Selected quad for the lemma: power_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
power_n	apostle_n	peter_n	successor_n	3,530	5	9.4444	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A63917	A sermon preached at Epsom upon the 9th of September, being the day of thanksgiving appointed by His Majesty for the discovery and disappointment of the Republican Plot, and now made publick to obviate false reports by John Turner ...	Turner, John, b. 1649 or 50.	1683 (1683)	Wing T3317; ESTC R38379	29,169	46

be founded in the Peace and Quiet of the World and in the Interest and Happiness of Humane Life and therefore when he tells us that he is the Minister of God to us for Good we must allow him in the Exercise of his Government to judge for himself what that Good and Evil is otherwise he will unavoidably bear the Sword in vain and we shall never be punisht but when we please our selves So also St. Peter argues in the words that have been already produced submit your selves to every Ordinance of Man for the Lords sake whether it be to the King as Supream or unto Governours as unto them that are sent by him for the punishmen● of evil doers and for the praise of them that do well but now if we be allowed in all Cases to determine for our selves when we do well or ill so as they shall have no power to punish or reward but with our own consent then it is we that are the Kings and the Governours and not they Thirdly The Doctrine of Non resistance is still further inferred and prest upon us by considering the Example of our Saviour and those Miraculous Powers for the Discipline of the Church which were given to the Apostles and first Preachers of the Gospel As for our Saviour though he could at any time have destroyed his Enemies by a word of his Mouth or a motion of his Finger or by the least act or intention of his Will and though he could have called down so many Legions of destroying Angels to his assistance yet he chose rather to be an Example of Meekness and Humility of Patience and Obedience to the Powers he lived under than of Resistance against them And for the Apostles and their Successors it is well known that St. Peter with the Sentence of Excommunication denounced against them struck Ananias and Sapphira dead and St. Paul threatned with the like or some such usage Hymeneus and Alexander and the incestuous Corinthian and others and it is commonly supposed by Learned Men that this Power remained in the Church of inflicting Death and Diseases after a Miraculous way till the Empire took Christianity into its Protection and then the Secular Sword was sufficient to back the Ecclesiastical Censures but now they never had a Power of inflicting the like Plagues or Calamities upon any that were not of their own Body which was as much as to say that God expected that they should practise the Doctrine of passive Obedience or Non-resistance with respect to their Superiours though they had a Power of Discipline among themselves Fourthly and la●●●● God himself did ordain and constitute an Arbitrary ●overnment when he appointed first Judges and then Kings of Israel that were invested with it as appears from this that there is no where any mention made of any Senate or any number of Men that had a Power of limiting and controuling them from the strange Enormities of the Sons of Eli from whence notwithstanding no Rebellion followed from David's killing the Amalekite without any Legal Process as Solomon was about to serve the Child that he was going to divide and from the Deaths of Joab and Shimei who were both of them put to death with no other Process or Formality than the Kings Command and lastly from the Answer of Rehoboham to the Children of Israel before the Division of the two Kingdoms The Fathers of Families who were the first Kings had an unaccountable Power of Life and Death over their Children and Slaves all over the East and also by the Old Roman Law and I do not speak this as if I had any fancy to be a Slave but this was mostly the Government in the East and so it continues to be to this Day and God by appointing it in some Cases hath shewn undeniably that it is more sutable to the Will of God and to the Happiness of Men that a Government should be Arbitrary than that every Man should do that which is right in his own Eyes as it was with the Israelites after the Death of Samson when the Scripture tells us there was no King in Israel for a King and a Judge were in Authority the same only the one was Hereditary and the other was not And now to apply all this to a Popish Successor or on● that is reputed a Papist which the disturbers of o●r Peace pretend so much to fear it is true that the Laws of the Land are against Popery but yet it is every whit as true that the Laws of Nature and the Practice of Christianity in all Ages are against a Rebellion and the Laws of the Land cannot warrant us to do that which the Laws of Nature forbid it is true likewise that we live in a tempered Monarchy and that the People though they have not the executive Power nor any share in the Administration yet they have a right of consenting to those Laws by which they ought in Justice to be governed but if the King will exceed his-bounds a Civil War is as dangerous and destructive in one sort of Government as another and consequently Resistance is in all Governments equally unlawful I shall conclude with bogging your Pardon for the length of this Discourse and with desiring you since I have not time to reflect within your selves upon the detestable blackness of the Crime of which the Kings Enemies and yours are Guilty upon the Horrid Consequences that would have attended the success of it and to adore that Providence that hath Delivered you from it and pay your thanks to God by Obedience to the King Obedience in your Thoughts Obedience in your Actions Obedience in your Principles and always to be mindful of the advice of Solomon Curse not the King no not in thy thought for a Bird of the Air shall carry the Voice and that which hath Wings shall tell the Matter FINIS

who could put up such Indignities in the midest of his Idolatry with a Christian temper and without that just revenge which they deserved But does it appear that ever the Christians of that Age resisted him or took up Arms against him or that the generality of them when we have set aside a few passionate and Seditious Fellows did talk so lewdly and so scandalously concerning him No but on the contrary it appears that in his last Expedition the generality of his Army were Christians and it cannot be supposed otherwise if the Christians were so numerous in Tertullians time but that after the Encouragement given to Christianity by two several Emperours succeeding one another they were still more powerful and formidable than before and yet we know of no Sword that was ever drawn in the Quarrel or so much as intended to be drawn And so much concerning the nature of the Roman Government and the behaviour of the Christians under it in the time of Julian let us now briefly apply this to the Bill of Exclusion and the Point of a Popish Successour to the Imperial Crown of these Kingdoms As for the Bill of Exclusion I shall not reflect upon the Persons that were chiesly concerned in it this Desperate Conspiracy hath I hope opened the Eyes of some of those Gentlemen that were Zealous for it and there are others partly at the call of Nature and partly by the stroke of Justice that are gone to their own place and I shall not insult over any mans Calamity or go about to disturb the Ashes of the Dead but let all the Kings Enemies be as they are unless they will Repent and become Friends to themselves as well as to their Prince and upon that condition let them all be forgiven and forgotten But as for the Bill which they preferred in Parliament though I do not meddle with the Statute of Queen Elizabeth so much talked of about the Succession I do conceive that it was naturally unlawful for the King to pass it and that for these two Reasons First because a Successive Monarchy is without all question the best Form of Government upon the Face of the Earth it being easie to shew if the time would allow it and if it would not be too long a digression that this sort of Polity is the least exposed to Factions and by consequence is the best fitted to procure the Peace and Happiness of the World and the King who is accountable to God for the good of his People hath no natural right to alter or to consent to the alteration of the Establishment from a better Form of Government to a worse and yet this in all probability would have been the Consequence if that Bill had passed For if an Heir may be Excluded upon one Pretence he may also upon another and they that are Enemies to Monarchy will never want Pretences till all the Line be Excluded and the Monarchy it self utterly subverted But then Secondly supposing a successive Monarchy to be but of equal advantage to the World with any other Form of Government whatsoever or let us suppose it to be a little worss which is as much as our Adversaries in reason can desire yet the present Establishment meerly for that reason because it is the present is the best because of the Dangers and Animosities the Strife and War and Bloodshed to which all Altera●ions in Government are exposed and therefore it was excellently well advised of Solomon in the 24th at the Proverbs at the 21st Verse My Son fear thou the Lord and the King and meddle not with them that are givan to change For which he gives this admirable Reason in the very next Verse For their Calamity shall rise suddenly and who knoweth the Ruine of them both And this ought in all Ages hereafter to be remembered to the Kings Honour that the Dangerous and threatning importunity of a restless Faction was never able to move the Scale of Justice out of its Royal Ballance or prevail with him to consent to any thing though in never so great Straits and Exigences of his Affairs which was like to be of so Dangerous Consequence to the Good of the People as well as to the Rights of the Crown and the Royal Prerogatives which himself and the Kings and Queens of England his Ancestors have enjoyed May he still continue to defend himself and us against the wicked Encroachments and Designs of Men much more Arbitrary than the Government they complain of and as often as they Conspire against his Interest his Honour or his Life so often let them be detected and exemplarily punish'd and let the King● rejoyce in thy strength O Lord exceeding glad let him be of thy Salvation For the business of Obedience to a Popish Sucessour if God in his anger should send us such an one I shall now immediately have occasion to consider it under the third and last head in which I will be very brief and in which I have promised to shew the Reasons upon which the passive behaviour of the Primitive Christians was founded which I have in part considered already and shew'd you that the Reason why Obedience even to a Persecuting Prince is of necessity required at our hands is Because it is better for the Peace of the World and for the Happiness of Humane Life that the Prince should be Arbitrary than that the Subjects should be Judges in their own Cause which they are of necessity supposed to be in all the cases of Resistance that can be supposed I shall now only strengthen what I have said already by some other Arguments which are more properly of Theological consideration And first There was the Command of our Saviour who Commanded his Disciples in those times of Persecution by no means to resist their Enemies and Opposers in his Sermon on the Mount And secondly This Doctrine of Obedience was over and over inculcated by the Apostles St. Paul is strangely express to this purpose in the 13th to the Romans Let every Soul be subject to the Higher Powers for there is no Power but of God the Powers that be are ordained of God Whosoever therefore resisteth the Power resisteth the Ordinance of God and they that resist shall receive to themselves Damnation for Rulers are not a Terrour to Good works but to the Evil wilt thou then not be afraid of the Power do that which is good and thou shalt have praise of the same for he is the Minister of God to thee for good But if thou do that which is evil be afraid for he beareth not the Sword in vain for he is the Minister of God a revenger to execute Wrath upon him that doeth Evil. Wherefore you must needs be subject not only for Wrath but also for Conscience sake Not only for Wrath that is not only out of a Principle of fear but also for Conscience sake that is out of a Principle of Duty which Duty I have shewn to