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A51830
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Two sermons both preached at Northampton, one at the assizes March 1693, the other at a visitation October the 10th, 1694 by John Mansell ...
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Mansell, John, 1644 or 5-1730.
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1695
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Wing M513; ESTC R32049
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23,984
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62
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and indeed when we look upon Princes as standing in the foremost Rank of Men and consider God as infinitely exalted above all the Ranks of Men and Angels we must needs confess their Names are properly made use of to denote what is eminent either in Office or in Honour and that there is very much in Civil Magistrates that raises them above the Level of other Men and makes them approach nearer to Deity will appear if we consider 1. Their Eminent Authority which in its Original is Gods 2. The Eminent Vertues which ought to qualife them for their High Office 3. Those eminent benefits which they confer upon the World 4. The eminent Honours that are due to the saithful discharge of their weighty Imployments In all which there is a certain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 somewhat that carries a stamp of Divinity upon it 1. Their Power and Authority which in its Original is Gods I have said ye are Gods saies our Authour ver 6. that is with respect to their Power for it is a remark of the forecited Grotius That the Title of Gods is never put upon Men but when it signifies the power of Life and Death as may be seen in his Notes upon Exod. 4.16 All Civil Fower therefore is Originally derived from God The Powers that be are ordained of God Rom. 13.1 and therefore the Old World looked upon their Princes but as so many visible Deities all Sons of the Supreme Jove All Children of the most High Verse 6. And thence it was that we see the Ancient Crowns composed of those golden Spires that best represented the rayes of Glory wherewith they circled the heads of their Divinities Thus God was generally owned to be the great sountain of all Government and Authority But for the better understanding in what limited sence I take all this I shall here premise 1. That it is only of Civil Right and Power that I am now speaking and therefore I do not think my self obliged to take notice of Paternal Authority though doubtless the first in the World Since that was a right purely natural and so comes not up to the present case Besides I suppose the full Natural Authority of a Father over his Children did in the beginning last no longer than the Son continued a Member of that Family and so lived one of his Domestick Subjects But when he married and began a Family of his own then he became as much a Monarch in his own House as his Father was in his But since this Natural Authority as to its chief Regalities hath long since ceased in all civilised Nations And all the Governments now in the World are wholly founded upon Civil and Legal Right And I take it for granted that what was meerly a Civil Right in its Original can never either by long prescription or continued Succession become a Natural Right Since the Nature of things never alters howsoever their circumstances may I wave therefore the first Government that was founded in Paternal that is in Natural Right And 2. I premise father That somewhat else besides the meer permission of God that only Universal Monarch without whose leave none of the Creatures he had made could have any Power over themselves or others and without whose communicating that Power to them they had no right to dispose themselves into any kinds of Civil Governments I say that besides all this somewhat else did contribute to the Establishment of such Humane mane Authorities as are now exercised in the World And that I humbly suppose to be the Natural Necessities of Fallen Men together with the Rational Use of those Faculties wherewith God had endued them For God having planted such Faculties in Men as enabled them to consult their Common Good and to provide for their own Peace and Interest And leaving them to the free use of those Faculties they soon found by an early experience how necessary it was to unite into Civil Societies which could not be done without the Enacting of Laws and the Constitution of Governours So that Men were naturally obliged to enter those Mutual Compacts and Politick Relations wherein some were to be governed and protected and others to be honoured and obeyed Neither yet was all this without God's Soveraign Intervention for though I do not find that in the beginning there was any particular Revelation commanding Men to Model themselves into such Methods of Civil Government But they were all at first meerly the Dictates of Natural Reason grounded upon the Sence of Humane Necessities Yet seeing it was God that planted this Principle of Reason in us therefore all that duly springs from that Principle may justly be said to proceed from God its Authour and so to have a Divine Authority though not immediately founded upon any positive Divine Command Add to this that what is founded in Natural Reason is one Branch of the Law of Nature as much the Law of God as any Revealed Law whatsoever But farther God set his own Seal to this Institution of Civil Government and by several of his own subsequent positive Laws required Men to submit unto those Methods of Government to whose Birth the Necessities of Humane Nature and the Dictates of Humane reason seemed so much to contribute Lastly God himself took the very same Methods when he chose the Jewish Nation to be his own immediate Subjects whose Government though fundamentally a Theocracy yet it underwent various kinds of outward Administrations Aristocracy Oligarchy Monarchy both Elective and Hereditary And at last after the mixt Government between the Great Captains and the Sovereign Pontifs which succeeded the Babylonian Captivity it settled in a compound Title of Success Merit and Election in the Asmonaean Family I do not add that of Conquest there being a wide difference between Conquering a Nations Enemies especially by the Assistance of its own hands and Conquering the Nation it self Thus the Machabaean Line excluded that of David and those Hero's rising up the great Deliverers of their Church and Countrey from the extreamest Oppression both in their Religious and Civil Rights Nothing less than a Crown was thought an Equal Reward for so Glorious a Merit Neither was the Old Davidean Title ever put in as a Bar to the more deserving present Possessours But the same Providence watched over them and doubtless by its Ministers required the same Allegiance to them as to the Princes of the former Race The case is easily applyed Thus the Origin of all Government is absolutely from God from his leave and permission from those Laws of Reason that he planted in Mens Natures enabling them to take the best measures for their common Good and Safety from his own following positive Commands confirming what that Reason had dictated from his own Example and from that visible Providence whereby he supports Civil Right and Government in the World consideration 2 2. Those Eminent Vertues wherewith they ought to be qualified for the discharge of their
the humblest of your Attendants give me leave to follow this dayes Solemnity with these honest Wishes That you Mighty and Princes that you who like Gods determine of other Mens Lives and Fortunes would consult both your Dignity and your Duty and consider that you are Gods Ministers as well as the Kings that you act by a Divine Commission as well as a Civil and that you are as much accountable to Heaven as to the State My Wishes therefore are that you may be as Zealous for Gods Interest as for their Majesties and do our Holy Religion as much Service as you do the Nation That Atheisme Debauchery and Prophaneness may be as severely animadverted upon by you as Dishonesty Injustice or Oppression And in sum that you would at least use an equal care to see the Laws of God executed against all Irreligion Vice and Immorality which are the Scandal and Bane of pure and undefiled Religion as to see the Laws of the Land executed against those other sins that are destructive of Humane Society That so we may be a Nation throughly reformed in our Lives and Manners as well as in our Faith and Publick Worship and that we may be delivered not only from other Mens Violence but from our own Reigning Vices the Blacker Slavery of the two And as I wish you thus concerned for the Practical part of our Religion so for the Political part also that the Established Church of England may be happy in your Incouragement and Protection Consider O ye Mighty that you are not only Christians at large but also Baptized into the particular Communion of the Church of England shew therefore your Affection to that Venerable Mother which so early received you into her bosome and take some care I beseech you that the more she indulges the worse she be not used and that the Charitable Liberty she has yielded to others may not embolden them to appear the more Virulent Enemies against her Lastly Let me beg that our Neighbours of the Countrey Magistracy would admit my good Wishes also Gentlemen though yours is not the Highest Station yet perhaps it is that upon which the motion of the greater Wheels does more depend than is usually considered For Kings and Parliaments may make as good Laws as they can and Judges may give as Severe Charges as they please yet if you are either remiss or partial in the discharge of your Trusts the course of Justice must needs be extreamly obstructed You are placed like the Dii Minores like Lesser Gods in your Countrey by your Diligence Justice and good Examples to carry on the orderly Work of Providence here below But if you cool in your Offices and for any private Respects of your own suffer our Laws to lye unexecuted You fail in the Duty you owe to your God and your King to your Countrey and your Character to your Honours and your Consciences and the guilt of disappointed Justice must needs lie heavy upon your heads And you will be so far from hearing any part of that God-like resemblance in the Text that you will rather prove meer Wooden Images of the Divine Justice and all the respect that is paid you will be but so much State-Idolatry Rouse up therefore the Old English Publick Spirit And be warmed with a Generous Ambition of making good the High Character in the Text. And as you stand like so many Gods above other Men so be useful as Gods Active Upright and Impartial as Gods in your several Stations And as Our King when he rose up like Moses to be the Deliverer of God's Church and People from an Aegyptian Bondage Exod. 7.1 like Moses he became as a God both to our Pharoahs and to our Aarons Exod. 4.16 that is the Scourge of Heaven upon our Persecutors and the Relief of Heaven to our Holy Ones and as he like Moses still heads the Body of Distressed Christendom Travelling through a Wilderness to a Land of Peace Whilst he as the Soul of that vast Body Animates and gives it both Life and Motion Life by that High Courage that hath so much of the Hero in it and Motion by that deep Wisdom that hath so much of the God in it May you all be provoked by so great so glorious an Example And become as Active and as Zealous to advance Religion True Christian Vertue and Peace at Home as he is to procure and extend them abroad May you all be concerned to Conquer and Exterminate Vice Prophaneness and Debauchery in your Countrey Tyrants more dangerous and more destructive to its Success and Happiness than either France or Rome can ever prove without their fatal Assistance That as our Monarchs may in the Language of the Text be called Gods to you Ye may be also Gods to us the Nations good Genii each of you one of Gods lower Vice-Royes in your respective Posts That so the State may be faithfully served Their Majesties Loyally Obeyed Our English Laws impartially Executed Our Holy English Church Defended and Encouraged that God may be glorified in you and you in him that you your selves may share in that Honour which you procure for him and that he may graciously reflect part of the Glory back upon your own heads which he shall receive upon your Account Do thus and as the great Reformer Jehosophat said to his Ministers of State Deal Couragiously and the Lord be with the Good And now Grant O Lord we beseech thee that the course of this World may be so peaceably Ordered by thy Governance that thy Church may joyfully serve thee in all Godly quietness through Jesus Christ our Lord To whom c. FINIS A SERMON Preached at NORTHAMPTON AT A VISITATION October the 10th 1694. By JOHN MANSELL Rector of Furthoe in the County of Northampton LONDON Printed by J. Richardson for Brabazon Aylmer at the Three Pigeons in Cornhil over against the Royal Exchange in Cornhil MDCXCV To The Reverend THOMAS WOOLSY D.D. ARCH-DEACON OF NORTHAMPTON SIR GIVE me leave to repeat the first Answer I returned to that Obliging Complement wherewith you softned the Command laid upon me to make this Sermon Publick which was that hitherto it was mine and I alone was accountable for all its Imperfections but if it came forth under the Authority of your Name it would become yours and you would be ingaged in its Protection Be pleased therefore Sir to receive what is yours into your Patronage And I hope the World will do me the Justice to allow that howsoever I may have failed in any other part of my performance yet I have given a very bold proof of my Obedience But Sir That discreetly managed Zeal which you express for true Practical Piety together with that great Temperâ— and exceeding Sweetness of Nature which appears in the severest Exercise of your Authority as they have in general procured you the Affections of your whole Clergy so they have particularly ingaged me to pay this Testimony