Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
religion_n	cool_v	zeal_n	zealous_a	20	3	9.5864	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A56398	A reproof to the Rehearsal transprosed, in a discourse to its authour by the authour of the Ecclesiastical politie.	Parker, Samuel, 1640-1688.	1673 (1673)	Wing P473; ESTC R1398	225,319	538

mistake been abused both out of the Notion and the Practice of all real goodness And my heart even bleeds to consider how wofully they have by this means been gull'd with rank Non-sence and Imposture For whilst their gracious Preachers work their Lungs and water their Handkerchiefs to decry Moral Righteousness as a thing not only useless but dangerous if void of Grace and therefore drive them on with furious Exhortations above all things to get this secret of Grace if any of them chance to enquire what it is and wherein it consists they are forced to amuse them with abundance of general talk in Scripture Phrase of an uncertain i. e. no signification And presently they begin to make a grievous noise of the Lord Christ talk loud of getting an interest in the Lord Christ tell fine Romances of the secret amours between the Believing Soul and the Lord Christ and prodigious stories of the miraculous feats of Faith in the Lord Christ all which and infinite Loads more of the like crude stuff that they are perpetually pouring forth upon them is at last no better than mere gibberish they are perfect Barbarians to the People prophesie in an unknown Tongue they gaze at the Mystery and perhaps lay up the Phrase but yet understand its meaning no more than if they had discoused to them in Chinese or High-Dutch Now the unavoidable consequence of this way of trifling is to betray the People into Enthusiastick and giddy conceits of Religion it fills their heads full of something they know not what and this heats their Fancies and sets their Brains awork and makes them talkative and impertinent and then they abound and overflow with Mystery and Non-sence and the whole neighbourhood is annoyed with the Rattle of their Phrases and canting Noise But that which is worst of all is that if once men fall into this Crazedness of mind as there is little hopes of their recovery so there is no end of their Frenzy Non-sence and Enthusiasm are unbounded things and they seldom stop till they run stark mad with zeal and reformation 'T is the natural humour of this sort of people to dislike and if they are able to subvert all establish'd order for something else that they would have though they know not what for what can restrain mad men from railing at their Keepers and Governours and what more grievous to Enthusiasts than sober discipline because that fetters them up from those outrages that they are eager to act upon themselves and the publick But to spare these political considerations 't is enough and too much that this mistake has this sad effect that it forestalls all the real obligations of Religion and gives men up to the invincible delusions of hypocrisie and false godliness They are possess'd with a confident perswasion of their own Grace and Saintship and thereby they are already endear'd unto God and engrafted into Christ and then this unavoidably stifles all thoughts of change or amendment because their conversion is past already so easie is it through this mistake for the common people to abuse themselves into a strong opinion of their being ensured in the state of Grace when they are upon terms of utter defyance to all the practices and obligations of Religion And hence is it usual with them to stile some of the grossest enormities of vice by the civil title of sins of infirmity and such as are the peculiar spots of Gods own people For if they can but once find or fancy in themselves those characters of Grace that they are told are the marks of Gods secret ones they roundly conclude all their accursed Lusts and Vices to be rather weaknesses of their natures than obliquities of their wills And then they take the measures of good and evil not from the nature of actions but from the conditions of persons and with them an action is not thought gracious so much because it is agreeable to the Law of God as because it issues from a child of God So that if a man be once in a state of Grace all his sins are presently turn'd into infirmities and what is a crying sin in other men is in them at worst but a pitiable weakness and vice in the people of God ceases to be vice suitably to the doctrine of the Stoicks of old for they too had found out an odd kind of Wisdom much like this secret of Grace peculiar to their own Sect that no body could understand beside themselves and that was reconcileable to all the folly in the world 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that a sage or a long beard of their Sect might indeed be soundly overcome with wine but could never be properly drunk Though to be overcome with wine were downright drunkenness in a carnal Epicurean yet it was only to be full of the Creature in a grave Stoick To be adopted into their Sect and Conventicle was enough to enchant a man against all the powers of Wine in spite of all the debauchery and intemperance in the world And thus is it with these men they list themselves into some party and faction of Saints in which after they have been for some time train'd and exercised and are prettily well skill'd in the arts of their own way of godliness and thereby secured of their interest in the love of God which if once they can get they can never lose upon this presumption how smoothly and contentedly do they slide into an habitual commission of those sins to which their natural propensities or their worldly interests most incline them And they protect all their lusts and passions under the privilege of Grace and by wearing the Livery of Gods people And what is still more fatal they do not only excuse and dispense with their rank and froward passions upon the score of their imaginary Grace and Saintship but they adopt them among the choicest vertues of their Religion They will be angry and spiteful for the Glory of God i. e. to gratifie their own fancy rude and malicious against all that are enemies to the godly or what to them is the same their own party and they may and ought to hate their brother if he hate the power of godliness i. e. if he loath and despise their way of hypocrisie And when they have thus consecrated their passions by separating them to religious Uses they are so far from cooling or allaying their unreasonable and brutish heats that they think nothing more their duty than to feed and cherish them till they blow up the sparks of zeal into glorious blazes of Reformation i. e. into publick Combustions And thus when their Religion is nothing but zeal and their zeal nothing but an heated rage it is so far from controuling their passions that it not only justifies but causes their excesses and instead of sweetning their humours it tinges them with malice and malecontentedness 'T is made a Sanctuary for ill-nature and ill-manners where they not

is less hazardous to Government to give toleration to mens debaucheries than to their religious perswasions and therefore debauchery is to be tolerated A fair reckoning But what this amounts to I have already accounted largely enough to J. O. And if you are not satisfied that concerns not me I will not trifle because you are peevish I have both computed and proved it at large in my answer to him from p. 678. to p. 697. If you or he or any body else have ought to object against it you know the Press is open do your worst it defies all your Forces but as you value your own credit hereafter cease to trouble me and the world with such silly and childish surmises But to be short the sumn of all that can or need be determin'd upon this argument is that offences are punishable by humane Laws not according to the degrees of their intrinsick evil but according to the malignity of their influence upon the publick Weal So that those offences that are of most dangerous consequence to the welfare of the Community usually are or ought to be provided against with severer penalties and punish'd with more rigorous executions From hence it is evident that it concerns Government to keep a more watchful eye and to hold a stricter hand over the freaks of Enthusiasm than the exorbitances of Debauchery Because though Debauchery always may and often does its share of mischief where-ever it prevails yet it rarely proves so dangerous as either serious or affected pretences of Religion For as much as this is the most necessary and most plausible disguise of all Rebellion And therefore if men are not in good earnest this is the fittest mask under which Malecontents and ambitious minds can hide their crafty and disloyal designs If they are then they are always so much the more bold and confident in their disobedience and pursue their seditious courses with greater courage and assurance of mind than those that are conscious to themselves of their hypocrisie and disloyalty But the main mischief of all is that in all Seditions under colour of Religion there is always an unhappy mixture of both these sorts of people the crafty knaves drive on the zealous fools and they never want for trinkling Maxims to wheadle them out of all duty of Loyalty and Allegiance and if they do but beat the Drum or blow the Trumpet to Reformation they will do or venture any thing for the Cause So that it is plain enough that Fanaticism is very often more dangerous to the peace of Government than downright debauchery which as mischievous as it is can never proceed to any more daring wickedness but under this fair and deceitful Vizor And this is so notorious that it is almost a shame to appeal to the experience of mankind to make out its proof when there have been so few if any Rebellions in Christendom that have not been commenced or at least maintain'd by factions of Religion And as for what you affirm confidently enough that 't is demonstrable that for one war upon a Fanatick or religious account there have been an hundred occasioned by the Thirst and Glory of Empire that has inflamed some great Prince to invade his neighbour Were it true it is lamentably impertinent and like your self For the only wars that do or can concern our present debate are Rebellions and not Invasions That being the only argument I all along chose to insist upon to represent how much it imports the peace and security of Government to prevent all religious contentions Because they are either the Causes or rather the Covers of all Rebellion But you add immediately and it is done like a man of Algebra That more yet have sprung from the Contentiousness and ambition of some of the Clergy And yet you know the Cause or at least the Pretence of Religion is the main ground of all their ambitious Contentions so that they very rarely involve their Country in a Civil War but upon a Religious Account But yet because it is possible they may be pragmatical upon other scores I will deduct all out of this additional number but one and then thus your reckoning casts up it self That for one war upon a Religious Account there have been an hundred occasioned by the thirst of Glory and Empire but more that is at least an hundred and one by the Ambition and Contentiousness of Clergy-men and now lay all this together and the resolution of the Problem is That for one war upon a religious account there have been an hundred and one upon a religious account But you proceed however comparisons of vice are dangerous It is a venerable Sentence and worthy the wisdom of a Senatour and I should have supposed it entirely your own but that it jumps so exactly with as wise a Paradox of the old Stoicks that all Crimes are equal so that it is as heynous a wickedness to kill a Robin-red-breast as to murther ones Father or betray ones Country and therefore they were wont to be very angry if any man would be making comparisons between vice and vice though he did it but in jest and waggery But as for all other Sects of learned men whether Moralists or Divines they unanimously allow the degrees of wickedness and are so far from thinking these comparisons always odious that they often think them necessary And certainly there can be very little harm or danger in teaching children that it is not altogether so naughty a thing to cheat one another at Push-pin as it is to pilfer half-crowns out of the Shop-box But the great mischief of all would be that if a greater severity as I teach ought sometimes to be exercised over mens Consciences than over their vices and immoralities debauch'd persons will be ready hence to conclude although it be a perverse way of reasoning that when the severity ought to be less the Crime is less also But can I help the perverseness of mankind when it is in their power to draw any thing out of any thing in the perverse way of reasoning Name me if you can any one Assertion never so true or so harmless from whence perverse men may not force perverse Conclusions Thus when I affirm'd the Sovereign Power in Church-matters to be so absolute that it ought not to be controul'd either by the Conclave or the Classis I hope you are by this time better inform'd than to think your perverse Conclusion from it even to my denial of a Deity an allowable objection either against the honesty or the discretion of asserting his Majesties Ecclesiastical Supremacy However as long as their way of reasoning is perverse it can never reflect any disparagement upon my Premises Ten thousand perverse exceptions cannot in the least impair the credit of any Truth but it is enough that if it be a perverse way of Reasoning it is your own Your fifth Play is Persecution recommended and here in the opening