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
A85386	Calumny arraign'd and cast. Or A briefe answer to some extravagant and rank passages, lately fallen from the pen of William Prynne, Esquire, in a late discourse, entituled, Truth triumphing over falshood, &c. against Mr John Goodwin, Minister of the Gospel. Wherein the loyall, unfeigned and unstained affection of the said John Goodwin to the Parliament, and civill magistracie, is irrefragably and fully vindicated and asserted against those broad and unchristian imputations, most untruly suggested in the said discourse against him. By the said John Goodvvin. Licensed entered and printed according to order.	Goodwin, John, 1594?-1665.	1645 (1645)	Wing G1153; Thomason E26_18; ESTC R12923	51,593	64

Lawyer as such excending it self only to the conquisition and mustering together former transactions passages and records of Parliament or at most to assist in the literall explanation or interpretation of them but matter of sin and what is lawfull by the law of God belonging properly to the cogniance of the Divine it is as evident as evidence it self in her highest exaltation can make is that Divines are more usefull necessary yea and competent Judges in the saense declared of Parliamentary Priviledges then Lawyers are Notwithstanding To the last recited passage I answer 3. and lastly that whereas my Adversary chargeth me to have determined and judged of the ancient Rights and Privileges of our Parliaments so peremptorily c. that this charge is like all or most of the rest undue untrue I doe not meddle with any ancient Right or Priviledge of Parliament I onely argue and work upon the Principles of mine own Profession the Scriptures and Word of God if these in their naturall and proper inclination ducture and tendencie lead me to any such position or conclusion which enterfeers with something which Mr. Prynne will needs call an ancient Right or Priviledge of Parliament it is meerly accidentall and which I cannot with my Allegeance to Heaven nor otherwise then at the utmost perill of my soule no nor without a sinfull prevarication with that dutie which I owe to the State I live in decline And therefore whereas The 4th signification which the Gentleman finds of the verb Praesumo to salve the miscarriage of his pen in the word PRESVMPTVOVSLY is to doe a thing before a man be lawfully called to it and hereupon tells me that I had no lawfull calling or warrant from Gods Word or our Lawes to handle the Jurisdictions and rights of Parliament in my Pulpit c. and concludes against me without bayle or mainprize that in this I was PRESVMPTVOVS by the Scriptures owne definition 2 Pet. 2. 10. I answer 1. That the Apostle Peter in the place cited gives no definition at all of the word Presumptuous but onely speaks of a wicked generation of men who walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleannesse and despise Government presumptuous self-willed and they are not afraid to speak evill of dignities Can a man gather any definition of Presumption or of a Presumptuous man from hence When the Apostle Paul confesseth himself to have been a Blasphemer Persecutor a c. doth he give any definition of either I had rather Mr. Prynne should call me a Presumptuous man a thousand times over then that he should be able once to prove it out of any definition of St Peter The Scriptures which Mr. Prynne still citeth are acknowledged to be very good but he imployeth them against their wills and so their goodnesse and his purpose doe not greet or kisse each other But 2. Whereas he tells me I had no warrant from Gods Word or our Lawes to handle the Jurisdictions or rights of Parliament in my Pulpit c. I first demand what warrant from Gods Word or our Lawes hath he thus to calumniate a Minister of the Gospel onely for his faithfulnesse to God and men to wring wrest and wier-draw his words and sayings as he hath done these ten times at least in this and his other writings I shall have my warrant and that Authentique enough to shew for what I have done when his will be to seek for what he hath done and that which is worse will no where be found As for his charge that I handle the Jurisdictions and rights of Parliament in my Pulpit c. it is but a dead corps of an accusation without any life or soule of Truth in it at all and may well be reputed free of the company of his other not more foule then false criminations I never handled any such theame or subject in my Pulpit as he talks of except it were in pleading the justnesse of their cause in the present warres against the determinations of the Oxford Schooles I trust Mr. Prynne will forgive me this offence But 3. If by handling the rights and Jurisdictions of Parliaments he means those passages wherein I argued against the lawfulnesse of submitting unto any Government from men except it be agreeable also to the Word of God and mind of Christ or against any lawfulnesse of power in any civill Magistrate or Magistracie whatsoever to make any such Lawes or Statutes in matters of Religion and which concerne the worship of God whereunto the servants of God shall stand bound under mulcts and penalties to submit whether they can with a good conscience submit unto them or no if this be the tenor of my charge I answer that I have warrant both from the Law of God and from the Laws of the Land also as farre as I understand them and I hope I understand them sufficiently in this to doe whatsoever I have herein done The warrant of a Law whether we speak of the Law of God or of the Law of men for an action doth not stand onely in a positive or expresse injunction or declaration in the Law that such or such an action either must or may be done but also in the totall silence of the Law directly and by evident consequence as touching any restraint or prohibition of the action It is true the totall silence of humane Lawes concerning many actions doth not simply and absolutely warrant them for lawfull or good though this be true concerning the Divine Law but it warrants them sufficiently against any crime imputable against any censure or punishment infligible by the Authoritie of such Lawes Where no Law is saith the Apostle a there is no transgression So then if amongst all the Laws and Statutes of the Land there be no one Law or Statute to be found which prohibiteth or restraineth a Minister of the Gospel from declaring and making known the whole counsell of God b unto men of which wretched import I know none yea I am securely confident that there is none then have I warrant sufficient in respect of our Laws both to preach and print whatsoever I have done either in the one or in the other in the passages aforesaid because in them I have neither preached nor printed any thing but what is part of the counsell of God as I have abundantly manifested made good in severall tracts especially in that which was last published c against all opposition and counter-reasonings whatsoever As for the word of God I have not onely a warrant from thence to doe all that I did in the premises but that which is more then a warrant in the sense specified precept upon precept injunction upon injunction command upon command yea I stand here most deeply and dreadfully charged as I will answer it at the great and terrible day when the Lord Jesus Christ shall be revealed from Heaven with his mightie Angels in flaming fire taking vengeance on them

had little or no cause to glorie in that priviledge But Quod defertur non anfectur Quicquid sub terrâ est in apricum proferet aetas Having as you have heard befriended Mr. Edwards his fellow-labourer in the Presbyterian cause with the best accommodation he could to make one piece of him hang to another but alas who is able to comprimize between fire and water he proceeds and tels me behind my back and yet with an intent I presume that all the world should take notice of it that my passages out of Mr. Hayward Bishop Jewel Mr. Fox Mr. Calvin Jacobus Acontius c. make nothing at all against the legislative Authority of Parliaments in matters of Religion and Church Government and have no affinity with my passages words most of them propugning the very Ecclesiasticall power of Parliaments which I oppugne And yet in the very next words adds that indeed some of their words seem to diminish the coercive power of Magistrates and enforcing of mens consciences in matters of Religion as if I ever oppugned or denied any other Authority or power in Magistrates then this If he will please but to peruse my Innocencies triumph pag. 8. and my Innocency and Truth triumphing together pag. 72. 73. 78. with severall other passages in these and other my writings he will or at least very easily may see that I oppugne deny no other Authority power in Parliaments Civill Magistrates but onely that which is enforcing of mens consciences in matters of Religion Whereas he promiseth or undertakes that he shall in due place answer these words of theirs which as he saith seem to diminish the coercive power of Magistrates in matters of Religion and manifest how I abuse the Authors herein as well as Mr. Edwards My answer onely is that he may indeed soon answer them after that rate of answering at which he hath answered any thing of mine hitherto and he may shew how i. say that I abuse them and without writing or speaking as well as by either manifest that I abuse their Authors herein as well as I do Mr. Edwards But for this last particular I am willing to save him the labour and pains of writing for the manifestation of it For I here freely confesse that I have abused these Authors in what he speaks of just as I have abused Mr. Edwards and both of them just as much as amounts to no abuse at all I wonder by what art or way the Gentleman means to go to work to prove that I have miserably wrested or abused the Authors he here speaks of or their words when as I have put no construction at all or interpretation upon their words nor drawn any inference or deduction from them but onely transcribed them with as much diligence and faithfulnesse as I could and presented them cleerly as they stand in their respective Authors If his meaning be that I have miserably wrested and abused them by my quotation of them as subservient to my cause or purpose a deed of folly which himself commits with the holy Scriptures themselves many a time and often my answer is that were this assertion true that they are not subservient to my cause or purpose yet my recourse unto them for aid to my purpose were no miserable wresting or abusing of them Our Saviour being an hungry did not abuse the fig-tree by repairing to it though there prov'd nothing upon it for his purpose Nor should Mr. Prynne abuse a Tavern by going into it to drink a cup of wine that pleaseth him though he shold be disappointed in his expectation when he comes there Nay in this case would he not rather think and that much more reasonably of the two that the Taverne had abused him then he it In like manner if those Authors and sayings which I have produced and which Mr. Prynne speaks of have no affinity with my passages and purpose I may much more truly and reasonably say that they have abused me then Mr. Prynne can either say or ever prove that I have abused them For the truth is if they do fall me or refuse to stand by me in the defence of those passages spoken of when Mr. Prynne hath done his worst to them they are the greatest dissemblers that ever wore the livery of paper and inke Never were there sentences or sayings that more fully and freely complied with any mans notions whatsoever in terms and words then farre the greatest part of these do with my passages and purpose If Mr. Prynne can dissolve or abrogate the Authoritie of Grammar rules and destroy the naturall and proper signification of words then may I have some cause to fear that he may possibly evict me to be a miserable wrester and abuser of Authors and their sayings But if words be able to defend themselves and make good the possession of their known significations and rules of construction their both ancient and moderne interest in the understandings of men against the Authority or violence of Mr. Prynnes pen I defie all his interminations and threatnings of manifesting me either a miserable wrester or abuser of my Authors The last parcell of his high contest against me in this Discourse is that I pervert the meaning of the Divines of Scotland in one or more or I know not he knows not how many or how few of those passages which I cite from them whereas I meddle not little or much with any sense or meaning of any of them but onely barely tender them unto the Reader leaving it free unto him to judge of the sense and meaning of them and whether they consort with my apprehensions or no And though he be doubtfull of that interpretation or meaning which himself however adventures to put upon them as there is reason more then enough why he should delivering himself with this sub-modest caution If I mistake not yet am I rated and chidden at no lower rate then this you may THEREFORE blush at this I wonder which your perverting of their meaning as if they held that the Parliaments of England or Scotland had no power to make Ecclestasticall Laws for Religion and Church Government THEREFORE may I blush wherefore what because Mr. Prynne hath put such a sense and interpretation upon the passages in hand of which he knows not it seems what to make but suspects a mistake in it Blush in this respect I confesse I may but what cause have I to blush at my perverting of their meaning when as 1. I do not interpose to put any meaning I mean any particular or speciall meaning upon any of them 2. Why should I blush upon Mr. Prynnes injunction at any meaning which I put upon them when as that very meaning which himself puts upon them by way of confutation and disparagement of that which he pretends to be mine is by himself little lesse then suspected for a mistake The tax of blushing which Mr. Prynne imposeth upon me should in reason be