Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	call_v	king_n	send_v	1,415	5	5.3964	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A47289	Christianity, a doctrine of the cross, or, Passive obedience, under any pretended invasion of legal rights and liberties	Kettlewell, John, 1653-1695.	1691 (1691)	Wing K358; ESTC R10389	73,706	109

publick Enemies and the like against the now exploded Doctrine of Faith and Patience and Non-resistance under the fiery tryal of the primitive Persecutions But those blessed Martyrs and Confessors had not so learned Christ. These illegal Invaders of Rights and bloody Persecutors of Religion they still own'd and suffer'd as Gods Vicegerents And as our Lord himself and his blessed Apostles taught and practised so these their true Followers took care even in such Violators of Rights never to resist the Ordinance of God which by S. Paul has Damnation annex'd to it but to submit to them not only for wrath but also for Conscience sake They stuck to the Faith and Laws of Christ with Courage and Resoluteness and bore and broke all the unjust violence of the persecuting Powers with Patience and never countenanced or joyn'd in any of the numerous Insurrections made against them tho they had so much Temptation to it for their own fleshly ease as appears from Tertullian Origen Cyprian c. in the forecited Testimonies And the like will be done by all others who are for trusting their Souls with theirs and think them safer in those primitive and first taught ways than in any of the so much fancied and magnified new Inventions CHAP. V. Of passive Obedience under Invasions of Legal Rights among the Jews AGreeable to this belief and practice of the Christians under the New Testament was that also of the Jews under the Old Testament in this case This was seen in their Carriage towards those Kings both in Judah and Israel who introduced and set up an Idolatrous Worship To bring in or to maintain Idolatry was an Invasion upon the Law of their Land as well as upon the Rights of God Yea and that in a point which may seem the very ground and bottom of their Law and among the most fundamental as many now to move Stirs would have taught them in the Jewish Constitution For the Civil State of Jury was at first a Theocracy The true God was not only their God whom they were to observe in regard to another World but their King too under whom they were incorporated and to unite together as a Society of this World As a Polity of this World they were Gods People who modell'd their Constitution and prescribed them their Laws from whom and in whose Name was Legislation and Judicature and who as their supreme Orderer and Director was to be consulted for Peace and War The Law of Moses whom Longinus calls the Legislator of the Jews was the Law of their Land And this Law was a political Covenant betwixt them and the true God all to be observ'd in keeping under him not in Defection from him Hence the going to serve other Gods is by way of eminence call'd working Wickedness in breaking or transgressing his Covenant Deut. 17.2 3 c. And accordingly Moses having the two Tables of the Law in his hands which he calls the Tables of Gods Covenant with the Jews brake both the Tables before their eyes when he saw them fallen from the Worship of God to the Golden Calf Thereby noting the Covenant to be broken by Idol Worship and that these Laws or Tables were a Charter or Covenant to incorporate them under the true God not under Idols Deut. 9.17 And answerably on any such defection such Inquisition and Procedure both towards Seducers and Seduced was appointed thereby without any Allowance of Misprision or Concealment even of the dearest person as is proper for the highest State Crime c. 13. and c. 17. So that for any King to go to set up other Gods in Jury was not only to act illegally or break thro Laws and Statutes among them but to undermine the very bottom of all their Laws and break in upon the main and most important things in the Jewish Law or Constitution Now Ahab suppressed the Worship of the true God in Israel which was the legal and establish'd Religion banish'd and put to death the Prophets extirpated the Professors in Appearance so far as that they seem'd even clean gone to Elijah himself And having pull'd down the Worship of God prescribed by Law set up the Worship of Baal that was forbid by Law and all by his own Authority Here was mere Will and Power over-ruling Laws and illegal Invasion and arbitrary Power in the most tender and fundamental points and all this acted to the highest Extremities and with greatest Outrage But yet all this would not authorize their levying War and rising in Arms against this impious and illegal Invader of Religion and Laws Even Elijah whose Spirit goes further in opposition and return of ill than Christs doth calling down fire from Heaven to consume those that were sent to take him yet opposes all this only by freedom of Confession and saves himself by flight and enjoys his Soul in Patience and seeks Redress by Prayers and Trust in Providence But never sollicits nor seeks to stir up the many Thousands in Israel both Priests and People who possibly might have some Remains of Faith and Zeal for the Lord of Hosts to defend their legal and establish'd Worship and keep out Heathenism against their King by Insurrection and Rebellion But wicked idolatrous and illegally administring Ahab and his House were to hold his Crown till God himself who is the rightful Judge of Princes expresly deposed and disauthorized them and not by mere course of Providence but by particular Nomination and the anointing of a Prophet set Jehu upon his Throne What more common among the Kings of Israel and Judah than to persecute the true Worship of God and to set up and impose a false one in its stead All the Kings of Israel were open and plain Idolaters And so were several of the Kings of Judah Particularly Ahaz shut up the doors of the House of the Lord fell to the Abomination of the Heathen and made him Altars in every corner of Jerusalem And Manasseh brought the Heathen Idols into the very Temple of Jerusalem excluding and banishing the true God whole Worship was setled by Law from his own House and setting up the Abomination of Idols which the Law forbad in the most publick places Here is legal Truth arbitrarily turned out and illegal Error as arbitrarily set up even in the authorized and most publick places the Churches and Temples of the Land And this against all Religion and National Laws even those that in the style of many now to stir up Insurrection would be call'd most essential to the Civil Constitution it self and which were not dependant on the King either to make or to repeal them But Elijah and Elisha Micha and Isaiah and all the other holy Prophets who of all persons were the fittest as the Trump of God to sound to Arms and call men to rise in Gods Cause yet when sent to cry out against this dishonor of God and breach of Laws they did it only as

Confessors not as Ring-leaders to Rebellion They never attempted this course for redress nor stirr'd up the People to defend God and the Laws against their Kings by armed Resistance or by Deposing of those impious and arbitrary Princes To descend now from Religion when taken into the Law and made a Civil Right to Property Saul persecuted David not in any way of Law and Justice but of mere wilful Fury and Cruelty to shed his innocent Blood as he had already done by the Blood of a Number of Priests without any regard either to the Innocence of the Men or the Sacredness of their Function This sure was an Invasion of Rights not only the common Rights of Humanity but of their Civil Rights of the sixth Commandment saying Thou shalt not kill which was not only the Law of God but the Law of their Land or of Jury Now whilst Saul was acting thus against Law and invading Rights doth David think he has lost all claim to his former Submission and may be looked on thenceforward and opposed as a mere unauthorized person No but owns him for the Lords anointed at that very time and thereupon that he could not do against him what was unlawful against one of that Character and Denomination How can I stretch forth my hand against him and be guiltless seeing he is the Lords anointed 1 Sam. xxvi 9 Like as afterwards whilst Pilate was passing an unjust Sentence in a Case of Blood and that against his own Conscience and Confessions our Lord still owns him as one that had Power over him from above Jo. xix 11 Such likewise was the breach of Property when Ahab against all Law and Justice seized Naboth's Vineyard together with his Life which was a much more valuable Freehold And when Jezabel fill'd all places with illegal Executions keeping alive the Priests of Baal whom the Law utterly and inexorably destroy'd and destroying all the Prophets of the Lord she could find good Obadiah venturing his life to hide and maintain an hundred of them by Fifties in a Cave from her fury all whom the Law protected And when the Kings and Princes of Judah and Israel were complained of by Isaiah for Exactions and Oppressions and perverting of Justice As others were by Jeremy Ezekiel Hosea Amos Micha Zephaniah c. for Grinding the Faces of their Subjects shedding innocent Blood and turning aside the Poor in the Gate from their Right But tho here was breach of Laws and legal Properties yet was this never allow'd as a just Pretence for the injured Subjects by force of Arms to do themselves Right and rebel against such invading Princes The holy Prophets talked of no Forfeitures of Crowns or Depositions of Kings or discharge of Duty and Allegiance on these Accounts but refer'd them to God the Supreme Judge to right them against their invading Sovereigns This in those days was their Maxim as it is in the Words of Rabbi Jeremiah No creature may judge the King but the holy and blessed God alone Some indeed think to turn by the Scriptures of the Old Testament forbidding this Resistance among the Jews as of no force with us because they had Kings immediately delegated by God either in Answers from the Cloud of Glory or Unction by Prophets And what was there forbid against such a King they think is only of force under others who come in by like special prophetical Delegation Now as to this it solves not the Argument from the Dueness of Non-resistance to Jewish or Israelitish Kings for that was as due to those that wanted as to those that had these immediate Nominations It was as due to Ahab and all those other Kings of Israel that were such Invaders of Laws and Rights as I observed as to Jeroboam or to Jehu And yet among the Kings of Israel Jeroboam and Jehu alone had this prophetical Nomination all the rest coming in by humane Titles like the Kings of other Nations And as due to Hezekiah and Josiah and all the other Kings of Judah that were Kings by descent as to Saul or David who were set up by immediate Message from God And yet after David and Solomon the Crown in Judah went by the course of Descent in the Royal Blood without any Interposition so far as we can see in Scripture of Gods personal Nomination Even in Joash's Case who was set up against Athaliah after six years possession no such thing was pretended Jehoiada the Priest who managed that Revolution not pretending for young Joash any Message of a Prophet or Answer from the Cloud of Glory which had that been their method of setting up Kings in those days he as chief Priest should have consulted but only his heritable Right according to the Constitution of Jury or being of the House of David Besides Non-resistance and other Duties to Sovereign Governors do not depend upon the method or way of coming into Power but only on that rightful Power and Authority they are come into Honor thy Father obey Magistrates submit to the King as supreme be subject to the Higher Powers and other like Sayings of Scripture requiring these Duties look only at the Authority If a Man is the true Father the rightful Power and the lawful King they ask no more to make all these due to him making no difference whether he comes to have this Right by an Humane Title or by a Divine Now all that Gods personal Nomination doth is as other personal Titles do to fix the Power in a certain person It gives no inlargement of Power or greater extent of Prerogative And not widening or enlarging the Authority it can make or call for no more Duty And accordingly these Duties were as much the due of those Kings that came in by humane Titles among the Jews as of those who were personally named by God himself And they are as due to any Kings of other Nations as they were to Jewish Kings For Government is instituted of God for all Nations as well as Jury And Obedience to Governors is a natural Duty So that Subjects of all Governments are call'd to pay these Duties as much as the Jewish Subjects were Now to bid men be subject and submissive and obedient and not to resist and the like are as plain and full as I noted at first as the most ordinary Understandings need to be taught against all Resistance What said God more than this against Resistance to the Jews when he named any King himself Nay if we come to make Comparisons where are the Sayings against it under any such Kings so numerous and express And these are as plain if Men are willing to understand what God plainly tells them when spoken in case of a Roman Emperor who had a humane Title as they would have been in case of Saul who had a divine Title They are due to any persons as having Gods Authority and being his Vicegerents Thus S. Paul notes