Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
religion_n	good_a	king_n	prince_n	3,500	5	5.4628	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30429	A sermon preached at the coronation of William III and Mary II, King and Queen of England, ---- France, and Ireland, defenders of the faith in the Abby-Church of Westminster, April 11, 1689 / by Gilbert Lord Bishop of Salisbury.	Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715.	1689 (1689)	Wing B5888; ESTC R19766	13,247	38

that is the King of Kings and offer up their Crowns to him by whom they Reign Kings have one Prerogative which few of them are indeed willing to use much and that is the Converting the World not by Dragoons Sanguinary Laws or Cruel Edicts but by Examples of true Religion and good Life Kings Examples have an Efficacy which few can resist and none will affect to do it If Events that happen seldom may be called Miracles this may well deserve that Name and indeed considering that as Princes carry the Frailties of Human Nature about them so they have Temptations ever near them to work on these that the constant distraction of Affairs dissipates their Thoughts and exhausts their Spirits that they are always encompassed with Flatterers who are on all Occasions contriving how they may please them even when it is by deceiving them and that pleasures of all sorts wait on them and follow them when all this is laid together the Miracle of a truly Religious Prince is perhaps none of the smallest effects of Omnipotence and it runs not the hazard of losing its Value by being shewed too often But when there is a solid Morality and genuine Piety well tempered and mixed together and that Princes are both Just and Fearing God and that they govern Themselves and their People by those measures then we must acknowledg that not only the Figures which are here made use of tho with never so much Beauty but all that the Richest Fancy can invent come far short of setting forth the Happiness of being under such a Government The Injust Vexations of Law-Suits would cease if it appeared that Righteousness sate in the place of Judgment that the Persons of the Rich were not Regarded nor their Presents accepted Men durst not offend if they saw that nothing could redeem them from deserved punishments Factions and Animosities could not be kept up in Cities and Communities if those indirect Arts by which they might hope to biass the Prince were cut off When true Merit is the sure way to high Dignities then Men will take to the long tho slow Method of honest Industry instead of the shorter way of Flattery and Importunity When Men are put out of countenance that will be vicious and are denied all those Favours that the Prince will have to be the portion of the Vertuous When the Decencies of Vertue are more necessary to make a Man look well at Court than the wearing Cloaths in Fashion when Atheism and Impiety are Things which Princes cannot bear when a drunken Man is a most loathsom sight and Oaths and Curses are the most offensive sounds to them when Slanders Lies and Calumnies can only hurt those that make them and next to the Authors those that scatter them about When all these or if that is too much to be hoped for when but some of them appear in the conduct of Government Men will be tempted to doubt whether they should wish to tarry still here on Earth or not How many of our Passions would then fall off when we should have no more occasion for them nor provocations to them Fears and Jealousies Discontent and Ill-nature could not thrive as they do if all that Nourishment which the Errours of Government afford them were withdrawn But to compleat the Picture I shall only set before you the different State of the Romans when they passed from the Vicious Reigns of such Execrable Monsters as Tiberius Caligula Nero and Domitian to the happy times of Trajan Hadrian Antonine but above all of that most sublime pattern of Vertue and Philosophy Marcus Aurelius In the former nothing was studied but Vice and pleasure Nothing could raise a Man but sordid Flattery and an obsequious courting of every Creature of Fortune and Favour The whole business of the Court was to corrupt and debase the Senate and to destroy those who still retained such a Tincture of their ancient Liberty that nothing could subdue it Spies and Informers were every where imployed to engage Men into Discourses and Plots which were to be betrayed while corrupt Judges and false Witnesses were sure to carry all things before them And their very Religion false as it was was vitiated by the impudent mixtures of the most shameful Idolatry while their Emperours that were the reproaches of Humane Nature had divine Adorations payed them and that with all the refinings and profusion of Pomp in it that nauseous Flattery could invent Their great City was laid in Ashes only to gratify the wild Frolicks of an extravagant Tyrant the Warlike Spirit of the Romans was enervated by Luxury and dissoluteness and the Empire it self was exposed first to the contempt and then to the Inroads of their formerly subdued Provinces while a publick Spectacle an Entertainment or a Play were the only cares of a Court that hated the very appearances of Vertue and yet still fancied it self to be the Terrour and Wonder of the World till a fatal Revolution or a deadly stroke awakened Men out of their Lethargy But this side of the Picture is not more hideous than the other is Glorious the return of good Princes put a New Face on the whole Empire Their Ancient Sense of Liberty was revived which must ever carry with it all that is Great or Noble in humane Nature with it Learning and good Sense Wit and Eloquence were again recoverd Frugality and Sobriety were again honoured and a Modesty and Simplicity of living shined afresh Truth and Vertue and Philosophy it self began to reign Tacitus and Plutarch Epictetus and beyond them all Marcus Aurelius himself were such Men that one would bless a whole Age if it should but produce one of that force Marcus in a Reign of almost twenty Years continuance is represented by all the Writers of the succeeding as well as of his own Age as so perfect a Pattern that there never appeared either in his private Deportment or in his Government one Single Blemish He was never once seen either transported with Anger or with Joy. He was never charged with one Light Word or any one Rash Action He lived in a perpetual Application to the Affairs of the Empire and in the intervals of business even in his Expeditions and Camps he was imployed in those profound Meditations of Philosophy which carry this Noble Title Of Himself to Himself and in which we see the most natural and unaffected contempt of all things besides Vertue and Goodness expressed with the greatest force and yet with the truest simplicity of any thing that Antiquity has left us Under such Princes the Romans could not but recover their ancient Discipline and their wonted Valour and the Empire was again raised to its former Lustre and regained its lost Authority but which was much more in them the World saw patterns of Vertue that were too high for that corrupt Religion which then prevailed and this perhaps disposed it not a little for Christianity that could not only consist with