Selected quad for the lemma: power_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
power_n	law_n	prince_n	sovereign_a	3,774	5	9.4515	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A43996	The last sayings, or, Dying legacy of Mr. Thomas Hobbs of Malmesbury who departed this life on Thursday, Decemb. 4, 1679.	Hobbes, Thomas, 1588-1679.	1680 (1680)	Wing H2245; ESTC R26062	5,132	4

that our Reason be not over-reacht All Devotion ought to be grounded upon Reason and Truth else it is Will-worship and the Sacrifice of Fools The Doctrine of Original sin ought to be cautiously handled lest when the Bowl wanders from the Jack the Biass not the hand that delivers it be blamed So ought the Doctrine of Imputed Righteousness lest a man with a Silken Stockin on a Gouty Leg think himself well and at ease The Credulous choose rather not to doubt than not to err Distance of time impresseth false Images of things upon the mind as well as distance of place Most of the Valuable Opinions of mankind if you search them in their Originals being like an Aegyptian Temple with a magnificent Portico much Sculpture and Picture but if you be admitted into the Penetralia to see the God you will find but an Ape or an Asses Head Fancy or Folly My Noble Friend my Lord Herbert of Cherbury had no mean unworthy thought of God when he said he was like the Sun that always shined unto mankind with the same light The Absurd Opinions and Evil Lives of the Clergy make them contemptible All the changes of Religion in the World may be attributed to one and the same Cause unpleasing Priests and those not only among Catholicks but even in that Church that hath presumed most upon Reformation Men are easily drawn to believe any thing from such men as have gotten credit with them and can with Gentleness and Dexterity take hold of their Fear and Ignorance Whatsoever Power Ecclesiasticks take upon themselves in any place where they are subject to the State in their own right although they call it Gods right it is but Usurpation 'T is strange that men never having spoken with God Almighty nor knowing one more than another what he hath said when the Laws and Preacher disagree should so keenly follow the Minister for the most part an Ignorant though a ready tongued Scholar rather than the Laws that were made by the King with the Peers and Commons of the Land The Papacy is the Ghost of the deceased Roman Empire sitting crowned upon the Grave thereof The Pope is a Shittle-Cock kept up by the Differences of Princes The name of Fulmen Excommunicationis that is the Thunderbolt of Excommunication proceeded from an imagination of the Bishop of Rome that first used it that he was King of Kings as the Heathen made Jupiter King of the Gods and assigned him a Thunderbolt wherewith to subdue and punish Excommunication is a Sword that hath no other edge but what is given to it by the Opinion of him against whom it is used The Roman Clergy are a Confederacy of Deceivers that to obtain dominion over other men endeavour by Mystery and Nonsence to extinguish in them both the light of Nature and the Gospel Priest-Craft is a sort of Legerdemain and the Roman Priests are to the rest of mankind as the Juglers in a Fair to the rest of the People there and must have mony given them before they will play their Tricks The Papal Ecclesiasticks in their Receipts accept the mony that the Laicks do but when they are to make any payment it is in Indulgences Masses and Canonizations He used to cite Themistius often in his Consular Oration to Jovinian The flattering Bishops do not Worship God but the Imperial Purple And a Greek sentence in English thus A wise mans satisfaction is to have a Treasure of hope with the Gods or else not to fear them at all Fear and Hope arising from Ignorance of the Causes of Things are for the most part groundless and violent and in all matters touching which a man hath great Hope or great Fear he is easily deceived which is the Reason that the Planters of false Religions do so industriously keep all true Science from them they intend to impose upon There is no Doctrine which tendeth to the advancement of the Power Ecclesiastical or to the reverence or profit of the Clergy but the contradiction thereof is by the Church of Rome made Heresie and punished with Death I have been bitterly excepted against by the Ecclesiasticks for making the Civil Power too large by the Sectaries for taking away Liberty of Conscience by the Lawyers for setting Soveraign Princes above the Laws wherewith I am not much moved For these men in doing this do but their own business There is nothing but Infinite Power that is not to fear Every man is bound by nature as much as in him lyeth to protect in War the Authority by which he is himself protected in time of Peace Ambitious men wade through other mens blood to their own Power Evil Government is like a Tempest may throw down here and there a Fruitful Tree but Civil War or Anarchy like a Deluge would sweep away all before them A Prince ought to remember that nothing hath been more the agreement of mankind in all Ages and in all Nations than this To change their Government for the Opressions and Corruptions in it The Majestas Imperii and the Salus Populi are always quarrelling there wants a Deus Terminus in the World to set out the bounds of Dominion and Obedience so clearly as the passions of Prince or People dare not adventure to leap over Drinking a Glass of Wine he said 't is with Truth as it is with excellent Wine the Drawer the Priest is not to fill out the dregs with the purer Liquor And after another Glass speaking of Government he cited the Arcadia Princes are to remember whom they Govern Men Rational Creatures who soon scorn at Follies and repine at Injuries Adding of his own that it was an unparallel'd Arrogance and Fanaticism in any one man to believe that God from Eternity had appointed all Creatures for his Pleasure Men for his Ambition the Women for his Lust. And that the Doctrine of Preces and Lachrymae ought to be discreetly handled least the people believe they made themselves Slaves when they became Christians and lest Princes should so far mistake as to believe their Subjects made up of Knees and Eyes and no Hands It is impossible without Letters for any man to become either excellently wise or unless his memory be hurt by Disease or ill Constitution of Organs excellently foolish For words are wise mens Counters they do but reckon by them but they are the mony of Fools that value them by the Authority of an Aristotle a Cicero or a Thomas Such Opinions as are taken upon Credit of Antiquity are not truly the Judgment of those that cite them but words that pass like gaping from mouth to mouth Wealth like Women is to be used not loved Platonickly Speaking of the Lawyers he used to jeer them with Gothofred Inter Laudem Placentiam non Veronam versus ambulare solet Ulpianus and with Erasmus Doctum Genus hominum indoctorum Opinion Armed with power passes for Reason Law and Religion It cannot be proved that the Obedience which springs from the scorn of injustice is less acceptable to God than that which proceeds from the fear of reward or hope of benefit That which gives to human actions the relish of Justice is a certain nobleness or gallantness of Courage rarely found by which a man scorns to be beholden for the contentment of his life to fraud or breach of promise Death is a Leap into the Dark Quid Prodest Garrulis Philosophis de immortalitate Animorum de Fortitudine tam multa praedicare deinde minimo in periculo pallescere Et prope stans dictat Mors mihi ne metue When he was dying he called for his Chair in which he dyed saying Oportet Philosophum Sedentem mori Si quis morte obit â sensus Tellure sub imâ est Hobbesii gaudent manes Nec grandior umbra Ambulat Elysium FINIS

THE Last Sayings or Dying Legacy OF Mr. Thomas Hobbs of Malmesbury Who departed this Life on Thursday Decemb. 4. 1679. Quid mihi Curae erit Transfuga Senec FEar of Power invisible feign'd by the mind or imagined from Tales publickly allowed is Religion not allowed is Superstition It is with the Mysteries of Religion as with wholesom Pills for the Sick which swallow'd whole have the vertue to Cure but chew'd are for the most part cast up again without effect To say that God hath spoken to a man in a Dream is no more than to say he Dreamt that God spake to him To say he hath seen a Vision or heard a Voice is to say that he hath Dreamt between sleeping and waking To say he speaks by Supernatural Inspiration is to say he finds an ardent desire to speak or some strong opinion of himself for the which he can alledge no natural reason In matters of Right or Interest where Reason is against a man a man will be against Reason Evil men under pretext that God can do anything are so bold as to say he does every thing that may serve their turns As for Witches I think not that their Witchcraft is any real power but yet that they are justly punished for the false belief they have that they can do such mischief joyned with a purpose to do it if they could For Fairies and walking Ghosts I think that opinion is taught only to keep in credit the use of Exorcisms Crosses and Holy-Water to lay those Spirits which never were raised The best Prophet naturally is the best Guesser and the best Guesser he that is most vers'd and studied in the matters he guesses at Whatsoever we imagine is Finite therefore there is no Idea or conception of any thing we call Infinite When we believe another man's Revelation not from the Reason of the thing reveal'd but from the Authority and good opinion of him to whom it was so revealed then is the Speaker or Enthusiast the only object of our Faith and the Honour done in believing is done to him only and not to him that revealed it So on the contrary if Livy says the Gods once made a Cow speak and we believe it not herein we distrust not God but Livy Thhre is no greater Argument of Madness than the arrogating to ones self Inspiration for if some man in Bedlam after he had made a long sober discourse should at last tell you he was God the Father I think you need expect no further Argument for his Madness He that believes a thing only because it may be so may as well doubt of it because it may be otherwise A certainty of Error in any part of a thing implies a possibility of Error in the whole Nil fuit in intellectu quod non fuit prius in sensu When a Pope excommunicates a Kingdom he may rather be said to excommunicate himself the Pope being the only loser thereby That Daemoniacks were no other than mad-men from Joh. 10. 20. He hath a Devil and is mad As a Man that is born blind hearing men talk of warming themselves by the Fire and being brought to warm himself by the same may easily conceive there is somewhat there which men call fire and is the cause of the heat he feels but can have no Idea of it in his Mind such as they have that see it So also by the visible things of this World and their admirable order a man may conceive there is a cause of them which men call God and yet not have an Idea or Image of him in his Mind No Persons ought so justly to die for Religion as those that get their living by it To measure Good or Evil by the Reward or Punishment assigned by the Laws of our own Countrey is like little Children who have no other measure of good or ill but from the correction of their Parents The Church is a Mother-in-law to the Laity but an own Mother to the Clergy That the Popish Consecration is no other than Conjuration or Incantation For when their Priests in the Sacrament pretend to turn the Bread into Christ's Body wherein differ they from the Egyptian Conjurers who are said to have turn'd the Rods into Serpents and the Water into Bloud However if as in the Sacrament the Bread remain'd Bread still the Rods had also remain'd Rods still and they had nevertheless faced down the King contrary to his own eye-sight that they were Serpents what impudent Rogues had these been that had been both Enchantment and Lying and so is it in Transubstantiation That we might not give too much credit to all pretended Miracles let us examine the many Impostures wrought by Confederacy wherein we shall find that there is nothing how impossible soever to be done that is impossible to be believed For two men conspiring one to seem Lame and the other to cure him with a Charm will deceive many but many conspiring one to seem Lame another to cure him and all the rest to bear witness will deceive more In these four things viz. Opinion of Ghosts Ignorance of second Causes Devotion towards what men fear and taking of things Casual for Prognosticks consisteth the natural Seed of Religion which by reason of the different Fancies Passions and Judgements of several men hath grown up into Ceremonies so different that those which are used by one man are for the most part ridiculous to another That Law which is absolutely necessary to Mankind's future Happiness ought if the Law-giver be just to be generally made known unto all men No one reveal'd Law was ever made known unto all men Ergo No one reveal'd Law is absolutely necessary to Mankind's future Happiness That God is Almighty Matter That the prime Law of Nature in the Soul of Man is that of Self-preservation That the Law of the Civil Magistrate is the only obliging Rule of Just and Unjust Dreams are the Reverse of our waking Imaginations the motion when we are awake beginning at one end and when we dream at the other LONDON Printed for the Author's Executors 1680. Malmsburiensis Obît decurso Lumine vitae Qui genus humanum Ingenio Superavit omnes Praestrinxit Stellas exortus uti Aethereus Sol. THE Love of the knowledg of Causes draws a man from the Consideration of the Effect to seek the Cause and again the Cause of that Cause till of necessity he must come to this thought at last That there is some Cause whereof there is no former Cause but is Eternal which is God so that it is impossible to make any profound enquiry into Natural Causes without believing there is one Eternal God If any man think this World without a mind I shall think him without a mind Nothing is Law where there are not manifest signs that it proceedeth from the will of the Soveraign To be slow in the belief of Miracles is not a contempt of Divine Power but a just circumspection