Selected quad for the lemma: authority_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
authority_n	bishop_n	king_n	power_n	6,810	5	5.2090	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A54584	A sermon preached July, 5th on the occasion of the late rebellion by John Petter.	Petter, John, 1661 or 2-1700.	1685 (1685)	Wing P1889; ESTC R33390	8,822	28

Preacher could I make saith the Mechanick How admirably well could I perform the Office of a Magistrate or Prince saith the inferiour Tradesman And how forward are too many whose business 't is not to censure State-Councels and Judiciary proceedings Every man is an Absalom to say to every man Your Cause is good but the King hath appointed none to hear it 2 Sam. 15. 3. And say our seditious Absoloms vers 4. O that I were made Judge in the Land that every man might come unto me and I would do him Justice But if you who never made it your business think your selves fit enough to undertake the Employment of others may not they think themselves as well qualified for and by the same Right and Justice attempt to discharge your Office or any other persons which they most fancy And how natural 't is for such pragmatical Examples as these to have so ill Effects upon others was wittily represented in the sharp Reproof of an imprudent Action of King Lewis XI of France who having appointed a certain Bishop to take the general Muster of Souldiers at Paris and Chabannes one of his Noblemen taking this thing in ill part desired of the King to give him the Authority of censuring the said Bishops Clergy-men to which the King replying That it was not fit to put ones Sickle into another mans Corn Yes saith the other since the Bishop hath made our Harvest his own why may not we also as well make his ours So that nothing will ensue from hence but great disorder and lamentable confusion for whilest all men will be every thing no man at last will be any thing he should be But what 's the Reason that so many of late have thus run out and forgot themselves Why to be reputed a man of Intriegue a person well vers'd in the Mysteries of State to be admired and cry'd up for a politick and shrewd Common-wealths-man are tickling pieces of Honour and the Temptations which have of late betrayed so many thus to run out beyond their bounds to the disturbance of the publick Peace and in the end will prove to the utter Ruine and Confusion of themselves and others and then Experience will convince them of their extream folly and shew them that these Edge-tools are not to be medled with by every Stripling and upstart Statesman If things be ordered thus or thus in Church or State by the wisdom of your Governours What 's that to you Follow you Christ by acquitting your selves conscionably and like Christians in the diligent Discharge of those several Duties required of you in your particular Spheres and Stations in which it hath pleased God to place you Tantúmne abs re tuâ otii sit tibi aliena ut cures Study to be quiet medling with your own business Thess 4. 11. But whoever they be that thus run out beyond their own bounds and exercise themselves in such kind of Practices as these they themselves shall find in the end that they have laboured without thanks lived without love and many of them will dye as shamefully and untimely so without Tears without Pity save that some may say 't was pity they dy'd no sooner Turn therefore this Curiosity the right way Traduce hanc curiositatem ad curam salutis tuae Change Peter's What What shall this man do into Paul's What Acts 9. 6. Lord what will you have me to do And then you shall hear our Saviour answering and directing you in the last part of my Text Follow you me Which words lay before us not only Peter's Duty but every ones Quod Petro dicitur omnibus dicitur Follow you me Here 's a Precept to follow a President Plus docemur exemplis quam preceptis longum per precepta c. But where both meet together to direct us there we are unadvised not to follow The Command must be obeyed it 's from Christ himself the Pattern cannot be denyed it is Christ himself set forth as a Pattern for us to follow Great Examples are of vast importance inviting the Attendance and awakening natural Conscience and Ingenuity to attempt things that may excel It was not therefore without good reason advised in Seneca that every man should propound to himself the Example of a wife and vertuous Personage as CATO SOCRATES or BRUTUS and by a fiction of Imagination to suppose him present as a Witness and really to take his Life as a direction of all their Actions But the best and most excellent of the old Law-givers and Philosophers among the Greeks had an allay of Viciousness and could not be exemplary all over and the best among the Christians in the greatest flame of their shining Piety have fal'n short something of the Commandment We may find among them Examples one eminent for this Vertue another for another but none for all excepting the Man Christ Jesus The Italians got up all the excellent Pictures in the World that out of them all they might make up one Master-piece or most excellent Picture And we read of a Painter that wont to one Virgin for an Eye to another for a Lip to a third for a Forehead to a fourth for a Chin to make exquisite the Face of his Goddess We need not go to one Saint for this Vertue to another for that for perfection take Christ and take all He intended himself an Example of Piety and led so holy a Life in all the Instances of it with this design that he might shine to all the Generations and Ages of the world to come and become an Example and guiding Star to us in our Journey And he therefore in all the Actions of his Life in which he propounds himself imitable did so converse with men that men after that Example might for ever converse with him Christ hath suffered for us saith St. Peter 1 Ep. c. 2. ver 21. leaving an Example to us that we might follow his steps And the Author to the Hebrews chap. 12. v. 2. commands us to look unto Jesus the Author and finisher of our Faith Look upon him and so eye him that you may follow him so follow him that you may live like him that you may say Sic oculos sic ille-manus sic ora forebat When your Eyes are haughty with Ambition did He carry his Eyes so No Like as a Lamb before that bloody Wolf Pilate his Look was meek and lowly thô lovely When thou cursest him that angers thee Did he carry his Mouth so No. Father forgive them When thou art provoked with Words and returnest Blows Did he carry his Hands so No. Being stricken he struck not again Summa Religionis est imitari quem colis Nothing is more Honourable than to be like God The Heathen Worshippers of false Deities grew vicious upon this Stock and acted many things contrary to their best Reason only to be like them Adulterio delectatur Quis Jovem respicit But you have here not only the Command but the

of Subjects and Peace of Societies in not allowing Subjects Right or Liberty on any pretence whatever to take up Arms against the lawfull Powers And from his words to St. Peter Put up thy Sword into its sheath c. you may sufficiently learn his mind and will concerning the Resistance of them For if ever there was or can be any case wherein Resistance of lawful Authority by force is justifyable it must had been in this And yet then our Saviour disallows of drawing the Sword against or without lawfull Authority When the greatest Innocence was assaulted their Lives and Estates in great danger and the very Foundations of Religion struck at And thought it more for the safety of every Subject that the Sovereign Power should be invested with an absolute unaccountable and irresistible Authority subordinate to none but God himself Thô this Authority should degenerate into Tyranny yet it must by no means be resisted by his followers which plainly appears by his behaviour towards those Tyrants that reigned in the World in his time most infamous for their Cruelty and Oppression For thô some might be in danger when it thus happened into ill hands yet more would be in danger and in far greater danger too when it might be resisted And therefore our Saviour allows not of a Princes Male-administration of Affairs failures enough to forfeit his Commission and supersede his Authority But by his Precept commands us and by his Example shews us that we ought when the Precepts of the Gospel will not allow us to pay an active Obedience with all Christian humility to submit to the severest Penalties in the Ordinances of our lawful Sovereign The Primitive Christians and Martyrs by a passive Valour and Courage shewed their Love and Constancy to their Saviour and his Religion by suffering gladly the spoyling of their Goods and rejoycing in the midst of scorching Flames Not by fighting for it or making it a pretence to rebell thô they wanted not force sufficient to have opposed the Heathen Emperours yet they willingly submitted to the unjust Sentence of their Governours following the example of their Blessed Lord and Saviour One would therefore think that those many excellent discourses which have of late been made to press this duty of Loyalty and Obedience might have been unnecessary at least sufficient to have attained their designed ends Since 't is not to an Heathen Emperor or Tyrant but to a Prince well furnished with all Wisdom that is most fit for so great a King to one who esteems our welfare his happiness and makes it his daily care and study Ne bona caduca sint ne mala rediviva That those good things which we enjoy by him may never depart from us that those Evils which we suffer'd before him may never return unto us To one who hath most graciously engaged to defend and protect that Religion which the Royal Martyr his Father of ever Blessed memory hath sealed with his Blood 'T is our Duty therefore without any causeless fears or jealousies in our selves or stirring up any in the People to rest quiet and peaceable in this assurance and to do our part in following Christ in this path-way of Loyalty and Obedience and thereby make his Reign safe easie and prosperous and himself a glorious Prince and we may rest assured that he will not be wanting in any thing on his part that may make us lead under him a quiet and peaceable Life in all Godlinesse and Honesty and thereby become an Happy People In vain are we called Christians if we follow not the Example of Christ the Father of the Institution Dictum Malachiae Abbat apud S. Bern. To conclude therefore Follow Christ by despising all those gilded Vanities that he despised by fearing none of those Sadnesses and hard Usages which he suffered by practising all those Doctrines that he taught So then you shall at last be added to that glorious Company of Apostles and Martyrs which are gone before you and together with them follow Him into Eternal Glory To whom with the Father and the Blessed Spirit be ascribed by us and the whole Church as is most due the Kingdom the Power and Glory for Ever and Ever AMEN FINIS