Selected quad for the lemma: authority_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
|
A30727
|
Christian liberty asserted in oposition to the Roman yoke delivered in a sermon preached in His Majesties royal chappel of Windsor, the 8th of Decemb. 1678 / by John Butler.
|
Butler, John, D.D.
|
1678
(1678)
|
Wing B6277; ESTC R7538
|
15,021
|
44
|
contend for i. e. that they did first Preach the Gospel to our Fore-fathers in this Island what will they get by it Put the Case I should have the happiness to convert a rich Jew or an Indian to the Christian Faith am I thereby presently invested with a power over his Estate Liberty and Life A blessed Reformation this Christ sent his disciples forth as sheep among wolves but the Church or Court of Rome for I protest I can make no distinction between them sends forth her disciples as wolves among sheep to kill to tear and to destroy I do not find that Christs disciples received any Commission to cut the throats of all such as would not submit to the Gospel but I am sure that both they and their followers chose rather to suffer death than to cause any disturbance in the State otherwise than by Preaching that Gospel according to their Commission Our Saviour wrought a Miracle to testifie his obedience to the Civil power and had not that blessed Son of God himself given his followers an example by patiently submitting to the Sentence of Death under unjust Judges because they were in Authority we had at this day for ought I know wanted a Saviour our selves THE Jesuites tell us indeed that the Primitive Church and the First Bishops of Rome did not execute this power because they were then in Incunabulis in the Cradle and under Persecution But I hope the Son of God did not want that power If my kingdom were of this world then would my servants fight for me saith he and to Peter himself Put up thy sword into his sheath for cannot I pray now to my Fatheâ— and he shall give me more than twelve legions of Angels But I forget my self THE time would fail me to speak of their Divine Service in an unknown tongue OF their invocations and adorations of Angels and Saints departed OF their worshipping of Images and in order thereunto utterly abolishing the second Commandment OF works of Supererogation all expresly contrary to the written word of God which therefore they destroy or make void through their Traditions OF their Purgatory OF Indulgences OF Pilgrimages I will name no more I am weary on 't they all being the unlawful Engins for the enlargement of their dominion and support of their grandeur by filthy lucre THESE and many very many more make up that yoke which is to be given us in exchange for that blessed liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free and which by Gods superabundant and no way deserved mercy we yet enjoy BE not therefore entangled with this yoke of bondage 2. ESPECIALLY considering the absurdity of being so intangled which is the Apostles second argument to fortifie this Dissuasion or Dehortation be not intangled again SED quid valet istud Rursus how comes the Apostle to dissuade the Galatians from being intangled again with the yoke of bondage who never had the law of Moses delivered to them and so had never before been circumcised whatever others answer I think there will be no great difficulty in the case if instead of the yoke you read a yoke which the original will bear as well as the other and then the sense is this you have by the preaching of Christ crucified among you been freed from one yoke that of Idol-worship no not run your necks into another of Circumcision BE not intangled again BUT then even here again the Galatians have the advantage of us for they were submitting their necks to a yoke sometime imposed by God himself as absolutely necessary but we by taking on us the Roman Yoke again submit our selves to a yoke of bondage made up of mere human inventions contrary to Gods word and destructive both of true Religion and civil Societies BE not therefore intangled again WOULD the Doctors go to School again a School where they shall be taught better manners than to rely only upon the all-sufficient merits of their Saviour than to be subject to any other power than that of our Lord God the Pope And in order thereunto they must learn a new lesson to live a single life whether they can do it honestly or no it makes no matter for fear lest having wives and children they should give the State security of their obedience to their undoubted and lawful Sovereign Nay which is more to be the Popes executioners and whenever heis angry and shall please to put their native Country under an interdict to proclaim his Bull for Excommunicating their Prince and absolving themselves and fellow Subjects from their allegeance to him and to surcease all religious Offices in the Church Would the Doctors I say go to School again WOULD a Servant manumitted and having a good stock wherewith to set up for himself be bound apprentice again Would a General of an Army turn private Souldier again WOULD a man become a child again A Patient lately recovered from an ill habit of body or some desperate disease relapse and fall sick again WOULD a Prince who holds his Imperial Crown only from God lay it down at the feet of an insolent pretender to a power of kicking it off from his head and giving it unto whomsoever he will AND if these things be absurd it must needs be so in us if we return to the Roman yoke again BE not therefore intangled again FOR Gods sake whatever the genius of the Galatians was let not us in so weighty a matter as this verifie our own Country-Proverb which says that an English-man never knows when a thing is well STAND fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free and be not intangled again with the yoke of bondage I have now finished my meditations upon the Text in the delivery whereof I have discharged my bounden duty without any sinister ends without either hope of good or fear of evil in this life but I confess not without having an eye to the recompence of reward in that which is to come I hope no man will be displeased with me for what I have said But if any such there be I am not careful to answer them in this matter I shall only make use of the Apostles honest Apology Am I therefore become your enemy because I tell you the truth Chap. iv 16. TO conclude give me leave once more to pursue the Apostles method who shuts up this Epistle with earnest persuasions that his Galatians would trouble him no more about these Chap. vi 17. matters but forsake the lusts of the flesh and live a vertuous and a pious life the only way if we could at last be persuaded to believe it to beget unity among our selves to avert Gods just and dreadful judgments and to make him favourable and gracious to our Sion I say therefore in the words of the Prophet Daniel as well to my self as to all that hear me Chap. iv 17. this day Let my Counsel now be acceptable to you let us break off our sins by Righteousness and our iniquities by shewing mercy to the poor if it may be a lengthning of our tranquillity And to that end WE humbly beseech thee O Father mercifully to look upon our infirmities and for the Glory of thy Name turn from us all those evils that we most Righteously have deserved and grant that in all our troubles we may put our whole trust and confidence in thy mercy and evermore serve thee in holiness and pureness of living to thy Honor and Glory through our only Mediator and Advocate Jesus Christ our Lord. AS many as walk according to this rule peace be on them and mercy and upon the Israel of God to whom be ascribed and given all Power and Praise now and evermore FINIS
Jews had said to terrifie the Galatians the Apostle asks them this question this only Gal. iii. 2. would I learn of you received you the spirit by the works of the Law or by the hearing of faith q. d. did I who am a Jew when I preached to you the Gospel of Christ upon which the Lord working with me you received the Holy Ghost and saw that Doctrine confirmed by miracles did I oblige you to any such custom AND This only would I learn of the Papists did we first receive the Gospel from them I know very well that some of them want not confidence to affirm any thing but we are better assured that Christianity was planted in this Island long before any of the Popes agents set their feet here And when they did come what did they do for us but corrupt our Religion by degrees and draw us into their yoke by making us believe that if we did not keep close communion with and observe them in all things we should certainly be damned BUT the Galatians were weary of their past and afraid of their future persecutions if they did not comply with the Jews THE more Fools they ARE ye so foolish says our Apostle have Ch. iii. 3 4. ye suffered so many things in vain if it be yet in vain q. d. Have ye embraced the Gospel with resolutions to suffer in the profession of it have ye done it hitherto and will ye now by foolishly thinking to avoid persecutions lose the Crown laid up in store for you on that account THE more fools they and the more cowards we WE have suffered in the defence of our Religion of the cause of God and his Vicegerents against a schismatical and rebellious generation of men but yet such as were set on and managed undoubtedly by our old implacable adversaries of Rome How many men of all ranks and degrees with an invincible courage lost their Estates their Liberties their Lives in the quarrel and are we faint-hearted now Have a care He that seeks thus to save his life is in a fair way to lose it BUT stay is the Liberty wherewith we are made free worth the contending for i. e. so as to oblige us to die if called to it rather than yield to the Roman Yoke IS it I do not in the least doubt it I am sure the first blessed instruments of our happy Reformation and their followers thought so else they would never have lost their Lives in the cause BUT Good God! in what an age do we live when a sort of men among our selves of loose and corrupt principles have not stuck to affront the memory of those blessed men and women with the name of Foxian Martyrs Such fellows will look to themselves I 'll warrant them NOW to satisfie you in the point I will in as few words as I can give you an account of this liberty wherewith we are made free and then tell me what you think on 't WE have the Oracles of God those Fountains of living water which contain all things necessary for our Salvation put into our hands 2 Tim. 3. 17. and read to us according to the Apostles times in a known tongue We have the Word of God purely dispensed by Workmen that need not be ashamed rightly dividing the word of truth We have the Sacraments rightly and duely administred according to our blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ his own holy Institution And all this which characterizeth a true Church in order to our future happiness Then which both tends to that and also to our present well-being we are taught to obey our King and all that are put in authority under him without resisting to suffer death rather than lift up a finger against him never to expect to see the face of God with comfort unless we be of a peaceable disposition and live an holy life so taking the holy Jesus for our pattern as yet despairing most justly of all benefit from our own or others pretended righteousness to rely upon his most meritorious Death and Passion for our Salvation In a word to honour all men to love the Brother-hood nay our very enemies to fear God and honour the King These for brevity's sake I offer only as a specimen of that great and glorious liberty wherewith we are made free And what think ye now is not this liberty worth the contending for worth every mans contending for I will not so much as suspect that any person here thinks otherwise But if any such there be I shall only desire your patience a little while till I come to paint out to them the yoke of bondage which is to be given us in exchange for this liberty and then I hope they will be satisfied In the mean time let us stand fast in the liberty wherewith we are made free Stand fast therefore For Christ his sake stand fast Which is the Apostles second argument to enforce his exhortation Stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free CHRIST made the Galatians us and the whole world free by his meritorious Death and Passion on his part and by faith and repentance on ours Christ made us free by enjoining us no more than his own perfect law of liberty leaving power indeed to the Guides of the Church to take care that all things should be done with decency and order but not to alter or diminish no nor to add a tittle that was not built upon that foundation And all the Epistles of the holy Apostles are but so many Comments upon that Law As for the straw therefore and stubble which our adversaries of Rome have built upon this foundation in order to our making brick for the repair of their tottering Tower away with it LET us follow Christ the author and finisher of our faith and not the corrupter of it Christ the Captain of our Salvation the Shepherd and Bishop of our Souls and not his pretended Lieutenant and Vicar who acts both beyond and contrary to his Commission Remember I beseech you your first Vow when you were baptized into Christ who purchased your liberty by shedding his own most precious Blood for you and not into that man or Church who are most notoriously known ready to take it from you at the expence of your bloud if they cannot compass it by other means Remember that at that time you promised faithfully to be the Souldiers of Christ and to fight manfully under his Banner and do not run from your Colours by ungratefully and cowardly quitting your Post STAND fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free AND now one would think the Apostle had said enough to make his Galatians stand fast by urging to them their liberty and the author of it that there needed no more to be said in the case and that therefore if those would not prevail upon them all other arguments would prove insignificant and useless NO such matter He