A90272:52
The labouring saints dismission to rest. A sermon / preached at the funeral of…
The labouring saints dismission to rest. A sermon / preached at the funeral of the Right Honourable Henry Ireton Lord Deputy of Ireland: in the Abbey Church at Westminster, the 6th. day of February 1651. By John Owen, minister of the Gospel. Licensed and entered according to order.
London: printed by R. and W· Leybourn for Philemon Stephens, 1652
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Some things are universally unchangeable and indispensable amongst men, supposing them to live answerable to the general principles of their kind: as that a Government must be, without which, every one is the enemy of every one; and all tend to mutual destruction, which are appointed of God for mutual preservation, that in Government some do rule, and some be in subjection, that all rule be for the good of them that are ruled, and the like principles that flow necessarily from the very nature of political society.
Some things are universally unchangeable and indispensable amongst mem, supposing them to live answerable to the generall principles of their kinde: as that a Government must be, without which, every one is the enemy of every one; and all tend to mutuall destruction, which are appointed of God for mutuall preservation, that in Government some do rule, and some be in subjection, that all rule be for the good of them that are ruled, and the like principles that flow necessarily from the very nature of political society.
Some things again are alterable & dispensable, merely upon the account of preserving the former principles, or the like: if any of them are out of course, it is a vacuum in nature politic, for which all particular elements instantly dislodge and transpose themselves to supply, and such are all forms of Government amongst men, which if either they so degenerate of themselves that they become ⟨p. 8⟩directly opposite, or are so shattered by providential Revolutions as to become useless to their proper end, may and ought to be changed, and not upon other accounts: but now for other things in Government, as the particular way, whereby persons shall be designed unto it, the continuance of the same persons in it, for a less or a greater proportion of time, the exercise of more or less power by some sorts, or the whole body of them that are ruled, the uniting of men for some particular ends by bonds & engagements, and the like occasional emergencies, the universal disposal of them is rolled on prudence to act according to present circumstances.