Selected quad for the lemma: authority_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
authority_n	according_a	law_n	power_n	3,809	5	5.0020	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A46905	Nature inverted, or, Judgement turned into gall delivered in a sermon at the Cathedral Church of St. Peter in York, upon Monday the 18th of July, 1670, being the summer assize held before the Right Honourable Baron Turner and Baron Littleton, the Right Worshipfull Sr. Philip Monckton, Knight, being then High-sheriff of Yorkshire / by James Johnson ...	Johnson, James, 1639 or 40-1704.	1670 (1670)	Wing J778; ESTC R3847	13,194	25

General in the unsuccessfulness of their affairs and undertakings wherein their labours should be as fruitless and endeavours as successless as a horse or oxe's running or plowing upon a craggy rock According to that threatning in Deut. They should be cursed in the city and in the field in their basket and in their store in their going out and in their coming in Quicquid calcaverint spina fiet Nihil eorum as Mercer quae acturi sunt sit illis successurum ut si quis per rupes equum concitet aut aret in rupe bobus quod frustrà sine fructu fecerit Or else 2. A particular judgement by destruction from their enemies either the Assyrians as S. Cyril or other Adversaries as Arias Montanus thinks who as 't is in the preceding verse should smite the great house with breaches viz. their Kings and Princes Judges and Nobles or as some understand it the Priests and Levites or as others extend it the whole ten Tribes of Israel and the little house with clefts viz. the lower and inferiour rank of people as Albert. Mag. or the laity among the Israelites as Lyra or the two Tribes of Judah and Benjamin as Drusius and Grotius the destruction of the Great House according to the latter of these being referred to the time of Salmanassar as that of the little one is to the army of Sennacherib And now though the Israelites might boast of their power and strength by reason of Jeroboam their Prince who had gotten great victories and enlarged the Territories of their Kingdom yet as 't is v. 13. they rejoyced in a thing of nought for the courage and strength and success of their enemies should be such that they should besiege their gates beat down their strong holds and lay their palaces in the dust The City in which they might hope to take sanctuary should be delivered with all that was therein the city or hill of Zion wherein they were at ease or the mountain of Samaria wherein they trusted and the rocks in which they placed their confidence should be so brought down and as it were levelled by their enemies that even in a literal sense horses might run or oxen plow there Which effects would not seem strange to them if they did but consider their sins the cause thereof which were more strange and monstrous Thus when Judgement and Righteousness the two bulwarks of a Nation are thrown down when men change the order and nature of Justice and equity into that which is most opposite and contrary thereto 't is no wonder if God for their punishment change the very order of nature and to make his judgements wonderfull as is threatned Deut. 28. cause through a multitude of enemies even horses to run upon a rock and men to plow there with oxen 7. Others judge the words to be a complaint of the Prophets unsuccessfulness in his reproofs which were frustrated by them They were become so degenerate in their principles so depraved in their practises so stupified in their minds and so hardned in their hearts that his words were but as thrown against a rock or as water spilt upon the ground rebuking of them was as if one did sing a song to a deaf man so that instead of reprehending them he is ready to reprove himself for that mispense of labour that was cast upon those who were so desperately corrupted that they turned all the good presented to or bestowed upon them into evil so that his endeavours herein were as successless as a horses running upon the rocks and as ineffectual as ones plowing there with oxen 8. Lastly Others look upon the words as a charge drawn up against them for their grand injustice and cruelty in that they had overturned all law and right and were become such monsters therein as if they had changed the very order of law and nature They had so corrupted all judgement overthrown all right undermined all law● that thereby as the Psalmist speaks all the foundations of the earth were out of course for they did not onely privately swallow up the needy and make the poor of the land to fail endeavouring to buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of shoes making also the Ephah small and the shekel great and falsifying the balances by deceit but they did publickly afflict the just they took a bribe and turned aside the poor in the gate the place of open and publick judicature from their right They turned judgement into wormwood and left off righteousness in the earth or as the Prophet here expresses it they turned judgement into gall and the fruits of righteousness into hemlock they made that which in it self is sweet and pleasant as nauseous and distastfull to God as gall and hemlock are to the tasts of men In which charge drawn up against them may be considered 1. The specification of their Sin 2. The nature and quality of it 1. The Specification of it The Prophet thinks it not sufficient to tell them onely they are sinners but charges that sin upon them for which they are most notorious Discourses at large and in general seldom make impression upon any in particular generalia non pungunt Such a reproof is like the flourishing or brandishing of a sword in the air none is pierced or wounded by it a close and particular application is requisite for conviction as in the course of the law general accusations will ground no actions for if a man be accused 't is not sufficient to say he is a malefactour but he must be charged with particulars so the Prophet according to that method when he arraigns these sinners here he frames an indictment against them of notorious and personal offences Men generally take great exceptions against this kind of dealing especially they that are in power and authority such as those against whom the Prophet here draws up his accusation which notwithstanding is not stifled by any awe of their power or suppressed by any fear of their greatness If they be great he is the messenger of one that 's greater and therefore if they be bold in sining it well becomes him to be so in reproving Those that are advanced above the ordinary pitch of men in the world think the addition of their outward fortune which is often all the worth they have to boast of must exempt and priviledge them from the rebukes which come from those that in any secular respect are below them accounting it a diminution of their greatness to be taxed with any crime as though the reproof of their sin were a greater dishonour than the commission of it It is the folly of men that they had rather be flattered in their vices than reproved for them especially if they be so notorious as the world takes notice of them These magistrates here could happily have been content that the Prophet had inveighed against some other sin wherein they had not

circumstances and variety of occasions to qualify and mitigate something of the severity of laws by the rules of equity wherein appears the great wisdom of Law-makers who though they wisely foresaw the mitigation of the law to be as necessary and requisite as the severity of it yet because of the proneness of all men to offend thought it fit to express the extremity plainly and literally thereby to keep men within the compass of obedience but to leave the mitigation to the discretion of the magistrate tacitely and secretly thereby to moderate rigour into equity which is so far from evacuating the law or perverting justice that it rather establishes and confirms it for equity being of the essence of all laws it must either be directly expressed or implicitly understood in them These two have such near and close dependance upon each other that like Hippocrates's twins they live and die together for as the Philosopher speaks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The nature and essence of a law consists not in letters and syllables but in the scope and intention of it Mens legis est ipsa lex and therefore for any by a cunning and sinister construction by a forced and indirect interpretation either of laws or actions per verborum aucupia literarum tendiculas as Tully speaks to protect injury or wrong innocence is to make the law which is intended for a fence become a snare and to oppress that innocency which it should protect 3. This sin of injustice and oppression or turning judgement into gall is contemptus authoritatis it is an implicit contempt both of that divine and humane authority by which laws are constituted It is aspitting defiance in the face of Magistrates and contemning of that power wherewith they are invested which they who are guilty of such practises think to elude by outwitting the law and those that sit to judge according to it And such how do they hugg themselves in their private recesses and inwardly applaud the dexterity of their wit which is able to contrive the gaining of so great a conquest as to make Magistracy it self accessory to their practises Such they deal with the Magistrate as the Jews with our Saviour suffer a scarlet robe to be put on him and crown him with ensigns of authority onely that he may thereby become a more ready object of scorn and derision And what greater opprobrium can be offered to the Magistrate than not onely to nullify and evacuate his power but to render it contemptible and ridiculous But the contempt rests not here it rises higher still and reaches not onely to the Judge's seat but to the Throne of the Almighty and sets a mark of contempt and brand of infamy upon the several attributes of God both his wisdom and power and mercy and justice for he that by fraud or violence or other indirect means though under the covert of the law invades or usurps upon the rights of another does so far as in him lies without any warrant frustrate and annihilate the gifts of God and takes upon him to thwart and contradict his most wise Providence setting up himself as it were in God's stead and dethroning him to erect and establish a new order of providence of his own thereby reproaching his wisdom as though God had not wisely enough dispensed his blessings questioning his power as though he were not able to maintain the injuriously oppressed against a furious adversary impugning his mercy as though he would not suffer God to bestow his largesses but upon whom himself shall please and impeaching his Justice as though God would not take notice of repay those wrongs which are done upon the earth And thou that by a plea of judgement dost these things thinkest thou that thou shalt escape the judgement of God no they that honour him shall be honoured but they that thus contemn him shall be contemned by him 4. Lastly this turning of judgement into gall is Frustratio expectationis divinae a frustration of Gods expectation God looks for grapes but behold they bring forth wild grapes so that as it is Deu. 32. their vine is of the vine of Sodom and of the fields of Gomorrah their grapes are grapes of gal their clusters are bitter their wine is the poyson of dragons and the cruel venime of aspes or as the Prophet Isaiah expresses it God looks for judgement but behold oppression for righteousness but behold a cry where by an unhappy mistake they change as the sacred language hath it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 instead of grapes they bring forth thorns and thistles instead of figs. They that are in authority should not be as the fruitless fig-tree that frustrated those expectations that were raised about it nor as Jotham's bramble to rend and tear those that hope to find relief under their shadow When any are put into offices of trust or places of power it is not to this end that they should bear rule sway over others at their pleasure but that they should be a succour help to those that stand in need of seek to depend upon them for their aid God endues them with that power which others want that they may make use thereof to help those to right who have not power to help themselves and when any shall so far abuse this power as to make use thereof to contrary ends and instead of helping the injured to right to take it from them instead of being a refuge to them from the oppressour themselves to turn oppressours it is an high provocation and indignity offered to him to whom they stand accountable for that power they have received from him and who expects some proportionable returns to be made unto him and if they be made contrary to his expectation how direful and sad will the account be what a strange reckoning will the rich steward make when God shall at last as assuredly he will require of him an account of his stewardship Behold thou hast given me five talents and I have made them ten and when the question shall be put how or by what means what a strange and unaccountable return will it be to say I have unjustly and injuriously robbed from my fellow-servants those few talents which thou gavest them I have gained thus much by my violent maintaining a cause which thou hatest and which my own conscience secretly told me was most unjust So much I have wrung from others by extortion and oppression by forged records sycophancy or false accusation by suborned witnesses and such other unjust practises which surely are sore evils that are too commonly done under the sun And now for the punishing and preventing of these and such like practises upon whom are the minds of the people set but upon your Lordships their eyes are towards you their hopes are in you their expectations are from you In your known integrity and uprightness is their confidence placed for a redress of those injuries which either through the power or pride or malice or revenge or wrath or cruelty of oppressours have been either felt or feared by them May your authority accordingly be made use of to abate the pride and suppress the power and curb the insolency and quell the oppressions of those that use or rather abuse their power and might to overbear and sway down right and equity so that all may see that it is not the fullest baggs or the greatest friends or the skilfullest pleaders that shall prevail beyond the merits of any cause when they have to do with such upright Judges as your Honours who will not suffer by indirect practises judgement to be turned into gall or the fruits of righteousness into hemlock Soli Deo Gloria in loc ch 1. 1. Sept. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ci●m femollas ineunt nihil à mente Prophete alienius Drusius in loc Quecirca Christus repudiatis Judaeis jugi evangelici impatientibus q asi bubalis elegit Gentes quasi bones cicures domites dixitque illic tollite jugum meum super vos v. Ruper à C. à Lap. cit in l. Jer. 13. 17. Ezek. 15. 3. Telluris in utile pondus Judg. 1. 7. ch 5. 22. Vincere consuetudinem dura est pugna Deu. 28. 16 17. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 S. Cyril Alex. in l. v. 8. v. 1. Ch. 8. 4. Ch. 5. 12. Ch. 5. 7. 1 Kings 21. 26. 1 Kin. 22. 8. Gal. 4. 16. Satius est solem non lucere quàm Chrysostomum non docere Psal. 141. 5. Prov. 27. 6. Lev. 19. 17 Recede à me in quit languidus lethargicus ob●cero te recede à me S. Aug. de verbis Dom. secund Joan. ser. 59. Ad Donat. l. 2. Ep. 2. In vita Pyrrhi Ecclus 4. 9. Ecclus 4. 22. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arist. Eth. l. 5. c. 10. Orat. pro A. Caecina Scriptum sequi calum 〈◊〉 is esse boni judicis voluntatem scriptoris auctoritatemque defeudere c. Id. Ver. 32 33. Chap. 5 7.