Selected quad for the lemma: nation_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
nation_n	christian_a	church_n	national_a	1,233	5	10.8067	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A89878	The excellencie of a free-state: or, The right constitution of a common-wealth. Wherein all objections are answered, and the best way to secure the peoples liberties, discovered: with some errors of government, and rules of policie. Published by a well-wisher to posterity.	Nedham, Marchamont, 1620-1678.	1656 (1656)	Wing N388; Thomason E1676_1; ESTC R202969	87,103	253

hath said My Kingdome is not of this World it is not from hence c. And therefore that hand which hitherto hath presumed in most Nations to erect a Power called Ecclesiastick in equipage with the Civil to bear ●way and bind mens Consciences to retain Notions ordained for Orthodox upon civill penalties under colour of prudence good order discipline preventing of Heresie advancing of Christs Kingdome and to this end hath twisted the Spiritual Power as they call it with the Worldly and secular interest of State This I say hath been the very right hand of Antichrist opposing Christ in his way Whose Kingdom Government Governours Officers and Rulers Laws Ordinances and Statutes being not of this World I mean jure humano depend not upon the helps and devices of Worldly wisdome Upon this score and pretence the Infant Mystery of Iniquity began to work in the very Cradle of Christianity Afterwards it grew up by the indulgence of Constantine and other Christian Emperours whom though God used in many good things for the suppression of gross Heathen Idolatry yet by Gods permission they were carryed away and their eyes so far dazled through the glorious pretences of the Prelates and Bishops that they could not see the old Serpent in a new Form wrapt up in a Mystery for Satan had a new Game now to play which he managed thus First he led a great part of the World away with dangerous Errours thereby to find an occasion for the Prelates to carry on the mystery of their Profession and so under pretence of suppressing those dangerous errors they easily scrued themselves into the Civil Power and for continuing of it the surer in their own hands they made bold to baptize whole Nations with the name of Christian that they might under the same pretence gain a share of Power and Authority with the Magistrate in every Nation which they soon effected The Infant-being thus nurst grew up in a short time to a perfect man the man of sin if the Pope be the man which is yet controverted by some for the Prelates having gotten the power in their hands began then to quarrel who should be the greatest among them At length he of Rome bore away the Bell and so the next step was that from National Churches they proceed to 〈◊〉 a Mother-Church of all Nations A fair progress and pitch indeed from a small beginning and now being up they defied all with Bell Book and Candle excommunicating and deposing Kings and Emperours and binding mens Consciences still under the first specious pretence of suppressing Heresie to believe onely in their Arbitrary Dictates Traditions and Errours which are the greatest Blasphemies Errours and Heresies that ever were in the World Now they were up see what a do there was to get any part of them down again What a Quarter and Commotion there was in Germany when Luther first brake the Ice And the like here in England when our first Reformers began their Work These men in part did well but having banished the Popes actual Tyranny they left the Seed and Principle of it still behind which was a State Ecclesiastical united with the Civil for the Bishops twisted their own interest again with that of the Crown upon a Protestant Accompt and by vertue of that persecuted those they called Puritans for not being as Orthodox they said as themselves To conclude if it be considered that most of the Civil Wars and Broiles throughout Europe have been occasioned by permitting the settlement of Clergy-Interest with the Secular in National Formes and Churches it will doubt els be understood that the Division of a State into Ecclesiasticall and Civil must needs be one of the main Errors in Christian Policy A second Error which we shall note and which is very frequent under all Formes of Government is this that care hath not been taken at all times and upon all occasions of Alteration to prevent the passage of Tyranny out of one Form into another in all the Nations of the World for it is most clear by observing the Affairs and Actions of past-Ages and Nations that the interest of absolute Monarchy and its Inconveniencies have been visible and fatal under the other Forms where they have not been prevented and given us an undeniable proof of this Maxime by Experience in all Times That the Interest of Monarchy may reside in the hands of many as well as of a single person The Interest of absolute Monarchy we conceive to be an unlimited uncontrolable unaccountable station of Power and Authority in the hands of a particular person who governs onely according to the Dictates of his own Will and Pleasure And though it hath often bin disguised by Sophisters in Policy so as it hath lost its own name by shifting Formes yet really and effectually the thing in it self hath bin discovered under the artificial covers of every Form in the various Revolutions of Government So that nothing more concerns a People established in a state of Freedom than to be instructed in things of this Nature that the means of its preservation being understood and the subtil sleight of old Projectors brought into open view they may become the more zealous to promote the one and prevent the other if any old game should happen to be plaid over anew by any succeeding Generation It is very observable in Athens that when they had laid aside their King the Kingly power was retained still in all the after-turns of Government for their Decimal Governours and their Thirty commonly called the Tyrants were but a multiplied Monarchy the Monarchal Interest being held up as high as ever in keeping the exercise of the Supremacy out of the peoples hands and seating themselves in an unaccountable state of Power and Authority which was somewhat a worse condition than the people were in before for their Kings had Supervisors and there were also Senatick Assemblies that did restrain and correct them but the new Governors having none ran into all the heats and fits and wild extravagancies of an unbounded Prerogative by which means Necessity and Extremity opening the peoples Eyes they at length saw all the Inconveniencies of Kingship wrapt up in new Forms and rather increased than diminished so that as the onely Remedy they dislodged the Power out of those hands putting it into their own and placing it in a constant orderly Revolution of persons Elective by the Community And now being at this fair pass one would have thought there was no shelter for a Monarchal Interest under a popular Form too But alass they found the contrary for the people not keeping a strict Watch over themselves according to the Rules of a Free State but being won by specious pretences and deluded by created Necessities to intrust the management of Affairs into some particular hands such an occasion was given thereby to those men to frame parties of their own that by this means they in a short time became able to

of Saul and so immediately by proclaiming him with shouts and acclamations and then having had proof of his valour against the Amorites they meet at Gilgal and proclaim him King once again to shew that naturally the validity of the Kingship depended wholly upon the peoples consent and confirmation And so you see the first and most eminent evidence of the institution of Political Government in Scripture doth notoriously demonstrate that its original is in or from the people and therefore I shall wave any further instances in cases of the like nature out of Scripture which are not a few Onely let it be remembred that Peter in his first Epistle calls all Government the Ordinance of man in the Original the creation of man a Creature of a mans making to shew that in all its forms it depends onely upon the will pleasure of the people We might insist farther to evince the Truth of this by strength of Reason but let this serve to assert the right of the thing and as for the rest every man will easily believe it very consonant to reason if he reflect upon the matter of fact and consider that it hath been the unanimous practice of all the Nations of the World to assert their own Rights of Election and Consent as often as they had opportunity in the various turns of institution and alteration of Government In Italy of old they had most Free-States and few Princes now all Princes and no Free-States Naples after many Revolutions is under Spain Rome under a Pope and under him one Senator in stead of those many that were wont to be Venice and Genoa have Senators and Dukes but the Dukes are of small power Florence Ferrara Mantua Parma and Savoy have no Senators but Dukes only and they absolute Burgundy Lorain Gascoin and Britany had once Kings then Dukes but now are incorporated into France so all the Principalities of Germany that now are were once imbodied in one entire Regiment Castile Aragon Portugal Barcelona were once distinct Kingdoms but now united all to Spain save Portugal which fell off the other day France was first one Kingdom under Pharamond afterwards parted into four Kingdoms and at last become one again England consisted of Free-States till the Romans yoked it afterwards it was divided into seven Kingdoms and in the end it became one again Thus you see how the world is subject to shiftings of Government and though it be most true that the power of the Sword hath been most prevalent in many of these changes yet some of them have been chiefly managed as they ought by the peoples Consent and even in those where the Sword hath made way the peoples consent hath ever been drawn and taken in afterwards for corroboration of Title it having been the custom of all Usurpers to make their investitures appear as just as they could by getting the Communities Consent ex post sacto and entring into some compact with them for the better establishing themselves with a shew of legality which act of all Tyrants and Usurpers is a manifest though tacite confession of theirs That de jure the original of all Power and Government is and ought to be in the people Errours of Government And Rules of Policie HAving proved that the Originall of all just Power and Government is in the People and that the Government of the People in a due and orderly succession of their supream Assemblies is much more excellent than any other Form I suppose it falls in of course in the next place to note and observe those common Errors in Policie wherein most Countties of the World especially that part of it called Christendome have been long intangled that when the mystery of Tyrannie is undress't and stript of all its gaudy Robes and gay Appearances it may be hiss't out of the Civill part of Mankind into the company of the more barbarous and brutish Nations The first Errour that we shall observe in antient Christian Policie and which hath indeed been a main foundation of Tyranny is that corrupt Di●ision of a State into Ecclesiastical and Civil A fault whereof our latest Refiners of Political Discourse are as guilty in their Writings as any others But that there is the least footstep in the Scripture for Christians to follow such a Division of 〈◊〉 o● to allow of a National way ●● Ch●●●●ing which is the Root of ●●at D●●●sion could never yet be proved by any and the contrary is very clear from the drift and scope of the Gospel We read indeed of the Common-wealth of Israel being thus divided and that it was done according to Rules and Constitutions of Gods own appointment it being Gods way then when he was pleased to make choice of that peop●e onely out of all the World to be his own peculiar and so fixed his Church there in a Nationall Form Then it was consined and restrained to that particular Nation excluding all others But if any man will argue from hence that it is lawfull for any Nation now under the Gospel to follow this pattern then it behoves him 1. to prove that God intended the Jewish Government as a pattern for us to follow under the Gospel And if any man will pretend to this then in the second place it will concern him to prove that we are to follow it in every particular or onely in some particulars That we are to follow it in every one no sober man did ever yet affirm And if they will have us to follow it in some particulars relinquishing the ●est then it concerns him to produce some Rule or Command out of Scripture plainly pointing out what parts of it we are to imbrace and what not or else he will never be able to make it appear that the Form of the Commonwealth of Israel was ever intended either in the whole or in part as a Pattern for Christians to follow under the Gospel But never was any such Rule alleadged yet out of Scripture by those that pretend to a Nationall Church And therefore if we seriously reflect upon the Design of God in sending Christ into the World we shall find it was to set an end to that Pompous Administration of the Jewish Form that as his Church and People were formerly confined within the Narrow Pale of a particular Nation so now the Pale should be broken down and all Nations taken into the Church Not all Nations in a lump nor any whole Nations or National Bodies to be formed into Churches for his Church or People now under the Gospel are not to be a Body Political but Spiritual and Mystical Not a promiscuous confusion of persons taken in at adventure but an orderly collection a picking and chusing of such as are called and sanctified and not a company of men forced in by Commands and Constitutions of Worldly Powers and Prudence but of such as are brought in by the Power and Efficacy of Christs Word and Spirit for he himself