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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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Discourses had more Hearers than they are like to finde Readers so that my present attempt may be rather termed an Edition than a Publication But least of all shall I plead the importunity of Freinds that stale pretence for publishing so many scribles such as being by much importunity brought to the Press need a greater to bring them to perusall But because a sordid complying Spirit has been often charged upon the Vniversity and we must confesse a spice of it has appeared in many amongst us who have fouled as well as disturbed these Fountains I thought good to let our Detractors understand that in the very depth of Sectarian Barbarisme when the professed Enemies of the Church were the only Favourites of the State and the very Pillars of it the Vniversities and Ministers were falling there has been some who durst assert a Truth though to the visible danger of their present Enjoyments and the utter extinction of their future Hopes and for so desperate a service the most inconsiderable person was the fittest whose successe would have equally been an advantage and whose ruin no losse Nor can I deny but that I was desirous to clear my self from the underserved surmises that some whose good esteem I have cause to value have had of me as if the injurious favours of some had not onely courted but wonne me to a servile compliance which I alwaies abhorred But such was my fate that some while they were in Power injured me by Persecution when Declining by their Favour The Vindication also of some things here delivered was no small inducement to a Publication For notwithstanding the forementioned acceptance these Discourses found yet the former was attached by some severe Reprehenders who according to the Canting Dialect of Wallingford house which forty years ago would not have been understood neither will it forty years hence charged it as full of much Wrath and Darknesse but it seemes it was such darknesse as the tyrannizing Egyptians began to feele And I am sure no more Wrath then was deserved and therefore very well bestowed However Providence has encouraged it to see the Light while some of its Reprehenders sit in Darknesse Yet since by Warrant from the Spirit it self we may be Angry and sinne not the sharpnesse of a Reprehension is to be ascribed to the Nature of the thing that merits not to the Temper of him that delivers it And since it has pleased God to unshackle men from Engagements Visitations and the Awe of Vsurpers it is not to be expected that Perjury Blood and Sacriledge can be any longer Gospellized into Acts of Piety or high strains of Evangelicall Perfection because indeed they goe much beyond the Command Yet that Person the late Oppressor of this Nation and the known Father of Enthusiasts in whom those three Perfections eminently concurred and who we confesse is glanced upon in what follows even him I have heard commended as one who notwithstanding those forementioned Infirmities so called I conceive because they were the matter of his dayly Temptations yet as to the main was truly pious and to use his Encomiasts very expression had great Communion with God I suppose in the same sence that the Faithful Innocent and Devout hold Communion with the Devill Wherefore if by Wrath was meant a Free though at that time Dangerous Animadversion upon such Spots of Christianity We own the Charge and readily confesse that the ensuing Discourse was not Calculated for the soothing of Galled Consciences but really intended to Gall them more and professedly designed to reprove Avarice Oppression Pious Fraudes Blasphemies and Perjuries waies not heretofore known of holding Communion with God And as for Personall Reflexions I know none such spoken but made such by being Applyed And if some proceeded to Application before I did and from their Consciousnesse inferred their Concernment the Over-ruling sentence of a Guilty Conscience placing them under the Dint of any of these Reproofs I am not he that either can or would Absolve them For as I have often said either they are not Guilty and so they are not concerned in them or Guilty and so they deserve them But whereas it has been further objected that I proposed many doubts which I left unanswered I am sorry that it was a fault to think so honourably of my Auditory as to esteem it Needlesse But it is not in my power to inform some mens Ignorance nor my desire to gratifie their Humour And whether this Plea proceeds from a tender Conscience or a tender head I am not much concerned but acquiesce fully in this that for the Objections those that were Learned could hear and answer them those that were not could not apprehend them both therefore equally without danger And whereas I do not now at least in the Printing them adde their Solutions I answer that in regard I professe to publish the Sermon I then Preached I should not verify my Word should I by such Additions make it Another Having given an account of my design in the former Discourse and wiped off the Censures that for some time have stuck upon it I shall endeavour to prepare the Reader for a fair understanding of the Second which being Preached before many of the most considerable Members of the House of Commons had an Auditory suitable to its Design For in as much as an Erastian Antiministeriall Spirit has for many years acted most of the Nation who would command the Service without submitting to the Discipline of the Ministers And since Arguments from Piety or Scripture work little upon most of them I thought it the best service that could be done to the Ecclesiasticall Cause to make it appear that even a Politick consideration would perswade that which was commanded upon a Spiritual By shewing how Religion is that alone that holds together the whole frame of Government it being upheld it self by the Encouragement and Honour of the Clergy So that whereas I enforce it chiefly by Arguments drawn from Civill Concernments I would have none offended since my intent is limited here only to this respect it being an Argument ad hominem not the onely One that the the Subject would afford but that which was the most likely to reach the Temper of the Times And if I infer the necessity of Religion and an Honourable Clergy from the Exigence of the Civil Interest I suppose the necessity of it from Gods Command and from the salvation of mens soules is unquestionable Wherefore I shall take the boldnesse to entreat those who shall think it worthy their Reading before they Censure to vouchsafe it at least an attentive perusal in as much as it presents to them some Truths I think not often observed I am sure not usually delivered For my own part I cannot conceive how Religion can stand without a Ministery nor the Ministery without its two Essential Props Iurisdiction and Respect It is the old sly and undermining Plea that Ministers ought only to
passe this over since the world is now so peccant uopn this account that I am afraid Instances would be mistaken for Invectives 3. The Third Cause inducing men to deny Christ in his truths is their apparent danger To confesse Christ is the ready way to be cast out of the Synagogue The Chuch it is a place of Graves as well as of Worship and profession To be resolute in a Good cause is to bring upon our selves the punishments due to a Bad. Truth indeed it is a possession of the highest value and therefore it must needs expose the owner to much danger Christ is sometimes pleased to make the profession of himself costly and a man cannot buy the truth but he must pay down his life and his dearest blood for it Christianity marks a man out for destruction and Christ sometime chalks out such a way to salvation that shall verifie his own saying He that will save his life shall loose it The first ages of the Church had a more abundant experience of this Paul and the rest what they planted by their Preaching they watered with their blood We know their usage was such as Christ foretold he sent them to Wolves and the common course then was Christianos ad Leones For a man to give his name to Christianity in those dayes was to list himself a Martyr to bid farewell not only to the pleasures but also to the hopes of this life Neither was it a single death only that then attended this profession but the Terror and sharpnesse of it redoubled was in the manner and circumstance They had Persecutors whose Invention was as great as their cruelty Wit and malice conspired to find out such tortures such deaths and those of such incredible anguish that only the manner of dying was the Punishment Death it self the deliverance To be a Martyr signifies only to witness the truth of Christ but the witnessing of the truth was then so generally attended with this Event that Martyrdome now signifies not only to witness but to witness by death The word besides its own signification importing their practice And since Christians have been freed from Heathens Christians themselves have turned Persecutors Since Rome from Heathen was turned Christian it has improved its persecution into an Inquisition Now when Christ and truth are upon these termes that men cannot confesse him but upon paine of death the reason of their Apostacy and Deniall is clear men will be Wise and leave Truth and misery to such as love it they are resolved to be Cunning let others run the hazard of being Sincere If they must be good at so high a rate they know they may be Safe at a cheaper Si negare sufficiat quis erit Nocens If to deny Christ will save them the truth shall never make them guilty Let Christ and his flock lye open exposed to all weather of Persecution Foxes will be sure to have holes And if it comes to this that they must either renounce Religion deny and blaspheme Christ or forfeit their lives to the fire or the sword it is but inverting Iobs wives advice Curse God and live 3. We proceed now to the Third thing which is to shew how farre a man may consult his safety c This he may doe Two Wayes 1. By withdrawing his Person Martyrdome is an Heroick act of faith An Atcheivement beyond an Ordinary pitch of it to you saies the Spirit it is given to suffer 1 Phil. 29. It is a peculiar additionall gift it is a distinguishing excellency of degree not an essentiall consequent of its Nature Be ye harmlesse as Doves saies Christ and it is as Naturall to them to take flight upon danger as to be Innocent Let every man throughly consult the temper of his faith and weigh his courage with his feares his Weakness and his Resolutions together and take the measure of both and see which preponderates and if his spirit faints if his heart misgives and melts at the very thoughts of the fire let him flye and secure his own soul and Christs honour Non negat Christum fugiendo qui ideò fugit ne neget He does not deny Christ by flying who therefore flyes that he may not deny him Nay he does not so much decline as rather change his Martyrdome He flies from the Flame but repaires to a Desart to poverty and hunger in a wilderness Whereas if he would dispense with his Conscience deny his Lord or swallow down two or three Contradictory oaths he should neither fear the one nor be forced to the other 2. By concealing his judgement A man sometimes is no more bound to speak than to destroy himself and as Nature abhors this so Religion does not command that In the times of the Primitive Church when the Christians dwelt amongst Heathens it is reported of a certain Mayd how she came from her Fathers house to one of the Tribunals of the Gentiles and declared her self a Christian spit in the Judges face and so provoked him to cause her to be executed But will any say that this was to confesse Christ or dye a Martyr He that uncalled for uncompelled comes and proclaims a Persecuted Truth for which he is sure to dye he onely dyes a Confessour of his own folly and a Sacrifice to his own rashness Martyrdome is stampt such onely by Gods command and hee that ventures upon it without a Call must endure it without a Reward Christ will say who required this at your hands His Gospel does not dictate imprudence No Evangelical Precept justles out that of a lawfull self-preservation He therefore that thus throws himself upon the Sword he runs to Heaven before he is sent for where though perhaps Christ may in mercy receive the Man yet he will be sure to disown the Martyr And thus much concerning those lawfull wayes of securing our selves in time of Persecution not as if these were alwaies lawfull For sometimes a man is bound to confesse Christ openly though hee dyes for it and to conceal a Truth is to deny it But now to shew when it is our duty and when unlawfull to take these courses by some generall rule of a perpetual never-failing truth none ever would yet presume For as Aristotle saies We are not to expect Demonstrations in Ethicks or Politicks nor to build certain rules upon the contingency of humane Actions So in as much as our flying from Persecution our confessing or concealing persecuted Truths vary and change their very nature according to different circumstances of time place and persons we cannot limit their Directions within any one universall Precept You will say then How shall we know when to confess when to conceale a Truth when to wait for when to decline Persecution Indeed the onely way that I think can be prescribed in this case is to be earnest and importunate with God in Prayer for special direction And it is not to be imagined that he who is both
procure respect by their Learning and laborious Vpright life other advantages belong not to them But to answer this besides that late Experience proves that the most Pious and the most Learned have been the most persecuted and contemned it is irrationall to think that men ever yet made their Duty the measure of their Practice And howsoever all ought yet there are but very few who reverence Ministers for those Qualifications but still those that do not must be governed or the Church ruined therefore the Assistance of Secular supports must be taken in Most therefore will confess Church Government Necessary though they deny that Necessity to any determinate kind But since Church Government in Generall sequestred from its severall kinds is a meer Idea I am apt to think that the Determination of it was commanded together with the thing it self And since only Particular not Vniversal Natures fall under Practice in as much as the Apostles did actually Govern the Church it must needs be that it was by a certain determinate kind of Government And then considering the Infallible Apostolick Spirit by which they were acted I conceive their Practice and Example was a Virtual Command especially when the reason and grounds of it continue still the same What that Practice was though there are many not obscure Traces of it in Scripture yet I desire to gather it from the general Practise of the Church successively continued from their times the most rationall Guide where the Scripture is silent and the best Comment where it is Obscure And upon this Rule and Ground I hold it more reasonable to Erre than upon Fanatick Principles to Stumble upon the Truth Having thus shown my intent in these Sermons and also the Rule to the guidance of which I intend to resign my self in whatsoever God shall hereafter call me either to Speak or Act as a Minister I shall venture these Meditations into the World What reception they may find I am ignorant but not sollicitous But sure of all persons Ministers Scholars and especially those of the Vniversities have little cause to censure or reprehend me who have freely ventured the Whole of my Small Advantages from them in asserting them in a day of the blackest danger and rebuke that I trust will ever befall the Church However I value not the taunts the murmurs of any I have learned by bearing to contemn them Frequent Endurance has bred an Apathy But whatsoever men shall Mutter Rail or Declaim against these Writings either out of a dislike of the Subject here Treated of or a personal hatred of my self yet in this I rest satisfied and assured that the Truth here spoken of will stand whatsoever becomes of Him that spoke it Math. 10.33 But whosoever shall deny me before men him will I deny before my Father which is in Heaven AS the great comprehensive Gospel duty is the denyal of Self so the grand Gospel sin that confronts it is the denyal of Christ. These two are both the Commanding and the Dividing Principles of all our Actions For whosoever acts in opposition to one it is alwaies in behalf of the other None ever opposed Christ but it was to gratifie Self None ever renounced the Interest of Self but from a prevailing love to the Interest of Christ. The subject I have here pitched upon may seem improper in these times and in this place where the number of Professors and of men is the same where the Cause and Interest of Christ has been so cryed up and Christs Personall Reign and Kingdome so called for and expected But since it has been still Preached up but Acted down and dealt with as the Eagle in the Fable did with the Oyster carrying it up on high that by letting it fall he might dash it in peices I say since Christ must Reign but his Truths be made to serve I suppose it is but Reason to distinguish between Profession and Pretence and to conclude that mens present crying Haile King and bending the knee to Christ are onely in order to his future Crucifixion For the discovery of the sence of the Words I shall enquire into their occasion From the very beginning of the Chapter wee have Christ consulting the Propagation of the Gospel and in order to it being the onely way that he knew to effect it sending forth a Ministery and giving them a Commission together with Instructions for the Execution of it He would have them fully acquainted with the Nature and Extent of their Office and so he joynes Commission with Instruction by one he conveighs Power by the other Knowledge Supposing I conceive that upon such an Undertaking the more Learned his Ministers were they would prove never the less faithfull And thus having fitted them and stript them of all manner of defence v. 9. He sends them forth amongst Wolves A hard Expedition you will say to go amongst Wolves but yet much harder to convert them into Sheep and no less hard even to discerne some of them possibly being under Sheeps cloathing and so by the advantage of that dress sooner felt than discovered and probably also such as had both the properties of Wolves that is they could whine and howle as well as bite and devoure But that they might not goe altogether naked amongst their Enemies the onely Armour that Christ allows them it is Prudence and Innocence Be ye wise as Serpents but harmlesse as Doves v. 16. Weapons not at all offensive yet most suitable to their Warfare whose greatest Encounters were to be Exhortations and whose only Conquest Escape Innocence it is the best caution and we may unite the expression to be wise as a Serpent is to be harmless as a Dove Innocence it is like polish'd Armour it adorns and it defends In summe he tells them that the opposition they should meet with was the greatest imaginable from the 16. to the 26. v. but in the ensuing verses he promises them an equall proportion of assistance which if it was not Argument of force enough to out-weigh the fore-mentioned discouragements he casts into the Balance the promise of a Reward to such as should Execute and of Punishment to such as should Neglect their Commission The Reward in the former verse Whosoever shall confesse me before men c. the punishment in this But whosoever shall deny c. As if by way of preoccupation he should have said Well here you see your Commission this is your Duty these are your Discouragements never seek for shifts and evasions from worldly afflictions this is your Reward if you perform it this is your Doome if you decline it As for the Explication of the words they are clear and easie and their Originals in the Greek are of single signification without any ambiguity and therefore I shall not trouble you by proposing how they run in this or in that Edition or straining for an interpretation where there is no difficultie or a distinction where there is no
wayes mentioned of confessing or denying Christ but principally in respect of practice and that 1. Because by this he is most honoured or dishonoured 2. Because without this the other two cannot save 3. Because those who are ready enough to confess him both in judgment and profession are for the most part very prone to deny him shamefully in their doings Pass we now to a Second thing to shew What are the Causes inducing men to deny Christ in his truths I shall propose Three 1. The seeming supposed absurdity of many truths Vpon this foundation Heresie allwayes builds The Heathens derided the Christians that still they required and pressed beleif and well they might say they since the Articles of their Religion are so absurd that upon Principles of Science they can never winne assent It is easy to draw it forth and demonstrate how upon this score the cheif Heresies that now are said to trouble the Church doe oppose and deny the most important truths in Divinity As first hear the denyer of the Deity and satisfaction of Christ. What saies he can the same Person be God and man the Creature and the Creator can we ascribe such attributes to the same thing whereof one implyes a Negation and a Contradiction of the other Can he be also Finite and Infinite when to be finite is not to be infinite and to be infinite not to be finite And when we distinguish between the Person and the Nature was not that distinction an invention of the Schooles favoring rather of Metaphysicks then Divinity If we say that he must have bin God because he was to mediate between us and God by the same reason they will reply we should need a Mediator between us and Christ who is equally God equally offended Then for his satisfaction they will demand to whom this satisfaction is paid If to God then God payes a Price to himself and what is it else to require and need no satisfaction then for one to satisfie himself Next comes in the Denyer of the Decrees and free grace of God What saies he shall we exhort admonish and entreat the Saints to beware of falling away finally and at the same time assert that it is impossible for them so to fall what shall we erect two contradictory Wills in God or place two contradictoryes in the same Will and make the Will of his Purpose and Intention run counter to the Will of his Approbation Hear another concerning the Scripture and Justification What saies the Romanist relye in matters of faith upon a private Spirit How doe you know this is the sence of such a Scripture Why by the Spirit But how will you try that Spirit to be of God Why by the scripture this he explodes as a circle and so derides it Then for Justification How are you Justified by an imputed Righteousness Is it yours before it is imputed or not if not as we must say is this to be Justified to have that accounted yours that is not yours Put again did you ever hear of any man made rich or wise by imputation why then Righteous or Just Now these seeming Paradoxes attending Gospell truths cause men of weak and prejudiced intellectualls to deny them and in them Christ being ashamed to owne faith so much as they think to the disparagement of their Reason 2. The Second thing causing men to deny the truths of Christ is their Vnprofitableness And no wonder if here men forsake the truth and assert interest To be Pious is the way to be Poore Truth still gives its followers its own Badge and Livery a despised nakedness It is hard to maintaine the truth but much harder to be maintained by it could it ever yet feed clothe or defend its assernors Did ever any man quench his thirst or satisfie his hunger with a Notion Did ever any one live upon Propositions The Testimony of Brutus concerning vertue is the apprhension of most concerning truth that it is a Name but lives and estates are things and therefore not to be thrown away upon Words That we are neither to worship or cringe to any thing under the Deity is a truth to strict for a Naaman he can be content to worship the true God but then it must be in the house of Rimmon the reason was implyed in his condition he was Captaine of the Host and therefore he thought it reason good to bow to Rimmon rather then endanger his place better Bow then Break. Indeed some times Providence casts things so that truth and interest ly the same way and when it is wrapt up in this covering men can be content to follow it to presse hard after it but it is as we pursue some beasts only for their skins take of the covering and though men obtaine the truth they would lament the losse of that As Iacob wept and mourned over the torn Coat when Ioseph was alive It is incredible to consider how interest outweighes truth If a thing in it self be doubtfull let it make for interest and it shall be raised at least into a Probable and if a truth be certaine and thwart interest it will quickly fetch it down to but a Probability nay if it does not carry with it an impregnable Evidence it will goe near to debase it to a down right falsity How much interest casts the Ballance in cases dubious I could give sundry instances let one suffice And that concerning the unlawfullness of Usury Most of the Learned men in the world successively both Heathen and Christian doe assert the taking of Use to be utterly unlawfull yet the Divines of the Reformed Church beyond the Seas though most severe and rigid in other things doe generally affirme it to be lawfull That the case is doubtfull and may be disputed with plausible arguments on either side we may well grant But what then is the reason that makes these Divines so unanimously concurre in this opinion Indeed I shall not affirme this to be the reason but it may seem so to many that they receive their Salaryes by way of pension in present ready money and so have no other way to improve them so that it may be suspected that the change of their salary would be the strongest argument to change their opinion The truth is Interest is the grand wheele and spring that moves the whole Vniverse Let Christ and truth say what they will if interest will have it gain must be Godliness If Enthusiasme is in request learning must be inconsistent with Grace If pay growes short the Vniversity Maintenance must be too great Rather then Pilate will be counted Cesars enemy he will pronouce Christ innocent one hour and condemne him the next How Christ is made to truckle under the world and how his truths are denyed and shuffled with for profit and pelfe the clearest proof would be by Induction and Example Bus as it is the most clear so here it would be the most unpleasing Wherefore I shall
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