the Church but to the purposes of the Civil Power too That I may make all clear I shall to omit that of Korah the Son of Levi who might possibly otherwise be lookt upon as a godly and able man as having a great opinion amongst the people and an interest in many of the Princes and for ought as we read was guilty of no other fault but Non-conformity and murmuring against Aaron Numb 16. 11. Indeed Dathan and Abiram Lay-men Sons of Reuben went further against Moses himself in vers 13 14. though these State-Reb●ls too as well as that disobedient Levite had the luck upon the very morrow after that dreadful execution upon them to be esteemed at vers 41. by all the Congregation the people of the Lord. Though this look too much like our case yet I say to pass it by because that was a severe example I shall give you two milder instances the one in the Jewish Church long before the building of the Temple that of Micah the other of a famous Christian Church planted by S. Paul that of the Corinthians The Story of Micah is that he made an Ephod and Teraphim and consecrated one of his Sons to be his Priest Iudg. 17. 5 upon which the remark is in the next verse that in those days there was no King in Israel but every man did that which was right in his own eyes Nor was the matter mended when he got a young Levite to be his Father and his Priest for in the very beginning of the next Chapter 't is again said In those days there was no King in Israel so that 't is clear that this is taxed as a scandal of those loose ungoverned times when there was no King that any man should set up for himself a private Form of Worship to which it should seem the people of the neighbour-houses resorted Chap. 18. vers 22. This practice then of Micah's was a fault without doubt which had there been a King in Israel a lawful Authority in being to have taken order about such things would not have been suffered That of the Corinthians is yet more plausible and yet not faultless neither they kept to their publick Ministers yet because they prefer'd one to another and some liked better of Pauls performance others of Apollo's in the same common work he taxes them of carnality i. e. of Schism 1 Cor. 3. 3. for so he gives the reason For saith he whereas there is among you envying and strife and divisions or factions are not ye carnal why what factions or divisions are these he speaks of he tells you vers 4. For while one saith I am of Paul and another I am of Apollo are ye not carnal and yet Paul and Apollo were excellent Persons both of them not only Orthodox sound men but men of eminent abilities both and extraordinary graces But Paul and Apollo were but Ministers as he tells us in the next verse that employed those gifts and exercised those graces for the Churches good as the Lord giveth to every one If this be envying and strife and division or faction what would Paul have said of us how carnal are we who do not gad after the Pauls and Apollos I wish they were for their own and their Hearers sakes all such whom people now-a-days so eagerly follow but quite Kim-kam leave the regular Assemblies of Orthodox men and run a wildring after every Will-in-the-wisp that comes in our way and have such persons in admiration as are many of them neither Orthodox nor able and further some of us take up dangerous Principles at any rate and exercise Religions of our own making in such a manner as must needs in the end might such things prevail amongst us prove destructive to Christianity it self And thus I have answered that Objection at large taking in th● ground of the main Controversie as far as I could which is in debat● at this day among us There is another too which I must not le● go without its Answer and I shall be brief That these reasons 〈◊〉 mine for Vniformity will serve indifferently for all Religions of al● Countries as well as ours and that Mahumetans and Papists are by this Doctrine no less obliged then we to keep up their ways o● Worship amongst the people for the honour of God the reputation of Religion and the safety of the Government since