Selected quad for the lemma: authority_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
authority_n	king_n	law_n	resist_v	2,184	5	9.6676	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A58815	A sermon preached before the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of the city of London at St. Mary le Bow, July 26, 1685, being the day of publick thanksgiving for his Majesties late victory over the rebels by John Scott ...	Scott, John, 1639-1695.	1685 (1685)	Wing S2069; ESTC R14439	11,468	34

but sometimes impossible to determine on which side the Right lies and tho' the contending Princes may in most cases perhaps be able to inform themselves whether the Cause they contend for be right or wrong yet the people can be no competent Judges of it but are obliged to acquiesce in their Princes judgment and to follow 'em with an implicit faith so that if they are in the wrong 't is through invincible ignorance which renders their case extreamly pitiable and excusable before the just and righteous Tribunal of God And therefore though He most perfectly understands on which side the Right lies be the case never so perplexed or intricate yet his compassion to their mistaken innocence may in concurrence with other reasons especially when their enemies sins do outvy the justice of their cause sometimes prevail with him to give judgment of Victory on their side But as for Rebellion the injustice of it is far more visible and apparent every man knows or might easily know if he were not extreamly wanting to himself that his King is the Vicegerent of his God and that being so he is indispensibly obliged by all the ties of Reason and Religion to submit to his Will and reverence his Person and bow to his Authority and that he cannot lift up his hand against him without fighting against God himself the truth of which is as obvious to our natural reason and as plainly asserted in holy Scripture as of any Proposition in Religion so that I dare boldly affirm a Man may find as fair pretexts for any vice whatsoever even for Drunkenness Whoredom or Perjury as ever were made for Rebellion And were I to set up for a publick Patron of wickedness I hardly know a villany in nature so black and monstrous which I could not more plausibly recommend to Mens reason and consciences than this of resistance against lawful Authority which is such a complication of Villanies such a loathsom mixture of Hellish Ingredients as is enough to nauseate any Conscience but a Devil 's And though Conscience and Religion are the Colours it usually marches under yet is the imposture of this pretence so fulsome and barefac'd that no Man in his wits can be innocently abused by it For certainly that Man must have a great mind to rebel his will must have a strong Bias of pride or discontent faction or ambition in it that in despite of all the evidence from Reason and Scripture to the contrary can perswade himself that it is lawful for him and much less that it is his duty to lift up his hand against his Soveraign And therefore for Men to appeal to God in a cause so apparently wicked is not submissively to refer themselves to him but openly to mock and affront him were the case obscure and difficult though it were unjust it were excusable and might fairly admit of a reference to the righteous arbitration of God but to make a vexatious appeal to his Judgment again in a case which he hath so often and so expresly judged already is a common Barratry 't is not to consult but to tempt him and under pretence of submitting to his determination openly to defy his authority in effect 't is to appeal from his will to his providence and to bespeak him to declare himself against his own declaration In this case therefore where the injustice of the cause is so apparent and consequently the appeal to him about it is so prophane and insolent God is more peculiarly concerned as soveraign arbitrator to award for the right side by delivering up the Rebel as a sacrifice to the just Revenge of his injured Prince Secondly Rebellion is an appeal to God in a cause wherein his own Authority is very nearly touched and affected in Wars between Princes and Nations the unjust side indeed offends against his Authority by refusing to submit to the Laws of Justice and consequently are accountable to him for high undutifulness and disobedience which is no more than the common case of all wilful offenders against the Laws of Heaven but in the case of Rebellion there is not only a peremptory disobedience to those Laws of God which require our dutiful submission to our lawful Superiours but also a direct renunciation of the divine Authority it self For all soveraign power is immediately founded in the Dominion of God who being the supreme Lord of the World no Person can have right to govern in his Kingdom under him but by commission from him for every supreme Authority is the head and fountain of all other Authorities so far as it extends and if it be not so it cannot be supreme So that unless all Authority be derived from God he can have no such thing as a supreme Authority in the World and if it be all derived from him then all those persons who are vested with supreme Authority under him must derive and hold it immediately from him and if they hold it immediately from him they can be accountable for the exercise of it to none but him and if so then for any of their Subjects to presume to call 'em to account by a publick form'd Resistance is to arraign God's own Authority and invade his peculiar t is to thrust him out of his Throne and set themselves down in it and there to summon his Authority before 'em and require it to submit its awful head to their impious doom and sentence For since in their several dominions all soveraign powers are next to and immediately under God 't is by his Commission alone that they act and therefore to his Tribunal alone that they are accountable so that by resisting them we do as directly resist God whose Deputy-Governours they are as a Neopolitan doth the King of Spain by levying Arms against his Vice-Roy of Naples and by refusing to obey their just and lawful commands we demur to God's Authority who in every Just thing they impose or require speaks to us by their mouths and commands us by their Laws for so the Scripture tells us not only that they are ordained of God and that to resist them is to resist the Ordinance of God not only that they are the Ministers of God and that therefore for Conscience sake or in reverence to his Authority which they bear they are to be obeyed Rom. 13.1 2 3 4 5. but also that they judge for God and not for men 2 Chron. 19.6 and that therefore their judgment is God's Deut. 1.17 Whilst therefore we behave our selves factiously and rebelliously towards those whom God hath set over us we live as Out-laws in the Kingdom of God without any respect to that visible Authority by which he governs the World And if this be so then for Subjects to rebel against their Prince is neither better nor worse than to appeal to God against his own Authority and to put this impious case to him whether it be He or they that have the right of Governing the