Selected quad for the lemma: duty_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
duty_n	day_n	great_a	lord_n	3,227	5	3.8203	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30250	Another sermon preached to the Honorable House of Commons now assembled in Parliament, November the fifth, 1641 by Cornelius Burges, D.D. ; wherein, among other things, are shewed a list of some of the popish traytors in England.	Burges, Cornelius, 1589?-1665.	1641 (1641)	Wing B5668; ESTC R21418	55,204	69

by powder At Holbeach in Worcestershire wherewith they intended the destruction of so many And afterwards Catesby and Piercy the principals in that wickednesse were shot to death by one shot of a Musket and thereby found Gods own hand taking revenge by powder before the justice of man could seize upon them And not onely so but even Faux the appointed Executioner and Garnet the Arch-Devil to blesse their plot confessed to the praise of God as well as the rest at their execution the outragious wickednesse and odiousnesse of that hellish designe Nay further God raised up an everlasting * An Act for keeping of this Day for ever Pillar of Thankesgiving from that very Parliament which should have been blown up and produced effects quite contrary to those which the Traytors intended in preserving not onely the Persons but the Laws which they meant to destroy and in causing moe Lawes to be made against them who so wickedly provoked the Clemencie of the Prince and abused the lenitie and mercie they formerly enjoyed but in providing more carefully ever since for our preservation I need not tell you that the rest of the rage is happily restrained Your eyes behold it and we all sit under the blessing of it unto this day Onely take notice that God did it not by ordinary meanes Not by abating th●ir rage for Faux God restrained the rest not in an ordinary after his apprehension repented nothing more then his not giving the blow yea the whole crew afterwards brake forth into open Rebellion till some of them were slain and the rest taken in the height of their rage Not by diverting them for they received not the least interruption till all was ready for execution Not by taking off any of their Instruments for not a man of them was toucht by death sicknesse or arrest till after the very trains were laid to the powder and all prepared for the firing of it Not by arming the creatures against them for no creature once troubled them till they were found out almost too late to be Troublers of Israel Not by smiting them with Panick fears for they were never so high floan before the discovery with confidence of successe nor more desperately fearlesse after they knew that all was discovered Nor yet by setting them one against another for like Simeon and Levi they held too fast together 2. Use of the second Point even unto death but in an extraordinary manner But the Lord did it himselfe causing one of them who had taken three Oaths to conceale it and kept touch with his tongue by a writing to reveile it verifying that of the Wisest King that a Eccl. 10.20 that which hath wings shall tell the matter and affecting the King with a spirit of jealousie who ordinarily offended rather on the other hand and leading him to an interpretation of the Letter quite contrary to the common sense And not onely so but by sharpning the edg of all mens spirits against the Traitors See the Discourse of the Powder Treason in King James his Works in the Countries where they wandred to kill some of them and to apprehend the rest even before any Proclamation could overtake them and before the people who seised on them knew any thing of this particular Treason Thus He that sitteth in the Heavens laught them their rage and Counsels to scorne compelling them at length to acknowledge the finger of God in their Discovery and his arme in their most deserved Destruction O wonderfull Providence O admirable Justice upon them and Goodnes to his People 2. Use of the second Point Incitation to thankfulnes 2. How should this put all our hearts into a flame of the highest Thanksgiving to Him who hath done for us such wonderfull things When their Rage had concluded that We and all Posterity should for ever wallow in ashes b Nah. 2.7 taber upon our breasts and howle like Dragons for that irreparable Desolation the God of our Mercies hath prevented them broken the snare given us an escape and hurl'd them out of the Land of the Living as out of the midst of a Sling Therefore rejoyce in the Lord and againe I say rejoyce Rouse up your spirits call up your hearts and let all that is within you blesse his holy Name I hope I shall not need to set before you the Institution of a thankefull man nor to spend time in directing how to give thankes On Septem 7. 1641. that Work being excellently performed at your late Publique Thanksgiving Rather let me bestow a few words to incite you to the Duty because I finde every where more and more backwardnesse to it and coldnesse in it For however at first the meltings of most mens spirits were extraordinary their affections being soone upon the wing The necessitie of such an Incitation when the first newse of the Deliverance out-ran the report of the Danger Yet by Degrees men have so farre cooled that not onely too many of the ordinary sort doe wholly neglect this Day but not none of the Clergy also who have sometimes for their hyre declaimed vehemently against that Treason in the Pulpit begin in ordinary discourse to jeere this solemnitie of such a Deliverance and in derision to name it Saint Gunpowders Day Papists perswade their Novices that there was never any such thing Yea some once ours have arrived at so much giddinesse as to pronounce the keeping of this Day to be Will-worship and the religious enjoyning of it even by Parliament to be a trenching on the Libertie left us by Christ as if the binding of our selves as Gods people of old in their feast of c Esth. 9.27 Purim did to give publique thanks for an extraordinary Mercy were a violation of true Christian Libertie O shamefull Ingratitude O Impudent Ignorance And how carelesse the greater part of the better sort are become in observing this Day is a subject more fit for my teares than my tongue even in this Honorable Assembly Wherefore the better to quicken You to restore this Day to its former splender Motives to the Duty that the Great Work of the Lord done herein may be for ever more honorable and glorious Let Me present You with a few Incentives 1. Remember that 1. None but God could doe it none but the Almighty himselfe could possibly have wrought such a Deliverance for us d Psal 124.3 4. If it had not been the Lord who was on our side when men rose up against us they had swallowed us up quick when their wrath was kindled against us Let this first settle upon our spirits that e Psal 118.23 24. this was the Lords doing and then it will soone be marveilous in our eyes so as Wee cannot but rejoyce and be glad in it 2. Think seriously what manner of persons wee were 2. He did it for people altogether unworthy of any mercy for whom he did

all this Are we not a sinfull unthankfull stubborne People as ever tasted of mercy a seed of evill Doers that call God t Ier. 3.4.5 Father and yet doe as evill things as we can And yet for all this God hath opened his hand wider than ever we opened our mouths and crowned all our yeares and dayes with such loving kindnesse and mercy as never any Nation under Heaven received greater or enjoyed longer If therefore David upon the bare promise of a mercy could not but sit downe before the Lord as one in an Extasie crying out Who am I O Lord and what is my Fathers House that thou hast brought me hitherto How much more would our spirits be lifted up beyond all expression to glorifie his Great Name for so great a mercy actually conferred when we consider who and what we are that doe receive it 3. The deliverance is extraordinary 3. Look upon the Deliverance it selfe as extraordinary All the g Psal 111.2 Works of the Lord are great yet some greater than others But this is no lesse than the raysing up of a whole Kingdome from the dead For as h Heb. 11.17 Abraham is said to have received his Isaac from death in a figure when Isaac had been bound on the wood and the hand of his owne Father stretched out to kill him so wee in this Deliverance received our King Queen and Prince that then were our King that now is our Parliament Lawes Liberties Lives and Religion it selfe from the dead in a figure when all these were so neere to destruction that there was scarce a step between them and death and such a step as had been easily made had not the Lord to whom belong the issues from death stept in to prevent it 4. And altogether unexspected 4. Take this with you too that this great Deliverance was a mercy altogether unexspected For who apprehended any danger The work was so strange as wee could hardly credit when we saw it done It was with us as with Zion * Psal 126.1 When the Lord turned her Captivitie by Cyrus the Persian Wee were like men that dreame we could scarce trust our owne eyes to behold it or our tongues to proclaime it Men gazed on each other as people amazed And when the thing was found to be so indeed oh how our hearts glowed our affections fired our hayre stood upright our eyes sparkled our joynts trembled our spirits even failed with us to behold the wonder And then oh what might not God at that time have had from us Let him therefore not goe away now with lesse seeing his Mercy even that Mercy endures for ever to our benefit and comfort 5. Behold the Love of God in it 5. And all this as a fruit of his Love makes all to be yet more precious to a thankfull spirit i Isay 43.4 I have Loved thee therefore will I give men for thee and people for thy life saith the Lord. If men yea if a whole Nation conspire against thy life he will redeem thee from that danger with the price of all theirs Hence it is even from his Love that he no sooner espies any enemies out against us but he armes presently as against enemies to himselfe and not onely Layes them at his own feet but even at k 2 Sam 22.41 Rom. 16.20 ours and gives us to wash our feet in the bloud of the wicked 6. Consider God hath gotten him honour 6. God hath gotten him praise from the wicked that sought our destruction and raysed himselfe a praise out of the very rage of those who sought our destruction and shall he not have it from those who enjoy this miraculous Preservation Shall he have it from his enemies and goe without it from his Servants and Friends The Lord forbid But oh farre and for ever farre be such neglect from every of You who being the Chariots of Israel and the Horsemen thereof ought of all others to triumph in his praise for these works of his hands It was a foule Blot to the Elders of Judah that after David was freed of the Rebellion of Absolom they who were * 2 Sam. 19.11 12. his brethren his bones and his flesh should be last in bringing back the King to his House But much greater would the staine and the sinne be in You the Elders of our Jsrael unto whom the Lord himselfe upon the same grounds that he hath elsewhere said l Psal 82.6 Yee are Gods now saith Yee are my brethren yee are my bones and my flesh should have cause to adde Wherefore then are yee the Last to bring the King back Why are You so backward to restore unto Him all that honour that so many Absoloms and sonnes of Rebellion have taken from Him Well If you be not first nay if You outstrip not all others in the Duty of Praise for so great a Deliverance from the rage of man 3. Observation You must exspect no lesse Wrath to break out from the Lord upon your selves and the Kingdome than befell Hezekiah and all Judah for m 2 Chro. 32.25 not rendring to the Lord according to a farre lesse benefit done unto him There be divers other excellent Vses of this comfortable Doctrine but I must lay them all by for haste to the Last Point which is this The third Observation The Experience of Gods over-ruling and mastering the rage of man in times past is an undoubted assurance of the like for all to come This Point so clearely grounded on the Text which speaks of future Deliverances built upon former mercies and so strongly bound downe with a confident asseveration in the front that surely it shall be even so I shall passe over with a light foot Nothing more common in Scripture than to conclude what God will ever doe from what once he hath done David even in his youth could be confident of this n 1 Sam. 17.37 The Lord that delivered me out of the paw of the Lyon and out of the paw of the Beare he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine And afterwards when that unnaturall Rebellion of Absolom brake out so violently as made Hierusalem too hot for David 2 Sam. 15. causing him to flee whither he could by the way of the Wildernes yet even then after God upon his prayer had spoken comfort to him from experience of former deliverances David growes so secure that he that before durst not stay in his owne house for danger professeth now to o Psal 3.4 lie downe and sleep where he hath not an house wherein to put his head and he that durst not tarry in Jerusalem with all the power he could rayse against his sonne now professeth in a wild howling desolate Wildernes p Vers 5. I will not be afraid of ten thousands of people that have set themselves against mee round about Thus let God doe but any thing