Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
religion_n	king_n	prince_n	subject_n	3,995	5	6.4954	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A48723	The churches peace asserted upon a civil account as it was (great part of it) deliver'd in a sermon before the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor in Guild-Hall-Chappel July 4 / by Ad. Littleton, presbyter.	Littleton, Adam, 1627-1694.	1669 (1669)	Wing L2560; ESTC R37938	36,810	50

been inlightned since and changed their mind they must know too that that power which gives men in publick place leave to act may upon publick inconvenience suspend their acting and if then they do act 't is an unjustifiable disobedience Nor is it with them as it was with Saint Paul Wo be unto me if I preach not the Gospel he had another kind of Call but for these there 's a Wo belongs to them if they do 'T is otherwise too now the Church is setled under Christian Magistrates and govern'd by Christian Laws then at that time when it was to be planted under the Government of Heathen Emperours The Church now with all her subordinations and dependencies in all her jurisdictions and powers owns the King her Supreme She challenges nothing to her self but what the favour of her Prince and the Laws of the land have allow'd her Thus Bishops as to the execution of their Office are sent by the King as Supreme and act in their Courts by the Kings power as Civil Courts do the King deputing Arch-Bishops and Bishops to be Judges under him in causes Spiritual and in his name to govern the Ecclesiastical State as he makes Lord Keepers Chief Iustices and other Iudges of the Land For had the Church any power in it self in Civil affairs besides what the Laws give her I dare say there 's ne're a Bishop in England but would speedily redress those scandals and grievances possibly brought into their Courts by Lay-Officers which people so much clamour against But now what can they do they are ty'd up by Law All of us that are of the Clergy own the Civil Power pay the same obedience to the Laws as any of you do and in First-fruits Tenths and Subsidies make as chargable acknowledgments as any of the populacy I know 't is said though what need of such a pompous costly Religion of a Church with so great an allowance of means This ample Revenue exhausts and weakens the State smaller stipends would serve turn very well But can any one with any shew of ingenuity fairly reason against the encouragements of Learning and the rewards of desert Let it be consider'd that several of this Order had they gone another way might with submission I speak it have sate in your Seats and been clad with your Purple After all our pains and time and strength and charges too spent in studies do not think that what the Law allows us we have by doing nothing for it These things are propos'd publickly as the Acquists of Industry and may be got and injoy'd as legally as any of your Estates And is it not fit do you think a National Church wherein the honour and reputation of Religion is to be kept up should be secur'd from poverty and that contempt which always accompanies meanness It were to be wish'd that as Kings are to be the Nursing Fathers of the Church so Princes and the Sons of Nobles would fit themselves for her dignities that they might bear up the honour of Religion with their personal attendence It has been so heretofore when the two great Offices were united in the same person Melchisedek King of Salem and Priest of the living God and they were kept pretty near in the persons of Moses and Aaron brethren and the Priest elder brother to the Prince And hence the Hebrew word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Kohen whence we have King signifies indifferently Prince and Priest whereupon the Apostle Rom. 13. calls the King in Ecclesiastical terms 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gods Minister say we for both 't is Gods Liturgie-maker and Gods Deacon to shew too that a Christian Magistrate as such has power to order religious affairs in the Service of God This I say has been and 't were well if it could be so with us however must the Church alone be held up by a precarious dependence Is it not this that makes Religion a Prostitute to the humors of the people when men of mean spirits and parts shall out of fear comply for a paltry livelihood to preach things that may please and others of ambitious minds and voluble tongues to serve an interest shall lead the people to their own hurt But some will say what would you have men do that are not otherwise considered since there is that unequal distribution of Church-favours that some go away with all and others get little or nothing Judge in your own case whether this be a reasonable ground of quarrel Shall the inequality of Estates amongst you make the meaner Citizens quarrel the Government of the City because they have not all the wealth of Aldermen Shall I or any of my brethren and companions because we have not that place and esteem in the Church as we out of the pride of our own hearts may think we deserve go in a sullen arrogance and set up for our selves in a distinct interest from the Church and flye in the face of our Mother and put undutiful affronts upon her for not being so kind as we would have her No. Gen. 49. 6. O my soul come not thou into such mens secret unto their private assemblies mine honour be not thou united Let them for me be divided in Iacob and scattered in Israel that in their anger and self-will practise such things To go on I know it has been seriously discoursed and p●inted too that the largeness of the Church-revenue in any Nation impoverishes the State sets the people behind-hand and puts them out of a thriving condition and no less then demonstration offered that if it were retrenched Trade would flourish Manufactures and growths receive wonderful improvements and the people generally grow rich apace But to Answer that Author those Common-wealths he speaks of and ours are not alike in the constitution and nature of the Government and God forbid they ever should But it may be ones wonder why our people cannot now with much more case make those improvements since the Church keeps little in her own hands and for the most part lets easie penny-worths nor can it be any reason that the Church drains the peoples money since if the Church had not what she has some body else would in the Churches right nor would the people be much the better How our Neighbour-States order their Church affairs I suppose ought to be no precedent of Policy to us though they to keep up a National Religion by which those they admit into publick trust are brought to test and for the securing publick peace amidst the differences of Religion maintain a standing Army Further why our dissenters should not upon their own bottoms be comprehended within the legal settlement of the Church they themselves give a very just occasion for the very best Party amongst them have such Principles of Policy and Government as are utterly inconsistent and incompatible not only with any other Form but with Monarchy it self as hath been clearly evidenced

matter of no great concern what Religion they are of or whether they be of any at all But alas we have now in this Church that disadvantage without travelling for it Our people stay at home and see fashions and some as Travellers use to put on the habit and garb of each Country they go through have appeared in all shapes taken up all Opinions and Forms and done exercise in them all till at last they have taken the degree of Doctors in the Scorners Chair and have turned profest Atheists How do the Romanists triumph in our dissensions make Bonfires out of our flames and daily get ground of the Protestant Cause whilst we Protestants our selves do their work for them by unnatural quarrels destroying our common Mother the Church How do prophane persons make themselves merry at the miscarriages of the Church and harden themselves in their Atheistical Reasonings against God himself when they see so much ado made such zeal and heat shown on all sides about Forms of Worship and the Circumstances of Religion when the mean while the great Duties of Christianity wherein the life and power of Religion lyes are by most of us of all perswasions neglected and how can they chuse but think Religion it self a trifle if that be it that makes us so earnest about trifles and yet so regardless in those things which the worst of Atheists themselves confess are necessary for the preservation of men whether singly in their own persons or joyntly in Society such as are Iustice Temperance Charity and the like What can Neighbour-States and Churches abroad think of us that after God had so wonderfully restored us to the astonishment of the world we have so strangely and with no less astonishment to the dishonour of God and our own shame lost the Miracle and let it fall to the ground and given up the Cause in a manner to which God by his extraordinary Providences and his Anointed our late Soveraign the blessed Martyr by his unparallel'd sufferings gave such testimony And at last what can we our selves look for now that God will yet work more Miracles for our preservation who have by our divisions in his Worship and our Spiritual fornications not only forfeited his protection but procured his displeasure and at once both disobliged his mercy and provoked his Justice To me to speak what I apprehend freely it appears in the posture we now stand in a very shrewd symptom and a dangerous indication that God himself and Religion and all are now about to take their solemn leave of the Country together with the Churches peace And then what will become of our brethren and companions for whose sake we are to endeavour the Churches peace when God has once forsaken the Land And thus I have done with the first Argument The second is that the peace of the Church in the uniform Worship of God is a necessary expedient to make Religion the happy instrument of Government by securing that influence it has upon the minds of men in awing Subjects to obedience and uniting our brethren and companions in love without which obedience and love 't is impossible that any people should hold together and prosper since where discontents and divisions prevail a Society must needs of it self naturally tend to dissolution A House a City a Kingdom divided against it self cannot stand is a State-Aphorism we have from the mouth of Truth it self So then whether 't were fear or love was the Principle which gathered mankind into Nations and Common-wealths and brought them to live in Community under the same Laws and Priviledges we find them both in Religion Whereupon 't is the remark of a Roman Historian that as Romulus founded the City by Arms so Numa setled it by Religion and then came Ancus and found leisure to adorn it with Temples and publick Buildings Thus Religion secured the acquists of the Sword on one hand and prepared the design for the Truel on the other And till Religion be in a better condition amongst you then for ought I see 't is now in I cannot not tell what you may think of your Building 'T is true it seems to me in our present divisions that much what like the Iews after their return we rebuild our City with a Sword in one hand and a Truel in the other but so as if that Sword were to be used against our selves not against an Enemy as theirs was I wish heartily that the peace of the Church may be so setled amongst us and the rubbish of our late ruines there removed that you may lay your Foundations upon fair even ground and raise the Superstructures with comfort and honour that when you have built up your Walls and your Palaces Peace may be within your walls and plenteousness within your palaces which would then most certainly be when as you are obliged to an Vniformity of building the City so the Citizens themselves would joyn all in an uniform Exercise of Religion whose first Character it is that 1. It aws the consciences of men and binds them up to their good behaviour in a strict attendance upon the duties of every one in his place and a careful obedience to the Law in common And thus Machiavil himself tutours his Prince that he will put on the shew at least of Religion to make his Government dreadful though he hold it dangerous to his interest to be bigotted into it and would have him take up no more of it then will serve his turn But if the mask and vizard the bare appearance of Religion be in the esteem of carnal worldly Policy so considerable a help to Government how serene and awful would it be in its genuine native countenance with what rays of Divinity would the truth and power of it cloath the Magistrate that the people would behold him as an Angel of God For since all Government derives its power from God the more of God it shews the more powerful it must needs be Wherefore if once Religion grow mean amongst a people no wonder if they grow familiar and sawcy with the Government and having got the reins of conscience upon their neck run away with their Rider and 't is well if not dismount him too When men are suffered to set their mouths wide open against Heaven to blaspheme God and deny him in a breath and to droll in Scripture-language and jeer at sacred things how can it be expected that earthly Majesty should preserve its reverence with the people but that God will suffer some to be as bold with their Governors as they have suffered others to be with him that by way of Reprisal he may recover his lost Honour and those that have slighted him may be meanly esteemed For as God subdues the people under their lawful Prince so it must be the Princes care to subdue the people to God by keeping up the aw and port of Religion And this is done in the uniform and unanimous