Selected quad for the lemma: honour_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
honour_n	duty_n	inferior_n	superior_n	1,409	5	11.4560	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A45469	To the right honourable, the Lord Fairfax, and his councell of warre the humble addresse of Henry Hammond.	Hammond, Henry, 1605-1660.	1649 (1649)	Wing H606; ESTC R200396	14,448	20

intimated by that Apostle but on the contrary supremacy affixt to Him and subjection commanded to be paid Him not for the Peoples but for the Lords sake as subordination to and mission from the King is affirm'd of all other Magistrates But then 2. to take away all colour of plea for populacy from this Text it is to be observed what is the meaning of the Greek word in the New Testament which is there rendred * ordinance or creature or creation That word when it is set in its largnesse without any restraint signifies generally all mankind Gentiles as well as Jewes Thus the creation and the world are all one and all the creation or every creature Mar. 16. 15. the same with the whole world in the beginning of that Verse and all Nations in the parallel places of Saint Matthew and Saint Luke And thus Rom. 8. 19. the expectation of the creature or creation is the hope which the heathen world had that at the revelation of the gracious priviledges of the Messias they i. e. the Gentiles also should be freed from the slavery of corruption their villainous heathen sinnes unto the liberty c. that true liberty not from obedience to Superiours but from slavery to lusts and passions which Christ came to bestow upon us And so when v. 22. 't is added that the whole creation groanes c. the cleare meaning is that the Gentiles as well as Jewes did thus as might be evidenced at large Agreeable to this notion of the whole creation or every creature is this same phrase with the addition of humane to take off all restraint and to extend it as far as all mankind to be understood and so the meaning of the precept of Saint Peter to his Jew Christians is clearly this and no more that they must be obedient not onely to Christian Magistrates but to Gentiles Heathen also such as they should fall under in all their dispersions i. e. to all whatsoever they were and that for the Lords sake who constituted those Heathens also as Saint Paul saith If to this it shall be objected that by this way of interpreting the precept will be extended so as to subject us to all Heathens and not onely to Magistrates I answer that this which is the onely objection against this interpretation is of little force and is answered 1. by observing the word be subject which relating to Magistrates will require our obedience to none but those as v. 17. when he commands to honour all it must be understood all to whom honour belongs Superiours not Inferiours or as when ch. 5. 5. he commands them to be subject to one another it must not be understood that the Superiour must be subject to the Inferiour as the Inferiour to the Superiour but as the nature of the duty inforces to interpret the Inferiour to be subject to the Superiour onely and 2. by the' Apostles expresse enumeration of those to whom this obedience must be paid in the end of the Verse to the King as Supreme and then v. 14. to Governours as inferiour Magistrates sent by Him That this is the full importance of that place may if there be any need farther appeare by the occasion of the Apostles discourse which was the confuting of the vile sect of Christians then calling themselves Gnosticks as a title of great perfection of knowledge in the Mysteries of Heaven who taught the doctrine of liberty and manumission to Christian Subjects or Servants from heathen yea and Christian Masters and Kings To which false doctrine of theirs this Exhortation thus interpreted is directly contrary and cannot otherwise be pertinent to it and very coherent to that Admonition in the 12 ver. immediately preceding of having their conversation good among the Gentiles that they might not speake ill of them as evill Doers which they would be justly apt to doe in case they should withdraw their obedience to their lawfull Princes as soone as they were become Christians which by the way laies a very ill character upon those who by pretence of Christianity or piety seeke or claime to themselves any other liberty than what by the Lawes under which they are borne doth confestly belong unto them Having thus farre enlarged to cleare that testimony of Scripture and not knowing of any other which is thought favourable to your pretension I shall in stead of retorting the multitude of plaine places directly opposite which will abundantly take away all force from this proceed next to the second plea that of Reason And there I shall desire you to confider 1. Whether if Adam had never fallen and his posterity remained in the same innocence they would not yet have been capable of positive precepts in order to civill life and consequently whether in reason some one or more men should not have had superiority over all others Parents over Children and the like and to this purpose whether the divers Orders and subordination of the Angels that never fell be not an evidence that even in state of innocence God designed superiority not equality But then 2. The passions of men being through sin grown irregular and so needing Rules and Lawes and Rulers and Law-makers it was both reasonable that God should and is most certaine that he did designe and appoint Government as appears by what is said by God to the first Woman and second Man to Eve Gen. 3. 16. and to Cain Gen. 4. 7. and so gave not all men that freedome which is the supposed foundation of that doctrine which places supreme power in the People And of any rationall person that yet thinks he did give this freedome to all mankind I should but aske this one question Whether ever any man were by God or nature invested with power of his owne life I meane with power to take away his owne life or to kill himselfe In every thing else man may be believed to have a power over himselfe over his body to cut or lance it when that is for his turne and particularly over that freedome which naturally belongs to him whatever the degree of that be a man may by act of his owne will part with it irreversibly Thus might the Jew under Gods owne government give himself up wholly into the power of his Master and by having his eare bored thorough become from a Free-man a Slave for ever and generally thorow the whole world the course hath been the same that he which is most free hath power over his owne liberty so to divest himself of it as that it shall never revert to him againe and our Saviour that is thought to have brought liberty into the world doth yet by the quality of most of his precepts given to Christians by himselfe and his Apostles marke out this condition of subjection to them as that under which they were generally to live and from which the Christian profession should be so farre from freeing them that the strict practice of obedience to