Selected quad for the lemma: kingdom_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
kingdom_n	king_n	religion_n	see_v	2,235	5	3.6602	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A64424	Tertullians apology, or, Defence of the Christians against the accusations of the gentiles now made English by H.B. Esq.; Apologeticum. English	Tertullian, ca. 160-ca. 230.; H. B. (Henry Brown)	1655 (1655)	Wing T785; ESTC R18180	106,345	228

at Sirmion the seventeenth of March the chiefest Priest of that goddesse this venerable chiefe of the Evnuches the soure and twentieth of the same Month of March with the horrour and impurity of the bloud he spilt and which came from the wounds hee made in his body rendred his vowes as hee was wont for the preservation of this Prince after he was dead O sleepie Courtiers O tedious dispatchers whose tarrying the cause that Cybele was not acquainted sooner with the Emperours death truly Christians could not choose but make derision at such a goddesse But had it beene in the power of Jupiter to dispose as he thought good of the Empire of the world would he have suffered the power of the Romans to put his Isle of Creet insubjection Would you think the remembrance of the cave of Mount Ida with the noise the Corybantes made in beating on their head attires and playing on their cymballs to hinder those childish cries from discovering him again the acceptable smel of the breath of his nurse should not obliege him rather to oppose himselfe against this conquest would hee not have preferred the place of his buriall before all the greatnesse of the Capitol would hee not rather have enclined to have raysed up above all the countries of the earth that which enclosed his ashes would juno have taken it well that Carthage which she preferred before samos should be overcome and destroyed even by the race of AEneas if I bee not deceived Hic illius Arma Hic currus fuit hoc regnum dea gentibus esse si qua fata sinant jam tum tendetque fovetque Englished thus by John Ogleby out of Virgill Here her Arms and here Her Charriot was that this Earth sway should beare If Fates permit she fosters and intends This unfortunate sister and wife of Jupiter had not the credit of changing the decrees of destiny Fato stat Jupiter esse To Fate was Jupiter himself conforme And yet the Romans have not done them so much honour although they put Carthage under their power against the designe and desires of Juno as to an unchast whore and a villanous and an infamous Larentine now of all the gods you honour its certaine there are many of them that have raigned in the would if they had now the power to give Empires and kingdomes whilst they were kings and commanded maen of whom recived they their authority what gods have beene worshipped by Saturn and by Jupiter it may be t was some Sterculus to whom they gave immortallity because the first found out the invention of dunging the earth but hee lived since their death with the people that inhabited the territory of Rome If any of your gods have not had the Soveraigue power heere below in their time there were Kings that rendred them not as yet Divine honours because they were not as yet acknowledged for gods from whence it followes that it belongs to others then to them to give kingdomes because there were kings established a long time before they consecrated these deities But see how ridiculous a thing it is to attribute the greatnesse of the Romans to the merit of their piety and care had or Religion seeing their Religion became much more pompous and costly since their estate grew powerfull and their dominion enlarged For although Numa was author of all your superstitious mysteries yet in his time the Romans served their gods without Images and Temples their Reliligion being then void of all costlinesse and ostentation their ceremonies then neither rich nor magnificent wee saw not as then Capitolls raised up to Heaven but onely altars of turfe made in hast as served occasion and upon necessity te vessels for their sacrifices were as then but of earth from whence onely issued the odor of all the bloud of the beasts which were sacrificed Engraven representations of the gods then no where appeared For the Greeks and Tuscans who first invented the art of making carved images to the gods were n ot as then spred in the City of Rome It s true therefore the Romans were powerfull before they were Religious neither was it their piety that was the cause of their greatnesse For how should the care of Religion become great to them who owe their greatness to impietie and sacriledge for it I bee not deceived Kingdomes and Empires are established by disorders of war and increase by victories Wars and victories ordinarily produce the taking and ruine of Cities Which things cannot bee done without offending the gods Fury at the same time indifferently assaulting the walls of Temples and Cities slaughters involving Priests and Citizens without distinction and the Souldier eager for his prey sparing no more sacred things then prophane In which regard the Romans committed as many sacrilodges as they obtained conquests triumphed as often over their gods as Over men all Images of strange and captive gods yet in your Temples remaine as so many booties taken form people overcome by you and these gods suffer their enemies to worship them giving an endless Empire to them whose outrages they should rather have punished then recompensed after that sort their sacrilegious flatteries But as it 's unprofitable to honour these gods that have neither sense nor knowledge so it 's as little dangerous to offend them Certes true pietie permits not to believe that this people who as aforesaid encreased Religion by scandalizing it againe scandalized Religion in labouring for its judgement should get this great power to which arrived by any reverence borne by them to divine things neither is it otherwise in like manner to be believed that those Nations whose Countries conduced in their being conquered by them unto the Roman greatness before losing their Countreys should bee destitute of all manner of Religion CHAP. XXVI REturne then into your selves and examine if it bee not more likely that it 's hee distril utes Kingdomes he to whom the World belongs which kings governe and whom Kings depend upon who command on the Earth that it 's hee that hath ordained the change of Emperours in the sequell of times and course of ages who was before all times and who from times hath composed the ages that raiseth up estates and makes them fall from their greatness whom men have acknowledged for their Authour before they had established among them any societie confess your errour Rome this Citie heeretofore a field in ancienter then any of your gods she had her Laws reverenced before she built this vast and magnificent worke of the Capitol The Babylonians reigned before the creation of your high Priests The Medes before that of the fifteene men whom you propounded to consult on the Sybils Bookes The AEgyptians Assyrians and Amazones possessed great Empires before we heard speak of the Saliens Lupercals and Vestall Virgins After all if the gods of the Romans disposed of Kingdomes the Jewish Nation who alwaies neglected these kindes of Deities had never formed an Estate powerfull

mé by endowing them with a divine nature for of themselves they could never attaine this qualitie which was not in them neither is there any but hee who had it of his owne nature that could give a part thereof to them to whom it did not appertaine originally That if there were not a God who gave this divinitie to men if not acknowledge this principle Author it would be but in vaine to think they were made gods after they ceased to live here on the Earth as men Briefly had they had the power of making themselves gods they would never have been born men and subjected themselves to mortality while injoy they might the possession of a far more excellent condition Then if there bee a chiefe God that makes gods I returne to the search of the causes which should oblige him being the chiefest to communicate to men this high Majestie and I finde none unless wee say this chiefe God had need of their ministry wherewith to exercise his functions more perfectly But it 's an injuring the Authour of all things to thinke he needed the help of any one living much lesse should imploy to so excellent an end the ministry of dead men This wise providence could not but well foresee such an assistance would be necessary to him for the time to come and in this foreknowledge it had been more convenient for him to make gods assistant to himselfe from the very beginning then stay the end of these mens lives subjected to mortalitie whom he purposed to make his fellow gods But I see no need God Almighty had to make other gods for what manner of thought soever wee have of this world whether it bad no beginning and was never made according to the opinion of Pythagoras or that there was a time when it had a beginning was made according to the opinion of plato the eternall Wisdome at the same instant doubtless when he formed it foresaw by an absolute admirable exquisiteness all that was necessary for the government thereof he who gives perfection to all other things could not be imperfect to himselfe as expecting help from Saturn or any other of Saturns race to adde ro his perfection Men would be thought to be very simple if from the beginning of time they believed not both raine to have fallen from the Clouds starrs to have darted out their beames from Heaven light to have shone Thunder to have made a noise and Jupiter himselfe to have trembled as it were at the terrible roaring of Thunderbolts put by God into his hands Also the Earth produced all sorts of fruits before Bacchus Ceres and Minerva lived yea before those whom you make your greatest Gods raigned upon the Earth That which serves to entertaine the life of man is as ancient as himselfe providence giving him a being I gave him at the same time all things whereof hee stood in need and men could not have invented any thing more for their preservation then what was before let them not say therefore they are the Authors but onely after finding out the same when created before by God that taught others how they should make use thereof which presupposeth such things were before such as they shewed their use And from thence followes the glory or honour thereof is not to be attributed to men but to him to whom they themselves owe their originall If Bacchus were put in the number of the Gods because hee first taught men to plant the Vine certainly they have ill treated Lucullus in not making him a god also he being the first who planted Cherry-trees in Italy brought by him from the Kingdom of Pontus for they ought also to have made him a god as Author of a new fruit because he first gave them knowledge of it Wherefore seeing from the beginning all wee see dono in the Universe hath beene done before as likewise all things ordayned to certaine functions of their nature this first reason for which suppose God communicated his deity to men is rendred of no force because the same faculties you give to each of your Gods inventing were from the beginning of the world created by God and should never have seased to bee or to produce their excellent effects though you had never established those your gods Seeke yee therefore another reason for mons being sacrificed unto as unto gods by saying that deifying them is the reward of their eminent vertues From whence I suppose you must grant that this God that makes other Gods governs by the rules of exact justice and distributes not so noble a recompence rashly without measuring his liberallity and considering the merit of those whom he calls to his glory I will therefore examine these mens actions whom you now adore as gods to see if they be of a condition that render them worthy to bee listed up to Heaven or not rather which as a man would thinke should have cast them headlong into the bottome of Hell a Prison as you say somtimes wherein the wicked are shut up to receive the punishment of their crimes A place where according to your opinion those are imprisoned who have banished from their hearts the naturall Piety that Children ought to shew towards their Parents a place whither those are confined who commit incests with their sisters who corrupt married women ravish Mayds defile themselves with boyes use all manner of violence or outrage kill steale and deceive their neighboures and who to shut up all in a word by their vices are like some of your gods for you cannot make appeare one of them was ever exempted from all manner of faults unlesse deny him to bee at any time man But you must acknowledge your gods have been of the condition of men because the actions you attribute to them witnesseth they were subject to such disorders as are tokens of the weakness of our nature and tokens I say which permit not wee can be perswaded that after death they should be stiled gods In a word if wont to punish those who suffer themselves to be carried away with these disorders if as many of you as are people any good manners avoid the commerce conversation and societie of vicious and infamous persons thinke you God hath called you to possession of his Deitie those whom they resemble or if any such matter believed by you how comes it to pass you condemn criminals you that adore the companions of their crimes the justice you seem to exereise in this world serves not in heaven but for a subject of mockery and derision If render your selves conformable to your gods you must ascribe divine honours to the wickedst of all men it being an honour to those gods you adore to make gods of men most like unto them in all maner of abhominable filthiness But to omit speaking any further of things so unworthy of divine worship I could wish so long as they lived here below they had been of better report