Selected quad for the lemma: nature_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
nature_n	power_n	spiritual_a	temporal_a	2,514	5	9.1751	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A49117	The historian vnmask'd, or, Some reflections on the late History of passive obedience wherein the doctrine of passive-obedience and non-resistance is truly stated and asserted / by one of those divines, whom the historian hath reflected upon in that book ; and late author of the resolutions of several queries, concerning submission to the present government : as also of an answer to all the popular objections, against the taking the oath of allegiance to their present majesties.	Long, Thomas, 1621-1707.	1689 (1689)	Wing L2969; ESTC R9209	38,808	69

atque ipso jure sive ipso facto Rex esse desiit l. 6. c. 23. In the next Paragraph he tells us Of studying the Laws of Providence and of considering the indispensible Obligations of taking up the Cross but when Providence hath in a signal manner without any unlawful Acts of our own delivered us from the Cross a little study will inform us that we ought not to draw it down on our backs again and to murmur against our Deliverers as the Israelites did against Moses and Aaron who brought them out of the House of Bondage and their cruel Oppressors As for the Opinions of the Gnosticks and Machiavel I suppose that learned Person whom the Author names hath sufficiently condemned them and so do all those Reverend Persons whom this Author hath accused explode the wild Opinions of Hobs Milton and Cressey and have acted in a direct Opposition to them And therefore he hopes in vain That no Man can imagine he intends any disturbance by his Writing for what could be intend by charging such a number of the Church of England as Apostates from their own Principles and guilty of Perjury only for taking the Oath of Allegiance to the present King and Queen There needs a better Apology than he hath yet made for himself to clear him from that Crime whereof his Conscience doth accuse him viz. that devilish Office of Accusing his Brethren for what tho' he truly relate the Opinions of those great Men his mis-applying of them and calling them to a Recantation and intimating that they are the greatest Incendiaries from whom we may justly fear greater Judgments is as great a Reproach as the most malicious Jesuite could cast on them for though the Preaching up the necessity of Suffering and the unlawfulness of Resisting be not a Doctrine likely to disturb the present Government yet when that Doctrine is applyed to the Person of King James and because we did not for his sake that would have destroyed us resist him that came to save us and as the Jews did Crucifie our Saviour to make way for those Romanists that will destroy us and our Nation This is the sole ground of all his Clamour against us but we are not such Children as to be affrighted by such Clamours we keep steady to our Principles and yielded both Active and Passive Obedience to the late King until he made it morally impossible for us to Obey him any longer and now that God hath set over us more gentle Governours by the same Methods that from the beginning he did set Rulers over all other Nations that is Mediante Populo which I could never yet see disproved we think our selves still bound to yield them that Obedience without which our Author says no Government can subsist If we compare what this Author designs by his Collections with that which the Jesuits and other Papists have written it will evidently appear that he intends to make the late King as Absolute in all Causes and over all Persons in his Dominions as ever they intended the Pope should be i. e. to be Infallible to be the Supream Judge of all Controversies to declare what is Good and what is Evil what is Vertue and what is Vice. And as hath been observed of Finch he attributes all the Divine Perfections to the King viz. Soveraignty Omnipotence Omniscience Majesty Infinity Vbiquity Perpetuity Justice Truth and Clemency and all these to be inseparable from his Person So that he is the very Hobbs of this Age whose Principles he would have all Men to espouse as himself hath done who in his Book de Cive c. 12. § 1 2. says That the Rules of good and evil just and unjust honest and dishonest are the Civil Laws and therefore whatever the Law Commands is to be accounted good and valid and that it is a wicked speech that Kings are not to be obeyed unless they Command Just things That before Empires were established there was nothing just or unjust which are Relatives to a Command that Emperors make things just which they command to be done and unjust what they forbid that private Men who assume the cognizance of good and evil do aspire to be like Kings which cannot consist with the safety of Government These seem to be the Articles of our Author's as well as of Hobbs his Creed Now let the Author review all the Writings of those learned Men whom he hath defamed and see whether he can Collect any such Problems out of them whether they ever declared that the King of England hath as Extensive and Absolute Power as either the Turk or the Pope or that the Person of the Prince had such an indelible Character of Majesty on him as could by no means be erazed Have any of them said that he could not be conquered in a just War or that on such a Conquest we were bound to pay him our Allegiance still and by no means transfer it to any other Have they said that the King might submit his Dominions to the Pope or the French King or that in so doing his Subjects were bound to assist him even to the utter destruction of the established Religion and the Fundamental Laws and Liberties of the Nation That it was in the King's Power to alter the Succession and set up a Suppositious Child to the Exclusion of his own Children and Lawful Successors King James never declared that he would assume to himself such an excess of Power though he declared that he was an Absolute Prince and would be obeyed without a Reserve as this Author hath for him who hath exceeded in this his Design all those flattering and fulsome Addresses which any the most infatuated Fanaticks presented to him But to go on did any of the Church of England say that it was not in the Power of the King exuere Regis personam to cease to be a King and either for his Religion or some other cause betake himself to a Cloyster and live as a Recluse leaving the Administration of the Government to a Successor Or if he were a Mad-man and bent on the Ruine of his People that no Restraint ought to be laid on him In such cases you might have required a Recantation of their Errors but when they never acknowledged more Power or Authority to be his due than what the Laws gave him when they never withdrew their Obedience Active or Passive until they were left in a state of Nature and Confusion and could never expect that he would return to them again or not without a Foreign Power that would make them and their successive Generations as unhappy in respect of things Spiritual and Eternal as in things Temporal what have they done to deserve those black Characters which the Author stigmatizeth them with which they do better deserve who would give the Powers of the World a kind of Omnipotence to do all that they will and to exceed the Devil himself who hath his Bonds and