Selected quad for the lemma: authority_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
authority_n	power_n	spiritual_a	temporal_a	8,634	5	8.7196	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A91725	An advice against libertinism shewing the great danger thereof, and exhorting all to zeal of the truth. Written by Edward Reynell Esq.	Reynell, Edward, 1612-1663.	1659 (1659)	Wing R1216; Thomason E2106_1; ESTC R13720	30,764	115

be willing to spare and keep it in the losse of the true Religion so must he deeds be sorry that ever he entred into the world when he considers the time to which God had reserved his Age to see the disasters and desolation of a place or people abandoned to the fury of Rapinous hands and the prophanation of the impious to see ravenous Harpys fatted with humane ruines to rush into those well feathered Nests which they built not to see whole Families loaded with injuries and the props of buildings to tremble with loud blasphemies yea to behold such fatal Comets which shall portend nothing but fire and sword to Church and State What an Edict do we finde published by an Apostle invested with Thunder and lightning 1 Cor. 6.6 And were he sent again into the world by Providence what would he imagine who then wanted patience to see a controversie about a field perhaps or a house if he should now behold those that claim the title of the faithful to oppose not a house or City one against another but even strive to precipitate whole Provinces yea a Nation into Rapes disorders and priviledged Plunders He that would not suffer one brother to go to law with another but rather to suffer wrong and sustain fraud would he have countenanced such inhumane spectacles with a Declatation of allowance as now appear visible in the face of this Age And if our Saviour enjoyned a removal of all scandals from his Kingdom dooming the Authors thereof to have a Mill-stone hanged about their Necks and their bodies cast into the Sea what will become of those who through their own ambitious ends as if God were bound to define all things according to their sense and will fall into division among themselves withdraw from each other and censure one another Wo and alas will brethren forgetful of their Covenant forgetfull of their Name and unmindfull of their Relations thus rage contemne yea destroy those which they ought not to hate Will not the people seeing so many Religions held forth as they think and so many severall wayes and minds think it is as good be of none as adventure among so many What just occasion of offence will hereby be given to the ignorant to the prophane and such as are yet unsetled in their judgement when either through pride or petulancy they shall see men change their opinions which a while ago they seemed to be so zealous for doth not this make them think that the rest may be as uncertain as those Surely it s an extream rage and furious dispair which thus expects nothing but the height of evils for its Remedy and how great a scandal the Lives of such Professors will at last throw upon the Church of God I wish the sad experience of the times may not too plainly manifest many no doubt having been kept off from the practice and approving of a godly life through the unhappy differences among our selves But that which is the soul of misfortune is the great contempt of that high Calling for which the Apostle thought none sufficient It is not denied but that God can make his Oracles speak without a voice and Oh what a great thing is nothing in the hands of God who can teach without a School and in a moment change ignorants into Doctors and Pesants into Prophets But what shall we neglect the ordinary means appointed in his word to lead us to him What can we expect from a Physitian that discourseth of war or a bare Scholar treating of the secret designs of Princes No more may we look for from those late Chaplains of Satans ordering who pretend good to do mischief and act his part in the attire of an Angel The spirit also is promised to lead us into all truth but not by fanatick Enthusiasmas The spirit of God speaks to us in and by but not besides or beyond the Scripture to hold therefore extraordinary Revelations whereby things were formerly made known to the Prophets or to pretend to immediate inspirations without the word is a delusion as monstruous as detestable and ought to be rejected as an instrument of Satan 2 Thess 2.2 and as the usual pretences of Impostors against whose fanatical conceits God hath sufficiently forewarned us 1 John 4.1 Galathians 1.8 The Scripture being written for our learning we are commanded there to search as the Conduit of Life and power of God unto salvation Of whom we are not taught to enquite at the Oracles of our lusts and Phantasies nor to be led by opinions of our own framing And surely the punishment of the Mongrel-blasphemer Levit. 24. should make all conscionable men afraid how they adventure this way to make bold with Gods sacred Name least perchance like the sons of Sceva they meet with some mad devils to whip them from their presumptious folly And yet to the sad reproach of a sinfull Nation may it be spoken none are now adayes more cried up then such as were never brought up in the Schools of the Prophets nor lawfully ordained to the Ministry which is now so commonly slandered by our Jesuited Sectaries telling the people that their Priests have deluded them that they have falsified the word which alas they themselves have too fouly wrested yea some of them have been pleased to call the greatest cheat could be put upon Christians But let the manifest punishment from heaven upon Vzziah serve among many other instances which might be produced as an example of terror to such secular Powers as will incroah upon Ministry and break the barriers that Providence hath established for the differencing of the spiritual and temporal authority Neither let the priviledge of Times though the barres of impudence seem broken down be made a colour to excuse any from Sacrilegious boldness who mingle mysteriously divine reasons with their own humane Fancies which as Queen and Governess ought to be chief Ruler and not suffragant in so sacred and holy a Subject Besides is it not an unseemly thing to see the sacred volume of our Belief-mysteries tossed up and down and plaid withall in every shop or kitching and that those divine Oracles which heretofore have been accounted Mysteries should be thus abused by such as go about sowing of schism setting of Errors and spreading of faction Surely so serious and venerable a study should not thus tumultuarily be discussed Gods word being a History religiously to be adored awfully feared and not fabulously reported The Jews and Mahometans and almost all Nations are with reverence wedded unto the bare language wherein their Religion had originally been conceived all change and translation having been directly forbidden And one of our Grecian Historians doth not without appearance of reason accuse his Age for so much as the secrets of Christrain Religion were so farre dispenced in publike as that every man might at his pleasure dispute of it and at randome vent his opinion of the same And certainly it should be