Selected quad for the lemma: power_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
power_n	end_n	spiritual_a	temporal_a	6,697	5	9.5296	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A49408	Five sermons, preached before His Majesty at Whitehall, published severally by command, and now printed together, tending all to give satisfaction in certain points to such who have thereupon endeavoured to unsettle the state and government of the church by B. Lord Bishop of Ely.; Sermons. Selections	Laney, Benjamin, 1591-1675.; Laney, Benjamin, 1591-1675. Study of quiet.	1669 (1669)	Wing L342; Wing L351; Wing L352; ESTC R16949	80,355	196

Propriety so many Sects endeavour to fling down the Inclosures As first There is a Propriety in Goods and Possessions and against this there rises a Sect of Levellers who tell us from the Psalmist The Heavens are the Lords but the Earth hath he given to the Children of men That to which every man hath a Right by the Gift of God the Pride and Covetousness of a few have engross'd and made their own There is a Right and Propriety of Respect and Honour due to some above others Against this arises another Sect of Levellers they call Quakers who refuse to give Honour to whom Honour belongs Though this looks like a Religion against good manners only or were but some Quarrel with the Grammarians against proper Names the Mischief of it lies deeper and is of the spirit of Anabaptism who oppose the very Powers and Dignities themselves which they despise in their Titles for they cannot be so foolish though simple enough as to make a Religion of Names only These are dangerous Sects of Levellers both but they lie not in our way The Text toucheth only Levellers of Business who think they are not to be barr'd the liberty of doing any thing that is good bonum quo communius eomelius and ought not to be impropriate to any But that there is a Title and Propriety in some to business wherein it is not permitted to every one to interpose a necessity in Nature requires The World is replenished with infinite variety of things and a great deal of work is to be done to make them useful and serviceable to us Now it is not possible for every one to do all and hardly all in any one thing to gain the full use and benefit of it But when the works are distributed severally to some the benefit may redound to all All the business of the world refers either to a Spiritual End the good of the soul or to a Temporal and Civil our well-being while we live here upon earth And to both these Ends God hath appointed and assigned particular persons he did not leave them in common In the Temporal there is private business and publick For private use as in Families there is the business of the Husband and Wife the Parent and Children the Master and Servants And out of Families for private use likewise there is the business of Physicians and Advocates Husbandmen Merchants and Mariners Mechanicks and Labourers and all these are of private nature though of common benefit Then is there the publick business by whith all these are ordered and governed and they are by S. Peter distinguished to our hands as that of the King as Supreme and of Governors sent by him and they are Magistrates and Judges for Peace Captains and Commanders for War And besides these there is the business of Ministers and Assistants to the Supreme Power Counsellors Lawyers Officers and Servants and all these are for that temporal end And for the Spiritual whose business refers to the soul there is likewise a Propriety as in Bishops to Ordain Institute and Order the rest of the Clergy specially and of the whole Diocess occasionally as the necessity of it shall require Then is there the business of the Presbyters in the several parts of the Diocess in a more particular and immediate Cure and Charge to be directed by and accountable to the Bishop There be others Diaconal and Ministerial to both And all together Temporal and Spiritual as several Members make one Body and every Member saith the Apostle hath not the same office Rom. 12. 4. God divided his Gifts to every one severally as He will 1 Cor. 12. 11. he did not scatter them in common but divide them and all hold in severalty And as that Severance and Propriety stands upon good Authority so Authority was no doubt induc't upon reason of Profit and Interest It conduceth more to the common good than Community it self could First It brings Order into the common business of the world and that takes away confusion which never did any thing well To avoid fornication 1 Cor. 7. 2. let every man have his own wife Upon the same Equity to avoid the promiscuous lust and curiosity men have to mingle with any business Let every man likewise have his own 2. In reason all business will be best done too by those to whom they are peculiar and proper Artifici in sua arte credendum Men are most trusted in their own Trades We trust the Lawyer with our Estates the Physician with our Bodies I say nothing of our Souls we are so wise at that work as to trust none but our selves 3. Yet thirdly The nature and condition of the business it self may require it Some are so difficult that every one cannot do though he would and some are so mean that every one would not do though he could and all are such as through the mercy of God we need not do if we will unless it be our own business We are now faln upon the Second Part that as every one hath some business that is his own so Duty and Religion obligeth him to take upon him no business but his own THis Lesson will not be so easily learned as the former all confinement of it self seems uneasie He that hath no mind to go abroad would not be tied to stay at home And he that cares for no business will take it ill to be barr'd any But this confinement besides nips the growth and encrease of good whereof they think more would be done if every one have free liberty to do it and therefore it is just and reasonable to allow any one a concurrent jurisdiction with others in any thing that is otherwise good though that be to govern with the King to pray and preach or what they please with the Priest And they have as much of propriety as any can have to business yet even to these they think any man may make a sufficient title that hath understanding to know what is to be done as well as any other and affection to do it perhaps more then others And all have right and interest in the publick especially that wherein Religion and the soul is concerned how God may be best served and wherein His glory may be most promoted Will not all these make a Title good enough to any business The Glory of GOD indeed is a high and over-ruling Title if we do not set it on our own heads as the manner is to make Gods glory serve our own Otherwise that and the rest are such things as all men of wisdom or conscience should have regard to in any business they undertake provided yet it be their own In that every one hath liberty to improve his understanding and knowledg for the best as well for his own soul as the publick good In that let the glory of God be the Star to guide him But all these do not make the business ours they are

distinguish is a power in habitu the other in actu So that Jurisdiction is nothing else but a power to do actually what was potentially or habitually receiv'd in Orders I do not here take Jurisdiction in the strict vulgar sense to be a power jus dicendi inter partes litigantes only as the word imports but more largely as it reacheth to any act of Order without which it cannot lawfully be put in execution Now the Question here will be How a King can be the Fountain of the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction us'd in his Dominions who neither givs Orders himself not executes any that is hath neither power of Orders nor Power of Jurisdiction My Answer to this Question is That the Kings Power lies without both these and is that which gives Commission and Faculty to persons ordained to execute their Orders within his Dominions And the Reason Ground and Necessity of that is Because the Ecclesiastical Function cannot be put in execution but by such ways and means as are absolutely and originally in the King and in Right of his Crown As first There must be some Subjects upon whom they may execute their Ecclesiastical Orders now all the Subjects within his Dominions are the Kings who must of necessity lose so much of the Right he had in them as any other assumes without Him From hence grows his Right to order and constitute Diocesses and Parishes and to set them their bounds and limits that is upon which of his Subjects and how far he will allow them respectively to execute their Orders for without those bounds it is not nor is us'd to be taken for any part of their business To the publick exercise of Religion the people must meet together And all assemblings of people together are absolutely in the Power of Princes all States in all times have ever been jealous of them and provided severe Laws against them for it is impossible be the pretences of meeting never so fair to govern people and keep them quiet long if they may have liberty to flock together at their pleasures When they are met together there must be some to teach and instruct them How dangerous a thing it is promiscuously to suffer Harangues and Orations to be made to the people by such who possibly may be Trumpets of Sedition who by slandering the Government and speaking evil of Dignities may inflame people to Rebellion We have known such things done It is therefore necessary that none be allow'd that liberty to speak to Multitudes assembled together but such with whom a King may safely trust his people And this gives him a Right and Capacity of Partronage and Nomination to Ecclesiastical Charges Lest the Doctrine which they teach the people should be such as would amuse them with Novelties or occasion Alterations and foment Divisions or any way disturb the Peace of the Kingdom it is just and reasonable that the King should confine them within the compass of certain Articles and Doctrines of Religion which gives Him a Right to that which in other respects no doubt belongs to the care of the Church But besides the Articles of Peace we find that the King in His Laws declares what is Heresie That if any thing seems to be the proper work of the Ecclesiastical Power yet even in that he is not out at his own Civil business For seeing meer Ecclesiastical Censures are found not to be of sufficient force to suppress dangerous and Heretical Opinions without the use of the temporal Sword Out of the care the King hath of the Lives and Estates of His Subjects he will not let His Sword loose to the will of others who by declaring what they please to be Heresie may bring them in peril He therefore confines them to such cases only wherein He is content His Sword should be made use of This is all and is that which must be allowed to be the proper business of the King to assign how far and in what cases His Temporal Power and Sword shall be employ'd and can be no invading the Ecclesiastical But lastly Is not this the same wrong and illusion we charge the Pope with who in order to his Spiritual End Usurps the Temporal Power so the King in order to his Temporal Government invades the Ecclesiastical No the case is far different If the Pope did order temporals by spiritual means only i. e. Ecclesiastice we had the less to say against him he is not out of the way of a Bishops power though he should abuse it But he for his spiritual and usurps temporal means and takes upon him to dispose of temporal Estates that is none of his business But the King in ordering Ecclesiastical things to His temporal end uses no Ecclesiastical means but temporal only which are his proper business He doth not excommunicate the Pope out of the Church as the Pope would do him out of his temporal Dominions But the King if he see cause may banish him and his Emissaries out of his Kingdom That cannot be deny'd to be the proper business of a King to secure and free his Kingdom from any thing that is destructive to it Now if in all this the King moves not out of his own civil Sphere to return to our Sectaries who put us upon this digression they still remain as we left them guilty of doing much that is none of their own business What then is to be done with them According to a late Statute a Mittimus I think might be made to send them to prison but the Apostle here deals more kindly with them and sends them only to School to study better which is my Fourth and last Point THAT ye study to do your own business I will take no more out of the word Study then what any one understands to be in it A serious weighing and considering of the matter and there is need of it The first thing the Student is to do before he takes in hand any matter of importance to set down and consider whether it be his own business or no what Title he can make to it It is utterly a fault amongst us to think that no part of our business to consider whether it be our business or no. If a qualm comes over the stomack that we begin to grow Government-sick or that the Ceremonies and Superstitions of the Church offend us presently without further dispute what ever comes of it it is resolved we will have a better Government and a more pure and reformed Church That is commonly concluded before this be disputed No good Student will do so conclude without premises We must see whether it be our own business first how we can derive a Title to it We know that Government and Religion come both originally from God to which none can have Right but they to whom God hath set over and entrusted the Care and Charge of either Our part is to see by what mean Conveyance it comes from them to us If

only out of their own eyes A light in a Candlestick doth not only enlighten all the persons but all the parts also of the room every corner the darkest and most secret places it shines not only upon our cloaths and faces i.e. our outward fashion and demeanor but as God requireth truth in the inwards parts thither must the light go too to the most retired Closets and Cabinets within to the very thoughts and intentions of the heart It is sharper than any two-edged Sword that enters between the joynt and the marrow Light will pierce through where no Sword can go at the least hole and crevise If all our actions of greatest secrecy receive not light and direction from Gods Word we do not set it in a Candlestick for there nothing is hid from the light thereof A Candle in a Candlestick as it gives light to every part of the room so it doth to all the work and business in it It shews not only the end of all eternal rest and happiness but is a light unto the paths that lead to it It holds us not only upon the gaze of the glory and joys of Heaven but carries us through the darker mysteries of faith and the more unpleasing ways of Repentance and Mortification The Gospel is not the power of God to salvation unless it be also the power of God upon all the steps and degrees to it In a Candlestick it is a light all over from one side of the room to the other Lastly From Gods Word in a Candlestick we do Totam lucem recipere take the benefit of the whole light in all the effects and operations of it It is a word of instruction a word of exhortation a word of comfort a word of reproof a word of promise and a word of command and so serves us in all our necessities It instructs the ignorant corrects the obstinate comforts the dejected dejects the proud quiets the passions invites by promises binds by commands If we pick and chuse lay hold on the word of consolation not of correction of promises not of commands We take the light as men do out of a dark Lanthorn from one side only no more than looks towards our private ends and interest But in a Candlestick the light dilates it self impartially in all the several powers of it there is no parcelling or dividing in that all or none we must totam lucem recipere So much difference we see there is between Gods Word in a Candlestick and under a Bushel and how much benefit comes by the one and how little by the other If we take not heed to this we fall into the common but dangerous error That when we have heard the Sermon we have done our duty for that time though we neither heed what or how we hear And yet according to that only Sermons are as St. Paul speaks of them in the person of the Preacher A savour of life or a savour of death As the evil servant was judg'd out of his own mouth so shall the careless hearer out of his own ears And more I could not say if I had more time It is that whereon life or death depends therefore Take heed what you hear THE Study of Quiet In two SERMONS Vpon the same TEXT Fitted to give an allay to the Heats of these Unquiet Distemper'd times In which are particularly conteyn'd necessary Instructions to the Student about Way and Means of attaining the fruit of his Study and setting him out of the danger and necessity of seeking it by the New device of COMPREHENSION London Printed 1668. A SERMON Preached before His Majesty at Whitehall March 12. 1664-65 1 THESS 4. 11. And that ye study to be quiet AND is a word that takes hold of something that went before without which the sense of that which follows is not full That which went next before is We beseech you to increase more and more We beseech you is that we are to take into the Text and then it runs thus We beseech you to study to be quiet But all the use I shall make of it now we have it here is but to give you a taste before-hand of the nature and quality of this duty That it is no trivial thing little to be regarded but that which obliged S. Paul Sylvanus and Timotheus for they all joyn'd in it to be so earnest as to beseech them to study to be quiet 2. And that which commends this duty the more is as we use to say Men are best known by the company they keep And brings in this Duty in the company of the best of Vertues Charity for that place S. Paul gives it above all Above all things put on Charity which is the bond of perfection To study to be quiet and to increase in brotherly love and charity for that led the way before are two duties bound together in the same Exhortation 3. Quiet is not only a fit companion for Charity but an Allie to it and grows out of it as the branch out of the stock for where brotherly love is there will be alwayes quiet too 4. To make all suit the better with Charity the Exhortation is advanced by a Dialect of Love VVe beseech you Paul Sylvanus and Timotheus were all Apostolical men and might command as S. Paul of himself in another case to Philemon Though I might be bold to enjoyn thee yet for loves sake I rather beseech you And lastly that which might very well set this edge upon their affections was that which happened to the Thessalonians at their first conversion for this Epistle was written immediately after The story we have in the 17. chap. of the Acts When S. Paul had preach'd the Gospel to them and with good success for v. 4. Some of them believed and consorted with Paul and Silas and of the devout Greeks a great multitude and of the chief women not a few But v. 5. The Jews who believed not moved with envy took unto them certain lewd fellows of the baser sort and gathered a company and set all the City in an uproar and assaulted the house of Jason and sought to bring them out to the people mad enough of themselves but the more to ferment and enrage them they charge the Apostles with the fault that they themselves were acting These are they that turn the world upside-down S. Paul having escaped this fury by going to Athens and there considering in what a case he left his new Converts both them and their Doctrine them in a furious tumult and their Doctrine under the reproach of troubling the world out of a zeal no doubt and desire to remove that scandal from the Faith of all things begs and beseecheth them to study to be quiet But how will this concern us I wish we never had and had not still the same occasion It is not so long since that we should forget how our late troubles first brake in upon our

for though in speculation the Understanding is distinct from the Will yet in practise they are seldom severed For it is morally impossible that after a man hath conceived an opinion he should not be well pleased with it and have a will as occasion is to defend and propagate it too And when it is Voluntarium no doubt but it is Peccatum and when error grows to be a sin I know no reason why it may not be punished for interest reipublicae peccata puniri But for all that it is they say a great disturbance of quiet to be tied to assent to that we cannot know nor comprehend That 's a great mistake I know there is much exception taken to the too punctual definitions of some mysteries of the faith and particularly in the Creed commonly called by Athanasius where there are many particulars which they cannot know nor comprehend Whereas in truth it is not required of them they are not bound to know them but to believe them for it is the mercy of God that the defect of our knowledg may be supplyed by the knowledg of others for to believe is to see with other mens eyes as knowledg is with our own But may we safely trust others in that which so neerly concerns as a Creed Yes sure and it is as well the mercy as the command of God that we should trust those that watch over our souls yet still that must be to supply the defect of our knowledg not otherwise for the Church is not Lord of our Faith but helper of our Ignorance It supplies the defect of our sight it doth not put it out for if a man knows the contrary he is not bound to believe others for if he can see with his own eyes why shall he be tied to see with other mens But then we must distinguish betwixt not knowing the negative and a positive knowing the contrary for if we refuse to believe meerly because we do not know or understand we leave no place for Faith at all which is the benefit to see by others And for that positive knowledg which discharges us of believing others that we be not mistaken it is not every conjectural or probable perswasion will do it but certain knowledg and when that is we may safely learn from the Schools Ubi non est formido contrarii after diligent search and enquiry when there remains no scruple doubt or fear of the contrary when the understanding is fixed we are said to be certain If this knowledge will serve to discharge us of believing others every one that dissents will say he knows the contrary yea and if need be will swear to it too for that 's an expedient lately found out to obtain that liberty That they may be admitted to swear they know the contrary to that which is commanded Truly if they will say it and think so too whether they swear it or no I think we may safely absolve them from the guilt of disobedience but that must be in foro Conscientiae only and let them make the best use they can of that yet in foro externo we cannot for there the Judge must give sentence according to his knowledge and not according to the knowledge of the party if he will do justice And that course can be no good friend to Peace which is an enemy to Justice Though Errors may be punished yet it troubles the quiet of many that the omission of Forms and Ceremonies is more severely punished then some foul and scandalous crimes To this I answer First That they who object this are not to be trusted with the ballance of sins for we know how the Market went for them when they held the Scale Obedience to the King and the Laws and serving God according to them were the great scandalous crimes 2. Allowing it to be true as they say That omission of Forms and Ceremonies is by the Church more frequently and severely punished then greater faults But how greater It may be in their proper and natural guilt and obliquity according to which sentence shall be given at the day of Judgment and to death eternal But our earthly Tribunals are not erected to anticipate the day of Judgment to bring all sinners to trial for whatsoever they have committed in the flesh and according to the proper measure of their guilt but for a particular end and use that people while they live here in the world and in society may be kept in good order and quiet from doing or receiving injuries And to this end is the degree of their punishments commensurate Treason and Rebellion are more severely punished in the State then many other hainous crimes because they destroy the very foundation of government and Society And for the same reason a schismatical disobedience though but in matters of Form and Ceremony is pursued with more care and strictness because it destroys the very end for which the power is given the Church to punish which is the preservation of peace and unity For though the Pastors of the Church may and must by way of Instruction the better to prepare us for our account at the great and general Judgment give every sin the proper weight and measure of guilt that is by way of Instruction But by way of Correction the Church is bound up to certain causes and if they keep not their bounds they shall be sure to hear of a prohibition and those causes are especially such for which the power is only given That the peaceable orderly Worship and service of God be not disturbed For though they are ever telling us it is for trifles ceremonies or indifferent things it is but the same quarrel the Atheists have against God himself for being so much offended for an Apple a trifle which scarce any man that hath an Orchard would have been troubled with and one Answer will serve both in effect In that forbidden fruit Gods authority in commanding and Adams duty in obeying were symbolically engaged for him and his and there was venome enough in that to infect both The Rites and Ceremonies of the Church in like manner though not in like degree though in their opinion as inconsiderable as the paring of Adams apple yet when discord and disobedience is found with them there is poyson enough in that for the strongest antidote the Church doth at any time make use of Let not that therefore mislead or disturb our Student of Quiet Nor that which in the Fourth place they look at as another Expedient for Peace If fewer Points and Articles of Religion were defined that so the Church-door may be wider open to let in those whose dissent now troubles the peace of the Church It is fit I grant the Church-door should stand always open but for such as shall be fit to enter for it would be a dangerous thing to set any door so wide open to let in an enemy upon us But to what purpose would we have the