Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n
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A25201
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A sermon preached at the assizes held at Leicester for that county on the twenty third day of March, 1681/2 by Nathaniel Alsop.
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Alsop, Nathaniel.
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1682
(1682)
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Wing A2904; ESTC R23629
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20,188
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36
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properly given to that Duty which is owing unto Parents by the best Classical Writers and the Honouring of a Prince I have read in a Learned and Reverend Author called an Elicit Act of Religion meaning I suppose such a Worship of God as the Image-worship of the Romanists would be were there no Divine Precept in bar against them rendring their Practice unwarrantable and superstitious But we need not strain a Point to that nicety If Loyalty be a Duty indispensible and an important Act of Christian Religion we have a considerable Advantage against our Adversaries on both hands when we dare joyn Issue with them upon the Observation of one of the Chief of Gods Moral Laws as to which our Papist Adversaries and Dissenters also are notoriously defective It 's Honour enough that our Reformed Church of England hath been here acknowledged the sure Conservatrix of the Principles of Loyalty and was never wanting in the Practice of them in the worst of Times and this is it that makes her the Butt of all the Factions at which they shoot their bitter Arrows This draws upon her those Loads of Calumnies and Contempts which the Subtile Underminers of the State stir up and unwary Persons are loud and clamorous in they know not why Otherwise what reason is there imaginable why some that pretend an Agreement in all Doctrinals with her and would go further should yet labour her Ruine and would rejoyce to see her laid waste and desolate but only because she is known to be an impregnable Defence to the Monarchy and lawful Government of the Nation and cannot as others do give a Dispensation for Resistance We may see it by experience among our selves how the Honour of God is promoted and carried on in the same Company and by the same Proportions with that to the King Who are they that frequent the Places where his Honour dwells and that set forth the Glory of God and declare his Majesty and Mercy by Acknowledgments Praises and Confessions made unto him with due Solemnity and Reverence and make a Conscience of these things of offering these Sacrifices to his Honour as of old they offered their Goods and Cattel Are they not such generally as pay a dutiful Respect unto his Representative on Earth such as are polish'd and refin'd by Education and know the Laws of Observance and Regard And it 's agreeable to the Genius of a Gentleman if not byassed by some Fanatick Interest to assert the Publick Rites of Worship whereas the Lower Part of Men especially where they have received any Factious Impressions are not sensible of any the least touch of Conscience for these Matters neither for Gods Honour nor the Kings I shall add but few Words more What remains shall be according to my proposed Method to shew the Obligation to this Duty from the Argument contained in the last Clause of my Text which is the Promise of a very desirable Blessing but it implies a severe Threatning in case of Disobedience no less than an utter Abscission and Cutting off from the Land of Promise And this must needs have a mighty Influence upon that People especially and all others in general The force of the Inference lies chiefly in the Threatning Thus God elsewhere invites them with a gracious Promise Isa 1.19 If ye be willing and obedient ye shall eat the good of the Land but he drives and compels in the next Words with a terrible Threat But if ye refuse and rebel ye shall be devour'd with the Sword The Curse of God hanging over the Head of a contumacious and rebellious People is enough to reduce them if there be any fear of God in the Place This is the proper Season for God himself the King of Kings to appear and interpose when his Vicegerents here on Earth shall be set at nought Here is dignus vindice modus a proper Care for the All-ruling Providence and a Recompence worthy of a Divine Revenge and it hath seldom failed upon such Exigencies although it hath been sometimes slow I shall leave but one Example with you but it is such an one as I think we may challenge all History Sacred and Humane to match it it is in the 16th of Numbers in this very People of the Jews and not far from the time when this Law was given them At the beginning of the Chapter Corah and his Company rise up against Moses and Aaron the Chief Magistrate and Chief Priest As Religion and Loyalty are still found in Conjunction so the King and Priest have the same Common Enemies And what was the Cause that stirred up these Men to mutiny It was plainly the Levellers Grievance the Imparity of Gods People the hated Eminence of a Superior and the heavy Yoke of Government For thus they vent their Discontents against Moses and Aaron ver 3. Ye take too much upon you seeing all the Congregation are holy every one of them wherefore then lift ye up your selves above the Congregation of the Lord Here 's now the Masque of Sedition with all its Paint and Varnish on It is the Lords Cause it is for freeing the Congregation of the Lord from the Slavery which Moses held them under for asserting the Liberties of an Holy People And as if the meer joyning with the Faction had been Holiness it self it is alledged they were all holy every one of them Moses looks upon this Face of Affairs as of a dangerous presage and makes his Appeal to God the Ordainer of Powers and the Revenger of Kings he joyns Issue with the Mutineers upon the Point and is content the Divine Right of Government should be tried by the Success which God should give to the Sacrilegious Enterprise of these Men. And what was the Event Why the Question under debate received a dreadful Decision by the Overthrow and Destruction of the Rebels and the Righteous God describ'd as it were the Nature of their Sin by some Lines of the Punishment as appears by the Sequel of the Story Here is now an Example of Gods appearing for his own Institution and let any one of them who have used to talk so loud for Gods owning their Cause and Outgoings with their Arms match it if they can It 's confess'd in common Proceedings and the ordinary Course of Providence an Argument from Success is very fallacious but in the Case as it was here when the very Point under Trial was the Divine Right of Superiority and Rule and this put upon the Issue to be maintained by God by Miracle or else to fall and when God shall answer to the Appeal in such an extraordinary manner here I take it in such a Case as this Gods Works are as instructive and infallible as his Word and in all such Events we may say as Pharaoh's Magicians did This is the Finger of God a Finger by which he writes his Will unto us as plain and legible as ever he did upon the Tables of Stone to Moses as legible as is the Precept it self for whose sake I have alledged this Example Now therefore knowing the terrors of the Lord let us all my Brethren be persuaded and exhorted to have a care that we never provoke Almighty God by our crying Sins to send forth his Judgments any more upon this People and Kingdom Let us who value our selves in being thought the Loyal and obedient Subjects endeavour by a godly and upright Conversation to redeem the Profession of Loyalty from the evil Slanders of such as seek occasion to reproach it Let us serve and honour our King with the greatest Zeal and Duty that we owe but our God infinitely more Let us endeavour to live as far as is possible without the suspicion of Vice as well as free from its contagiou that so we may break and discredit that most false ill-natur'd and uncharitable Distinction which the Pharisees and Hypocrites of the Times have taken up when they set the Kings Loyal Subjects on one Hand and the Sober Godly Party of the Nation on the other And let them who have been defective in this kind shew forth the Fruits of Repentance having enjoy'd a Pardon and Indempnity for their Crimes past let them learn at length to be ingenuous and if it be possible to convert their Rancour into Duty let them but begin now to love honour and obey the King much because much hath been forgiven them Let them never cast a Thought back upon Aegypt or its Flesh-pots nor chew the Cud upon those luscious Morsels of Rapine and Sacrilege which for the ease and health of their Consciences they have been forced to disgorge And above all let them ever mind it not to relapse into their old Folly of turning Faith into Faction and Religion into Rebellion From which and all the Plagues and Punishments attending it Good Lord deliver us by the Merits of thy dear Son To whom with thee and the Holy Ghost be all Honour ascribed the Kingdom Power and Glory for ever and ever Amen FINIS
ever provided for them at hand but instead thereof asked Meat for their Lusts It was not enough to satisfy their natural Appetites and real Wants but their wandering Fancies and their various Dissenting Pallats must be humoured also and upon such distates like these they fell into frequent Mutinies and Associations against the Lord and against his Vice-gerent insomuch that Moses was forced to declare freely in that his Farewell-Oration which Josephus hath left penned unto us in the Fourth Book of his Antiquities That he was more often in hazzard of his Life from them than from any other of his Uncircumcised Enemies I shall not stay to adjust the Circumstances nor set the Members of the Comparison in joint but only to shew how far we have sunk from the Rule of our Duty and still are falling give me leave to point you back up as far as to the Source and Fountain of all Political Sanctions the Basis of Government the Cement of Societies the Princes heavenly and unforfeitable Charter comprehended in this short Precept Honour thy Father and thy Mother c. In which Words I shall observe no more Particulars than what are obvious unto every Eye As 1. The Stile or Title here given to the Supream Magistrate of a Parent 2. The Debt belonging unto him Honour 3. The enforcement of the Duty by a Promise but with the implication of a severe Threat that thy days may be long upon the Land c. 1. The Stile here is a Name full of Obligation and Endearment we find God himself often calling his People to reflect upon it to hold them fast to their Duty for I am a Father to Israel saith God Jer. 31.9 he pitieth as a Father Psal 103.13 with all the bowels and tenderness that can be shewed he corrects as a Father Prov. 3.12 alwaies within measure and less than our Offences deserve and upon the same score he also claims the observance of Sons Mal. 1.6 And no doubt but this Title here given to Kings and Sovereign Powers is very apt to move Obedience to becalm the strivings of the People and to smooth the Yoke of Government which some Belialites will always spurn at but what doth Moses then or rather the Lord himself thus speak unto us meerly because of the hardness of our Hearts Doth he condescend to such mean Artifices to treat us by the Popular courses of Ambition which is wont to stroak and sooth the Beast which she designs to ride No I suppose the soft and endearing stile here used is more than a Colour of Rhetorick and shall therefore take the occasion which is fairly offered to reflect upon the Original of Civil Government and the rather because if it shall appear to be founded in the Natural Right of Paternal Authority as the most judicious do affirm it will prepare the way for that which follows and the Duty of the Text will be inferred by a necessary Logical deduction The stile of the Text being a Name of Nature and Authority too suggests unto us in all our researches after the Rise and Birth of Dominion to have one Eye to the Order and Course of Nature so that to understand the Original of Civil Power we must ascend to the true Original of Mankind and this Method will bring us to acknowledge the Truth of that Aphorism of St. Irenaeus Cujus jussu nascuntur homines hujus jussu Reges constituuntur There have been perhaps as many Opinions concerning the Origine of the World as concerning the Origine of Government and all of them wide of Truth But then as Tatianus from a malicious Adversary of Religion confesseth himself to have been converted to the Faith of the Holy Scripture by that satisfactory and consistent account which it gives of the Creation of the World so the beginning of Civil Power and Dominion which the same part of Holy Writ accounteth for also if duly considered may as well convert the seditious underminers of Government and turn the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just when it shall appear that it was neither blind Chance nor steep Ambition nor prevailing Usurpation nor Pacts and Covenants nor any happy Occurrence nor the longest Sword nor most Voices which made the first distinction betwixt King and Subject That the first common Parent of Mankind was invested with a Soveraign Power and acted as Monarch of the World there are few will question that will not also call in question the History of Moses When Adam who had Dominion given him by God over all the Creatures disposing of his Sons to one committed the Tillage of the ground to another the care of the Flocks and Herds where then was the Equality of Persons where the Community of Goods And if the World was at length peopled by the Offspring descended from this Stock it will be difficult to conceive how and when such a state of Natural Freedom should be introduced The great Master of Politicks Aristotle saw this without his Bible and although for want of the Divine Oracles he was forced to wrap his head in the dark and inextricable Clouds of Eternal Successions yet he saw a necessity of asserting a Natural Subordination where there was a Natural Succession and came at length to conclude that the greatest Kingdom in process of time grew from a single Family as a large spreading Branch shoots from a slender Stock It may be the stile of Royalty was not heard of 'till the World was well on towards 2000 years old that came in with the other Trappings and Ornaments when Monarchy became magnificent and pompous in the Eyes of the People but if we look after the Essentials of Power we shall find them lodged in the first Parent of Mankind and transmitted as an Inheritance by the First-born of the Family And to deduce this there is no better Clew than the Sacred History it self which leads us down from Adam the Universal Monarch by the Patriarchal Line unto the first Plantation of the World after the Flood when several Colonies were led out by their respective Heads and became distinct Kingdoms whereof the Sons or Grand Children of Noah were Kings by a Fatherly-Right Right as appears at large from Gen. 10. and among Humane Authors most accurately from that barbarous Writer at the end of Eusebius's Chronicon whom for the sake of the Subject which he handles the great Scaliger thought worthy to be joined with those renowned Pieces of Antiquity If we follow the Abettors of this Hypothesis and travel farther by the same Thred of Scripture History into the Land of Canaan we shall find there in a Country of no great Compass above 30 Kings at one time in that little Land And at this day they tell us if we look into the state of Affairs in the Indies and those Countries of late and new discovery where they live by the Dictates of simple and untaught Nature without the invented Models of Policy we