Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	word_n	world_n	worship_n	139	3	6.7207	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62675	An essay concerning the power of the magistrate, and the rights of mankind in matters of religion with some reasons in particular for the dissenters not being obliged to take the Sacramental Test but in their own churches, and for a general naturalization : together with a postscript in answer to the Letter to a convocation-man.	Tindal, Matthew, 1653?-1733.	1697 (1697)	Wing T1302; ESTC R4528	95,152	210

with them if they were equally obliged to punish Men for false Religions or Doctrines as well as for Theft and Murder c which must necessarily discourage all Commerce and make Nations most inhospitable and barbarous And if Persecutors do not follow this Method it 's because they do not act according to their own Principles 9. Which root out all Mercy and take from the Magistrate all Power of pardoning any Crime whatever and from all private Persons the forgiving their Enemies For if the Magistrate is not to act as the Representative of the Civil Society only but also to punish Offences against God meerly as such tho he may forgive any Crime against himself or pardon the breach of his own Laws yet these being also Sins against God he is obliged upon God's Account to punish Men for the Breach of them as well as for Infidelity or Heresy And all private Persons tho they must forgive their Brethren not only seven but seven times seven yet the not punishing them by this Doctrine is wholly put out of their Power because it obliges them to shew their Zeal for God's Honour in getting the Magistrate to punish them who by injuring their Brethren offend against God 10. In a word this Doctrine of Force is directly contrary to the main Design of all God's Laws wherein Men are concerned one with another which is their mutual Good As for Instance The forbidding Murder is intended for the Security of Mens greatest Good their Lives which would be strangely defeated if the Supream Powers were to punish with Death those they judg do dishonour God with their false Worship because it would not fail to fill the World with Blood and Slaughter since the Governours of it are as opposite in their Judgments about these Matters as in the Fable the Man's two Wives were where his old one pluckt out his black Hairs and his young Wife his gray Ones But suppose the Supream Powers were not oblig'd to deprive People of their Lives but only of their Properties not to mention that even that would destroy great Numbers by robbing them of the Necessaries of Life the end of all those Laws which forbid all kinds of Injuries and require mutual Assistance one towards another for their common good would be in a manner destroyed since a great part of Mankind must be unavoidably miserable by being either at once or by degrees deprived of the means of subsisting happily and the rest would hold what they possess but by a precarious Tenure since it would depend on their Governours tho they had never so many successively or their own not changing their Opinions neither of which is in their Power to hinder whether they should enjoy any thing or not Therefore it shews the greatest Indiscretion in those who tho they have a share in the Legislature yet are subject to the Laws themselves to consent to any persecuting Ones because they cannot be sure but that they are contriving Rods for their own Backs or for their Childrens or near Relations and I believe there are few Persecutors for all their Zeal but would rather Speculative Points were wholly left to the merciful and wise Judgment of God than to have their own Families or Friends ruin'd about them But to return In vain are the Magistrates required not to tyrannize over and oppress their Subjects if they are to punish them for not being of the same Perswasion with them It had been much happier for Men in relation to their Temporal as well as Eternal Condition to be in a State of Nature than to let Tyrants deprive them of the Comforts of this Life for no other Reason than not daring to act contrary to their Consciences in things not relating to this Life And People where they oppress one the other when the Good of the Society cannot be pretended may justly be reckoned in a worse State than that of Nature viz. of War which is never at an end as long as there are Men who cannot comply with all those things that out of Ignorance Superstition Ambition c. are established as necessary to Church-Communion 11. In a word Can Men oppress ruin and kill for God's sake and destroy all moral Honesty on pretence of Religion which when it serves to no other end than to enflame the Tempers of Men and set a keener Edg on their Spirits and to make them ten times more the Children of Wrath and Cruelty than they are by Nature does surely lose its Nature and ceases to be Religion for let Men say worse of Infidelity and Atheism if they can But if on the contrary the ruining those that do nothing against the Welfare of the Society becomes an Act of Piety when it 's made use of to extirpate a false Religion or Opinion there are no Crimes whatever but by the same reason will become religious and vertuous Actions if they are equally serviceable to the same pious End scelera ipsa nef asque hâc mercede placent and consequently it would be an Act of Piety and Vertue to make use of pious Frauds to calumniate to lie to bear false Witness to murder to assassinate even the Magistrate himself 12. Thus whereas Religion has no other Design than the Advancement of Man's Happiness and God's Glory this persecuting Humour is so far from being serviceable to the former that it 's plainly destructive of it for whereas in order to that good End the Scripture has directed all Stations and Relations of Men so to act as may best tend to Love and peace the true Basis of the Happiness of the Society this drives them all to contrary Motions for Magistrates are incited to ruin those for whose Good they were instituted Subjects are tempted to disobey their Governours and retaliate Persecution so much the more fiercely by how much greater Influence their Opinions and Actions have upon the Community Nor does it only destroy the Peace of a Nation within its own Bowels but it engageth one Nation against another And 13. As it destroys all these Publick Obligations by the same reason all private Ones which are not so great as those owing to the Publick must cease so that it embroileth private Families subverts the mutual Duties between Parents and Children Husbands and Wives Masters and Servants c. seducing them into a belief that the way to be serviceable to one another's Eternal Interest is by being cruel to their Temporal and consequently the more Charity they owe one another the sooner they are to use one another ill Nor can there by any reason why the doing this of themselves is not as effectual to promote each others Eternal Happiness as the doing the very same at the command of the Magistrate who is every whit as fallible as they or why they need more to expect a Command to use Force than to give Advice if one as well as the other has a tendency to promote which is every ones Duty the Good

differ but in Scripture-expressions in which they all agree And is it not the Imposers that not only in the Arminian Controversy which has caused a Schism in the Protestant Countries beyond Sea but in all others that are guilty of the Separation For I do not see as that very Honest and Judicious Man Mr. Hales in his Tract of Schism observes That Opinionum varietas Opinantium unitas are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or that Men of different Opinions may not hold Communion in Sacris or both go to the same Church Why may not I go if occasion requires to an Arian Church so there be no Arianism expressed in their Liturgy and were Liturgies and publick Forms of Service so framed as they admitted no particular and private Fancies but contained those things in which all Christians agree Schisms on Opinions were utterly vanished And let me add that not only Schisms or Heresies but all Hatred Animosities and Uncharitableness would be destroyed For then the Clergy since it would be their common Interest to unite together would maintain Peace Love and Kindness amongst themselves and preach the same to the People who would never were they but left to themselves hate or molest one another for meerly speculative Opinions which make but little impression on them especially too when they did not create any Divisions or Schisms amongst them nay then all Opinions of Moment I mean those which Men cannot neglect examining into without a Fault would being handled without Prejudice or Passion quickly be rightly understood and those of little or no Moment which are chiefly kept up by the Hatred and Animosities of the different Sects and the Artifices of the Priests soon fall to the Ground And this is the sense of the ablest Champion that the Protestant Religion could ever boast of the brave Chillingworth who tells us Ch. 3. n. 8. If Men would be themselves and be content that others should be in the choice of their Religion the Servants of God and not of Men if instead of being zealous Papists earnest Calvinists rigid Lutherans c. they would become themselves and be content that others should be plain and honest Christians if all Men would believe the Scripture and freeing themselves from Prejudice and Passion would sincerely endeavour to find the true Sense of it and live according to it and require no more of others than to do so not refusing their Communion to those that do so would so order their Publick Service of God that all may without Scruple or Hypocrisy or Protestation against any part of it join with them in it who does not see that seeing all necessary Truths are plainly and evidently set down in Scripture there would of necessity be amongst all Men in all things necessary Unity of Opinion and notwithstanding any other Differences that are or could be Unity of Communion and Charity and mutual Toleration by which Means all Schism and Heresy would be banished the World and those wretched Contentions which now rend and tear in pieces not the Coat but the Members and Bowels of Christ with mutual Pride and Tyranny would speedily receive a most blessed Catastrophe So Chap. 4. n. 16. This presumptuous imposing of the Senses of Men upon the Word of God the special Senses of Men upon the general Words of God and laying them on Mens Consciences under the equal Penalty of Death and Damnation this vain Conceit that we can speak of the Things of God better than the Words of God this deifying our own Interpretations and tyrannous enforcing them upon others this restraining the Words of God from that Latitude and Generality and the Understanding of Men from their Liberty where Christ and his Apostles left them is and hath been the only Fountain of all Schisms of the Church and that which makes them immortal the common Incendiary of Christendom Ridente Turca nec dolente Judaeo Take away these Walls of Separation and all will quickly be one Take away this persecuting burning cursing damning of Men for not subscribing to the Words of Men as the Words of God require of Christians only to believe Christ and to call no Man Master but him only Let those leave claiming Infallibility that have no Title to it and let them that in their Words disclaim it disclaim it likewise in their Actions In a word Take away Tyranny which is the Devil's Instrument to support Errors Superstitions and Impieties in the several Parts of the World which could not otherwise long withstand the Power of Truth I say take away Tyranny and restore Christians to the just and full Liberty of captivating their Understanding to Scripture only and as Rivers when they have a free passage run all to the Ocean so it may well be hoped by God's Blessing that Universal Liberty thus moderated may quickly reduce Christendom to Truth and Unity But to add a greater Authority even that of the Apostles themselves who tho they were to teach the People the Christian Faith before they baptized them into it nay it 's impossible any should be of the Christian Church before he knew the Faith that must make him a Christian yet they required no more of those that before believed the Unity of God to qualify them to be Members of the Church than to believe Jesus to be the Christ and that God has raised him from the Dead and the Doctrine of Repentance And upon this Belief which all Christians profess they constantly admitted both Jews and Gentiles into the Church and consequently whilst this Belief remains they are not unqualified to be Members of the Church except Men have a Right now-a-days to disown those for Brethren and Members of the Church that the Apostles owned as such But They are indeed as Mr. Chillingworth observeth the greatest Schismaticks who make the Way to Heaven narrower the Yoke of Christ heavier the Differences of Faith greater than they were made at the beginning by Christ and his Apostles they talk of Unity and aim at Tyranny and will have Peace with none but their Slaves and Vassals 4. But it 's said A Heretick after two or three Admonitions is to be rejected or more properly avoided therefore Difference of Opinions will hinder Men from being of the same Communion By a Heretick is not meant one that thrô the weakness of Understanding is in an Error but an immoral Man that acts against his Conscience for the Apostle describes him as one that 's conscious of his Crime as being condemned of himself on whom Admonitions might have a good Effect or if they should not be sufficient yet that the Trouble and Disgrace of being shunned by his Brethren might reclaim him which Methods could have no such Effect if his Fault had been a meer Error of the Understanding And Heresy cannot but be a Fault of the Will because it 's called a Work of the Flesh and damnable which a meer Error of the Understanding by no means is And