Selected quad for the lemma: soul_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A57226
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Providence and precept, or, The case of doing evil that good may come of it stated and resolved according to Scripture, reason, and the (primitive) practice of the Church of England : with a more particular respect to a late case of allegiance &c. and its vindication in a letter to the author.
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Richardson, Mr.
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1691
(1691)
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Wing R1377; ESTC R24095
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23,343
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36
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belong especially when they are strong enough to Crush them into Obedience For that is it seems one Rule you go by to know when a Government is thoroughly settled Pag 6. But thanks be to God he hath given us a better for if Power to Crush be a sufficient one then no body can deny but Marssinello's was a thorough Settlement in Naples And though his Reign was but short yet his Power was great and he did Crush all that opposed him and had he not met with a Stroke from a Providential Hand which possibly thought Killing no Murther he might have lived to have given Laws like a Conqueror to that great and populous City And by your and Mr. Jenkin's Hypothesis a Divine Right for so doing Which brings me to the second Thing I promised viz. The examining those Texts of Scripture which you quote to prove your new Doctrines by And though those are several yet the main stress of the point lies on Romans 13.1 2. Pag. 19. Let every Soul be subject to the higher Powers For their is no Power but of God the Powers that be are ordained of God Whosoever therefore resisteth the Power resisteth the Ordinance of God and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation Now I must confess since you have taken leave of your own Judgment of the Apostle's meaning in that Place it will be the more difficult to convince you by reason it will not perhaps sute so well with the present Case that you have in your Eye However from a knowledge of your humble Christian temper of not thinking your self too old to learn I will presume to attempt it Pres though I know at the same time my self uncapable and therefore am inclinable to believe you had far more perswasive Reasons for Recanting your former Tenets than what you are pleased to give us in Print But to the point 'T is true the Apostle requires a Subjection to the Higher Powers c. but can it be imagined that the Apostle means by the Higher Power any that shall attain or get possessed of it by Force or Violence which your Case according to your present understanding of the Apostle seems to imply Or by Subjection a transferring an Allegiance which becomes due only to a Rightful and Lawful Prince to another which has no other Right to be so but Power to Crush c. then it is rational to conclude There never was any such Thing as an Usurpation in the World and though some have waded to the Throne in Blood and their Crimes have been of a Crimson dye yet their being but once fixt there they become Innocent and as White as Snow And being invested with your Authority must not only be submitted to but owned as a True and Rightful Liege Lord and Sovereign And all for this Reason viz. They that Resist shall receive to themselves Damnation And yet with your good leave I suppose this word Resistance is not to be understood in such a Latitude as you would have us understand that of Power For then the Refusal of our Prince's Command let it be what it will would entitle a Man to Damnation For he that refuseth the Commands of his Prince doth resist Dan. 3 21. as Shadrach Meshach and Abednego for which they were all cast into a fiery Furnace which was indeed the heighth of Passive Obedience yet I believe no Body supposed them to be in that miserable state for disobeying the King's Command From which I observe as I have heard divers of your Function say we are not in many places of Scripture to take our blessed Saviour or the Apostles words in a strict literal Sense but according to the best Exposition that agrees with the general Scope and Design of the Gospel and then I am sure it is both natural and rational to understand that place of St. Paul viz. There is no Power but of God c. must be all legal and rightful Power which must certainly be imply'd as your self once thought you had sufficiently proved That there is no Power but of God is true indeed for God being Omnipotent there cannot be any Power but by his permissive or approbative Will which was always allowed of as a Divine Distinction of God's Will and without it how harsh and untunable would several Texts of the Bible sound in the Ears of a good Christian as for Instance Amos 3.16 Shall there be Evil in the City and I the Lord hath not done it And now to take this place in the Sense that you do the Apostle of Power is certainly to make God the first and prime Cause of all Evil that shall be done in a City or indeed any where else which Notion may serve well enough for an Atheist but how well it becomes any Body that pretends to Religion do you judge I pray how many Rapes and Robberies and cruel Murders I pray God they be not owing to such horrid Notions of Power giving a Right have been barbarously committed lately in our City and Liberties of London which Almighty God has been pleased to suffer and permit to be done by the powers of Hell and wicked Men which the but taking the foregoing Text in your sense of Power c. and it frees them all by charging the Crimes upon God himself which to me appears little less than Blasphemy and it would make an honest Christian's heart tremble with the thought of such a Notion And then again in the Cases of Pharaoh where it is said God hardned Pharaoh 's heart Now I know not what you may think but it is the Opinion of great Divines that those Words ought not to be taken in a literal Sense but that God knowing the baseness and falseness of his heart did permit the Sorcerers and Magicians of Egypt to imitate Moses and Aaron with their Enchantments which deluded Pharaoh to that degree that he thought it was nothing but the pure effects of Magick only he thought Moses and Aaron to be better Conjurers than the rest and so his heart became hardned through the belief it was all but a Trick And in like manner it may be said God hardens all our hearts when he through our high Provocations withdraws his Divine Spirit which no doubt was Pharaoh's Case from us and delivers us up to strong Delusions insomuch that we believe a Lye though in truth it proceeds from our own wilful stubbornness in not being governed by the truth of his Word which is the everlasting Rule we ought to be ruled by And if we once forsake that 't is but just that God should forsake us and then 't is no wonder if with Pharaoh we cry Who is the Lord that we should obey his voice We know not the Lord neither will we c. Ex. 5.2 From all which as one Text explains another 't is reasonable to conclude that St. Paul's requiring Subjection to all Powers his meaning is all lawful Powers
PROVIDENCE and PRECEPT OR THE CASE OF Doing Evil that Good may come of it STATED and RESOLVED According to Scripture Reason and the Primitive Practice OF THE CHURCH of ENGLAND With a more particular Respect to a Late Case of Allegiance c. and its Vindication In a Letter to the Author The Second Edition And the Lord said unto him Wherewith and he said I will go forth and I will be a lying Spirit in the Mouth of all his Prophets 2 Kings 22.22 A wonderful and horrible Thing is committed in the Land The Prophets prophesie falsly and the Priests bear rule by this means and my People love to have it so and what will ye do in the end thereof Jer. 5.30 31. London Printed in the Year 1691. SIR I Have at last by the help of a good Friend my Circumstances being such I could not purchase them perused your Case of Allegiance c. and its Vindication And finding them both of a Piece I shall not go about to divide what you have so Providentially joyned And therefore it will be needless to speak to the latter by reason it stands only upon the Foundation of your former the Removal of which will be like Sampson's pulling down the Pillars or main Prop so that consequently the whole Fabrick must fall to the Ground But before I enter the Field against such a mighty Champion and brave Challenger that is Armed Cap-a-pe and Charges as it were in Armour I will for some Reasons let you know what I am by telling you what I am not and also the Reason of this my bold Undertaking As to the first know then that I am neither Lawyer Divine nor Physician Scholar or Pretender to Letters and so you need not fear my troubling you with hard Words or philosophical Distinctions with the latter of which your Case c. is pretty well furnished but I presume that was only to let the World see how nicely you could split a Hair or like a good Lawyer for his Client make the best of a bad Cause which in them is tolerable if not commendable But in a Grave Learned Divine it looks methinks as odd as a Protestant Priest preaching up a Mahometan Doctrine in opposition to Christian Precept Pray mistake me not as if nothing was intended by this Letter but a little Railery for you shall find when I come to serious Things I can talk seriously of them and my Designs are honest and fair and therefore will as much as in me lies endeavour to give no Offence by confining my Discourse to Generals without concerning my self with any Particulars For my aim is not to expose bad Men but ill Principles which I am sure are destructive to all Civil Governments in the World And in Prosecution of which I will at your own Game for nothing but Diamonds cut Diamonds play you Text against Text and then leave your self or any other Providential Divine to judge of the matter I consess you have according to your own stating the Case taken a great deal of Pains in transferring an Allegiance from a Legal and Rightful King to a Providential one or in your own Phrase from the Person who hath still a Legal Right and Pag. 26. as you say he may recover it if he can to another whom your self owns for there cannot be two Legal Rights at one and the same time hath no such Title and all by a nice Distinction Pag. 16. Though the Man is in Being still the King is gone which Learned Distinction I presume you took from the Measures that was taken in Forty one by Reason 't is so agreeable with that Rebel Notion which our Law condemns of taking up Arms against the King's Person to defend his Authority which Republican Notion I am sure can never be serviceable to the present nor any thorough Settlement whatever And I am confident you did not meet with any such Doctrine in Bishop Overal's Convocation Book Which happy Book if you had not Providentially met with the Church as well as the State had as to that Point lost a great Champion and poor distressed Subjects the Advantage of knowing their Duties to the Supreme Authority when ever a Civil Government is changed by Peoples following the conduct of your Providence contrary to Precept But it may be objected Why should I concern my self with Things so much out of my way Or as the saying is A Cobler should not go beyond his Last To which I answr A Stander by may as often it happens see more than a Gamester and so it commonly appears when as opportunity serves he discovers the Mistake Besides though I am but poor in Purse yet I am rich in Faith and inclinable to believe with some old Philosophers I have heard talk of my Soul may not be inferior to other Bodies let them shine never so Gay or Glittering And as you use to tell us God is not a Respecter of Persons which is a good Argument for me and every good Christian to set a value upon his Soul let his Body be never so poor and contemptible And that is one Reason of my Enquiry into the Reasons you have given the World both for your conforming and non-conforming to the present c. For you like the Children of Israel did halt along time between two Opinions and I am apt to believe had not you met with Something besides the Convocation Book you had as you tell us perhaps stuck till this time where you did stick for stick you did till Mr. Dr. Sherlock's Preâ— Jenkins kind hand more than the Bishop's Convocation Book as I shall shew you by and by relieved and haled you out of the Mire and set you safe upon dry Land on which you now stand as firm as a Rock But before I enter upon the Premises I will give you a second Reason which is indeed the chief for my so doing viz. I having prov'd my Soul of as Noble an Extract as your own and that the Eternal Peace and Welfare of it depends upon our Allegiance and Submission to the Supreme Authority For they as you say that resist shall receive to themselves damnation I judge it well worth the while to observe the Apostle's Rule 1 Thess 5.21 of proving all things and holding fast that which is good Which is I hope a sufficient Reason to excuse my Presumption in enquiring whether you are not more mistaken in St. Paul's meaning as to your New Case c. than you were in the Case you had formerly in your Eye as you tell us in the Preface when you proved he meant no such thing And as to that Case you still think you were in the right and truly so do I and yet you must be mistaken either then or now And that it was then and not now do's not appear to any Body but your self that I know of neither have you produced any Authority to convince the World that you are