Selected quad for the lemma: master_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
master_n	child_n	duty_n	servant_n	6,964	5	6.9372	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62675	An essay concerning the power of the magistrate, and the rights of mankind in matters of religion with some reasons in particular for the dissenters not being obliged to take the Sacramental Test but in their own churches, and for a general naturalization : together with a postscript in answer to the Letter to a convocation-man.	Tindal, Matthew, 1653?-1733.	1697 (1697)	Wing T1302; ESTC R4528	95,152	210

with them if they were equally obliged to punish Men for false Religions or Doctrines as well as for Theft and Murder c which must necessarily discourage all Commerce and make Nations most inhospitable and barbarous And if Persecutors do not follow this Method it 's because they do not act according to their own Principles 9. Which root out all Mercy and take from the Magistrate all Power of pardoning any Crime whatever and from all private Persons the forgiving their Enemies For if the Magistrate is not to act as the Representative of the Civil Society only but also to punish Offences against God meerly as such tho he may forgive any Crime against himself or pardon the breach of his own Laws yet these being also Sins against God he is obliged upon God's Account to punish Men for the Breach of them as well as for Infidelity or Heresy And all private Persons tho they must forgive their Brethren not only seven but seven times seven yet the not punishing them by this Doctrine is wholly put out of their Power because it obliges them to shew their Zeal for God's Honour in getting the Magistrate to punish them who by injuring their Brethren offend against God 10. In a word this Doctrine of Force is directly contrary to the main Design of all God's Laws wherein Men are concerned one with another which is their mutual Good As for Instance The forbidding Murder is intended for the Security of Mens greatest Good their Lives which would be strangely defeated if the Supream Powers were to punish with Death those they judg do dishonour God with their false Worship because it would not fail to fill the World with Blood and Slaughter since the Governours of it are as opposite in their Judgments about these Matters as in the Fable the Man's two Wives were where his old one pluckt out his black Hairs and his young Wife his gray Ones But suppose the Supream Powers were not oblig'd to deprive People of their Lives but only of their Properties not to mention that even that would destroy great Numbers by robbing them of the Necessaries of Life the end of all those Laws which forbid all kinds of Injuries and require mutual Assistance one towards another for their common good would be in a manner destroyed since a great part of Mankind must be unavoidably miserable by being either at once or by degrees deprived of the means of subsisting happily and the rest would hold what they possess but by a precarious Tenure since it would depend on their Governours tho they had never so many successively or their own not changing their Opinions neither of which is in their Power to hinder whether they should enjoy any thing or not Therefore it shews the greatest Indiscretion in those who tho they have a share in the Legislature yet are subject to the Laws themselves to consent to any persecuting Ones because they cannot be sure but that they are contriving Rods for their own Backs or for their Childrens or near Relations and I believe there are few Persecutors for all their Zeal but would rather Speculative Points were wholly left to the merciful and wise Judgment of God than to have their own Families or Friends ruin'd about them But to return In vain are the Magistrates required not to tyrannize over and oppress their Subjects if they are to punish them for not being of the same Perswasion with them It had been much happier for Men in relation to their Temporal as well as Eternal Condition to be in a State of Nature than to let Tyrants deprive them of the Comforts of this Life for no other Reason than not daring to act contrary to their Consciences in things not relating to this Life And People where they oppress one the other when the Good of the Society cannot be pretended may justly be reckoned in a worse State than that of Nature viz. of War which is never at an end as long as there are Men who cannot comply with all those things that out of Ignorance Superstition Ambition c. are established as necessary to Church-Communion 11. In a word Can Men oppress ruin and kill for God's sake and destroy all moral Honesty on pretence of Religion which when it serves to no other end than to enflame the Tempers of Men and set a keener Edg on their Spirits and to make them ten times more the Children of Wrath and Cruelty than they are by Nature does surely lose its Nature and ceases to be Religion for let Men say worse of Infidelity and Atheism if they can But if on the contrary the ruining those that do nothing against the Welfare of the Society becomes an Act of Piety when it 's made use of to extirpate a false Religion or Opinion there are no Crimes whatever but by the same reason will become religious and vertuous Actions if they are equally serviceable to the same pious End scelera ipsa nef asque hâc mercede placent and consequently it would be an Act of Piety and Vertue to make use of pious Frauds to calumniate to lie to bear false Witness to murder to assassinate even the Magistrate himself 12. Thus whereas Religion has no other Design than the Advancement of Man's Happiness and God's Glory this persecuting Humour is so far from being serviceable to the former that it 's plainly destructive of it for whereas in order to that good End the Scripture has directed all Stations and Relations of Men so to act as may best tend to Love and peace the true Basis of the Happiness of the Society this drives them all to contrary Motions for Magistrates are incited to ruin those for whose Good they were instituted Subjects are tempted to disobey their Governours and retaliate Persecution so much the more fiercely by how much greater Influence their Opinions and Actions have upon the Community Nor does it only destroy the Peace of a Nation within its own Bowels but it engageth one Nation against another And 13. As it destroys all these Publick Obligations by the same reason all private Ones which are not so great as those owing to the Publick must cease so that it embroileth private Families subverts the mutual Duties between Parents and Children Husbands and Wives Masters and Servants c. seducing them into a belief that the way to be serviceable to one another's Eternal Interest is by being cruel to their Temporal and consequently the more Charity they owe one another the sooner they are to use one another ill Nor can there by any reason why the doing this of themselves is not as effectual to promote each others Eternal Happiness as the doing the very same at the command of the Magistrate who is every whit as fallible as they or why they need more to expect a Command to use Force than to give Advice if one as well as the other has a tendency to promote which is every ones Duty the Good