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A60942 Interest deposed, and truth restored, or, A word in season, delivered in two sermons the first at St. Maryes in Oxford, on the 24th of July, 1659, being the time of the assizes : as also of the fears and groans of the nation in the threatned, and expected ruin of the lawes, ministry, and universityes : the other preached lately before the honourable Societie of Lincolns-Inn / by Robert South ... South, Robert, 1634-1716.; South, Robert, 1634-1716. Ecclesiasticall policy the best policy. 1660 (1660) Wing S4733; ESTC R4025 42,795 62

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sufficiently secures Government in as much as that stands or falls according to the Behaviour of the Multitude And whatsoever Conscience makes the Generality obey to that Prudence will make the rest conforme Wherefore having proved the dependance of Government upon Religion J shall now demonstrate That the safety of Governement depends upon the Truth of Religion False Religion is in its nature the greatest bane and destruction to Religion in the world The reason is because whatsoever is False is also Weak Ens and Verum in Philosophy are the same and so much as any Religion has of Falsity it loses of strength and existence Falsity it gains Authority onely from Ignorance and therefore is in danger to be known for from Being false the next immediate step is to be Known to be such And what prejudice this would be to the Civill Government is apparent if men should be awed into Obedience and affrighted from sin by Rewards and Punishments proposed to them in such a Religion which afterwards should be detected and found a meere Falsitie and Cheat For if one part be but found to be false it will make the whole suspicious And men will then not onely cast off Obedience to the Civill Magistrate but they will doe it with disdaine and rage that they have been deceived so long and brought to doe that out of Conscience which was imposed upon them out of Designe For though men are often willingly deceived yet still it must be under an Opinion of being instructed though they love the Deception yet they mortally hate it under that appearance Therefore it is no wayes safe for a Magistrate who is to build his Dominion upon the Fears of men to build those fears upon a false Religion 'T is not to be doubted but the absurdity of Ieroboams Calves made many Israelites turne subjects to Rehoboams Government that they might be Proselytes to his Religion Herein the Weaknesse of the Turkish Religion appears that it urges Obedience upon the promise of such absurd Rewards as that after death they should have Palaces Gardens Beautifull Women with all the Luxury that could be as if those things that were the occasions and incentives of sin in this world could be the rewards of Holinesse in the Other Pesides many other inventions false and absurd that are like so many chincks and holes to discover the rottenesse of the whole Fabrick when God shall be pleased to give light to discover and open their reasons to discern them But you will say What Government more sure and absolute than the Turkish and yet what Religion more false Therefore certainly Government may stand sure and strong be the Religion professed never so absurd I answer that it may doe so indeed by Accident through the strange peculiar temper and grosse ignorance of a people as we see it happens in the Turks the best part of whose Policy supposing the Absurdity of their Religion is this that they prohibit schooles of Learning for this hinders Knowledge and Disputes which such a Religion would not bear But suppose wee that the Learning of these Western Nations were as great there as here and the Alcoran as common to them as the Bible to us that they might have free recourse to search and examine the flawes and follies of it and withall that they were of as inquisitive a temper as we And who knows but as there are vicissitudes in the Government so there may happen the same also in the temper of a Nation If this should come to pass where would be their Religion And then let every one judge whether the Arcana imperii and Religionis would not fall together They have begun to totter already for Mahomet having promised to come and visit his Followers and translate them to Paradise after a thousand years this being expired many of the Persians beganne to doubt and smell the cheat till the Mufti or cheif Priest told them that it was a mistake in the figure and assured them that upon more diligent survey of the Records hee found it two thousand instead of one When this is expired perhaps they will not be able to renew the Fallacy I say therefore that though this Government continues firme in the Exercise of a false Religion yet this is by accident through the present genius of the people which may change but this does not prove but that the Nature of such a Religion of which we onely now speak tends to subvert and betray the Civill Power Hence Machiavel himself in his Animadversions upon Livy makes it appear that the Weaknesse of Italy which was once so strong was caused by the corrupt practises of the Papacy in depraving and misusing Religion to that purpose which he though himself a Papist sayes could not have hapned had the Christian Religion been kept in its first and native simplicity Thus much may suffice for the clearing of the first Proposition The Inferences from hence are two 1. If Government depends upon Religion then this shews the pestilential design of those that attempt to disjoyn the Civil and Ecclesiastical Interests setting the latter wholly out of the Tuition of the former But 't is clear that the Fanaticks know no other step to the Magistracy but through the ruin of the Ministry There is a great Analogy between the Body Natural and Politick in whith the Ecclesiastical or Spiritual part justly supplyes the part of the soul and the violent separation of this from the other does as certainly infer death dissolution as the disjunction of the body and the soul in the Natural for when this once departs it leaves the Body of the Cōmon-wealth a carcass noysom and exposed to be devoured by Birds of Prey The Ministery will be one day found according to Christs word the salt of the earth the only thing that keeps Societies of men from stench and corruption These two Interests are of that nature that 't is to be feared they cannot be divided but they will also prove opposite and not resting in a bare diversity quickly rise into a Contrariety These two are to the State what the Elements of Fire and Water to the Body which united compose separated destroy it I am not of the Papists Opinion who would make the Spiritual above the Civill State in power as well as dignity but rather subject it to the Civill yet thus much I dare affirm that the Civill which is superiour is upheld and kept in being by the Ecclesiasticall and inferiour as it is in a Building where the upper part is supported by the lower the Church resembling the Foundation which indeed is the lowest part but the most considerable The Magistracy cannot so much protect the Ministery but the Ministers may doe more in serving the Magistrate A tast of which truth you may take from the Holy War to which how fast and eagerly did men goe when the Priests perswaded them that whoever dyed in that Expedition was a Martyr Those