Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
religion_n	act_n	king_n	parliament_n	3,024	5	6.5132	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44305	A survey of the insolent and infamous libel, entituled, Naphtali &c. Part I wherein several things falling in debate in these times are considered, and some doctrines in lex rex and the apolog. narration, called by this author martyrs, are brought to the touch-stone representing the dreadful aspect of Naphtali's principles upon the powers ordained by God, and detecting the horrid consequences in practice necessarily resulting from such principles, if owned and received by people.	Honyman, Andrew, 1619-1676.	1668 (1668)	Wing H2604; ESTC R7940	125,044	140

people ought to reform themselves from all real corruptions in the Worship of God and keep themselves pure from abominable things every one is bound to amend one and so all will be more easily amended yea no man should say Am I my Brothers keeper but by faithful instruction warning reproof strive to save others from the evils of the times and places wherein they live But 4. That there lyes upon the people with the Magistrate a joynt obligation of publick reforming and using the avenging or punitive Sword in amending things amiss against the will of all Magistrates or even turning that Sword in a violent way against him or that such obligation lyes upon one part of the people against all Magistrates and their fellow Subjects as to violent them in matters of Religion or which they account Religion it is utterly denyed acting in a publick co-active way or by the use of the vindicative and punitive Sword For Reformation in a co-active way is so fully and only the Magistrates duty that whoever will intrude into it being persons of meer private capacity they stain Religion and brings scandal on it by their Rebellion Though the result of the work be good the manner is evil God needs no mans sin to help him in his work nor will he ever impute it as sin to private persons that they did tolerate with grief what they could not amend nor that they did forbear violent forcing the Magistrate to their mind supposing them in the right If in a way God hath set me in I cannot without manifest schisme and sedition and leaping beyond the limits of my calling do a good work I am to leave it to God to do it in his own cleanly way it is well if I keep my self pure mourning for abominations done and praying to God against them and using all charitable and fraternal means becoming a private Christian and thus my tolerating of what I cannot amend shall not be my sin albeit it is sin in them who have a publick Power and do not reform but connive at abuses As no part of a people or private persons have power to usurp the Office of a Minister to preach minister Sacraments c. So no private persons can lawfully under whatsoever pretence of good intentions meddle with the Magistrates work or intrude in the publick actings only competent to his place who is the Minister of God invested with Authority by him Far less can they in case of his deficiency or opposition use the vindicative or punishing Sword against him for not being of their Religion supposing ●t to be true nor against their fellow-subjects but all this is according to this mans mind The great mistake in all this matter is that the Magistrate and People are as to Covenant with God or engagements to him for advancing his Truth looked upon as two debitors bound in a Band conjunctly and severally for one sum so that in the deficiency of the one the other must pay all and hath power to stresse the deficient So they think there is a joynt and equal obligation betwixt Princes and People as touching the publick promoting of Religion If the Magistrate be deficient they must do it yea and fall on him for his deficiency But there is no such joynt obligation it is true the Magistrate in his place is bound in a publick way to advance Religion the people are also bound in their private capacities and callings to advance Religion and to serve the Magistrate therein as he employes and calls them But there is no such joynt obligation of King and People unto God that either of them should be so bound for the other that if the one be deficient the other party contracting becomes therefore obliged to the duty to which the deficient party is obliged or becomes guilty if he intrude not in the part of their duty Nor is there a mutual tye on both to force one another to their duty Qui diversimode obligantur ad diversa non sunt correi in promittendo The case betwixt the King and People in the religious Covenant with God is like the case of two men binding in one band for their several moieties of a sum if the one be deficient the other is not stressed for it nor is the payer bound to force the deficient by vertue of the band If the People reform themselves and keep themselves pure from abominations the Magistrates deficiency which they tolerate with grief shall not be imputed to them because God gives them not a calling to intrude into the Magistrates office or to use the reforming Sword or vindicative and puniing acts of it which only are committed to the Magistrate The King indeed is bound both as a Christian to own Religion for his own souls good and as a King to use his magistratical Power to force his Subjects to the use of external means of Religion which is all he can do and if he do this and meet with the insuperable stubbornesse of an evil people the guiltinesse lyes not on him but on them But upon the people there lyes no obligation to force the King or their fellow subjects to external means of Worship and Religion because that is not within the verge of their calling only they are to keep themselves pure and to use all moral means usable by persons in their station to move others to embrace true Religion And having done this they discharge themselves sufficiently and may commit the rest to God The late Covenant it self doth only bind private persons in their places and callings which certainly are private and to be managed by private means to endeavour reformation and doth not bind any number of meer private persons to pull the Sword out of the Magistrates hands when they think he useth it otherwise then he should and then they would have him use it It is not can never be the place and calling of meer private persons and the minor or far minor part of the People to use the vindicative punishing and reforming Sword against all Magistrates reckoned by them as Apostates and against all the body of the Land If the Covenant be passive of such Commentaries as this man puts upon it that whatever any private party accounts Reformation they may use the vindictive punishing Sword against all of all degrees that stand in their way to advance the same we have little reason to be in love with it and just cause to cast it by till it be cleared of such corrupt gloss●● But let us now consider the civil Covenant betwixt the King and the People Napht. touches on it on the forecited places and the Author of L. R. puts forth his strength such as it is upon this matter avowing that the King is not King but Covenant-wise and conditionally and that by Covenant the people have a civil claim against him may punish him and have a right to a coactive power over him in Courts set up

discretion of the sufferers of prejudice by it were they never so few in comparison of the whole body of the people they may pronounce upon the same and according to their discretive judgement of the injurious perverting of Government determine their actions for renouncing or revolting from the society in which and Government under which they are and nothing should hinder them from this but want of probable capacity to through their work as he often speaks So wise and cautious must his followers be though not conscientious that in working a mischief they light not upon a mischief Good God! to what times are we reserved wherein the unmeasurable audaciousness of men dare present such poyson to a Christian People and to attempt the breaking them in pieces by such Doctrines which both Religion and sound Reason abhorres Dare this Libeller say that this is a fundamental constitution of political Societies that at the arbitrement and lust of any minor part of private persons pretending a perversion of the ends of Government a pretence that will never be wanting to malecontents and malapert wicked ones even katherines and highlandish theeves and it is real to them if they themselves be admitted Judges they may make secession from the Society in which they are embodied and renounce their obligation to the Government thereof Is not such a principle rather contra-fundamental to all humane combined Societies and were it at first entring of the Society expresly proposed that when ever any minor party should account the ends of Government perverted they should be at their primaeve liberty again to break off from all the magistratical Order and from society with the major party of these with whom they are combined Would not the overture of such a condition be rejected with indignation and upon just reason for that were to open a gap to continual seditions divisions and fractions And all rational men would judge it were better not to joyn in society with such men then to joyn in such termes Again suppose there be a breaking off from a magistratical Power and major part of a society upon pretension which will never be wanting to cover sedition and confusion such is the corruption of men of a perversion of the ends of Government the party making secession may haply meet with that same measure they gave to the Community wherewith they were formerly joyned For when they have combined and embodied themselves in a Society if a minor party arise amongst themselves with the same accusations against them which they had against the body they did separate from Must not that same party have the same priviledge of Primaeve liberty to combine and erect a corporation by themselves which they claimed before will not they plead that the obligation to the Government and Society ceaseth and they are free to erect a new one And where shall there be a stand till humane Societies be miserably broken in pieces which seems to be Satans design by this Mans Doctrine Further can this assertion subsist that neither alledgiance or fidelity nor obedience is to be given unto any created power but in defence of Religion and Liberty That obedience is not to be given unto any Creature on earth against Religion or the Revealed Will of God shall be easily granted we abhorre the very thought of so doing Again it shall not be said that obedience is to be given to Powers against the Liberty competent to us as Subjects and consistent with Soveraignty yet so that the measure of that Liberty must not be made by every private mans will but by the Declarature of the Parliament representative of the Subjects which best knows what thereunto belongs But to say that all not only obedience but alledgiance and fidelity due to any created power is indispensibly restricted to this qualification in Defence of Religion and Liberty viz. of the subject is a most false assertion It is known that a restriction excludes all other cases which are not in the restrictve proposition included now it is certain there may be cases wherein we ought to obey the Magistrate and yet the act of obedience cannot be properly and directly said to be either in defence of Religion or the Liberty of the Subject there may be some causes that properly concern his own honour wherein defence of Religion is not concerned the Magistrate perhaps not being of our Religion and far less defence of the Liberty of the Subject unless by a very remote and unnecessary consequence yet am I bound to him in causes concerning his honour this made the Ministers that disputed with the Doctors of Aberdeen decline to acknowledge that clause of the first Covenant in defence of Religion c. to be limitative or restrictive of duty to the King affirming it onely to be specificativen aming duties to him in some respects or in respect to some things not excluding others Yea the General Assembly 1639. will not have that clause in the Covenant restrictive for in their supplication to the Commissioner and Council they speak thus We have solemly sworn and do swear not only our mutual concurrence and assistance for the cause of Religion and to the utmost of our power with our Means and Lives to stand to the defence of our Dread Soveraign His Person and Authority in the preservation of true Religion Liberties and Laws of this Kirk and Kingdom but also n. b. in every cause that may concern His Majesties Honour shall concur with our friends and followers as we shall be required c. So Duty and Obedience to the King is there extended beyond what is expresly mentioned in the Covenant in defence of Religion and Liberties But further as to the point of Alledgiance or Fidelity that is another matter then Obedience Alledgiance to a King imports owning him as Lawful and Rightful King and that none others have power over him together with fidelity to his Person Crown and Dignity against all conspiracies and treason Obedience is the result of this acknowledged Soveraignty where commands appear lawful A man may keep Alledgiance and Fidelity to the King albeit sometimes there may be commands given which cannot be obeyed because of Gods countermand many learned Priests and Papists in England took the Oath of Alledgiance when first it was emitted and injoyn'd albeit they thought they could not give obedience to the King as to matters of Religion But this man is plain in his assertion that no Alledgiance is due to the King except with this restriction in defence of Religion And as he said a main part of his Religion is to erect Presbytery and root out Prelacy So that if Presbytery be not defended people are taught to renounce Alledgiance to the King How contrary is this to the Confession of Faith cap. 23. S. 4. Difference in Religion doth not saith the Confession make void the Magistrates just and legal Authority nor free the people from their due obedience to him But this

reason that these who are Plaintifes shall be judges of the Party they complain of more then the party or Prince Judge to them Is not this a perversion of all judgement that in one and the same body politick the accuser and Judge shall be coincident in the same persons or person And they shall use the punishing Sword over all Rulers to whom God never committed it the notions of original fountaine virtual royalty in the people which they may render formal effectual and actual when they see fit are but high flown unregardable fancies of the masters of confusion All magistratical Authority is originally and fountally in God alone whose Minister the Magistrate is and not the peoples although for the peoples good whatever interests people may have in instrumental application of the power to such or such persons sometimes Government is not in the people virtually though wrongously sometimes they usurp it No man hath the Power of the Sword over his own life nor over the life of his neighbours as he is a private man not invested with magistratical Authority and so cannot transmit that to another which he hath not himself None have this avenging Power of the Sword over mens lives but the Magistrate alone whom people by Gods law are bound to choose if they want one in their Societies and Combinations but whomever they designe they do not empower him it is God by his Ordinance that doth this the Power is from God not from them albeit the application of the person to the Power or of it to him be instrumentally and dispositively by the peoples act where they have liberty for such acts 5. Though it be true that all Covenants and Contracts amongst men embodied in a Society brings each of the contracters under a Law-claim in case of failing coram Judice proprio before his own and competent Judge yet it is not true that any Contracts betwixt man and man in one and the same Society gives the party keeping contract coactive Power over the party breaking it is true the Judge hath a coactive Power to lay forth in behalf of the keeper against the breaker but that is not the keeper his coactive Power but the Judges employed for his good the one party is not Judge of the other but the Magistrate is Judge over both Now there is no Judge over all Magistrates nor the supreme Magistrate before whom a complaining people can plead wrong done to them This complaint lyes before God only to take order with it And it must needs be a strange assertion to say as some do that it leads Kings to Atheisme to tell them They are countable to God only whereas this leads them genuinly to stand in awe of God and the lesse fear they have from men to be in greater dreador of more terrible strokes from God if if they do wrong ordinarily where there is much fear of mans punishments there is lesse fear of Gods but when it is told Princes the more exemption they have from man the more terribly will God handle them if they do wrong this may make the highest and stoutest hearts to tremble at the dreadful vengeance by the hands of the living God which will strike a deeper stroke then creatures can 6. To provoke people to go about the medling with the advancing Religion actibus Imperatis which is the Magistrates part and not only actibus elicitis is but a ruining of all order God hath set the imperate acts for advancing Religion are not to be done but by these to whom God hath given the Empire It is not his will that people run out of their rank and calling to serve him more then it was his will that Saul or Vzziah offered sacrifice or incense the works were good in themselves but the workers were not warranded to do the same extraordinary necessities are more easily pleaded then justified as ground sufficient for actions whereto there is no extraordinary call If Magistrates be deficient as to their imperat acts in advancing Religion private persons are sufficiently discharged if they keep themselves pure and do what possibly they can for advancing Religion in their private capacities and by their elicit acts Nor shall they be involved in guiltiness for not intruding in the Magistrates office or doing his duty wherein he hath failed If a mans eyes be put out his ears or other senses will go as far to supply that defect for the good of the body as may be yet cannot help the body by elicit acts of seeing So whatever length private persons may go for the good of the body they must not go to exercise and exert formally acts Magistratical upon whatever pretence of extraordinary need which will never be wanting to a people enflamed with a seditious spirit August Lib. 2. contra literas Petiliani Auferenda idola non potest quispiam jubere privatis Lact. instit S. 20. Defendenda est Religio a privatis omnibus non occidendo sed moriendo c. It is a dangerous and destructive tenent to be held forth to be believed by people That in all cases whither concerning Religion or Liberty when they account the Magistrate to pervert the Government that they are eatenus and so far even as they had no King and that the royalty hath recurred to themselves and they may act and exercise it formally as if they had no King at all which is the express Doctrine of L. R. p 99.100 And more intolerable is Naphtali who grants this not only to the body of the people and inferiour Magistrates but to any the least meer private part of the people against the whole body and against all Magistrates supreme and subordinate Where or when shall confusions end if these Doctrines have faith or free passage CHAP. IV. Anent the following of Phineas fact of heroick or extraordinary impulsions and concerning some courses taken at our first Reformation and their exemplariness THat every man should walk in his own calling with God 1 Cor. 7.20 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 love the honour to be quiet and do his own business 1 Thes 4.11 yea ambitiously contend as the word bears it so to do is agreeable to the mind and will of the God of Order it is a godly ambition to act within the precincts of our own calling but Sathan striving to make men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 disorderly and unsubject to these whom God hath set over them under several colours of extreme necessity the lawfulness of the matter of actions in themselves the goodness of ends and intentions the want or deficiency of others to do the work mens own probable capacity to do it doth often drive men out of their ranks and stations to act such things whereof God will say I never required them at your hands in your hands they are evil quia ego non jussi and because sometimes God hath given extraordinary callings or incited men by

the heads or rulers and famous men amongst them called the congregation or the renouned of the congregation Numb 1.16.16.2 who did in that dismal time wherein so much sin did break forth and so much wrath from the Lord attending sin meet with Moses the chief Magistrate Numb 25.6 to lament the abominable idolatry and bodily filthiness committed at that time and to consult and advise about the authoritative restraining of this wickedness In the mean time when the great Council are humbled before the Lord for the common wickedness and for the wrath that was upon them Zimri a Prince of Simeon with his Midianitish woman are in their very sight going into the Prince of Israels tent and Josephus tells us that before Moses and the Council he justified the fact and pleaded frowardly to have and retain her In this case of so effronted wickedness Phineas then one of the congregation or great Council 7. ver Rose from amongst the congregation or great Council which shews he was sitting amongst them and under the eye and knowledge and approbation of Moses the supreme Magistrate pursued them both to the tent executing judgment on them and thrusting them through The words of Diodat on ver 8. are That this was an act of extraordinary zeal and motion of Gods Spirit in a cruel and fierce delict which was approved in Phineas by God after the act was done And n. b. by Moses the supreme Magistrate the execution being done under his eyes and known of him Thus Diodat To this purpose Aquinas 2● 2ae quest 60. Art 6. where he disputes Vtrum Judicium reddator perversum per usurpationem Resolves That judgement cannot be execute upon any without publick Authority more then a Law can be made without publick Authority and speaking of the fact of Phineas he sayes He did this by divine inspiration being moved with the zeal of God and adds Albeit he was not the high Priest yet he was the Son of the high Priest and the executing of judgement belonged to him as to other Judges to whom that was commanded of God Gerhard de Magistratu P. 841. Phineas non fuit omnino privata persona he was one of the chief Priests who as Aarons rod tells us lib. 1. cap. 1. had equal power with all other members both in decrees and executions of judgments So that he in all probability being no meer private person and doing what he did with approbation of the Soveraign Magistrate it is a very weak argument that is brought from him to enstate any private persons in a power of executing judgement 2. Suppose Phineas to have been a meer private person yet seing he did this act under the eye and presence with the approbation and good-liking of Moses as Diodat rationally saith and of the great Council there assembled and he is to be looked upon as the executor of their unaninimous sentence against effronted villany As at another time Exod. 32.27 28. Moses as Gods Vice-gerent set the Levits and others on work to execute judgment by the sword upon an idolatrous people in which case they were satellites Magistratus and had his Commission and why might not Phineas have here the like warrand from Moses If any say it is not written it may be answered In rebus facti à non scripto ad non factum non valet consequentia all things done are not written We have heard famous Authors accouning him to have had warrand whether as a Judge or Executor of the will of the great Council and of Moses who did well approve his deed But how absurd is it to bring an argument from this instance to warrand any private man to do justice when he thinks there is need not only without the Magistrates consent but even upon all Magistrates supreme and subordinate which is the scope this mans writing drives at 3. The case wherein Phineas executed judgement was when horrible idolatry and villanous whoredom was avowedly and with an high hand committed in the sight of the Sun and in way of open doing despite to God and to all Magistrates and the supreme Council then assembled to mourn before God and to take course for remedying by their Authority the horrible looseness broken forth at that time But dare this man say that there is now such horrid wickedness although he is bold to call all the Magistrates supreme and subordinate Patrons of abominations and men acting in the meer spirit of wickedness while the true Protestant Religion according to the Scriptures and the Laws at our first Reformation and Confession of Faith recorded in Parliament is sincerely and constantly held There is a change and regulation of the exterior form of Church-government anent which godly men differ and the change that is made will be maintained against this man to contain nothing contrary to Gods Word Yet forsooth this is the great abomination and so gross that it may licence every private person to rise up against all Magistrates supreme and subordinate to depose them or cut their throats and this must be called executing judgement for the Lord and a Phineas-like fact 4. Let it be so that Phineas was a meer private man and had no warrand from the supreme Magistrate to do what he did which yet cannot be proved his fact can be no warrand for private men to attempt the doing of such acts unless they can shew as good warrand and approbation from God as he could God who is the Lord of all Magistrates and of all mens lives can when it pleaseth him cross ordinary rules and can appoint some to execute his judgements extraordinarily wherein they are not to be followed by such as have not the same spirit the same warrand and command or commission He may send Moses to kill the Egyptian Eglon to kill Ehud Elias to destroy companies of men with fire from Heaven or to kill Baals Priests an instance which it is strange the Libeller omitted seing it is the ordinary dialect of the Faction as may be seen in the Apology and elsewhere to call most wickedly all Church-men dissenting from their way Baals Priests God may command Abraham to kill his Son Isaac he may excite David to a bloody duel and Samson to murther himself with others so also might he stir up Phineas though a private man to execute judgement but 1. he had the motion and direction of Gods Spirit setting him on to that work such motions were loco specialis mandati as Divines speak and Calvin Ps 106. speaking of this same fact saith he had singularis extraordinarius motus qui ad communem regulam exigi non debet And when he hath compared Moses killing the Egyptian with this fact of Phineas he saith Talis fuit impulsus in Phinea nam et si nemo putabat gladio Dei esse armatum ipse tamen potestatis divinitus concessae probe sibi conscius fuit Augustin speaking of Samson lib. 2. de civit Dei c. 21.