Selected quad for the lemma: justice_n
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B06421
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A sermon preached at Windsor before his Majesty, the second Sunday after Easter, 1684. by John Archbishop of Tuam.
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Vesey, John, 1636-1716.
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1684
(1684)
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Wing V282A; ESTC R185967
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16,479
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46
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Image part whereof was a Dominion over the Creation so in our Nature he honours some persons with his Name and hath thereby given them Dominion over others of their own kind They have not onely his Image but Inscription of whom in a qualified sense we may say what they of Lycaonia said of the Apostles Acts 14.11 The Gods are come down unto us in the likeness of men I need not say here they are not Gods and Sons of God as our Saviour is by an unconceivable generation which were to make them equal with God To us there is but one God though there be that are called Gods Nor are they always Sons of God by Adoption and Grace as Members of the Invisible Church that Aphorism that Empire is founded in Dominion being not more absurd and false than that other that Dominion is founded in Grace Grace neither giving title to Land and Estates nor Estates to Empire Wicked men may be not onely lawful Proprietors but lawful and good Princes Nor are Princes always lastly even by external Profession Sons of God as visible Members of the Church though it is a great felicity when they and their subjects are so no Crown sitting surer than such as is most Christian For the true discovery therefore of that sense in which they are stiled gods and Sons of God we must consider that it is familiar in Scripture to call a Person the Son of that man whom he resembles in some very signal character as Believers are called Sons of Abraham for their resemblance to him in that Grace that was so eminent and illustrious in that Holy Patriarch that it was imputed to him for Righteousness On the contrary our Saviour saith to the Jews Ye are of your Father the Devil for the works of your Father the Devil you will do such as cruelty and malice and spight and revenge which argue a Diabolical nature and temper Agreeably to this notion 1. Princes are called Gods because as such they have their being from God that is Authority to govern 2. Because they resemble God in the conduct and menage of that Authority they have from him 3. God calls them his Sons because as they are begotten by him and are like him so as a Father he defends them and more especially concerns himself in their cause and protection 1. Princes have their Being from God and are begotten by him As in the Scale of our Saviours Genealogy Luke 3. it is said of all but Adam he was the Son of such a one and he was the Son of such a one but of Adam he was the Son of God because he came immediately out of his hands So may we say of inferiour Magistrates and Officers who stand in subordination to others but when we come to the Sovereign Power that is the Issue of Heaven they that are invested with it are the Sons of God of whom they hold immediately and are born of the seed of divine Authority and Power God who by his Word made the World hath by the same Word by saying Princes are Gods made them so and this Scripture which cannot be broken is their Commission Joh. 10.35 For so the Text is expresly expounded by our Saviour for he calls it a Word of God coming to the Magistrate Now we know the Word of God coming to a Person is a Phrase authorizing that Person to the Service he is then imployed in In the Old Testament the Word of the Lord came unto me is the common stile of the Prophets Order and therefore these words Ye are gods being a word coming unto the Prince are his Letters Patent for his Title and Authority Wisd 6.3 4. So that his Power is given him of thâ— Lord and Sovereignty of the Highest saith the Wisdom of Solomon and by him Kings reign Prov. 8.15 and Princes decree Justice saith the Wisdom of God Which Wisdom acknowledges the Power even of Pilate over himself and says Joh. 19.11 It was given him from above And St. Paul tells us the Powers that then were the Powers that be Rom. 13.1 are ordained of God though they were neither the most lawfully acquired nor the most equally administred So that Magistracy and Magistrates for so the word Powers there must be understood of Persons exercising Power are not onely of Gods general providence and permission which suffers many irregularities in the World as sometimes the abuse of this Power by mal-administration and sometimes the ruine of it by Rebellion or Translation by Conquest but they are by his special ordination and appointment they are ordained of God And hence it is that Rebellion is a damnable and without true Repentance a damning sin and I fear it is in this as well as other respects as the sin of Witchcraft the Covenant with Hell that it is but too rarely repented of It is a fulsom thing to multiply Arguments and Authorities in a plain Cause and such is that if any that I am pleading for the divine Original of Government which whoso reads the Scriptures cannot but discern unless he be hastning after another God than they preach But this truth will appear with fuller evidence if we consider the Rises of Government and what share the People that is the governed part can have in the most Popular Gonstitutions 1. It is certain that Government was originally in the Parents and Heads of Families if we believe Mankind to have been created and propagated according to the Scripture Tradition which is the most natural and rational hypothesis and most credible though it were not assisted by Revelation We could never yet find where that Utopia lies where men lived without natural dependencies but came into the World in Arms and Armour fighting with and destroying one another and yet on such precarious Poetick Fables some have chosen to found their Common-wealths rather than on the History of the Bible which informs us of another origination both of Men and of Society There we are acquainted with our growing from one common root in the way of natural propagation which ever carries a necessary obligation with it for Nature teaches the Son obedience to the Father so that Adam were he now alive would be the Universal Monarch by right of Nature and eminently in the language of the Text Son of God and of the Most High And from him Power descended to the first-born by the Priviledge of natural Succession without asking the consent of his Brethren and as the Family spread so did the Empire Marriages were made and Children begotten and Houses filled and new Colonies sent out and so by degrees a Tree became a Forest and the Paternal Power spread and grew into a Political This is the way and method by which Government was first planted in one Family and according to its increase shed and disseminated it self abroad over many and so far there is no shadow of an Authority derived from the People that is