Selected quad for the lemma: virtue_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
virtue_n	command_v	forbid_v	vice_n	1,917	5	9.6001	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A81372	Vindiciæ magistratuum. or, a sober plea for subjection to present government. According to the command and special direction of God himself, in his holy scriptures. / By the meanest of the Lord's tenderers of his great honour, and weal of his saints.	C. D.	1658 (1658)	Wing D12; Thomason E2120_1; ESTC R210149	85,481	128

In respect of the benefit we receive by them both in inwards and outwards as was touched before receiving not onely protection peace and quietness but if godly nursed and encouraged in Religion by them as it is promised Isa 49.23 whose Courts have been Innes for the Church to lodge in and themselves principal Presidents of Piety in the same Jos 24.15 Psal 101. Psal 42.4 c. Nay it is recorded of Titus Vespasian a moral heathen Emperor Suetonius Lest some might say we doubt not of Davids and Joshua's That he was generally called Delicias publicas whose death even good men lamented as if they had been deprived of a perpetual Protector Tantus luctus eo mortuo publicus fuit ut omnes tanquam in propria doluerint orbitate Aurelius Also Constantius as Eusebius saith was a Sanctuary to the Christians under him from the violence of their enemies And Pius Constantine another Roman Emperor kept them always in the bosome of his especial esteem and favour To proceed We must needs be subject not onely for wrath but for conscience sake Here the Apostle doth strengthen his Conclusion with two main Arguments The former a metu poenae because of Wrath which signifies that punishment or revenge mentioned v. 4. because it proceeds both from the wrath or anger of God and the Magistrate The second a metu Dei for conscience sake that is lest we hurt our conscience by offending God who sets Rulers over us and commands us to obey them or as Beza hath it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Basil So good Rulers we must obey as God bad for God De metu Dei conscientia praecepti Because God hath ordained Rulers and commanded subjection therefore we cannot with a good conscience despise or resist them Now that it may more clearly appear what subjection is hence concluded in conscience suffer me to express the Argument in form thus Argu ∣ ment He which is Gods Minister commanding and prohibiting praising and punishing for God is to be obeyed for conscience towards God But every higher Power is such Ergo c. Thus the Argument holdeth for conscionable obedience in matters pertaining to God which do not then first become good or evil when the Ruler commandeth or forbiddeth them but are so of their own nature by vertue of Gods commanding or forbidding them And therefore the Authority of Superiours although it cannot reach to the conscience properly they having indeed no power to command or punish conscience yet that which ties conscience to submit unto them is such like Commands as this of God in his Word God and his Law having the power simply and absolutely to bind conscience that is to urge it to require obedience of a man to accuse it if it obey not and to excuse it if it obey Men may make Laws which we are not bound to keep as if they command any thing that is contrary to the Word of God Act. 5. Dan. 3. yet all Gods commands bind yea enjoyn obedience upon the inward man as well as the outward and inflict upon the disobedient eternal punishment as well as temporary and the good Laws of the Magistrate although they bind not by any immediate power of their own yet by fear of Gods Word that injoyns us to obey their lawfull Authority Beza And in regard he is in Gods stead as his Minister he cannot be resisted by any good conscience Chrysostome it being directly against conscience to resist such benefactors as protect the good and punish the evil doer or prick that doth sting the conscience of rebellious persons We must therefore obey for conscience sake or for the maintenance of the peace of a good conscience Pet. Martyr these two enormities like Furies else will torment it viz. the contempt of the good Ordinance of God and our great ingratitude to Rulers to whom for their protection peace and liberty as I have said all mankind are obliged But of this more in its due place Now in the prosecution of this weighty Exhortation as by this time I hope it is to the serious I find Paul himself in his own practice so far justifying this precept as to appear before a Court of Justice no less illegal in regard of the Nation of the Jews then corrupt in respect of the Judges where by the Rhetorical expressions he useth he teacheth to own all Jurisdictions God hath been pleased to endow with an Imperative power Nor can I think Paul would have shewed less compliance or used courser language had his Trial fallen out in the days of Galba Otho or Vitellius the which had no stronger title then the sword estated them in being all strangers to the line of the first Caesars or any adopted by them Again Proof 2. We find the Apostle Peter to this purpose exhorting and confirming the people of God 1 Pet. 2. cap. 13 14 15 16. vers Submit your selves to every Ordinance of man for the Lords sake whether it be to the King as Supreme or unto Governours as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evil doers and for the praise of them that do well For so is the will of God that with well-doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men As free and not using your liberty for a cloak of maliciousness but as the servants of God Give me leave a little also to unfold the pertinency of this most excellent proof for this our duty Our Apostle in the very first word submit implies Obedience Honour to Magistrates bearing the Image of God Soveraignty Reverence by which we are to judge the best of them and their actions not conceiving undue suspicions of them nor receiving evil reports or daring to speak evilly against them but thankfully acknowledging the good we receive under them Loyalty to their persons endeavouring faithfully to preserve them making all manner of supplications for them 1 Tim. 2.1 for the removal of evils from them that if they sin and God be wroth with them we should stand up in the gap and make intercession for them And lastly we should pay them Tribute Rom. 13.7 and subject to their punishment yea and in some sense to their injuries as David did to Saul Christ to Pilate and that City in Phrygia which Eusebius relates Eccl. Hist l. 8. c. 11. was burnt with fire for the sake of Christ and all the souls therein not using the least resistance 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 accipitur pro omnis generis pro ullus pro totus in omnibus atatibus in omni tempore inter omnes c. Crit. sacra Submit your selves i. e. yield obedience of your selves do it uncompelled voluntarily chearfully stay not till you be forced to it Again your selves not your goods but persons also Thirdly your selves that is every one of you believers as well as others 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Every Ordinance of man The word

be brought back again unto their duty and right understanding thereof Whence we daily see that the result of such passionate undertakings fomented as I said by the private censures and whispers of some and enflamed by the rash pens of others hath brought forth no other fruit then the dis-repute of Truth and scandal of Religion To come yet more nearly and plainly I am not ignorant how much and in what way some complain of those evils which we now conceive our burthen how they cry out against the inconveniences thereof and what an Odium they endeavour to cast upon some by whose fault as they conceive we are fallen into them O! say they this is by reason of evil Magistrates and the ill management of Government and so they are censured and aspersed according to the apprehensions of each party O! saith one party if I had had the modelizing of the Government I would have put it in such a method as should have been against all exceptions if I had had the choice of the Magistrate I would have set up such as Christ himself when he comes would have approved of that should have been a nursing Father indeed to the Saints Thus like heedless Flyes some play with the light until they are dazled therewith to their ruine D● Hall Med. 34. an other David c. Say a third The truth is in this time of light and knowledge I see no reason that there should be any set up to Lord it over Gods heritage c. but if any Rulers or Lords it should be over the world who cannot guide themselves By which it is too evident that to please any party had been highly to displease all others and indeed to ruine all and that the way to peace and settlement is a general submission and obedience on all hands And that it is a mercy that as the present Governour was established without us so that he carries it so indifferently without adhering to any party but impartially endeavouring to preserve all in a just freedome and protection for if the Government had been of such a Size then it had been too narrow and too short for the dimensions of such an Opinion and if proportionable to such then too broad and too long for a third and so it would never have fitted the mould of all Judgements the meanest of which would not have wanted both Scripture and Reason too in their conceits that their advice might take the precedency And so for the Magistrate himself who hath therefore found it his wisdome and we our safety that he rather as he was wont to say play the Constable to preserve the peace from the violence and rage of each perswasion which would willingly besides it have no other in the world Furthermore to me truly it seems altogether as irrational as un-Christian to judge of the constitution of Government or worth of the Administrator by some contrary effects But why shall we wonder at this the truth is as one well observed long ago Thucydides It ever was so where affairs succeed not to mens desires and humours though there want neither piety nor providence in the conduction yet with such as judge onely upon the events the way to calumny is always open and Envy in the likeness of Zeal to the publick good easily findeth credit for an accusation Thus as Cicero complained of the exorbitancy of the Romish State Salust in Conjurat Catil too like ours In the censure of the State we still do wander And make the carefull Magistrate the mark of slander What Age is this where honest men plac'd at the Helm A Sea of some foul mouth or pen shall overwhelm And call their diligence deceit their vertue vice Their watchfulness but lying in wait and bloud the price I may adde his Prayer O! let us pluck this evil seed out of our spirits And give to every noble deed the name it merits Lest we seem faln if this endures into those times To love disease and brook the cures worse then the crimes Such detractors are like unto Flyes that ever swarm to the galled part and sit feeding on that worst piece of flesh Or like another sort of them that are always raking in dung until they are coloured by it It is truly an envious self-love and inhumane cruelty that causeth this ill disposition in the mean time this onely they have gained it must needs be a filthy creature that feeds on nothing but corruption and too much like the Devil to seek out still matter for accusation Alas how are ye able to pray Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors when your selves debtors in a large arrear to Powers in your true subjection according to Rom. 13.7 8. cannot forgive your Creditor Neither are you besides a little deceived who think that by blaming others you exempt your selves from the guilt of these calamities However suppose this would make you guiltless yet the complaints of such a kind are no Balsome or mollifying Oyntment to heal these putrifying Sores in any they are like a corrosive Plaister to make them worse in all for this ripping up of matters past or accidentally now happening if true to represent evils suffered on the one side and injuries done on the other is the very method to foment bitterness hatred wrath clamour and evil-speaking which the Apostle Ephes 4.31 commands at all times to be put away from us but should then do chiefly when we are about a way to cure distempers or profess our selves to be able to do it for this way is so far from reclaiming any that it tends rather not onely to dishearten in all good endeavours We are made saith Nazianzene a scorn to wicked men in their Markets their Feasts their Plays in all their meetings The most vile people jeer us and all this for warring and contending one with another Naz. Apologet. Orat. 1. Dr. Richardson in locum but also to increase our divisions by publishing them in Gath with more severity against the person then true desire of reforming the evils raking up old matters of dissatisfaction upon that account which by all true Christians were long ago buried in oblivion The wise man saith He that covereth a transgression seeketh love but he that repeateth a matter or raketh into frailties separateth very friends I shall humbly beg of such to retire a little into themselves you quarrel now my friends 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Proverb Let us begin at home there every wise mans care should first be seen with the surmizes and appearances of faults in the Magistrate and the seeming compliances of such as cannot speak at your rate act as you do nor conscionably follow your steps in the heights of invectives against Authority The motions of Divine Providence are so dark so deep so various that the wisest and best souls among us cannot tell what conclusions to make nor to what appointments to affix