Selected quad for the lemma: nature_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
nature_n	aaron_n	acknowledge_v	moses_n	16	3	6.2783	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A60942	Interest deposed, and truth restored, or, A word in season, delivered in two sermons the first at St. Maryes in Oxford, on the 24th of July, 1659, being the time of the assizes : as also of the fears and groans of the nation in the threatned, and expected ruin of the lawes, ministry, and universityes : the other preached lately before the honourable Societie of Lincolns-Inn / by Robert South ...	South, Robert, 1634-1716.; South, Robert, 1634-1716. Ecclesiasticall policy the best policy.	1660 (1660)	Wing S4733; ESTC R4025	42,795	62

world shall fall down before him either in his Adoration or their own confusion 2. The reason of the doctrine may be drawn from the necessary dependence of the very Principles of government upon Religion And this I shall pursue more fully The great Business of government is to procure obedience keep off disobedience the great springs upon which those two move are Rewards and Punishments answering the two ruling affections of mans mind Hope and Fear For since there is a naturall reluctancy between the Judgment and the Appetite the former respecting what is honest the latter what is pleasing which two qualifications seldome concurre in the same thing and withall mans designe in every Action is delight therefore to render things honest also practicable they must be first represented desireable which cannot be but by proposing honesty cloathed with pleasure and since it presents no pleasure to the sense it must be fetcht from the apprehension of a future Reward For questionless duty moves not so much upon command as promise Now therefore that which proposes the greatest and most sutable rewards to obedience the greatest terrors punishments to Disobedience doubtless is the most likely to enforce one and prevent the other But it is Religion that does this which to happinesse and misery joynes Eternity And these supposing the Immortality of the soul which Philosophy indeed conjectures but only Religion proves or which is as good perswades I say these two things eternall happiness eternall misery meeting with a perswasion that the soul is immortall are without controversy of all others the first the most desireable the latter the most horrible to humane apprehension Were it not for these Civill government were not able to stand before the prevailing swing of corrupt nature which would know no Honesty but Advantage no Duty but in Pleasure nor any Law but it s own Will Were not these frequently thundred into the understandings of men the Magistrate might enact order and proclaime Proclamations might be hung upon Walls and Posts and there they might hang seen and despised more like Malefactors then Lawes But when Religion binds thē upon the Conscience Conscience will either perswade or terrify men into their practice For put the case a man knew and that upon sure grounds that he might doe an advantagious murder or Robbery and not be discovered what humane lawes could hinder him which he knowes cannot inflict any penalty where they can make no discovery But Religion assures him that no sin though concealed from humane eyes can either escape Gods sight in this world or his vengeance in the other Put the case also th●t men looked upon Death without fear in which sense it is nothing or at most very little ceasing while it is endured and probably without Pain for it seazes upon the Vitalls and benumms the senses and where there is no sense there can be no pain I say if while a man is acting his will towards sin he should also thus act his reason to despise death where would be the terror of the Magistrate who can neither threaten or inflict any more Hence an old Malefactor in his Execution at the Gallowes made no other confession but this that he had very jocundly passed over his life in such courses and he that would not for fifty yeares pleasure endure half an hours paine deserved to dye a worse death then himself questionlesse this man was not ignorant before that there were such things as lawes assizes and Gallowes but had he considered and beleived the Terrors of another world he might probably have found a fairer passage out of this If there was not a Minister in every Parish you would quickly find cause to encrease the number of Constables And if the Churches were not imployed to be places to hear Gods Law there would be need of them to be Prisons for the breakers of the Lawes of men Hence 't is observable that the tribe of Levi had not one Place or Portion together like the rest of the Tribes but because it was their office to dispence Religion they were diffused over all the Tribes that they might be continually preaching to the rest their duty to God which is the most effectuall way to dispose them to Obedience to man for he that truely feares God cannot despise the Magistrate Yea so near is the connexion between the Civill state and the Religious that heretofore if you look upon well regulated civilized heathen Nations you will find the Goverment and the Preisthood united in the same Person Anius Rexidem hominum Phaebique Sacerdos Virg. 3. Aen. If under the true worship of God Melchisedech king of Salem and Priest of the most high God Heb. 7.1 And afterwards Moses whom as we acknowledge a Pious so Atheists themselves will confess to have been a Wise Prince he when he took the Kingly Goverment upon himself by his own choice seconded by Divine institution vested the Preisthood in his brother Aaron both whose concernments were so coupled that if Nature had not yet their Religious nay their civill Interests would have made them Brothers And it was once the designe of the Emperour of Germany Maximilian the first to have joyned the Popedome and the Empire together and to have got himself choose Pope and by that meanes derived the Papacy to his succeeding Emperors Had he effected it doubtless there would not have been such scuffles between him and the Bishop of Rome the civill Interest of the State would not have been undermined by an Adverse Interest mannaged by the specious and potent pretences of of Religion And to see even amongst us how these two are united how the former is upheld by the latter the Magistrate sometimes cannot doe his own office dexterously but by acting the Minister hence it is that Judges of Assize find it necessary in their Charges to use patheticall discourses of Conscience and if it were not for the sway of this they would often lose the best Evidence in the world against Malefactors which is Confession for no man would confess and be Hanged here but to avoid being Damned hereafter Thus I have in generall shewn the utter inability of the Magistrate to attain the End of Goverment without the Aid of Religion But it may be here replyed that many are not at all moved with arguments drawn from hence or with the happy or miserable state of the Soul after death therefore this availes little to procute obedience and consequently to advance Goverment I answer by concession that this is true of Epicures Atheists some pretended Philosophers who have stifled the Notions of a Deity and the Souls immortality but the Unprepossessed on the one hand and the Well disposed on the other who both together make much the major part of the world are very apt to be affected with a due fear of these things Religion accomodating it self to the Generality though not to every particular temper