Selected quad for the lemma: state_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
state_n	council_n	majesty_n	privy_a	1,209	5	9.6979	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26371	A modest plea for the clergy wherein is briefly considered, the original, antiquity, necessity : together with the spurious and genuine occasions of their present contempt.	Addison, Lancelot, 1632-1703.	1677 (1677)	Wing A524; ESTC R21288	59,187	185

A Modest Plea FOR THE CLERGY WHEREIN Is Briefly considered the Original Antiquity Necessity TOGETHER With the Spurious and Genuine Occasions of their present Contempt Honor Sacerdotii firmamentum potentiae LONDON Printed for William Crook at the Green Dragon without Temple-Bar 1677. IMPRIMATUR G. Jane R. R. D. Hen. Episc Lond. à sacris dom To the Right Honourable Sir JOSEPH WILLIAMSON Principal Secretary of STATE and one of His Majesties most Honourable Privy Council c. SIR I Do not here imploy your Name either to rescue these Papers from contempt or to raise in the Reader an expectation of meeting in them something fit to be offer'd to such a Personage but out of great assurance that your Honour will readily grant them your Protection as beeing honestly designed for the Vindication of that Order of Men toward whom your Respects are constantly manifested and through the sides of whose Contempt both Church and State have ever received their deepest Wounds If by this short Discourse I may serve God and the Truth I have my End but shall think my Return full of Reward if Your Honour shall please to approve thereof and give me pardon for the Address That you may long live to be under Our Gracious Soveraign an happy Instrument of Peace and Prosperity to this Church and Nation is the hearty Prayer of Your Honour 's most humble and most obliged Servant TO THE READER I Have little hopes to charm the Reader with a Preface and think it to as little purpose to Court him into a favourable Opinion of the ensuing Plea For when I have said what I can he will judge and think what he pleaseth Let him free me from the Errata of the Press and I will stand to his Mercy for the rest The Contents THe Introduction Page 1. CHAP. I. Of the Name and Original c. of the Clergy p. 6. CHAP. II. Of the Antiquity of the Clergy a rational account of and enquiry into the Institution c. p. 12. CHAP. III. Out of what Rank and Condition the Clergy were elected among the Jews and Pagans The respect shown them c. p. 25. CHAP. IV. A brief account of the Institution of the Levitical Clergy p. 34. CHAP. V. Of the Institution of the Evangelical Clergy p. 40. CHAP. VI. Of the Spirits Agency in respect of the Clergy c. p. 48. CHAP. VII Of the Incommunicableness of the Offices of the Clergy p. 55. CHAP. VIII How the Clergy in all Ages have undergone Contempt The Character of their Contemners c. p. 70. CHAP. IX A Survey of the pretences for the Contempt of the Clergy First want of Example p. 79. CHAP. X. A Survey of the Pretences of the Contempt of the Clergy Secondly Idleness p. 90. CHAP. XI A view of the Pretences of the Contempt of the Clergy Thirdly of Pride p. 99. CHAP. XII A Survey of the Pretences of the Contempt of the Clergy Fourthly of Covetousness p. 107. CHAP. XIII A Survey of some of the real Grounds of the Contempt of the Clergy p. 124. CHAP. XIV A further Examination of the Grounds of the Contempt of the Clergy respecting their Condition in the World and Extraction p. 136. The Introduction IF there were not in man a natural desire to convey something of himself to Posterity and that his Memory might survive his Ashes we had never heard of the Egyptians expending their Treasures in Pyramids nor of the Greeks and Romans bestowing their Wealth and Care in Statues Monuments and Inscriptions And this desire is so naturalized into all Qualities of men that even the poor Statuary express'd no less when he so cunningly placed his Name in the Image of his God that it might last as long as that Master-piece of his Art And yet men are not more ambitious of Memory than Fame as is clearly to be seen in those very persons who though never so careless of a vertuous Conversation are yet marvellous greedy of that Reputation which is its natural appendage Nor can this be any matter of our Admiration when it is duly considered That Reputation goes furder than Power and that men are serviceable or otherwise according to the Opinion which is had of their Persons For let two men saith that Oracle of the Chair and Pulpit speak the same words give the same advice pursue the same business drive the same design with equal right equal means equal diligence and every other thing equal yet commonly the success is strangely different if the one be well thought of and the other labour of an ill report So that he loseth the chief advantage of his Cause who loseth the good Opinion of his Person And though a good Opinion of mens Persons be of great moment in all ranks of men yet in none can it be of greater than in the Clergy For if we take our measures from the things wherein they deal the Credit of their Persons is very highly considerable because thereon in a great measure depend the success and belief of their Office and consequently the welfare of Religion which with no small numbers of men hath just so much Belief as its Ministers have Credit And yet we see no Order of men upon every slight and frivolous occasion so scornfully exposed as the Clergy and that not seldome too for doing those very things which with equal Esteemers ought to be the matter of their Commendation and Reverence For let Clergy-men with a zeal and impartiality becoming their Function press the due exercise of Holiness and Vertue and the forsaking those courses of vicious and ungodly Living wherewith so many are debauched let them following the method of the Gospel teach us to deny all ungodliness and worldly lusts and our obligation to live soberly righteously and godly all the time of our being upon Earth let Clergy-men I say conscientiously pursue these and the like Instances of their Office and men commonly deal with them as the Greeks dealt with their two Gods Hercules and Mercury when they worship't the one with reviling Speeches and the other with casting Dirt and Stones at his Image Now when with not a little resentment I seriously consider that the Contempt of the Clergy is not the ruffianly and borish Humour only of the Rude and less-Civilized but even of many of those who would be looked upon as the Great Lights of Deportment and the Refin'd and Philosophical Persons of the Age moved with this Consideration I began to stagger in my good Opinion of the Clergy and to suspect there might be sufficient matter for the Tempest especially when I saw it raised against them by persons of too much seeming Genteelness and Philosophy to pour Contempt upon any without all just Cause or Pretence And yet fearing to be seduced with popular Examples and unwarily to imbibe a groundless prejudice against that Order of Men for which I have ever retain'd so Singular a Reverence and Esteem I thought it the most Christian and