Selected quad for the lemma: justice_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A43857
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A sermon preached in the parish church of Newbury, Berks, on the 26th of July, 1685 being the day of Thanksgiving for His Majesty's late victory over the rebels / by John Hinton.
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Hinton, John, d. 1720.
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1685
(1685)
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Wing H2068; ESTC R13017
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19,821
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38
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regular Clergy they that kept to the Laws and observed the Canons of the Church they were all with David their Hearts were with him their Prayers were for him they wisht well to his Person they wisht well to his Cause they were sorry for his Troubles and added Tears to their Prayers the best Weapons they were able or had any Commission to use against the Rebels And all Loyal good men joyned with 'em in their Lamentations All the Country wept with a loud voice Chap. 15.23 All the considerable all the honest part of City and Country bewail'd and lamented the Rebellion All which considerations together with many more of the like nature that might be urged not only argue the guilt but demonstrate the impudence of the thing so much beyond dispute that whoever has any sense either of honesty or shame cannot but abominate the very thoughts of an Action they had the Forehead to act so extremely scandalous so scandalously vile For if thus to trample upon Majesty to fight against Heaven and revile the Gods if to fight for a Kingdom without a Title to a Crown to raise a Rebellion against a Lawful a Valiant a Just a Good King against the Laws of God against the Laws of the Realm against the Laws of Gratitude contrary to the Doctrine to the Practice of the Church to their own Promises and Oaths and to the Sentiments of all good Men if this be not the very height of impudence we may in due time learn modesty from Lucifer and acquit the old Rebel of Presumption But Thirdly As the Rebellion was extremely impudent in it self so 't was extremely fatal and mischievous and had it succeeded must have been much more so in its effects 'T is indeed hard to recount the miseries and calamities of any intestine and unnatural Rebellion whether it succeed or no. The mischiefs that naturally ensue are always great and always dreadful not only to the Rebels but to the King to the People to the Church to Religion in general that ought to be dearer to us all than Liberty or Property or Life And as for the Rebellion in my Text could I give you a prospect of a Country wasted and harrassed by the Violence of Blood-thirsty and Deceitful Men or set before you the Outrages the Rapes the Plunders the Frights usually committed and caused by military insolence could I represent to you with the confused noise of War the horror and sadness of Men wallowing and Garments rowled in Blood could I draw you the dismal scene of a Land defiled and covered or of Fields and Houses filled with Murther Rapine Villainy and Lust could I delineate the misery or Express the cries of Widows and Orphans made so by the Sword or compute the number of Families utterly ruined according to their Tribes could I describe the troubles of a Persecuted King or the sorrows of Afflicted Innocence could I set before you the Grief of the Church or exhibite the Joy and Triumph of the Enemies of God upon this occasion yet after all I could give you but a rude and imperfect draught of that abomination of desolation that this Rebellion caused in Judea The Truth is the Miseries of a Civil War are more than can be imagined by any but those that feel 'em and too great to be expressed by those that do And therefore we only read that David Wept as he went and had his Head cover'd and went barefoot in Token of a Profound and Inexpressible Sorrow and all the People that were with him covered every Man his Head and they went up by the Ascent of the Mount Olivet Weeping as they went Chap. 15.30 Weeping to think of the Miseries that were come upon 'em to think of the Calamity the Trouble they were involved in Their Calamity was Great tho' the Rebellion did not succeed But had This succeeded That had been infinitly greater It must have ended in the utter Ruin of David and all his Adherents in the total Subversion of the Government in the fatal Overthrow of the Church It must have entail'd Anarchy and Confusion upon the Land have entail'd another and perhaps a perpetual War upon the Nation For tho' they had destroyed David they could not destroy the King The King could not Die And to be sure the next Heir would have asserted his Right to the Crown And if they had took off him too the Kingdom could not want Heirs or if it had the Rebels would never have agreed long who should be uppermost They would still have been pulling down One and setting up Another till they had not known whom or what to have set up For tho' it be easy to destroy a well Establish'd Government 't is not so easy when that 's done to Establish another that shall give either others or themselves Content And after all it had been ten to one but by their Intestine Differences they had been made a Prey to Foreigners and so have made Religion it self a Prey too to the Common Enemies of God and of his Church And these had been Grievances indeed as great as our Reformers much greater Grievances themselves than any they had to redress But it pleased God to prevent the greatest Mischiefs of all by preventing the Success of the Rebellion which brings me to the 2d thing considerable in my Text and the more acceptable Subject of this Discourse II. The Rebels Defeat The People you see had rebelled under Absalom They were so Impudent and so Mischievous to lift up their Hands against their Lord the King But God delivered up the Men that had done so Presumptuously He delivered up a great part of 'em to Slaughter and he delivered up the rest to Justice So that 't was an entire and a speedy and a wonderful Defeat And 1. I say 't was an entire Defeat For upon the very first Battle the Rebels were so utterly routed that they had neither Courage nor Force to rally again or to stand a second Engagement It seems there were a * Verse 7. great many thousands of 'em kill'd upon the Place and the rest put to Flight and kill'd afterwards in great Numbers by the Kings Forces and by the Country in the Pursuit For they were pursued like Beasts of Prey through the Fields and Forests of Judea and like Beasts of Prey as they were were taken and destroyed and destroyed in Herds 'T is said * Verse 8. The Battle was scatter'd over the Face of all the Country and that the Wood devoured more People that day than the Sword devoured v. 8. of this Chap. i. e. as Josephus the Jewish Historiographer explains it There were more kill'd and taken Prisoners up and down the Country of Them that fled for their Lives into the Woods and Lanes than there were taken or died in the Engagement Their now despised and despicable King Absalom having scaped Death in the Field fled for his Life among the rest into the Forest and in his