Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
religion_n	church_n	discipline_n	government_n	3,314	5	6.9877	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A34735	The counter-plot, or, The close conspiracy of atheism and schism opened and so defeated and the doctrine and duty of evangelical obedience or Christian loyalty thereby asserted / by a real member of this most envy'd as most admired, because, best reformed Protestant Church of England.	Real member of this most envy'd, as, most admired, because, best reformed Protestant Church of England.	1680 (1680)	Wing C6522; ESTC R10658	41,680	44

disorderly in contempt of all authority and publick order we must then whether we would or no for Christ has made it our duty Matt. 18.17 2 Thes 3.6 2 Cor. 5.11 and re-inforc't it upon us by St. Paul we must then I say deal with all such as the Jews did with Heathens and Publicans we must withdraw from them in their disorders and in case of irreclaimable contumacy not only not religiously but not so much as civilly entertain them or as St. John expresses it we must not receive them into our houses or bid them God speed And indeed what reason can there be that we should eat or drink with them at their or our own Table who are therefore too unworthy because they think themselves too good to eat or drink with us at the Lords Table Or what Charity can bid any man God Speed in the way of Corah or how can I affect his Society that hates my Religion and my God How can I bear it when I see my Saviour so manifestly Crucified afresh between the Heretick breaking the Vnity of the Church in point of Doctrine by denying one or more of her Fundamental Articles and the Schismatick in point of Discipline endeavouring to overthrow her Government How can I endure another down-right Judas to betray the whole Cause of Christianity with a complement of Religion or a Kiss of Zeal Surely if we must withdraw from the Heretick who if he keeps his error to himself Schism worse than Heresie may be no bodies foe but his own then much more certainly from the Schismatick as the more Scandalous Mischievous and Impious of the two as necessarily offending against Peace and Charity together And why because the Schismatick cannot possibly keep his Schism to himself that being publick in its own nature as being a positive separation from publick Worship erecting Altar against Altar and more than a bare negative suspension of Communion and by consequence an affront to the Governours and a scorn to the Government of the Church by setting up a Conventicle prohibited by God and man against a Church establisht by the Laws of both The Schismatick is an actual divider in and of the Church and therefore worse by odds than any other who is but passively divided or cut off from her as much worse as to subvert the whole Legislative power is worse than any violation of a particular Law or to make way for all the Heresies and Immoralities in the world is worse than any one of those can be The Schismatick must needs be so much worse than the Heretick as a vicious practice is worse than a false opinion The Communion of Saints The Schismatick a Heretick too and as a Schismatick is for the most part ipso facto an Heretick too for I pray tell me does he not renounce the IXth Article of the Creed does he not disown did I say does he not despise and detest that great Fundamental and essential to all Christian Religion submission to every Ordinance of man for the Lords sake as well as our own or tell me if this be not a most principal and fundamental doctrine Gentlemen I beseech you speak out Is it not a part of our Obedience to God himself Is it not the aptest of all others to keep the Vnity of the Spirit in the bond of Peace and is it not therefore that we find no Doctrine in the Holy Scriptures more earnestly or more affiduously 1 Pet. 2.18 more plainly or more expresly prescrib'd to us than that of Uniform obedience to all that are over us in authority worst as well as best and therefore tell me again Is it not both a most foolish and a most nefarious pretence that the Religion or irreligion of our Governours can either widen or straiten our divine obligation to strict obedience Tell me Was there ever more incarnate devils than Nero or Tiberius whom yet both Christ and St. Paul obeyed themselves and commanded others to obey Tell me Is not our obedience to Magistrates due to that Authority which has commanded us to pay it them and therefore cannot be paid as due to the men as men or to the good as good but reduplicatively to the Magistrates as such let them be otherwise what they will so they be not Usurpers or command contrary to God and then does not the very exception of those cases confirm the doctrine in all other Tell me Are we not when the commands of God and the King are inconsistent then to give our whole active obedience to God and to his Deputy our passive only and is not the Kings command otherwise the command of God too and is not the same Law mediately divine which is immediately humane or are we more obliged by strict precept to fear God than we are to honour the King or more forbidden the Worship of Idols than disobedience to lawful Authority or is any man able so much as in his conception to separate the sin of Schism from such disobedience or such disobedience from rebellion against the Law of Christ or a state of damnation from either of them Tell me Does not St. Jude put all these together in his description of the Gnosticks the first and worst Schismaticks Jude 4 8 12 16 19. Hereticks and Rebels in the Primitive Church when he calls them Murmurers Complainers walking after their own lusts separating themselves from what I beseech you ver 6. if not from the Church establisht having not yet questionless pretending to have the Spirit whom he therefore parallels for their misery as well as sin with those that made a Schism as it were in Heaven and separated from the Church Triumphant reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the Judgment of the great day Tell me Are not those who do not hold fast the Profession of the Faith but forsake the assembling themselves together at stated times and places by just authority appointed as the manner of some is Heb. 10.23 25. are not they inferr'd to sin wilfully and that therefore there remains nothing for such but a fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation Do we not find the Holy Pen-men thundring out the Terrors of the Lord against this single sin more than all the rest and why do we so but because this sin gives the greatest scandal to the enemies of Christ and helps to justifie them in their highest prejudices to his Name and Gospel Do we not find the Schismaticks singled out from the whole herd of scandalous and notorious sinners to be markt and avoided as the worst of all as most destitute of Christian meekness not consenting to wholesom words but proud knowing nothing doating about questions and strifes of words whereof cometh envy strife c. presumptuous self-will'd despising Governments c. Can any pride be more monstrous than to be proud of knowledge and yet know nothing or can it be any other thing than such an

more learned and this so much the rather if it be well considered that however Christians ought to serve one another in love yet obedience to inferiours is grievous and not without some excuse for being so whereas that of Superiours as of Christ who according to his humane nature was a subject to Caesar is a most noble natural and necessary duty as that which supports the whole Fabrick of the Church and of all the Kingdoms upon earth and in Heaven too that which is so equally essential to Policy and Religion that 't is plainly impossible either for Saints to be Schismaticks or Rebels or for such to be Saints without making our Faith our Scriptures our Religion vain without a downright welcome to Anarchy and farewel to all Society The contempt of Authority linked with an obstinate contumacious and seditious humour is so very a monster that it makes an error of judgment which might otherwise have been venial in it self a diabolical and damning quality So that if Schism were no such sin as it is yet it were worth the parting with for the purchase of publick peace of which rightly improved piety and prosperity strength and safety are the genuine and precious fruits It was for this that our Lord himself complyed in some things both with Jews and Gentiles that he might gain both It was for this that we find the like complyances of St. Paul of whom we should all be followers as he was of Christ yielding to circumcise Timothy Act. 15.28 29. and refusing again to circumcise Titus To gain the Jews he denyed himself the use of his Christian liberty and resum'd it again to gain the Gentiles It was for peace and to unite dissenters that the Apostles made that conciliar establishment of things indifferent by a Law whereby they induced a necessity à parte post upon things indifferent à parte antè And this Apostolical practice as it plainly informs our judgments in the true subject matter of humane Laws and whereabout they are properly conversant and as plainly directs our practice of obedience in such cases so will it never be made to serve their purposes who by binding the whole force and weight of it upon their Governours shoulders so as they themselves may not touch it so much as with one of their own fingers would make it a ground of exception from the general rule of submission and a warrant to dispute at least and as it constantly follows to deny at last that obedience which they pretend according to this practice should not have been commanded as if the condescension and indulgence of Governours were not to the ignorance or frowardness to the intellectual or moral infirmities of dissenters as if the Jews had not been culpable in their tenaciousness of the Law of Moses when St. Paul purposely stoopt to them and approved its observance by his own practice as if the bowels and forbearings of any injur'd and incens'd Parent did not make it more the childs duty to love and honour him and should not make it more his shame and grief to displease him more his sin and guilt to disobey him as if not presently to take the forfeiture were reasonably to avoid the debt or cancel the debtors obligation or as if it were equally of duty as it is of power in the Prince to suspend the execution of a known Law for some weighty reasons of State and upon the prospect of publick benefit and to tolerate a practice against Law and without hope of any common good and not without just apprehensions of the greatest experience of the contrary and therefore against all the reason in the world but that of his own courtesie and meer pity 'T is true indeed when Kings are said to be Gods we best understand how they are such when they are said also to be nursing Fathers and therefore without fear either of contradiction to sense or of courtship against reason we can say they are humane Gods their deity best asserted by their humanity and both by a joynt supremacy of power and goodness and we cannot chuse but wonder at the Anti-supremacy of Schism that our ready obedience should not confess the one as irresistible as our rebellions have prov'd the other 'T is as true that there is no such mirrour so clear and true to look in no such optick or perspicil to see with as is the Crystal of the Word of God a glass of such virtue that it not only most perfectly discovers the object but also disposes the medium and directs the faculty a glass that will never suffer us to behold any thing with or through prejudice or base interest or without Christian charity and meekness a glass that never shews us the spots of others but by reflexion upon our own in this glass we can neither behold the virtues or vices of our fellow-subjects with envy or without pity nor the blemishes or beauties of our Governours without a reverence becoming both a reverence I say as being a mixt affection of fear and love by which I fear the power whilst I love not the fault of the person and love the person whilst I fear the evil whether sin or punishment of the fault In this glass we see what we must piously bewail yet may not proudly censure in our Superiors what we must reprove with caution and without arrogance in our equals and what we must judge and condemn impartially positively absolutely and irrespectively to any though more scandalous sins of others in our selves St. Paul was the greatest of sinners with the greatest assurance of Salvation and the Publican was a sinner with more comfort than the Pharisee was not a Publican In this glass the most absolute Soveraign Prince may best see himself in the fullest proportion he sees by and for whom he reigns absolutely and without whom he reigns not independently he sees that his Government is arbitrary as that is supream and unquestionable by man but not as any way unaccountable but as every way most strictly and most especially accountable to God for he sees him that is properly and originally King of Kings under whose most supreme and comprehensive Title and by vertue of whom he sees himself constituted and authorized and accordingly to which he is to be directed limited and subordinate and therefore by no means to intrench upon the Prerogatives Royal of his Lord Paramount and therefore not to govern by his own Will which is Gods peculiar a rule to himself and a Law to the Sons of men the root and source of all Government which so spreads and runs it self through the whole nature of man that it makes Government not more divine in it self than connatural to us and as effective of our well-beings in Societies as of our social and conjugal propensions and therefore as old as Paternity it self or the First of the First-born making every man naturally sociable 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Supremum medium