Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	kingdom_n	queen_n	scotland_n	2,692	5	8.5639	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A89586	The song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lambe: opened in a sermon preached to the Honorable House of Commons, at their late solemne day of thanksgiving, Iune 15. 1643. for the discovery of a dangerous, desperate, and bloudy designe, tending to the utter subversion of the Parliament, and of the famous city of London. / By Stephen Marshall, B.D. and Pastor of Finchingfield in Essex. Published by order of that House.	Marshall, Stephen, 1594?-1655.	1643 (1643)	Wing M789; Thomason E56_5; ESTC R16053	30,483	54

greatnesse of his strength we finde him leading them in uncouth wayes which they knew not and wayes which to them seemed unpassable His way hath been in the sea and his pathes in the great waters and his footsteps were not known yet still leading his people like a flock sometimes removing mountains our of their way making them flow down at his presence sometimes skipping over them sometimes his way hath been in the whirl-winde and in the great storm yet always working in such wayes and in such a manner as that first his own people have thought he could intend nothing but their ruin as Ionah did when cast into the Sea and swallowed up by the Whale an unlikely way of deliverance and in such wayes secondly as to the enemy have ever seemed most advantagious to their own purposes and destructive to the Church God suffering them to lay the Plot for their own ruin to dig a pit for their own destruction and making the ways by them intended for the Churches ruin to be the greatest meanes of their deliverance as fully and clearly as Hamans Plot proved the exaltation of the Iews and Mordecai and the ruine and destruction of himself and family a Volume might be filled with instances of this kinde The device of Charles the fifth to disinherit the Duke of Saxony to keep the Landgrave of Hessen in perpetuall imprisonment thereby intending utter ruine to the Protestant party in Germany was the very occasion of the confederacy of Smalcald which almost drove Charles out of Germany and established the Protestant party in the liberty of their religion The Massacre in France in which were destroyed within the space of thirty dayes as the Historian reports it above seventy thousand Protestant souls proved ye know a means within a short space to double and treble if not quadruple their numbers in that Kingdom and procured them publike Edicts and Cautionary Towns for the liberty and security of their Religion which before they had not The cruelty and tyranny of the Spaniards in the Netherlands one of whose Deputies Duke D'Alva boasted that he put to death six and thirty thousand Hugenots and Protestants hath been the greatest meanes to prevent the swelling of his intended Monarchy and increase the freedom and strength of the Protestant party not onely in the five United Provinces but in all these parts of Europe Who that hath read the Scottish Story is ignorant that the Archbishop of St. Andrews cruell burning of Mr. George Wischart conferred much to the Reformation of that whole Kingdom The time would fail me to tell you of the desperate Conspiracies of the Priests and Jesuits in England all the time of Queen Elizabeth of the Powder-treason and their unwearied Machinations in other States and Churches and how constantly the Lord hath turned them all to the advantage of his Church and to bring ruine and destruction upon the contrivers of them And if any of you have not had time or means to observe these things in Story your eyes cannot but see them all fulfilled in Christs late and present dealings with our selves and our brethren of Scotland For them what great things hath the Lord lately done and by what very weak means hardly the fifth part of the Nobility as I have heard appearing for them the greater part openly opposing them scarse one fourth part of the Kingdom owning the Cause how often were they at their wits end when some unexpected door was opened to them And were not all their works wrought for them by the rage cruelty and cunning of their enemies Were not the book of Service and the book of Canons sent and obtruded upon them from England the occasion of their late mercies was not the tyrannie of a few of their Prelats a means to unburden them of their whole Prelacy and when they were as much shut up in straits as the Israelites at the Red-sea and knew not over-night what would become of them the next morning then constantly some absurd desperate Plot or other of their enemies brake out which gave them an out-gate to escape And even so hath God dealt with England his work amongst us is of the very same warp and woof The great mercies which we enjoy the great deliverances we have lately received from what a high hand have they come to what a very dead low ebbe were we brought Our liberty almost swallowed up and turned into slavery our Religion into Popery and Arminianisme and even then God remembred us in our low estate and by what instruments becommeth me not to speak much in your own presence Your selves know how sinfull and all the Kingdom how mean and contemptible in the eyes of your adversaries they looking upon you as Sanballat and his company did upon Nehemiah and his builders and with like scorn uttering the same reproaches What do these feeble Iews will they fortifie themselves will they make an end in a day will they revive the stones out of the heaps of rubbish even that which they build if a fox go up he shall even break down their stone wall And well may you take up the builders complaint Hear O our God for we are despised and yet by such despised broken vessells hath the Lord hitherto delivered us And which is still more wonderfull to the glory of God be it spoken our greatest deliverances have been more promoted by the cunning treachery and violence of the enemy then by the foresight vigilancy and strength of our best friends The Prelates late Canons and Oath purposely contrived for the perpetuating of their Hierarchy and their other treacherous and malicious endeavours against the State joyning with the Papists and with them labouring to turn all into confusion rather then suffering the least abatement of their former pride and tyranny have helped thus farre towards the taking them away both root and branch The multitudes of calumnies and reproaches cast upon the Parliaments just proceedings slighting their Authority slandering their intentions misinterpreting their actions have they not through the goodnesse of Him who preserveth them from the strife of tongi been an occasion of making their Authority Priviledges intentions actions clear as the Sun at noon day And to instance no further this late bloudy and mischievous Design in which this Honorable Senate this famous Citie and with them our lives religion laws and liberties had undoubtedly been made a prey to their mercilesse rage and fury the Lord hath not onely brought to light without any foresight or watchfulnesse of yours but made those that were the contrivers to be the discoverers their own evidence and confession being the thread which lets you into the depths and labyrinths of those counsels which they had digged deep to hide if possible even from the eyes of God himself and thereby giving you a great opportunity the Lord in mercy teach you to improve it to advance the glory of his Name for

I may say of the things they are so takē with as Christ to the Disciples who were so affected with the stones goodly building of the Temple Are these the things ye wonder at I tell you there shall not be left here one stone upon another So these riches these buildings this power and authority this great man in his countrey these things I say by too much regarding whereof many lose their soules what shall they all be ere long Heaven and earth shall be on fire and what shall these things be then and I may further say of the men who admire these things that they are greater vanities then the things they wonder at Who having immortall soules fit to be partakers of the divine nature understandings capable of the knowledge of God meditations worthy only of God should yet thus basely prostitute and abase themselves to advance a thing of nothing whereas on the contrary a holy heart is so taken with Christ and his wayes that all other things appear to them to be but toyes and folly as men got up on high neer the Heavens behold the earth but as a little spot Augustine observed this difference in himselfe that so long as he was a stranger from the wayes of holinesse he thought the study of the Scriptures to be a dull businesse infinitely preferring Tully before the Bible but after his conversion he took no pleasure in that Author where he found not the Name of Iesus Oh therefore that you would poure out your hearts in the study of these things that the wonderfull way of Christ's governing in his Church might take up not the least part of your thoughts How he hath kept this bush burning and yet not consumed how strange it was that a few Fishermen should by preaching and suffering like some conquering Alexander subdue the Nations Think of his strange course permitting an Antichrist to Lord it above a thousand years in the world so as to subdue the world wholly to his yoake suffering the Kings to give up their Crowns Scepters to him prostituting their power at his feet and when Satan thought himselfe so strong as to continue the Church in this condition for ever that then a silly Monke should set himself against the world and in a short time rescue a great part of it frō under his yoak Another time come neerer into England think what he did by King Edward a Child by Queen Elizabeth a Woman the great deliverances from the Spanish Armado from the hellish Powder-treason come neerer yet and behold the wonders of these two or three last years in England and Scotland ponder them seriously they are the Lords doings and ought to be wonderfull in your eyes Think yet further how wonderfull he will be when he comes to be admired in his Saints at the last day feed your hearts and raise them sometimes with some of these thoughts sometimes with others untill they burne within you Oh but we cannot meditate we love indeed to reade these things and delight to heare them but we cannot meditate on them Say not so lest you prove your selves persons without grace Psalme 78. it is made the note of a wretch and of one whose dayes God will consume in sorrow to forget the works of God and of a brutish person Psal. 92. not to consider them and if you cannot finde a heart to wonder at Him and his wayes as an occasion of praise take heed he shew not himselfe wonderfull in your confusion Wherfore have we our reason and tongues but to observe and speak of these things think we to live with the Saints and glorify Christ in Heaven and not have dispositions fram'd to give him all the glory we can while we live here on earth which we cannot doe if we observe not these things I know that there is a dulnesse and auknesse in the spirits of the best yet godly hearts will endeavour to overcome it He that is wise will ponder these things will fet his heart to taske in these studies and that not as to an unpleasing drudgery but as to an employment Divine and Angelicall most pleasing and delightfull My meditation of Him shall be sweet And for your better quickning to this duty consider First that this is the only way to make us Heavenly and spirituall by feeding on such matters of wonderment The object about which we are conversant gives a tincture to our spirit naturally such as our spirits are such are our studies pueri crepundia gestant children play with rattles and morally our spirits are moulded into the studies we are accustomed to Secondly this will make us ever fit for Gods service This our Lord will be served with reverence and feare and what begets that but a knowledge of out distance upon the consideration of His greatnesse from his wonderfull workes all base and low conceits will then vanish all society and communion among men is maintain'd by a knowledge of inequality when we see more eminency in men for their gifts and graces and places it strikes a reverence and strengthens the bands of love and respect much more strongly doth the serious and deep beholding of the unparallel'd perfections and excellencies of God shining in his wonderfull works captivate the soule and lay it low before him but of this more in the second use Thirdly this is the way to make us profit and grow up in grace when God sees us humble admirers of his greatnesse and diligent searchers into his goodnesse he will reveale himselfe yet more and more to us as Christ said to Nathaniel Because I said this unto thee beleevest thou thou shalt see greater things then these or the Lord to the Prophet I will shew thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not Fourthly as a further motive and help be thoroughly acquainted with thine own condition really sensible of thine own vilenesse wants and basenesse of all kindes take the dimensions of thy corruptions the height length and depth of them consider that thou art in thy self a vassall of Satan a vessel of wrath dead in nature and disposition to good dead in Sin posting to eternall destruction and then every thing of Christ thy Saviour will be wonderful unto thee Fifthly and lastly consider thy relations to Christ He is thy head thy King thy Lord thy Husband thy brother withall thy interest in all his works they are all done for thee thou hast a part in every deliverance they are thy enemies that fall upon the pouring out of every viall a share in every mercy and our interest in any thing sets it off the better to our affections makes us with unwearied diligence to search out whatsoever is scibile in it much more should it here where the more we shall study the more we shall wonder and the more we wonder the more shall we honour God and better our selves the more we

be cleared out of the fourth Chapter of this Book which is the Stage of all the Apocalypticall visions Secondly we have the things themselves or the marvellous signes which were seen in this place and they are three First The behaviour of the true Church of Christ during this time of the pouring out of the vialls ver. 2 3 4. Secondly The description of the seven Angels the instruments who were to pour out these vialls their apparatus qualifications and furniture they come out of the temple clothed in pure and white linnen and having their breasts girded with golden girdles Habitu cluctu sacerdotali ornati like the Priests of God Ezek. 44. 17 18. pure worshippers Thirdly A description of the Church in reference to Christs presence with it his owning and protecting it though after a more dark manner vers. 8. The Temple was filled with smoak from the glory of God and from his power c. alluding to Gods taking possession of the Tabernacle Exod. 40. 34. and of Solomons Temple 1 King 8. 10 11. The first of these I am to deal with at this time viz. The behaviour of the Church during the time of the pouring out the vialls Wherein observe two things first their state verse 2. secondly their work verse 3 4. Their state I saw as it were a sea of glasse mingled with fire and them that had gotten the victory over the Beast c. stand on the sea of glasse having the harps of God This sea of glasse or crystall is described Chap. 4. 6. placed before the Throne alluding to the great Laver or Sea in Solomons Temple wherein the Priests were to wash themselves from their uncleannesses whenever they approached nigh to the Altar of God to offer sacrifice onely that was made of brasse this of a more pure and transparent metall In this Laver the Reformed Churches had lately been washed from the foulnesse and pollutions of Antichristianity out of which they had newly escaped having gotten the victory over the Beast and over his Image and over his Mark and over the number of his Name and being cleansed in this Laver though mingled with fire whether of contention or other affliction I dispute not they stand up on the brim of it with the harps of God in their hands with instruments of praise as the Israelites did upon the banks of the Red-sea thorow which they had lately passed and in it been baptized unto God singing a song of praise for their great deliverance from Pharaoh and his Hoast who perished in the pursuing of them This was their condition and their posture a delivered cleansed condition a praisefull posture Secondly their work during the time of the pouring out the vialls they sang an {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} a triumphant song Canticum gratulatorium eucharisticum a song of praise and thanksgiving wherein observe two things first the Title of the Song The Song of Moses the servant of God and the song of the Lamb Secondly the subject matter of the Song Great and marvellous are thy works Lord God Almighty c. The title First the song of Moses the servant of God i. e. such a Song and upon such an occasion as Moses and Miriam and the rest of the Israelites sang unto God when they had passed through the Red sea 2ly and the song of the Lamb we have many songs of the Lamb recorded in this Booke cap. 4. 11. Thou art worthy O Lord to receive glory and honour and power c. is the constant song of the whole Church of Christ cap. 5. 9. the same quire sings a new song to the Lamb when hee had taken the booke to unloose the Seales thereof cap. 11. 17. the same Church sings another song of prayse upon the resurrection of the two witnesses and the fall of the tenth part of the great City We give thee thankes O Lord God Almighty c. cap. 12. 10. upon Michaels victorie over the dragon there is another Song of praise Now is come salvation and the Kingdome of our God and the power of his Christ c. cap. 14. 3. there's a New Song sung before the throne which no man could learne but the hundred forty and foure thousand which were redeemed from the earth Now whether this Song of the Lamb be the Song which those harpers sang or whether and how farre it is composed out of the rest of the songs recorded in this Book is needlesse as some Interpreters doe to enquire because we have the matter of the Song layed downe in so many words it is sufficient that it 's therefore called the Song of the Lamb because it was indited by the Spirit of the Lamb and tends to advance the glory of the Lamb their Saviour and Deliverer 2. The matter of the Song which divides in selfe into two parts 1. The Churches confession of the nature of those workes which Christ doth in the pouring out the seven vialls ver. 3. viz. Great and marvellous are thy workes Lord God Almighty just and true are thy ways thou King of Saints i. e. They are great and wonderfull fit onely to bee done by him who is the Lord God Almghty just and true well becomming him who is the King of Saints 2. The use which the Church makes of these works which is threefold 1. They record celebrate and publish them 2. They engage and binde themselves faster and closer to him in his worship and service Who shall not feare thee O Lord and glorify thy Name for thou onely art holy 3. They prophetically foretell the use which shall be made of these workes by such as yet were strangers viz. As Christ proceedes to manifest these wonderfull and righteous plagues and judgments upon the Antichristian world the people of Italy Germany France England Scotland Denmarke Sweden Polonia Hungaria and the rest of the elect shall shake off the Yoke of Antichrist and submit to the Scepter of Iesus Christ for all Nations shall come and worship before thee for thy judgments are made manifest Thus you have a plaine view of the Text together with the interpretation out of which many excellent and usefull truths might be observed As first that all which is done in the pouring out of the seven vialls is the wrath of God upon the Antichristian faction so that however in the pouring out of every viall there is something which is grievous to the reformed Churches to humble purge and quicken them yet there is no wrath upon anywhere ever it is poured but onely as there is something of Antichrist among them which Christ will search for find and destroy where-ever he finds it Consider the whole work of the vialls and you shall finde noysome and grievous sores upon them onely that have the mark of the Beast the drinking of bloud the scorching with heat the gnawing of their tongues for paine the being destroyed with hailstones c. All these light

The particular instances are too many to be related in a Sermon I shall mention onely some few things which as so many continued threads have run through this whole peece of his workmanship first in the greatnesse and wonderfulnesse secondly in the truth and righteousnesse of them First these works have been great and wonderfull for the kinde When the Antichristian Empire which at first was contrived with that wisedome and underpropped with that strength ruling even the souls and consciences of men and had prevailed so farre that all the Kings and States of the World were so drunken with the Whores Cup that they not onely kissed her well-favoured face but as so many brute beasts lay at her foot-stooll prostituting all their power and strength unto the Beast and under her command making warre even against the Lamb himself and helping to drink the bloud of his Saints none daring to question the truth or rather divinity of her Commands so that she could glorifie her self and say in her heart I sit as a Queen and shall see no sorrow now that suddenly it should be put into the hearts of most of the Europaean States to hate this Whore to endeavour to make her desolate and naked to eat her flesh and burn her with fire how great and marvellous doth this speak the work for the kinde of it Who but the Lord God Almighty could do this It is certainly the Lords doing and must be marvellous in our eyes Secondly if we consider the time which our Lord Christ was pleased to make choyce of for the effecting these great works they will appear yet more wonderfull even when his Church was at the lowest when he saw that their power was gone and there was none shut up or left when the enemy was come in like a flood and no man to lift up a standard against him when he saw that there was no helper even then put he on righteousnesse as a breast-plate and an helmet of salvation upon his head and the garments of vengeance for his cloathing Who can be ignorant of these things who knows not the low condition of Germany when Luther first appeared though onely against the notorious abuse of the Popes Indulgences and other luxuriant branches of his Tyrannicall usurpation insomuch that a Bishop wishing him well yet despairing of successe counselled him as the Story reports after this manner Frater frater abi in Cellam dic Miserere mei Deus To thy beads Frier thou wilt do no good in this work For the people of Germany were at that time so bewitched with the sorceries of the Whore and so enthralled to her power that as that proud Cardinall too confidently boasted they were ready at the Popes command for the redemption of their souls to have eaten grasse and hay more pecudum after the manner of brute Beasts And was not the Church in other Countries as low namely at the first appearing of Zuinglins and Oecolampadius in Helvetia of Calvin Viret and Farell in France Cranmer Latimer Ridley especially Bilney and Tyndall in England Hamilton Wischart Knox and others in Scotland at that time when in a word the whole Church might have taken up that complaint Ezek. 37. 11. Our bones are dried our hope is lost we are cut off for our parts then did our Lord Christ open their graves and cause them to come up out of their graves and made them live and stand up upon their feet an exceeding great army this also must needs be acknowledged to be the work of the Lord God Almighty who is wonderfull in counsell and excellent in working And as the kinde and time so thirdly the consideration of the meanes and instruments renders them yet more wonderfull to effect great things by weak meanes is an argument of great power and strength That the walls of Iericho should fall at the blast of trumpets of rams horns that a Cake of barley bread tumbling into the hoast of Midian should come unto a tent and smite it and overturn it that the tent should lie along that Gideon and three hundred men with lamps and empty pitchers should overthrow the whole hoast of Midian who came as grashoppers for multitude they and their Camels being without number that a woman should compasse a man a weak woman subdue a mighty man these are New things as the phrase there is Behold the Lord hath created a new thing in the earth a woman shall compasse a man c. And yet this you shall see was no new but Gods usuall and constant course which he takes in this work pouring out these Vialls of his wrath upon this potent enemy by the ministery of most weak and contemptible instruments pulling his Church out of the dungeon of Superstition by old cast clouts and rotten rags as once Ebedmelech the Ethiopian did the Prophet Ieremie Was not Luther a poor Monk and other priests and shavelins newly crept out of their superstitious Cells the first Engineers that battered the walls of this great Babylon who were they but the poorer meaner sort of people that at the first joyned with the Ministers to raise the building of Reformation few of the Princes and Nobles putting their necks to the work of the Lord or if any did yet the Divine Providence so ordered it that either they were suddenly taken off as the Duke of Saxony and Landgrave of Hessen by imprisonment or immaturely taken away as Edward the sixth by death or more miraculously preserved as Queen Elizabeth a woman in England and King Iames a childe in the beginning of Reformation in Scotland and although in the progresse of the work many Kings and Princes have stood up as nursing Fathers yet still we may observe that the greatest things have been done by them from whom least could be expected as not to trouble you with more instances the almost incredible and strange proceedings of the late victorious King of Sweden will abundantly testifie who as a contemptible Prince crossing the Baltick-sea entred Germany with not above five or six thousand men and a very small sum of Mony and yet in as little time had before his death almost brought to nothing that mighty House of Austria thought by many to be the Sun giving light and influence to the Antichristian world upon which the fourth Viall was to be poured out I might I say give you many other instances this may suffice God will you may be confident in time make all the world know that this great Image this great Antichristian Oppressour shall be broken in pieces by a Stone cut out of the Mountains without hands without humane help Fourthly and lastly and above all the manner of his working proves them most wonderfull For if we observe but the goings of this King of Saints if we trace him in his footsteps in this great work of execution upon his enemies marching before his people travelling in the