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A78063
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A sermon preached on the 30th. of January, 1683/4. Being an anniversary for the martyrdom of King Charles the First. / By John Buttler, B.D.
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Buttler, John.
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1684
(1684)
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Wing B6274A; ESTC R173343
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29,365
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40
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Honours and to scorn Bribery and Flattery and could choose to be Poor rather then Dishonest how much more then shall Christians become Valiant in contempt of the World when Secret Influences of Grace shall inspire our Minds and Spirits with inward Courage and Resolutions Our Duty is therefore to consider the Vertue and Glory as well as the Necessity of the Work in setting our Affections on things above and so put our selves upon the means with all possible Diligence in the Practice and we shall soon find Experience enough of Divine helps giving Encouragement so as no Difficulty shall be able to dishearten 3. But then 3dly We must remember to have a care lest at any time our hearts be over charged with Surfeiting and Drunkenness Cares of this Life and so the day of Danger come upon us unawares Lu. 21. 34 35. For as a Snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the Face of the whole Earth Drunkenness and Whordom and Covetuonsness destroys more Countrys Citys Armies and Men then Plague and Famine and the most Cruel and Bloudy Wars For in all such cases Men have their Eyes in their Heads and as they see their Danger imminent so they exercise their Reason and Wits to prevent it and whether they Live or Die they make the best of their condition But in these cases wise Men do become and that by their own Act Sots and Fools and expose and lay open themselves to be baffled betrayed abased and killed and to become odious to God and Man a Prey to the Enemy and God shall nor pity them nor revenge their wrongs Now the Righteous do also become a Prey unto the Enemy many times by Gods Permission for Tryal of Faith and Patience and other Reasons but then here is their comfort 1st That it is not through their own default nor for want of Eyes or looking about them but meerly for that they were abused and they Suffer for Conscience and Truth and Righteousness 2dly That God will before or after Death be sure 1 Pet. 4. 18. to avenge their Cause But now if the Righteous scarcely be saved but have also their Hell even in this Life where shall the ungodly and the wicked appear Good Men have their Tryals of Affliction for a time and their Hell upon Earth for a while and Evil Men have their time to Glory in their Prosperity As our Saviour says the true Church Men shall Lament and Weep and the Joh. 16. 20. World shall rejoyce in their Surfeiting and Wantonness they have Loved the Creature above the Creator and the Pleasures on Earth beyond the hopes of Heaven and yet these brute Beasts are allowed to be Merry and to have the World at Will and truly careful and good Men must Suffer Tribulation But there is a time when Tribulation shall come upon a Land with an Universal 1 Thes 5. 2 3. Scourge like as a Theif comes in the Night And then when they cry Peace and Safety Lo then sudden Destruction will come on like a Woman in Travel But in that Day says Christ to all who are his their Sorrow shall be turned into joy For says he I will see you again and your heart shall rejoyce so as Joh. 16. 22. Rom. 14. 17. no Man shall be able to take away Joy from you That is holy Men shall be comforted with secret cheerfulness from within in a quite different manner from all pleasures of the Flesh But Worldly Men whose God is their Belly and whose Glory is in their Shame shall be surprized like the five Foolish Virgins who for want Mat. 25. 1 c. of Oyl in their Lamps were shut out when the day came of the Marriage Feast and shall be taken as it were in a Net like â—he Men of Sâ—dom or of the old World at which times Lot and Noab were preserved alone Fleshly Lusts War against the Soul by besotting and bewitching it into a Fond security which tendeth to 1 Pet. 2. 1â— its Ruine To prevent therefore the emminent Danger of Publick Calamities we must shun Surfeiting Wantonness for they expose us into the very gulf of Miseries and prevent us of all means of escape But 4ly We must Watch and Pray always that we may be counted Lu. 21. 36. worthy to escape No Man can escape but by help of God Man cannot help in such a case 't is God only can do it And God helps none unless he have a worth in him and that worth must come by Christ there is nothing in our selves no not in the best of us Here lies the thing therefore we must be found in Christ that is as Men who have put off the ways of the World in Rioting and Drunkenness and Covetuosness and are experienced in the ways of Christ knowing the value of spiritual Joys hid Treasures whose worth the World knows nothing of And in order to compass these we must 1st Watch that is Exercise all possible Care and Diligence in taking heed to abstain from Sin and to increase in Vertue and Godliness take heed of Thoughts that are vain or Evil how they get ground of us of Evil Company lest it seduce us and above all of Evil Works lest they Gain an Habit upon us and to these purposes are we to Watch. And 2dly We must pray always that is use all possibly Godly means of Hearing Meditation Reading Godly Conference above all especially Prayer always in a continual course of Prayer and in frequent Act of Prayer and all to this end that we may be found in Christ and so when the Tribulations come and the Signs come and the Perplexity of all Nations shall come yet that we may be Safe Amen FINIS
time Unusual shapes such as extraordinary big or small or when Crosses or other Signs appear in the Bodys of either Signs in the Stars are when new Stars Comets or unusual Meteors do appear and that of horrible Colours shapes quantity and bigness and do last long or do mischeif Great Conjunctions and Constellations and Crouds of Planets in mutual Opposition or Conjunction or shews in the Heavens of Armies or Monsters c. Signs upon Earth are Monstrous Births Apparitions of Ghosts strange Thunders Hail-Storms Frosts Earthquakes moving of Mountains Trees Houses or Towns prodigious Winds c. Strange Voices heard and not known whence they come Raining of Bloud Wool Wheat Stones or such like Breaking forth of new Wells Rivers and such like Now these things are wont to be aboundantly more plenteous in Pagan Countrys then in Christian because where God teacheth by his word there is the less need of the warning by strange Prodigies And 2ly because where we know to despise Signs and Wonders they pass over the less noted or headed but where Men do most admire Sathan makes shew oftentimes of greater wonders then really they are and counterfeit strange Signs Before the destruction of Jerusalem was seen a Flaming Comet in form of a Sword which hung over Jerusalem a whole Year Armies were seen Fighting in the Air A Voice was heard in the Temple saying Let us go hence The great Gate that Twelve Men were usually aiding to open and shut in the Night time opened of its own accord And what was most of all one Jesus Son of Ananel for four Years together went about the City continually pronouncing Woes against the City Country and Temple and no Whipping or Punishment would make him cease Now never were more greivous Calamities then befel that place at that time And yet we Read of greater and more grievous Signes before the Falling down of the Northern Inundations about the Year of 400 vvhen the Goths Vandals Hunns and such like barbarous People over ran the Roman Empire And far vvorse before the Massacre of Romans in Britain in Neroes Time And the Massacre of Romans by Mithridates and the taking of Rome by the Gaules And yet before the Fearful Massacre at Paris in 72 vve Read of very mean Prodigies boding thereof The truth is there Lurks much of Learning in the Case Prodigies and strange Signs are Significant but they require an Interpretor there is a curiosity in the Signification more then every body knovvs only thus far vve knovv that such things are Direful vvhere-ever the danger Lights and in common Threatnings all Men are to bevvare Now to take a view of the prodigies of our own Age at present depending with their Woes looking in our Faces are first a prodigious Hailstorm in London and Ten Miles round on the 18th of May 1680. The like whereof has not been known of many Ages in Novemb. and December of the same Year followed the prodigious Comet in form of a Spit of great length which coming out of the South appeared for Twelve Months and made abode with us in our Northern Latitude for some Months February 11th 1681. Was a total Eclipse of the Moon Fatal and Bloody in 4° of Virgo August 1682. Was another Comet in the Northern Hemisphere which shone sometime and moved Southwards In October came up the great Conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter which yet Reigns in the Second Decanate of Leo and on December the 5th a fearful Torch appeared double which coming from North-East and South-West met in Mid-Heaven and dashing at each other vanished with a great blaze of Light And lastly on Jan. 17. vvas a visible Eclipse of the Sun in the 8th of Aquarius almost Total in the Western Horison And besides these are talkt of several Visions seen in the Ayr and noyse of Drums beating heard no Man knovvs from vvhence and strange Prophesies of Destruction and much Mischief attending us and great Rumours of Wars every vvhere But the Pulpit is no place to tell strange stories in I shall omit therefore the crovvd of Heresays of Mock Suns and Moons and several Vapours besides relations of nevv Springs and Rivers broken out vvhich never vvere vvont to shevv themselves but against times of extremity And novv vvhat these things signifie belong not unto this place to decide but do rather lead me to give vvarning that in such cases every body do fear the vvorst and the best vvill mend it self That is God sends these vvarnings that vve may repent of our sins and in expectation of danger to stick the closer unto our God in all holiness of Conversation And this the rather because in the next place vve are forevvarned that after these Signs shall follovv Distress of Nations with Perplexity the Sea and the Waves roaring Mens Hearts failing them for fear and for looking after those things which are coming on the Earth Here in this Prophesie have vve first described the thing forevvarned Distress of Nations Intimating that after the Signs aforesaid not all the vvhole World but yet Nations several Nations vvhomsoever it may concern shall be greatly distressed that is they shall suffer great Assaults and shall be much Tottered and Shaken or Overturned and shall have no Supporters or Assisters to preserve from a fall or to raise up being down Or in short They shall have so great troubles that they will not know which way to turn them in order to deliverance 2. Is described the height of this distress that is with Perplexity Intimating that their Calamities shall be like unto a Line intangled and knit into so many knots that it cannot be undone They feeling themselves lock't up and fenced about with abundance of Dangers threatning and yet so puzled with Mischief upon Mischief as if the untying of one knot were the making of three 3. Is set forth the Form and Shape of the Distress as being like the hideous Waves of the Sea Roaring Raging and Threatning and Foming with Salt Froth as if they would Swallow and Devour all before them For as the Sea in rough Water is fearful to behold and dangerous to be trusted such are the dreadful approaching Calamities 4. Is shewed the Effects of this Distress 1. In Mens Hearts which shall fail for fear And 2ly In their Eyes which shall increase the fears of the Heart by seeing and beholding the Miseries as they approach nearer and nearer and the great Mischief which they do The Spirit of a Man saith Solomon will bear its Infirmities Pro 18. 14. but a wounded Spirit who can bear The Heart is the support of a Mans Spirit and so long as the Heart holds up stout and confident it carries him off through many temptations but if a Mans Heart fail him then all his Spirits break and evaporate into meer Air and Emptiness And the Heart failing Man lifts up his Eyes as if they should help him and yet they by seeing and beholding the great Clouds of approaching