Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
religion_n	civil_a	magistrate_n	matter_n	3,433	5	6.0251	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A46649	A sermon preached at the consecration of the Honourable Dr. Henry Compton, Lord Bishop of Oxford, in Lambeth-Chappel, on Sunday, December 6, 1674 by William Jane ...	Jane, William, 1645-1707.	1675 (1675)	Wing J455; ESTC R21231	23,378	49

look'd upon as a tryal of their Faith To obey Authority was taught and practised under a Nero and their Submissions were as unparalelled as their Provocations And we may truly suppose under the Roman Emperours that had the Doctrine of Obedience been as throughly received by their Heathen Subjects as it was Preached by St. Paul and practised by his believing Romans they had effectually provided for the publick tranquility without any farther need of Forts and Armies to secure it But secondly the supposal of Divine Right in the Governours of the Church where Christianity is received into the State abates nothing of the natural Right of the Civil Power in matters of Religion This assertion depends upon the foregoing For if Christianity makes no change at all in any Temporal concern of the World then a Christian State has the same right of ordering the Affairs of Christianity so that nothing be done by virtue of it which may create a prejudice to the State as any other Kingdoms of the World have in that Religion which they profess For no Nation ever yet openly pretended that great holdness with their Gods as to make Religion at pleasure become either true or false but they therefore profess any Religion because they first suppose it to be true Religion therefore being first establish'd whatsoever it be all that afterwards follows is a nomination of persons to dispence it giving Laws for the due Administration o it setting bounds and limits to the exercise calling Assemblies to consult about it ratifying their Decrees with civil Sanctions and receiving Appeals in case of a corrupt Management and an unjust Sentence All which Christianity so entirely devolves upon the Magistrate that those who have taken the greatest pains to clear the fundamental Right of the Church have withal proved the most able and vigorous Assertors of those inherent Prerogatives of the Crown And whenever they come to be disowned through the Christian World then and not before let the Church lye for ever under that guilt and odium which men now make it their business to cast upon it Let Kings cease to be her nursing Fathers and Queens her nursing Mothers In the mean time it bears the same notion with Religion in general in reference to the powers of the World save only in this that it addresses it self to them with greater obligations to take it into their protection that is with greater evidence of a Divine Authority Thirdly however it has come to pass through the Debaucheries of Men and the Malice of the Devil that Religion as a Learned man observes has been a politick Engin in some mens hands and made use of for the battery as by others for the defence of the State yet the Government of the Church of England which is the subject of our present debate stands as clear and justifiable to the World altogether as our common Christianity For as for the Essentials of it if once Religion be dismist from the Accusation of turning the World upside down I would fain know what further latent mischief can be in this that one man in a certain Precinct or Diocess take care that all who profess Religion live in obedience and conformity to the Rules of it And this is all which we claim as essentially pertaining to Episcopal Jurisdiction As for the Secular advantages of Temporal Priviledges and Power since we thankfully own them to be the meer accessions of Humane bounty they can cause no jealousie in the Author of them 'till we see the Streams contend with the Fountain and the Beams of the Sun with the Sun it self Our Church never owned their Religion who compare the Church to the Sun and the Empire to the Moon but Receives all these Temporall favours as the Arbitrary donatives of the Civil Power not in any wise her own but entirely a borrowed lustre And which is for the Eternal reputation of our Church she has learn'd to want them as well as to abound with them and can be equally loyal both in the loss and the enjoyment Which we need go no further for a proof of then her Canons and her Practice Both which have given us an evident demonstration that she was the surest support during the standing of the English Monarchy and next to the Royal Family the greatest sufferer in the fall But fourthly if we take this Principle that has raised such great clamours against the Divine right of the Church and view it in those conclusions which unavoidably flow from it we shall find it the most contumelious and destructive to Government of any thing that has appeared against it And though I do not charge the conclusions upon all who have owned the Principle yet we may be allowed to take them from one who well enough understands and is not ashmed to speak out the just consequence of his premises Does not he then who denies the Obligation of Christianity upon this ground that there is no Law antecedent to the Civil Sanction at the same time take the Law of Nature out of Mens heart and a God out of the World who is the Author and Avenger of it And does he not thereby put a People that should profess it out of the protection of the Law of Nations For what Faith can be expected from him who does not yet own it to be his Duty And how can he acknowledge it to be his Duty who denies a God to revenge and punish the violation of it Does not he who makes the arbitrary pleasure of the Magistrate the sole Rule and Standard of Good and Evil take away from the Prince the deserved commendations of Justice and Wisdom and all those other Virtues which are the most sparkling Diamonds in his Crown making no difference at all between Tiberius and Antoninus Nero and Titus the pest and the darling of Mankind Is the Prince any thing beholding to him for this pretended extent of the bounds of the Civil Power who at the same time places that power in possession and strength and the same right in an usurping Tyrant and the undoubted Soveraign Does not he who holds it his duty to forswear Christianity at the command of the Magistrate declare himself perfidious to the Government as well as an Apostate from the Faith For what trust can be reposed in him in Civil Matters who can renounce that solemn Covenant into which he was Baptized and openly professes his Oath is not to be believed when his Religion is called in question Or what tye can the Magistrate have upon him who can make so bold with his God So fatal and pernicious is this exorbitant right of the Leviathan's Common-wealth It is a two edged Sword which he puts into the Magistrates hands the one merely pretending to protect the People the other really designed to destroy the Prince Such are the absurd Paradoxes which the denyal of Church-power resolves it self into All which with a great many others are so gross and