Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	account_v	zeal_n	zealous_a	26	3	9.4299	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A70888	A discourse of ecclesiastical politie wherein the authority of the civil magistrate over the consciences of subjects in matters of external religion is asserted : the mischiefs and incoveniences of toleration are represented, and all pretenses pleaded in behalf of liberty of conscience are fully answered.	Parker, Samuel, 1640-1688.	1671 (1671)	Wing P460; ESTC R2071	140,332	376

Enemies to the Faith Besides that all men are naturally more zealous about the Principles in which they differ than about those in which they agree Opposition whets and sharpens their zeal because it endangers the truths they contend for whereas those that are not opposed are secure and out of hazard of being stifled by the adverse Party that is concern'd equally with themselves for their preservation And hence we see by daily Experience that men who are tame and cool enough in the Fundamentals of Religion are yet utterly impatient about their own unlearned and impertinent Wranglings and lay a greater stress upon the Speculations of their own Sect than upon the Duties of an absolute and indispensable necessity only because those are contradicted by their Adversaries and these are not Well then seeing all dissenting Parties are possess'd with a furious and passionate zeal to promote their own perswasions and seeing they are perswaded that their zeal is in God's Cause and against the Enemies of God's Truths How vain is it to expect Peace and Settlement in a Common-wealth where their Religion keeps men in a state of War where zeal is arm'd against zeal and Conscience encounters Conscience where the Glory of God and the Salvation of Souls lies at stake and where Curse ye Meroz is the Word of both Parties So that whatsoever projects fansiful men may propose to themselves if we consider the passions of humane Nature as long as Differences and Competitions in Religion are kept up it will be impossible to keep down mutual hatreds jealousies and animosities and so many divided Churches as there are in a State there will ever be so many different Armies who though they are not always in actual fighting are always in a disposition to it Beside where there are divided Interests of Religion in the same Kingdom how shall the Prince behave himself towards them If he go about to ballance them against one another this is the ready way to forfeit his Interest in them all and whilst he seems concern'd for no Party no Party will be really concern'd for him every one having so much esteem for it self as to think it ought to enjoy more of his favour and countenance than any other And withal 't is an infinite trouble and difficulty to poise them so equally but that one Party shall grow more strong and numerous than the rest and then there is no appeasing their zeal till it has destroyed and swallowed up all the weaker Interests But suppose he be able to manage them so prudently as always to keep the ballance equal he does thereby but keep up so many Parties that are ready form'd to joyn with any emergent Quarrels of State and whenever the Grandees fall out 't is but heading one of these and there is an Army And let men but reflect upon all the late Civil Wars and Rebellions of Christendom and then tell me which way they could either have been commenced or continued had it not been for different Factions of Religion If he side with one Party and by his favour mount it above the rest that not only discontents but combines all the other dissenting Factions into an united opposition against his own and it becomes their common Interest to work and contrive its ruine its prosperity does but exasperate the competition of all its Rivals into rage and indignation and as success makes it self more secure in its settlement so it makes them more restless and industrious to overturn it No Party can ever be quiet or content as long as 't is under any other but will ever be heaving and struggling to dismount the Power that keeps it down and therefore we find that all Dissenters from the establish'd frame of things are always assaulting it with open violence or undermining it by secret practices and will hazard the State and all to free themselves from oppression and oppress'd they are as long as they are the weaker Party And therefore we never find this way of Toleration put in practice under any Government but where other Exigences of State required and kept up a standing Army and by this means 't is not so difficult to prevent the Broils and Contentions of Zeal but this is only a more violent way of governing mens Consciences and instead of restraining them by Laws Penalties it does the same thing with Forts and Cittadels So that unless we are willing to put our selves to the expence and hazard of keeping up standing Forces indulgence to dissenting Zealots does but expose the State to the perpetual squabbles and Wars of Religion And we may as well suppose all men to be wise and honest and upon that account cancel all the Laws of Justice and Civil Government as imagine where there are divided Factions in Religion that men will be temperate and peaceable in the enjoyment of their own conceits and not disturb the publick Peace to promote and establish them when 't is so well known from the experience of all Ages that nothing has ever been a more effectual Engine to work popular Commotions than Changes and Reformations in Religion Sect. 6. So that though the State think it self unconcern'd to restrain mens Perswasions and Opinions yet methinks they should be a little concern'd to prevent the Tumults and Disturbances that naturally arise from their propagation And could it be secured That if all men were indulged their liberty they would use it modestly and be satisfied with their own freedom then I confess Toleration of all Opinions would not be of so fatal and dangerous consequence as if all men were as wise and honest as Socrates they might as well as he be their own Law and left entirely to their own Liberty as to all the entercourses and transactions of Humane life But alas this is made infinitely impossible from the corrupt Passions and Humours of Men All Sects ever were and ever will be fierce and unruly to inlarge their own Interests invading or supplanting whatever opposes their increase and will all certainly conspire the Ruine of that Party that prevails and triumphs over the rest every Faction ever apprehending it its due to be Supreme and there will ever be a necessity of Reformation as long as all Factions are not uppermost and it will be crime enough in any one Party to be superiour to another So that if all our dissenting Sectaries were allowed their entire liberty nothing can be expected especially from people of their complexion but that they should all plot together against the present Establishment of the Church every Combination being fully perswaded of its worthlesness in comparison to it self for unless they had apprehended their own way more excellent they had never divided from ours Beside that 't is a fundamental Principle that runs through all their Sects That they are bound under pain of Eternal Damnation to labour their utmost to establish the Worship of God in in its greatest Purity and Perfection and withal

to the Common-wealth but he that is turbulent and passionate is dangerous But then when passion is fired with religious zeal nothing can temper its outragious and Fanatick heats but it works the minds of men into rancour and bitterness and drives them into all manner of savage and inhumane practices Princes have never found any thing so restive and ungovernable as Sectarian Madness no malice so spightful and implacable as the zeal of a Godly Party nor any rage so fierce and merciless as sanctified Barbarism All the ancient Tyranny has in some places been out-done by a thorough-godly Reformation zeal for the Glory of God has often turn'd whole Nations into Shambles fill'd the World with continual Butcheries and Massacres and flesh'd it self with slaughters of Myriads of Mankind And when men think their passions warranted by their Religion how is it possible it should be otherwise For this obliges them by their greatest hopes and fears to act them to the highest and 't is easie to imagine what calm and peaceable things those men must be who think it their duty to enforce and enrage their passions with the obligations of Conscience And yet alas How few are they who have wisdom enough to keep their zeal clean from these sowre and crabbed mixtures The generality of men are scarce sensible of their spiritual wickednesses and 't is observable That in all Ages and all Religions of the world few people have taken notice of them beside their Wise men and Philosophers And even among the Professors of Christianity it self notwithstanding that our Religion has made such special provisions against all Excesses of Passion and establish'd Love Charity Moderation Patience Candor and Ingenuity as its Prime and Fundamental Duties yet the Spirit of meekness and humility soon decayed with its Primitive and Apostolical Professors and within a few Centuries of years the Church was over-run with some Sects of men much of the same temper with some of our Modern Saints So that even in true and innocent perswasions 't is necessary to asswage the distempers and indiscretions of a forward zeal The giddy multitude judge weakly fancy strongly and act passionately and unless restrain'd by wary and sober Laws will drive on so furiously in a good cause till they run their Religion into Folly and Faction and themselves into tumults and riotous proceedings What Socrates once said of Vertue That when it is not conducted by prudence it is but Pedantry and a phantastick thing is much more true of Religion which when it wants the guidance and ornament of this Vertue may be folly or madness or any thing rather than it self In brief Fanaticism is both the greatest and the easiest vice that is incident to Religion 't is a Weed that thrives in all Soils and there is the same Fanatick Spirit that mixes it self with all the Religions in the World And 't is as natural to the Common People as the proud or ignorant or perverse or factious or stubborn or eager or passionate for when ever any of these vices or follies are twisted with mens apprehensions of Religion they naturally work and ferment their minds into a boysterous and tumultuary zeal And yet how infinitely difficult it is to cure the Common Heard of these vices the Experience of all Ages is too great a demonstration so that there is nothing so apparently necessary or difficult as to govern the vulgar Rout in their conceptions of Religion seeing 't is so natural for them both to mix and heigthen yes and sanctifie their passions with their Consciences And from hence it is that though the Fanaticks in all Nations may disagree in the objects and matters of their Superstition according to the different Customs of their Country and variety of their Educations yet as for their tendency to disturbance and Sedition in the State 't is in all places the same to all intents and purposes And those unquiet Sects that have often disturb'd and sometimes subverted whole Kingdoms in Africa if they had hapned to have been born in Europe would have done the same here where though their Religion might have been different yet would their Genius have been the same as rising from the same Conjunction of Conscience and Passion And therefore it cannot but be a wonder to any man that is acquainted with the Experience of former Ages to see Governours after so many warnings so insensible of this mischief and however they may think themselves unconcern'd to restrain the opinions of any dissenting Sect as being perhaps but foolish and inconsiderable in themselves yet nothing can more highly concern them than to provide against their inclinations as being generally of a sad and dangerous consequence to the State And this at present may suffice to evince How much it concerns Authority to look to the particular Principles and Inclinations of every Sect and to prove That the meer Belief of Invisible Powers is so far from being Religion enough to awe men to obedience that unless it be temper'd with a due sense of vertue and managed with special prudence and discretion it rather tends to make the rude multitude more head-strong and ungovernable Sect. 5. Thirdly To permit different Sects of Religion in a Common-wealth is only to keep up so many pretences and occasions for publick Disturbance the Factions of Religion are ever the most seditious and the less material their difference the more implacable their hatred as the Turks think it more acceptable to God to kill one Persian than seventy Christians No hinge so vehemently alienates mens affections as variety of judgment in matters of Religion here they cannot disagree but they must quarrel too and when Religion divides mens minds no other Common Interest can unite them and where zeal dissolves friendship the ties of Nature are not strong enough to reconcile it Every Faction is at open defiance with every Faction they are always in a state and posture of War and engaged in a mortal and irreconcileable hatred against each other When ever men part Communion every Party must of necessity esteem the other impious and Heretical in that they never divide but with pretences that they could not agree without being guilty of some sin or other as Blasphemy or Idolatry or Superstition or Heresie or the like For all agree in this Principle That peace ought always to be preserved where it can without offending God and offering violence to Conscience and therefore they cannot but look upon one another as lying under the Divine Wrath and Displeasure and consequently in a damnable condition and then are both Parties engaged as they love God and the Souls of men to labour one another ruine And when the Party is form'd and men are listed into it by chance and Education the distinguishing Opinion of the Party is to them the most material and fundamental Article of their Belief and so they must account of all that either disowne or deny it as of Heathens Infidels and