Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n
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A78583
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The character of a phanatique
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1660
(1660)
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Wing C1971; Thomason 669.f.24[35]; ESTC R211739
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2,503
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1
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THE Character of a Phanatique TO the performing of this task it will be necessary first to give you the Etymology and genuine signification of the word Phanatique Secondly the occasion and most common acceptation Thirdly who may be justly termed Phanatiques before we come to the Chracter 1. The Etymologie of the Word PHanatique is derived from the Greek Verb {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} and signifies a vain Dreamer Enthusiast or Brain-sick Visionist one who by natural distemper or spiritual infatuation or both is deluded and would delude other's by the pretense of Revelations and New Lights never content with common Experience universal Consent or plain Demonstration 2. The Occasion and common Acceptation of the Word NOw the occasion of this word seems to be this At a general Council for the regulating of affairs in Church and State all Complaints tending to the matters in hand were to be received and debated but there being alwayes in the World of Men more or less that spirit of Pride Self-conceit and Discontent the unreasonable clamours of giddy persons would have so filled the Assembly that nothing of concernment could have been taken into consideration had they not still kept such a Decorum as that nothing might be admitted but what upon Examination of a select company was found to be of weighty consequence whereupon those impertinent troublers and busie male-contents who were rejected received the most pertinent denomination of Phanatiques and so it hath been in all ages a distinctive term whereby those who kick against the present constitution of a regulated Church and State have been distinguisht from the sober part of a Nation who submit to all antient and fundamental Laws and Constitutions but especially those religious irreligious mad-men-Hereticks being parallel to the Seditions of the Citie of Hierusalem in its Destruction 3. Who may rightly be called Phanatiques TO particularize the several sorts of Phanatiques would be the work rather of a Volume than a Sheet but in short First Those may be truly called Phanatiques who depend more upon the dictates of their own corrupt imaginations and phantasies of their distempered brain than reason custom experience or the general consent of all ages and nations but especially those who prefer their pretended inspirations and new lights before the revealed Will of God in the Scriptures Secondly Those who like the Jews will not be content unless Christ will submit to their dirty humours and come live upon earth with them and so order the matter for them that they and they only may possesse the earth and will by no means be perswaded to submit to any authority but His whose Kingdom is not of this world Thirdly All those who out of an ambitious itch to appear somebody under what pretenses soever endeavour to subvert all order and discipline both in Church and State by opposing every power not respecting Right Law Reason true Religion or the publick good wherein their own is included were they but so sober as to be sensible of it THE CHARACTER A PHanatique is the Mushrom of distemper a false Conception gotten by the Air upon the sick womb of a confused phancy a meer changeling who devours greedily all doctrines but receives nourishment from none the dishonour of his reputed father the plague and ruine of his miserable mother he is a reasonable creature uncapable of the right use of reason He is a certain thing that would puzzle Plats or Aristotle to define and indeed no man knowes well what he is but himself least of all You may better expresse him in the Negative than the Affirmative for he is neither Pagan Turk Jew nor true Christian But to come as close to him as we can he is a confused lump of earth not refined still retaining the habit of that Chaos from whence he first proceeded and is like a beggars bag fill'd with scraps of all sorts of food or like a Botchers cushion made up of the various kinds of Shreds and patches which he hath filched from several garments He is of a sceptical humour and you may sooner pick all Religions out of him than one and is somewhat a kin to all professions different from his own but varies most from the Orthodox Protestant So that a right phanatique is a phantastick fellow pleasing himself with new fangles and continually gaping after Novelties and the discovery of New lights He forsakes the true fire and runs over bogs and moorish places to light his torch at an ignis fatuus and ten to one but he sinks in the pursuit of it and is never able to return again He is fit for neither Heaven Earth nor yet Hell because he is against all order and government which is not only exercised in Heaven and Earth but practised by the Devils themselves He pretends much to a good conscience yet thinks it lawful to murder all that dissent from him in opinion although he changes from himself more often than the Moon If you talk with him to day you are never the nearer to know him to morrow for you shall finde him perfectly metamorphosed He rayls much against the Pope of Rome and the Whore of Babylon when none so much resemble the beast as himself whose mark he bears in his fore-head but wants the Looking-glass of reason to descern it He writes all men in the black book of Reprobation but his own fraternity and concludes all his Fore-fathers damned He thinks himself wiser than all others although he be a verier fool than a meer Naturalist He will prate two hours together and after all you may sooner resolve a Delphian Oracle than unfold his meaning only he is dexterous in blaspheming those two great Ordinances of God Magistracy and Ministry He is naturally an arrand Coward yet his Chymerical opinions infuse into him a kinde of frenetique valour He is a perfect Saint in his own conceit and would not change places in Heaven with any of the Apostles whom he calls nothing but bare Paul Peter John c. and dare not add the title of Saint for fear of sinning He hath but a mean respect to the Scripture and could wish some things expunged out of the Bible having blotted them out of his minde and opinion which is all one as to curtel the Scriputre And for Tradition he cannot abide it esteeming of the writings of ancient Fathers as Winter-tales or old Womens fables If he be not an enemy to Government in the abstract he is rarely reconcileable to present powers in case they do not showre preserments upon him for that he thirsts after innovation as well in things Civil as Ecclesiastical And loathes Antiquity as a French-man does his fashions of the last year He is by nature covetous yet will not grudge to squander away his whole estate to maintain Conventicles and is charitable to none but his own tribe The Proverbs of Solomon are a great eye-sore thim but especially that Text My son fear God and the King and meddle not with them that are given to change To conclude He is a bubble or bladder tossed to and fro with every winde which at length breaks and vanisheth to nothing London Printed for Henry Marsh at the Princes Arms in Chancery Lane 166â—