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	government_n	worship_n	3,428	5	7.3798	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A58816	A sermon preached at the assizes at Chelmsford, in the county of Essex, August 31, 1685 before the Honourable Sir Thomas Street, Kt., one of the judges of His Majesty's Court of Common Pleas / by John Scott ...	Scott, John, 1639-1695.	1685 (1685)	Wing S2070; ESTC R38224	13,664	38

and be confounded for ever besides these it is not long since that God almighty hath deprived us of one of the wisest most gratious and mercifull Kings that ever swayed a Sceptre a King that had been long endeared to us not onely by the gentleness of his Reign the prudence of his conduct and the incomparable sweetness of his temper but also by sundry miraculous Deliverances and as miraculous a Restoration a Restoration that proclaimed and signalized him the Darling and Favorite of the divine Providence a Prince that reigned in all honest Hearts by the inconquerable Charms of his own native goodness which had virtue enough in them had the thing been possible to have obliged Ingratitude and even to have made Faction ashamed and Fanaticism Loyal And now to him in despite of all the Hellish machinations of a restless Faction our present rightfull Lord peaceably succeeds a Prince whom God seems to have reserved on purpose to make us amends for the inestimable loss we sustained in Charles the Wise and Good and indeed considering the great and Princely Vertues which adorn his Mind and shine through the whole Sphere of his activity we have all the encouragement in the world to promise our selves a continuance of those Halcion days under his happy influence if by our own intestine Seditions we do not cloud and disturb them that we have so long enjoy'd under the auspicious Reign of his Brother for if from an undaunted courage and firmness of Mind if from an immense greatness and generosity of Soul if from an inflexible sincerity and integrity of Manners if from an impartial Justice sweetened with an indearing benignity of Temper if from the fair conjunction of all these Royal Vertues in a Prince a People may presage their own happiness we have all these to build our hope on in our present Sovereign who to give an absolute confidence to our hope hath gratiously deposited in our hands that sacred pledge of his own Royal Faith by a publick repeated Declaration inviolably to preserve our Laws and Liberties and Properties and which ought to be dearest to us than all the established Religion of our Church which for purity of Worship and Doctrine for antiquity of Discipline and Government for loyalty of Principles and Practice outshines all the Churches in the World and for us to mistrust the security of that Faith which yet was never forfeited to any Man would be not onely rude and disingenuous but unjust and malitious so that considering the admirable frame of our Government and the unparallel'd goodness of our Princes we are certainly the most obliged Subjects in the World And if after this we should prove factious and disloyal what will the World say of us but that we are a People of a base and ungratefull Genius whom no goodness can indear or oblige and what may we expect from God but that as a just retribution for our black ingratitude he should make us feel the smart of all those barbarous Tyrannies and Oppressions which hitherto we have unjustly complained of Wherefore unless we intend to render our selves both infamous to Men and odious to God let us chearfully comply with this great Precept of our Religion Let every Soul of us be subject to the higher Powers forasmuch as the Powers that are are ordained of God THE END ADVERTISEMENT THere are lately published by the same Authour the Books following The Christian Life Part I. From its Beginning to its Consummation in Glory together with the several Means and Instruments of Christianity conducing thereunto with directions for private Devotion and forms of Prayer fitted to the several states of Christians The third Edition The Christian Life Part II. Wherein the fundamental Principles of Christian Duty are assigned explained and proved Vol. I. A Sermon preached before the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor c. Decemb. 16. 1683. on Prov. XXIV 21. And meddle not with them that are given to change A Sermon preached before the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor c. on Iuly 26. 1685. being the day of Thanksgiving for His Majesty's Victory over the Rebels on 2 Sam. XVIII 28. And Ahimaaz called and said unto the King All is well And he fell down to the earth upon his face before the King and said Blessed be the Lord thy God which hath delivered up the men that lift up their hand against my Lord the King

men consult the Devil himself what course they were best take to blast the honour of Religion he could not direct them to a more effectual one than under sanctified pretences to turn Rebels to the Government and accordingly heretofore the Adversaries of Christianity could find no such effectual calumny to blast and expose it as this that it was an Enemy to the civil Government as wisely enough considering that could they but infuse into mankind a belief of this scandal there was nothing could be more conducive to antidote mens minds against it and to render it base and infamous in the opinion of the World whilst therefore we conduct any seditious design under the holy banners of Christianity we join hands with its open and profest adversaries and indeavour so far as in us lies to defend their most malitious Calumnies against it and our factious behaviour glossed with pretences of Christian zeal is a much stronger proof of that Heathen Calumny than all the arguments of Celsus and Porphyrie and Hierocles together because the confession of a seeming Friend is of much more credit than the accusation of an open Enemy whilst therefore we make our Religion a colour for our Faction and Disloyalty we confess it to be guilty of the most infamous thing that it was ever charged with by the worst of its enemies viz. that it lays trains of factious Principles in mens Hearts and Consciences on purpose to blow up Thrones and Governments and throw the World into Ruins and Confusions whereas on the contrary by our firm and unshaken Loyalty to our Governours we give an ocular demonstration to the World that our Religion is good for the best purposes that it is not onely beneficial in order to our future happiness which being distant and invisible is not so apt to affect Men but that it is the most effectual instrument even of our present safety and welfare as it is the great prop of Thrones and the surest supporter of Government upon which the welfare of Mankind depends and if we can but once convince Men as we might easily do by our steady Loyalty that our Religion is the best security of Government without which the World of Men is a mere Wilderness of Wolves and Tygers we shall in this doe it greater honour and give it a more glorious reputation in the World than by our most demure and specious pretences to Sanctity without it for whatever Men may imagine it is demonstrable that factious Godliness is a greater reproach and scandal to Religion than open profaneness and impiety Thirdly consider that upon our faithfull Subjection to our Prince the safety of our Religion depends for there is nothing in the World can more indanger our Religion than our making it a pretence for Rebellion for hereby we inevitably expose it to the hatred of Princes and doe what in us lies to arm their power against it for by our actions we do in effect make this open Declaration to them Sirs To tell you plainly ye may thank our Religion for our Disobedience we would be Loyal but it will not suffer us and therefore ye were best have a care of it for if ye do not suppress it it will undermine your Thrones and one time or other arm the hands of your People against your Persons and Dignities When therefore we set up our Religion against our Governours we force them in their own defence to set themselves against it and to indeavour so far as in them lies to root it out of the World and if being provoked by our Sedition they should ever draw their Swords against it it may thank us for it who first began the Quarrel and gave the Challenge and did in effect declare by out Actions that unless they forced us to lay down our Religion our Religion would force them to lay down their Crowns yea and though we should succeed in our Rebellion and prove too hard for our Governours yet first or last our Religion will be sure to smart for it for when we have pulled down them we must set up some others in their room and whosoever they are though they may love the Treason by which themselves were advanced to be sure they will hate the traiterous Religion and never think themselves safe in their Usurpation whilst those Principles prevail in the Consciences of the People upon which they rebell'd against their former Governours for let Men be never so zealous for seditious Principles whilst they are Rebels you may depend upon it they will be as zealous against them when they are Usurpers and be as much concern'd to suppress and extirpate them as ever they were before to uphold and propagate them of the truth of which ye have a notorious instance in the late Usurper who though while he was a Subject was a zealous stickler for those Religious pretences under which that barbarous Rebellion was conducted yet was no sooner seated in the Throne but he grew quite aweary of them and could he but have seduced our sequestred Clergy from their natural Prince which he sundry times attempted would willingly have pulled down those Seditious Sects that raised him and re-established the Church of England of whose inflexible Loyalty to Government he had had sufficient experience Our Loyalty therefore is not onely the honestest but the wisest provision we can make for the safety of our Religion because hereby we recommend it to Princes as the safest guard of their Thrones and the surest defence of their Authority as that which will secure and facilitate their Government and tie their Subjects to them by their Hearts and Consciences and when by good experience they are convinced of this they cannot be enemies to it without being enemies to themselves and arming their Power against their own authority Fourthly and lastly Consider that if we of this Nation had no other motive yet in mere gratitude we stand obliged to render faithfull Subjection to our Princes for considering with what an easie and indulgent Government and with what a succession of excellent Princes God Almighty hath blessed us I know no Nation under the Cope of Heaven that may be so happy as our selves if we please for as our Government is in the frame and constitution of it a most easie Yoke and gentle Burthen so for sundry Ages we have had Princes as gentle and gratious as our Government Princes that have studied our ease and our happiness and that have in nothing so much exceeded as in their Mercy and Indulgence towards us for not to mention that glorious Lady Queen Elizabeth that wise and learned that peaceable and gratious Prince King Iames I. of the Blessings of whose Reigns but few if any of us were partakers not to mention that pious and every way incomparable Prince Charles I. whose sacred Bloud is such a monumental shame to Treason and Rebellion as must make Rebels and Traitours if they have any modesty remaining in them blush