Selected quad for the lemma: kingdom_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
kingdom_n	government_n	great_a	king_n	7,085	5	3.5910	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30444	A sermon preached before the Queen at White-Hall on the 29th of May, 1694, being the anniversary of King Charles II, his birth and restauration by the Right Reverend Father in God, Gilbert Lord Bishop of Sarum.	Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715.	1694 (1694)	Wing B5901; ESTC R4125	16,733	36

that score justified its being so tender of all its Usurpations A High-spirited King arose who together with his People were resolved to bear no longer with that Diminution of the Security and Dignity of this Imperial Crown The Importance of that Word as it is used in our Laws having no Relation to our Constitution at home as some have vainly imagined it signifying only that this was a compleat Government within it self having no dependance on any Forreign Authority whatsoever That King though often threatned with Invasion and Rebellion and though he had drawn upon himself the Fury and Revenges of a vast multitude of Implacable Wasps whom he had stirred out of their Nests yet escaped all dangers and carried on his designs as far as his Principles could go He removed the Rubbish and so made way for that which he could not have promo●ed himself being still deeply tinctured with his first Impressions and Engagements It was much for one Man to do so much as he did He restored the Crown to a g●eat part of its Lustre as well as its Authority and recovered that which was weakly parted with in a course of many dark and Superstitious Ages Before him our Princes were to make their Applications elsewhere and to take their measures from thence how their own People were to be governed but now the Government is entire all is done at home no Vassalage is to be paid to a Tyranny which was as cruel in its Administration as it was unjust in its pretentions and had in a more particular manner oppressed this Kingdom Triumphing too Imperiously over the easiness of our Princes and the Superstition of their Subjects As the first part of that great Work was so far advanced by a King whom nature had fitted for a performance that required a Man of no ordinary Genius So a young Prince succeeded who had every thing in him that was Great and Promising far beyond his years In his Reign our Reformation was perfected but while some went into that good design upon True and Noble Principles there was a mixed multitude that came in for a share of the Spoil and were a Reproach to that which they seemed to promote One bad Man in particular who at his Death professed that he had all the while adhered to his old perswasions even when he seemed to act most differently from them The good Men of that time did look for a terrible Catastraphe They did not think that God would suffer his House to be built up by such defiled Hands or bless such a corrupted Scene with the continuance of so good a King the Iosias of this Church All was quickly laid in the Dust and turned not only into Rubbish but to Ashes and a severe storm was set over this Church but when it was like to have spread it self over the rest of Europe and that the two Crowns being under the Ministry of two Cardinals both designing to extirpate the Reformation were coming into a Peace that so they might be at leasure for such bloody work at home it pleased God to deliver this Church to raise up again that light which seemed almost quite extinguisht and to bless us with that ever renowned Queen who did not only restore and repair what had been ruined at Home but became the Support and Strength of all Abroad They found not only Sanctuary among us but carried from us both Force and Treasure to preserve and secure themselves Things lookt often so cloudy whilst the greatest power and the vastest Treasure of Europe was engaged with an unrelenting fury on the other side that for about twenty years together the wise Ministry of that Reign were every year looking for a fatal Revolution At last God by blasting all their designs both open and secret and chiefly the last and greatest Attempt of the boasted Invincible Armada did secure that Queen and Establish this Church and by her Protection and Influence several Forreign Churches were also Formed and Established and the Correspondence we maintained with those beyond Sea made us the safer and the more united at home The Crown was fortified with Alliances and Dependencies abroad the Nation was spread by many Colonies into remote parts Trade flourished and Wealth from all parts flowed in upon us The blessings both of Heaven and Earth meeting together in that Celebrated Reign What was wanting to Compleat the Happiness of this Nation was brought about in the next in which the whole Island was brought under the same Head And the Northern parts which had been formerly Scenes of War and Desolation uncultivated and ill peopled became the quiet Seats of Tillage and Industry so that Nature that seemed to have laid this Island and designed it for one Monarchy was now answered by this happy Union And the many Disorders in Ireland forced the Reduction of that Kingdom to Civility and Industry to the same Laws and Language and for the greater part to be of the same Stock and Race with our selves These are some of the more signal felicities which have happened to us and to the Crown that protects and governs us since that happy light first visited us And the Land had rest fourscore years The longest period that we find marked in the old Testament of the quiet of the people of Israel Nor can we easily assign the like period in any History of such an entire and long continued peace for in all that time tho we had Wars abroad they never broke in upon us to disturb us at home The short and soon supprest Insurrection of some Earls in the North scarce being to be reckoned as an interruption of our quiet But while God protected us from our Enemies yet when we had corrupted our ways before him he delivered us up to our selves to be plagued by our own Follies and they proved severe punishments I will not open that black and dismal Scene I will not suffer any thing that looks like anger or satyre to darken the chearfulness of this day or to sowr those thoughts that should be now softned to joy but a joy in God decent and modest and suitable to the occasion I will not repeat History or Gazettes I will only lay before you some reflections that are not the less important because how obvious soever they may be yet they are not so generally commented on as they well deserve to be Our Confusion lasted long and the Scenes shifted so oft that at last men found no known Constitution no Precedent either at home or abroad that could fit us so that Assemblies of a new nature were formed in which men gave scope to their imagination to invent a Scheme of Government that could secure us Bu● all in vain the Ancient Landmarks stood still in all mens eyes and thoughts and the Nation grew so weary of its tossings and so wise after so many practices that had been made upon it as to return to its first Basis and to its

lay things together and a small measure of judgment to observe the visible causes and consequences of them will serve turn here some may descend to more particulars than others and may reason more exactly but every man is capable of thought enough upon this head to beget in him a sense of the power and wisdom the justice and goodness of God in the Government of the World A man needs no great stock of knowledge nor much fineness of thought to go far here and as this sort of exercise is within every mans reach so it has not in it that irksomness that hangs often upon other duties such as publick or private worship the sorrowings of repentance or earnestness in prayer this goes more with the grain there is no pain but a very considerable pleasure in it All History especially what is secret and instructing is pleasant but most of all are such Remarks from History as represent the Church and Kingdom to which we belong as the special Subjects of a favourable Providence Partiality and self-love may carry us too far on this head and make us construe things too advantageously of our own side and stretch them too much imagining perhaps that to be the indication of a more particular care which was only the effect of a general Providence but even this bias upon us to carry our Observations further then things will bear makes it out that such Meditations are exercises that give much more pleasure than pain Sometimes I confess a black prospect and a gloomy face of things may be on the other hand as unreasonably aggravated by men of melancholly tempers yet even in that case the remembring past deliverances gives livelier and more promising hopes so that this may be well reckoned the easiest and pleasantest exercise of Religion nor is there any one more useful nothing shews the folly of Man and the wisdom of God more eminently then when we set them together nothing shews the corruptions of the Human Nature and mercies of the Divine more conspicuously nothing mitigates the sharpness of our afflictions nor tempers our mind in prosperity so much as our depending upon Providence and ascribing the good things that happen to its influence and not claiming too great a share in them to our selves nothing tempers the mind so equally in every turn and sta●● of life as the Belief of God's go●erning the World and the turning our thoughts frequently to serious reflections upon it I will not enter here upon that deep but mysterious and often abused Argument of Providence I suppose you do all believe it for indeed if you believe it not you believe nothing in Religion to any purpose without this our Prayers and Praises would come within a very small compass our faith and hope would be much narrower and our love to God would be much blunted if we brought our selves once to think that all things go in a chain that there are no special directions in the conduct of this World but that Chance or Fate dispence every thing either with inexorable sullenness or in a tumultuary levity We must in consequence to such perswasions let our selves loose from all the restraints and all the seriousness of Religion but instead of these how ungrateful soever they may be to undisciplined minds we should have nothing to ballance to fix or to govern us but should be toss'd from wave to wave We should either have the black Cloud of hard fate hang over us or be in the constant fears of the next bad chance which might in a minute throw down all that former good ones had built up A man that does not believe a Providence has no support from a better prospect in his ill circumstances nor are his good ones secured to him by any hope of their continuance whereas he who believes that all things are directed by infinite wisdom and goodness receives the good things that fall to him with a particular tenderness because they seem to be the indications of the love of his heavenly Father towards him and he expects that they shall be continued to him as long as it is fit that he should hold them that is as long as they are real blessing to him and he desires to keep them no longer and on no other terms he does not sink under calamities he considers them as medicinal things sent to reform him or to try his vertues and to make some publick Essay of the force and firmness of his faith and patience To all this that demonstrates how much a happier thing it is for Mankind to be under the belief of Providence then otherwise I will only add one consideration that wise men have observed in many different Ages and Climates of the World and which they have thought no small confirmation of this great Article of Religion that at some times a strange Spirit seems to run through whole Nations an● Communities which can hardly be either resisted or repressed A great Impetus and Fermentation works powerfully for a while and then goes off without any visible cause that appears either for its beginning or for its ending The same occasions that produced such a temper at one time will not have the same effect at another an irresistible courage does sometimes rise in great Bodies as unaccountably as it falls The servour with which the Reformation began was not more extraordinary than the flatness under which it has fallen in this Age and the extraordinary heat and giddiness that spread it self over these Nations in the beginning of the wars was not more amazing than the calm conclusion in which they ended at last which is the blessing that we do now commemorate and on which I do now enter But as the Iews did at the Paschal Solemnity carry back the recapitulation of their deliverance out of Egypt to God's first calling Abraham out of the Land of the Caldeans so that we may make fuller and clearer reflections on the blessings of God to this Church and Nation in the protection and prosperity of the Royal Family and that in the same view we may observe those extraordinary steps of Providence that have appeared both towards the Crown and the Reformation and at once both consider his Wonders and the Iudgments of his Mouth suffer me to begin my Recital of some more Signal Providences as high as the first beginnings of the Reformation Before that time our Princes were but half Kings a Forreign Power ruled over the Consciences of their People The Immunities of Places and Persons were great checks to their Authority The best part of the Soil and much of the Wealth and Treasure of the Kingdom were at the disposal of a Body that claimed to be Independent on the Crown and were subject to a severe Master at whose Mercy our Kings Reigned and governed their Subjects and were frequently put into great Convulsions when they seemed to break in upon an Authority that pretended to be Sacred and on