Selected quad for the lemma: act_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
act_n	command_n	command_v	lawful_a	2,968	5	9.4987	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A94272	A treatise of the schism of England. Wherein particularly Mr. Hales and Mr. Hobbs are modestly accosted. / By Philip Scot. Permissu superiorum.	Scot, Philip.	1650 (1650)	Wing S942; Thomason E1395_1; ESTC R2593	51,556	285

true that they made the division from the Catholick Church but did it rightly and worthily for the intollerable errors and damnable doctrins which then infected the whole Church and therefore they followed the command of the voice of God Apoc. 18. Go out of her my people that ye be not made partakers of her sins The damnable doctrins are by themselves reduced cheifly to Idolatry the other differences they conceive may be more easily swallowed and indeed this were a capital one if true and it were no less strange that the Church of Rome which reduced this Island and most part of the two worlds from Idolatry should it self knowingly teach or practise it and no less strange that these few men after so many yeers should see these gross abominations which such an infinity of learned men in so long time nor yet can finde or judge to be so Idolatry according to Divines is taken for a religions worship due to God and given to any creature In this all Christians agree The Church of Rome in the holy Sacrament of Eucharist giveth indeed Divine worship out of infallible supposition that under those Elements is the body and blood of Christ accompanied with his Divinity they do not give it to the accidents no not to the body and blood of Christ properly and precisely but to the Divinity so precise they are in the Divine worship whence it is clear that they do not direct their worship to a creature but to God and though they cannot but involve in their adoration his presence under the Accidents of bread and wine yet do not formally terminate their act to this presentiallity of Christ in the Sacrament which is but a relative a very extrinsecal accident and consequently not capable to terminate a divine worship whence we see the proper object is Christ who certainly is existent and therefore in this they are not mistaken even in all sectaries opinions and therefore there can be no Idolatry even though Christ had not that new ubication under the Elements of bread and wine that being the accessory not the principal which they aim at for they adaequately direct their action to Christ present not to the presence it self abstracting from Christ so that their mistake would be in a circumstance not in a substance and therefore even admitting that impossible supposition yet there would be no Idolatry The other particle is their worship of Images which in no wayes can be called Idolatry First because they do not at all teach Divine worship to be due to them as is clear in the Councel of Trent and as all knowing Protestants will confess Secondly many great Schoolmen do not hold any worship at all to be precisely directed to them it is suffient reverently to retain them and by them to be raised up in devotion to the thing represented by them as by a picture of Christ to be called upon to remember Christ c. As they think it is deducible out of the Councel of Trent Out of which it is evident that the Church of Rome is injuriously defamed of Idoltary And here I wonder much at Mr. Hobbs in his book De Cive who otherwise singularly deserving in moral and socratical Philosophy would so easily preoipitate his judgement in points of this nature He saith in his Chapter 15. n. 18. That if the Common-wealth should command to worship God under a picture that the people were-bound to do it In his Annotations upon the same place he calls himself in question for antilogies in this particular for in n. 14. He had taught that to worship God by a picture or any Image were to limit God to a certain terme which were against the law of nature touching Gods worship which surely destroys the first position To the answer of this he saith the offence would be in the commanders not in the obeyers by reason they worship him thus upon compulsion He adds that if God should specially forbid to be worshiped by the use of an image that then such a command could not be obeyed as it is in the decalogue were expresly Idolatry is prohibited Afterwards in the 16. Chapter n. 10. treating of the ten Commandments he saith that to worship God by an Image is against the law of nature as he said in the 15. c. n. 14. These seem to be strangely inconsistent propositions First the power which he saith n. 17. in the 5. Chap. To be transferred to Magistracy from the people in determining Gods worship he confesseth that it ought to be according to reason He confesseth also in his Annotation cited that to worship God under an Image were against reason because Idolatry not onely because now God hath forbidden it as he saith but in it self namely because as he said before it were to prescribe a term to his infinity and consequently to make God to be finite Whence it followes first that though Idolatry is against the light of reason and therefore intrinsecally wicked yet knowingly I might do it if commanded by a Magistrate so that an inferior power namely a power derived from my self can command me that which is absolutely prohibited by the highest power as is that of nature and I am bound to obey it with neglect of the other though supreme yet the Magistrate cannot command it but against reason and therefore such a command cannot be obligatory because in his 5. Chapter and n. 17. reason is the limit of that power Are not these inconsistences Again he saith that moral compulsion for a command is no more would render an act of Idolatry lawful because it would exempt it from Idolatry This is destructive of all religion and truly of reason in all Schools of Philosophy where Aristotle in his Ethicks and all others teach that we must lose our lives for vertue it self Again he saith that if God make a positive law to the contrary as he supposeth he hath that then I may not obey the former command of a Magistrate how this is reconcilable to his former tenet that worshiping God by Images is against the law of nature and yet onely unlawful if commanded by Magistracy because in the Decalogue or positive law it is again forbidden I know not for surely this law is inferior to that of nature according to all men and reason it self being the law of nature is drawn from the very nature of the thing it self That God hath forbidden Idolatry I doubt not in his first Commandment but whether to worship God by the use of Images is there forbidden Or whether it be Idolatry would deserve Mr. Hobbs his greater diligence to prove it For surely to say that it were a confinement of his Infinity would be as far from a proof as it is from truth clear in the light of reason and evidently against Scripture where we are taught to glorifie God in and by his creatures according to the 18. Psalm Caeli enarrant gloriam Dei c. The heavens speak

of all Colledges ours And yet beyond Julian ye debar us of our own Schools The truth is the laws are made against religion and against the propagation of it against the professing of it in frequenting Sacraments onely administred by Priests When a town or castle is besieged convoys stopped all hanged who attempt to bring ammunition viures hath any intercourse with them are not these in this case persecuted for their allegiance if they expose themselves to all these dangers out of duty to their Prince or whatsoever is Supreme Soveraignty This is our case ye hang and quarter all who would bring unto us spiritual ammunition and Sacramental vivers by death ye obstruct all convoys and why all this Is it not to extirpate our religion is it not to force us to render the small holds we have wherewith God almighty hath intrusted us of his holy religion in our Souls There are some who would seem to abolish all persecution from Catholicks in blood and fortunes pretending it to be injustice to persecute for religion and upon this glorious title of Christian liberty and neighbourly tenderness do cover malice beyond all proceedings of Christians even against Jews or of the Turks even against Christians subject to their civil empire and truly what human nature abhors namely to take their children from them and educate them in their own aiery and uncertain wayes The Church of God in her most flourishing times as under Constantine and Theodosius when all Insidels and Jewes were under their power never attempted such a cruelty against the law of nature Nay the Turks never do it except upon faile of their ordinary exactions which truly are nothing to the burthens of Catholicks here If it be unlawful to persecute as they hold in their fortunes for religion its most in consequent to hold it more lawful to persecute in children Lands and goods are appropriated onely jure gentium children jure naturae wherein no power except God himself can dispense To take away goods or land is theft or rapine This must be reduced to Homicide Nature is so little acquainted with it that there is not a proper appellative yet appointed for it Christian Divines out of this principle have judged it unlawful even to baptise Infidels or Jewes children against their parents wills by reason of the high title of the natural law of parents to children hence some have taught that baptism so attempted would not be valid But to let that pass here is a fortiori as Logitians speak concluded That to dispossess parents of their children in all schools of Christ of law of reason is abominable and therefore I cannot beleeve that our laws will admit such acts to be lawful especially since by precedent Sanctions its already felony to take away children upon any pretences There are yet another sort who seem more tender then all the rest and pretend to reduce all to an Henoticon or Unitive namely that we may all in offensively retain our own faith referring the examine of all differences to Gods court to whom alone as the gift of faith so the animadversion or punishment of transgressions in it proportionably and consequently is to belong as they say what real effect will this produce time will discover if they proceed consequently to their principles it must needs take away many unchristian-like animosities which hitherto have been nourished Michael Balbut as Zonaras in his Annals witnesseth promised in the beginning of his Empire that he would not compel any to follow any other opinions of God then what each man would himself but soon after he persecuted Catholicks cruelly permitting all others to do what they listed he was a man indeed full of all wickedness But Josephus l. 2. against Apion saith that it was honorable in the Romans that they would not compel their subjects to violate their ancient lawes and neligion but content themselves with such honors and duties as the giver may with piety and equity give them for they account not of forced honors or duties which come of compulsion A course certainly worth all Princes observing in order to their subjects and the onely way to be secure of their loyalties as the liberty of France in order to Protestants and Holland to Catholicks manifestly shew However it is evident out of these premises that there is a great Schism betwixt us in England Protestants are wont to say that they are not separated from Catholicks or the Catholick Church no not from the Roman but that they do communicate with all the members thereof fearing and worshiping God truly and make one Church with them they onely separate themselves from Papistry which is not say they the Church but an Imposture adhering to the Church or an heap of errors brought into the Church by the tyranny and fraud of the Bishops of Rome That they and Catholicks are not two fields sepatated the one from the other but one whereof one part is covered with nettles and darnel over-sowed by the Pope but the other part is purged by the labour and industry of the Protestants but this if it were true doth not infringe but rather confirm what we have said before for when we see with our eyes Catholicks and Protestants to abhor from mutual communion who in his wits will deny that there is Schism and division betwixt them or who will affirm there is any unity among them requisite to make one Church And that they add that they are separated from Papistry and the errors of the Pope that they are as it were the one part of the field purged and cleansed Catholicks the other part covered with errors Although all this were granted which yet is never to be granted it makes nothing at all to the diminishing but adds much to the augmenting of Schism because according to this Protestants are not onely separated from the communion of Catholicks which is sufficient for Schism but likewise from the doctrin which as I said before maketh heresie So whilest they strive to take away or patch up Schismatical division they bring in heretical confusion which is much more pernitious and more difficultly consistent with Catholicks Therefore it remains for certain that there is a true Schism betwixt Catholicks and Protestants the question will be onely to see which of these made first the breach The other main Achilles which they use that they withdraw themselves from the obedience of the Bishop of Rome without Schism is because he had onely Patriarchall power over them introduced onely by human right and custom is frivolous for to omit that right that he hath from Christ over the whole Church which is Papal I will onely give this touch We indeed are principally accused for adhering to the Popes supremacy as being a novelty But how clearly it was acknowledged in the 4 first councels needs no other proofs then themselves Nay Tertullian St. Cyprian Ireneus the first writers acknowledge it though in some perticulars they were