Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
religion_n	carry_v	corrupt_a	great_a	37	3	2.0925	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30429	A sermon preached at the coronation of William III and Mary II, King and Queen of England, ---- France, and Ireland, defenders of the faith in the Abby-Church of Westminster, April 11, 1689 / by Gilbert Lord Bishop of Salisbury.	Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715.	1689 (1689)	Wing B5888; ESTC R19766	13,247	38

that is the King of Kings and offer up their Crowns to him by whom they Reign Kings have one Prerogative which few of them are indeed willing to use much and that is the Converting the World not by Dragoons Sanguinary Laws or Cruel Edicts but by Examples of true Religion and good Life Kings Examples have an Efficacy which few can resist and none will affect to do it If Events that happen seldom may be called Miracles this may well deserve that Name and indeed considering that as Princes carry the Frailties of Human Nature about them so they have Temptations ever near them to work on these that the constant distraction of Affairs dissipates their Thoughts and exhausts their Spirits that they are always encompassed with Flatterers who are on all Occasions contriving how they may please them even when it is by deceiving them and that pleasures of all sorts wait on them and follow them when all this is laid together the Miracle of a truly Religious Prince is perhaps none of the smallest effects of Omnipotence and it runs not the hazard of losing its Value by being shewed too often But when there is a solid Morality and genuine Piety well tempered and mixed together and that Princes are both Just and Fearing God and that they govern Themselves and their People by those measures then we must acknowledg that not only the Figures which are here made use of tho with never so much Beauty but all that the Richest Fancy can invent come far short of setting forth the Happiness of being under such a Government The Injust Vexations of Law-Suits would cease if it appeared that Righteousness sate in the place of Judgment that the Persons of the Rich were not Regarded nor their Presents accepted Men durst not offend if they saw that nothing could redeem them from deserved punishments Factions and Animosities could not be kept up in Cities and Communities if those indirect Arts by which they might hope to biass the Prince were cut off When true Merit is the sure way to high Dignities then Men will take to the long tho slow Method of honest Industry instead of the shorter way of Flattery and Importunity When Men are put out of countenance that will be vicious and are denied all those Favours that the Prince will have to be the portion of the Vertuous When the Decencies of Vertue are more necessary to make a Man look well at Court than the wearing Cloaths in Fashion when Atheism and Impiety are Things which Princes cannot bear when a drunken Man is a most loathsom sight and Oaths and Curses are the most offensive sounds to them when Slanders Lies and Calumnies can only hurt those that make them and next to the Authors those that scatter them about When all these or if that is too much to be hoped for when but some of them appear in the conduct of Government Men will be tempted to doubt whether they should wish to tarry still here on Earth or not How many of our Passions would then fall off when we should have no more occasion for them nor provocations to them Fears and Jealousies Discontent and Ill-nature could not thrive as they do if all that Nourishment which the Errours of Government afford them were withdrawn But to compleat the Picture I shall only set before you the different State of the Romans when they passed from the Vicious Reigns of such Execrable Monsters as Tiberius Caligula Nero and Domitian to the happy times of Trajan Hadrian Antonine but above all of that most sublime pattern of Vertue and Philosophy Marcus Aurelius In the former nothing was studied but Vice and pleasure Nothing could raise a Man but sordid Flattery and an obsequious courting of every Creature of Fortune and Favour The whole business of the Court was to corrupt and debase the Senate and to destroy those who still retained such a Tincture of their ancient Liberty that nothing could subdue it Spies and Informers were every where imployed to engage Men into Discourses and Plots which were to be betrayed while corrupt Judges and false Witnesses were sure to carry all things before them And their very Religion false as it was was vitiated by the impudent mixtures of the most shameful Idolatry while their Emperours that were the reproaches of Humane Nature had divine Adorations payed them and that with all the refinings and profusion of Pomp in it that nauseous Flattery could invent Their great City was laid in Ashes only to gratify the wild Frolicks of an extravagant Tyrant the Warlike Spirit of the Romans was enervated by Luxury and dissoluteness and the Empire it self was exposed first to the contempt and then to the Inroads of their formerly subdued Provinces while a publick Spectacle an Entertainment or a Play were the only cares of a Court that hated the very appearances of Vertue and yet still fancied it self to be the Terrour and Wonder of the World till a fatal Revolution or a deadly stroke awakened Men out of their Lethargy But this side of the Picture is not more hideous than the other is Glorious the return of good Princes put a New Face on the whole Empire Their Ancient Sense of Liberty was revived which must ever carry with it all that is Great or Noble in humane Nature with it Learning and good Sense Wit and Eloquence were again recoverd Frugality and Sobriety were again honoured and a Modesty and Simplicity of living shined afresh Truth and Vertue and Philosophy it self began to reign Tacitus and Plutarch Epictetus and beyond them all Marcus Aurelius himself were such Men that one would bless a whole Age if it should but produce one of that force Marcus in a Reign of almost twenty Years continuance is represented by all the Writers of the succeeding as well as of his own Age as so perfect a Pattern that there never appeared either in his private Deportment or in his Government one Single Blemish He was never once seen either transported with Anger or with Joy. He was never charged with one Light Word or any one Rash Action He lived in a perpetual Application to the Affairs of the Empire and in the intervals of business even in his Expeditions and Camps he was imployed in those profound Meditations of Philosophy which carry this Noble Title Of Himself to Himself and in which we see the most natural and unaffected contempt of all things besides Vertue and Goodness expressed with the greatest force and yet with the truest simplicity of any thing that Antiquity has left us Under such Princes the Romans could not but recover their ancient Discipline and their wonted Valour and the Empire was again raised to its former Lustre and regained its lost Authority but which was much more in them the World saw patterns of Vertue that were too high for that corrupt Religion which then prevailed and this perhaps disposed it not a little for Christianity that could not only consist with

a great happiness when Rulers seem to have Justice so deeply rooted in their natures that every act of Injustice is as a Violence done them yet unless there is a more lasting Principle formed in them their Noble and Vertuous Inclinations will be so often crossed by prevailing Interests and they will find themselves so often beset with corrupt Men who court forbidden Gain and love the wages of unrighteousness that it will not be possible for them to maintain their Integrity if they have not a Principle within them of such force that it bears all things down before it and that is the fear of God This will possess their minds with a secret awe of that Supreme Being which sees all things and discovers even the hidden things of dishonesty This will accustom Princes to consider that how much soever they may be raised above their Subjects yet they are as nothing before that God who as he set them up by his Providence so he can pull them down at his pleasure Psal. 107. 4. He poureth contempt upon Princes and when he blasts the Counsels and intends to defeat the Designs of the Greatest and Loftiest Monarchs how easily do Crowns fall and Thrones shake This fear of God will make Princes often remember Psal. 82. 6 7. even in the Pride of all their Glory that though then they look like Gods yet they must die like Men this Prospect will make them think sometimes on the melancholy Reflections which the approaches of Death will probably raise within them if they at any time for the encrease of their Treasure or their Power or for any ambitious or ill Design have perverted Judgment or denied Justice if they have shed Innocent Blood or shut their Ears against the Cries of the Miserable The remembrance of these things will then raise Agonies in their Minds which they will not be able to soften by any of all those Diversions with which they entertained themselves in their Health and flourishing Condition The Violences that they have committed and the Blood which they have shed will then stick too close to their Thoughts to be easily shaken off by them Or if they could be so charmed with the sweetness of Empire that it should make them deaf to all Clamours in this World yet as soon as their Souls pass out of their Bodies they must leave their Crowns and all their Glory behind them and go into a state where all the Distinctions that now look so gay and so shining will signifie nothing unless it be to add to their Account to encrease their Guilt and to heighten their Condemnation Then they must appear at a Tribunal where there is no respect of Persons where the Cries of those Widows and Orphans whom they either made or oppressed or at least refused to relieve will be heard and every one of those Complaints against which their Greatness secured them when on Earth will be weighed in the Scales of Impartial Justice Then those Princes who have hardned themselves against the Miseries of Mankind against all that effusion of Blood and Desolation which their desire of Glory their Ambition or their Revenge occasioned in the injust Wars which they have made will find that they have a just and righteous God to deal with Joh. 34. 19. that accepteth not the Persons of Princes that revengeth Innocent Blood especially the Blood of his Saints and that will reward every man according to his works Mat. 16. 27. These are all Considerations of such mighty force which rise out of the fear of God that if Princes do not shut them quite out of their minds they will certainly make all their Maxims of Justice so much the firmer as they are graffed upon this stock and nourished with these and such like Reflections Ruling in the fear of the Lord does not only import that this is the Prince's secret Motive and constant Remembrancer but that the Fear of God becomes the Rule of the Government as well as the Principle of him that governs Few Princes are so bad as to own that they have no regard to Religion in any thing they doe It is a strong temptation to their Subjects to shake off their Yoke when they openly shake off God's but as many as make a pretence of their Religion do with it as they do who wear Masks which rather hide than disguise them for none take the Vizar for the true Face though it covers it They use Religion for the hiding some secret deformities but the Mask is so course that though all Men cannot see what is under it yet they plainly discern that it is but a Mask Hypocrisie as all other things that we wear is capable of new Fashions and of different Modes and the Skill of those who use it is to find out that which is most likely to take and to suit it with the present occasion In one Age the endowing of Monasteries and the building of Churches could sanctifie the greatest Monsters The Devotion of another Age was the carrying over vast Armies to be destroyed in the Holy Land At another time a Zeal for some new Doctrine or controverted piece of Worship was the Holiness in Vogue The being given up blindly to a Confessor the breaking of Faith and the persecuting of Hereticks to signifie a zeal for Holy Church can serve with some to cover a multitude of Sins At some times the Praying and Preaching with Appearances of Fervour and Devotion has a Charm that carries Nations after it And a Rigour in supporting Established Forms and the ruining of such as do not comply with them will also draw to it self great Applauses After all these Mistakes or Impostures the true Notion of ruling in the fear of the Lord is when Princes make that Religion which God has revealed the chief mark and measure of their whole Government When the encouraging and promoting of a vigorous Piety and sublime Vertue and the maintaining and propagating of True Religion by ways and means suitable to it is the chief design of their Rule When Impiety and Vice are punished and Error is repressed but without the ruine of such as are involved in it When the decency of the Worship of God is kept up without adulterating it with Superstition When Order is carried on in the Church of God without Tyranny And above all when Princes are in their own deportment Examples of the Fear of God but without Affectation and when it is visible that they honour those that fear the Lord Psal. 5. 4. and that vile men are despised by them then do they truly Rule in the Fear of God. When we see Kings become thus truly Christian Philosophers then we may expect to see the City of God the New Jerusalem quickly come down from Heaven to settle among us and if we may look for a glorious Thousand Years on Earth we may reckon that it is not far from us when we see Kings fall down before him