Selected quad for the lemma: majesty_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
majesty_n	earl_n	lord_n	precedent_n	3,907	5	10.2488	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A55347	Passive obedience, stated and asserted In a sermon preached at Ampthill in Bedfordshire, upon Sunday, Septemb. 9. 1683. being the day of thanksgiving for the discovering and defeating the late treasonable conspiracy against His Sacred Majesities person and government. By Tho. Pomfret, A.M. rector of Ampthill, and chaplain to the Right Honourable Robert []ar, of Atlesbury.	Pomfret, Thomas, d. 1705.	1683 (1683)	Wing P2800; ESTC R217677	14,786	37

Passive Obedience Stated and Asserted IN A SERMON PREACHED At Ampthill in Bedfordshire Vpon Sunday Septemb. 9. 1683. Being the Day of THANKSGIVING FOR THE Discovering and Defeating The Late Treasonable CONSPIRACY AGAINST His Sacred Majesties Person and Government BY THO. POMFRET A. M. Rector of Ampthill and Chaplain to the Right Honourable ROBERT Ear. of Ailesbury LONDON Printed for Joanna Brome at the Gun in S. Paul's Church-Yard 1683. To the Right Honourable ROBERT Earl of Ailesbury One of the Lords of his Majesties most Honourable Privy-Council My Lord COuld I have taken the Confidence to have disputed your Commands this Discourse would not have needed that Protection and Favour which now it humbly begs Not but that I am well assured the Doctrines in it are truly Christian but it is sent forth into an ill natur'd and Plotting Age that will not give tolerable entertainment to any Principles but such as invite to Apostacy and Rebellion It is not therefore without extream Necessity that I press to Your Lordship in this Dedication the very asserting Primitive Religion and Christian Loyalty will need such a Patron And though it is no Secret to the World yet I cannot forbear declaring that I cannot have such a Defender as Your Self who does so generously practise both those Vertues I have seen in Your Lordship such Concernment for the Crown and the Establish'd Religion that I might presume of Patronage But I must beseech Your Pardon too that I present this of which I have so mean an Opinion my self to a Person for whom of all men I have the greatest Honour and from whom I have received the greatest Obligations But You loved the Subject and therefore liked the Sermon no Man ever having better joyned the Christian and the Statesman And truly my Lord I have been entertained with the greatest Delight as well as Advantage in Your own Discourses of Loyalty that it self in You being founded upon Principles truly Noble and Brave not living upon future Expectances but serving Your Prince as You do Your God by the Engagements of pure Love and undesigning Vertue And therefore in all Changes You was always Your Self no Change of State making You change Your Party This is removed as far from Vntruth as it is from Flattery that You can no more forsake Your King nor Your Religion that You can Your Self being one that values not Your Fortune nor Your Greatness above Your Vertues And as to this all men that know You will allow the Character so it is my happiness as well as interest that I can testifie it by a daily Experience having the honour of being My Lord Your Lordships most humble and obedient Chaplain Tho. Pomfret A SERMON ON I S. PET. ii 20 21. But if when ye do well and suffer for it ye take it patiently this is acceptable with God For even hereunto were ye called IT is not unknown to any man who has heard the Sermons or read the Books or remembers the Practices of all sorts of Dissenters from the Church of England but that they have been a People not only the most ungovernable but also the most destructive to the Peace and Dignity and Lives of Princes It cannot therefore be any thing strange to hear by the King's Declararation of a Conspiracy complotted against His own Life and Government since it is by such whose very Principles do so naturally tend to Sedition and Bloud And tho' indeed by God's wonderful Providence His Majesty hath been hitherto deliver'd from the Malicious Unchristian and cruel Designs of these men yet I cannot see without a continuation of Miracles how it is possible for our Government and Religion to be render'd in any degree safe unless such Positions be rooted out and renounced which plainly lead to disturb and ruin Kingdoms For since the Supreme Power is both by Gods express Order and the consent of all Nations absolute and unaccountable if you once take the Sword out of the Magistrate's hand and put it into the Peoples that Nation is presently in a state of War and every man may thrust his dagger into his Neighbours side if he has a stronger Arm and a more bloudy mind To prevent this by Gods Ordinance and the agreement of all Common-wealths the Supreme Power only is to bear the Sword and that to defend every mans Right but no man to rise up upon any Pretence whatsoever against that A conclusion this that is founded by God and Nature Reason and Religion and has been consented to by all good Christians and wiser Heathens But some hot and troublesome men amongst us given up to Rage and Ambition have torn up the Foundations of Peace and Government and will endure neither Kings nor their Laws but hate their Power and would violate their Persons to bring in their own Devices and inlarge their Grandeurs Nay and that Christianity it self which is the greatest obligation in all the World to Peace and Obedience might have no effect towards the preservation of Gods Vice-Gerents they will make the Christian Religion the pretence to Rebellion and for the concernments of God practise directly opposite to all his Commandments and amongst the rest evidently against this of the Text where we are injoyn'd to suffer though it be for doing well Passive Obedience which is a patient and mild suffering the hard and unjust usages of Kings being both the Christians duty and profession that at once he might possess his mind in patience and secure the Publick Quiet But this meek and Christian Principle was of late called to an account and by Arguments of railery and contempt indeavoured to be hooted out of the World and represented to be mean and base tamely to suffer evil and far more honourable to be inroll'd amongst the Banditi and Russians than in the Catalogue of Martyrs And accordingly to give the more confidence to their horrid plot the Chaplain and the Goliah of the Conspiracy was sent forth to bid defyance to God and the King and the whole Army of Martyrs and to tell the World that his Masters were men of that mettle that with his own Julian they would turn Apostates to all Religion and rather than suffer as Christians confederate in Treason Upon this principle their wicked Design proceeded and therefore it is but needful that it be consider'd and for the future if possible prevented which I shall endeavour from the Text where we have a passive Obedience commended God's acceptation of it and our own calling to it Which I shall render more plain in these following Propositions I. That as Christians we are bound to do well though we suffer II. When we do well and suffer for it we must take it patiently III. If we do well and according to the Christian Rule we will rather suffer patiently than resist the power by which we suffer IV. That as all these are acceptable to God so to them all we are call'd by our Religion it is both the duty

duties The First is to pay unto God an hearty Acknowledgment for his tender and particular Providence over the King and indeed in him over us all since in his Preservation we injoy our Lives and Estates our Liberties and Religion The other duty is to set a mark upon those Men and such Principles which would have murdered the best of Kings and the most Loyal part of the Nation under a pretence of defending Liberty and Protestant-Religion How far this wretched Plot it self is believed or whether believed to be the Plot of those Men against whom it is both Charged and Proved I cannot say but this I will say that the Practice of what they would have done is so like what by their Preachers they are taught to do that if we do but consider by whom the Dissenters are led it is no wonder at all to find them so ready to do mischief And as I was saying at first that their Principles do so naturally tend to Rebellion that they can never be made good Subjects but by renouncing their Masters and their Doctrines So I now add that if there be any one of them that is kind to the Government it is the goodness more of his Nature than Persuasion if they do believe their own Guides I shall instance but in a few but those few such as were notoriously active in the destruction of the Royal Martyr and have been Teachers of the People in Conventicles since the Return of his present Majesty Mr. Calamy in a Speech at Guild-Hall upon the calling in of the Scots to assist the Rebellion to encourage so Pious a Cause did assure his Auditors that had he himself as many Lives as Hairs upon his Head he would Sacrifice all in that Quarrel A blessed President for a factious People Nay and as to that very Principle upon which this wicked Plot was grounded viz. the pretence of preserving Liberty and Religion he delivers his Opinion That for Peace and Reformation it is commendable to Fight against the King's Command Pag. 29. Theses The Pope in his Chair could not have determin'd more magisterially nor to more mischievous purposes And indeed the Jesuit and the Presbyterian proceed by the same measures for to gain the People to Fight against their Prince they will at any time make over to them the Sovereignty And then as Mr. Calamy asserts all Loyal Subjects as now it is pretended are the betrayers of Religion and Liberty and those says he that fought under the King's Banner did endeavour by all bloudy and traiterous ways to subvert Religion and Property So that here is Treason found in the King against his Sovereign Lord the People Therefore he declares the Rebellion to be so much God's Cause that whoever dyed in it would dye a Martyr Sermon to the Peers Mr. Jenkins another of the same holy stamp after the War which he had Preach'd up was ended and he had leisure to calculate the Thousands both of Men and Money consumed upon that fatal occasion and had also weighed the King's Bloud and all his Subjects that had been Murder'd against the Covenant he sets down his Opinion at the foot of the Account that the removal of the King and Bishops was a sufficient payment for all the ●oin and Treasure that had been spent in those ●●●traction●●● So that it is no wonder at all that these men value not the bloud of Kings nor their People Reformation and Protestant-Religion will answer for it all And for that you shall hear Mr. Baxter too who has still the guidance of Consciences and is Master of a Conventicle declaring That where Religion and Liberty are the question it is not to be question'd at all but that the King and all that adhere to him may be murder'd Upon this account perhaps he declares to the whole World by way of boast that he had Preached Thousands into the War and that his own being ingaged in it was the greatest outward Service he ever perform'd to God Pag. 141. H. C. Nay and lays down that infamous as well as Treasonable Principle That if he had taken up Arms against the Parliament his Conscience tells him he had been a Traytor A rare Christian Conscience for a Preacher of Christ and one that had taken the Oath of Allegiance to declare it to be Treason to defend his Liege Lord. But this Gentleman was better read in Scripture than our Laws and indeed one would think so that shall see him urge all those Texts of it that were intended for lawful Governours to press Obedience to the usurped Powers those he said could not be ●●ed without damnation but the King might for Loyalty in this Man's Divinity is the unpardonable Transgression For Rebellion against the King he thinks needs no Repentance or no Mercy and therefore says he having searched into the matter of Fact as to my concernment in the War I am so far from Repenting that I could not forbear doing the same under the same circumstances And truly Custom in this matter is a very fine thing he that has practised so well against one Prince can tell how the better to deal with another And as to Princes in general the late Dr. Owen that had so many Disciples at his feet has declar'd That when Kings command unrighteous things and their Subjects do obey them no doubt but the destruction of them both is just and righteous And it is no doubt if these Casuists could determine it as readily by the Sword as with their Pens And though indeed they have Hypocrisie and Impudence equal to their Wickedness and would bear the World in hand that they are Harmless and Innocent yet from them it is that the Easie and the Zealous are taught to desie Government and put in practice the worst Principles of their Masters I need not instance in any more particulars Calvin and Beza Knox and Buchanan have taught the whole Herd of Dissente●● such horrible things that as they themselves ha●● manag'd them have in all Nations prov'd to the continual disturbance of the Peace and to the Murder of a great many Princes as does appear in History And indeed the first Man in Story that spake evil of Kings was a Separatist St. Ambrose tells us of Lucifer Caralitanus who spoke hard things of Constantius the Arrian Emperour but the Father observes that he was one that did Separate from Church-Communion After that the Popes of Rome and with them since have joyn'd the Presbitery both the one and the other having declined from Primitive Piety fell off from their Loyalty also and reckon it no Sin to Curse or Rebell against their Prince But in all the first times of Religion for some hundreds of Years the Christians by their Books and by their Bloud gave Testimony that Kings are in no case to be Conspired against or Resisted Hence Tertullian tells us for the honour of Christianity that when there was a Rebellion made against a Bloudy and a Cruel Emperour out of pretence for Religion and the Publick-Good the Christians then would not be insnared into Evil by the glorious Baits of Liberty and Religion And to conclude Christ never gave any other Rules than what are in the Text Obedience and Patience the one when the Prince commands as he should and the other when he commands what he ought not And thus we either obeying or suffering like Christians shall dye like such and He that calls us to Grace will one day bring us to Glory and Crown both our Doings and our Sufferings with Peace and Glory and Immortality FINIS