Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
religion_n	christian_a	church_n	profess_v	3,448	5	8.0722	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A45350	A sermon preached in the cathedral and metropolitical church of St. Peter of York, on Thursday the fourteenth of February, 1688/9 being the day appointed by the lords spiritual and temporal, assembled at Westminster, for a publick thanksgiving to Almighty God, for having made His Highness the Prince of Orange, the glorious instrument of the great deliverance of this kingdom from popery and arbitrary power / by George Halley ...	Halley, George, 1655 or 6-1708.	1689 (1689)	Wing H454; ESTC R6579	12,462	36

no time unseasonable for the Practice of this Duty he continually revolv'd in his Thoughts and imprinted upon his Memory the Mercy and Loving Kindness of the Lord it was his pious Resolution to meditate or muse upon all his Works Psal 77.11.12 thus Psal 103.2 Praise the Lord O my Soul and forget not all his Benefits which he expresses Verse 4. Who saveth thy life from Destruction and crowneth thee with Mercy and loving Kindness But Thirdly Who can look upon God as his Creator and not at the same time think himself under an indispensable and eternal Obligation to praise and give him thanks Have we not the strongest Obligations to thank and praise him who is the Author of our Frame and Constitution Who is the Preserver of our Being Who sustains our Life by the continual Influence of his Love Upon him we have a constant and a necessary Dependance to him we owe the Common Protection of Life the Mercies of Health and Liberty and the reasonable Expectation of Happiness hereafter Can we then be so unnatural so inhumane so disingenuous as not to praise and give him thanks It is he that has made us saith the Royal Psalmist Psal 100.2 and not we our selves we are his People and the Sheep of his Pasture upon this Foundation he superstructs our Duty in the next Verse O go your Way into his Gates with thanksgiving and into his Courts with praise be thankful unto him and speak good of his Name We are his Creatures A Word of the greatest Emphasis a Word that demands and extorts from us all imaginable Thankfulness all possible Praise and Adoration being Creatures shews us God's absolute Soveraignty and Dominion over us we depend upon him as a Ray depends upon the Sun. When the Sun goes off the Horizon the Rays perish and vanish away Thus if God should withdraw his Influx from us we should instantly lapse and return into our primitive Nothing But Fourthly That we may be perswaded to offer up unto the Lord the Sacrifice of Praise and Thanksgiving let us consider that by such Sacrifices we not only glorify the Lord but our selves we thereby pursue our own Eternal Wel-fare and Felicity for God is so infinitely happy in Himself so perfect and beautiful so transcendantly glorious that we can give no Addition no Lustre to his Divine Majesty by the greatest Praise and most Solemn Thanksgiving No! God enjoins us to this duty of praise and thanksgiving not for his but our own Interest and Advantage He would have us contemplate his Glory and Perfection bless and praise him for no other end and purpose but that thereby we may be excited to transcribe into our Nature his Adorable Perfections and thus fit and qualify our selves for Heaven and the Joys of Eternity These are Ties these are Obligations strong enough of themselves to enforce upon us the Constant Practice of the Duty of Thanksgiving But these are not all There is yet behind one Argument more an Argument of no little Weight and Importance an Argument which if any thing can must rouze and awake us to the Duty of Thanksgiving must perswade us to entertain a grateful Affection a deep Sense of the Mercy and Loving Kindness of the Lord and that is the rare Accident of Divine Providence our Miraculous Deliverance for which we are this day met to praise the Lord And which is the Second Observable in the Words of my TEXT Namely The Reason or Enforcement to the practice and observation of the Duty of Thanksgiving and that is the Consideration of a Redemption or Deliverance from the Hand of an Enemy Let them give thanks whom the Lord hath redeemed and delivered from the Hand of the Enemy And here I might Discourse of the Universal Redemption of Mankind by Christ who paid the greatest Price who purchased our Liberty and Enlargment with his dear and precious Blood who delivered us from our Spiritual Enemies from the Principalities and Rulers of the Darkness of this World from Spiritual Wickedness in High Places by recovering lapsed Man to his former Capacity of Bliss and Happiness by an Expedient as full of Wonder as Mercy of which we can never express too grateful a Resentment But I shall only speak of a Temporal Redemption or Deliverance for to such a Deliverance the Text directly points Let them give thanks whom the Lord hath redeemed and delivered from the hand of the Enemy E manu tribulantis de manu angustiae de potentia angustiatoris Out of the hand of the Oppressor out of our Distress out of the Power of such as vexed and afflicted us This is that for which we are now to celebrate the Divine Goodness to magnifie him who hath demonstrated his Providence in so wonderfully relieving us in the time of Danger and Distress Let us give thanks whom the Lord hath delivered from the hand of the Enemy that is from the detestable Superstitions and Corruptions of Popery from the intolerable Yoke of the Romish Church A Church which is our implacable Adversary a Church which is become our Enemy for telling the Truth because we worship God after the way which they call Heresy a Church which mortally hates us for recovering the Christian Religion to it's ancient Brightness and primitive Splendor for professing that Faith which was once delivered to the Saints Is not this to hate us without a Cause Because we have accurately filed Religion polished and freed it from the Rust it had contracted and set upon it its former Lustre because we have fully discovered their horrible Cheats and grand Impostures by which they get their Wealth The Romanists for these reasons industriously endeavour to take away both our Place and Nation to destroy not only our Holy and Excellent Religion but our Incomparable Government and to bring our independent Freedom into a Subjection to their Foreign and Antichristian Yoke How many Efforts have been made How many Arrows have been shot at this Glorious Nation out of their Quiver of malice and revenge but all of them missed the Mark it was God that covered this Nation with the Wings of his Providence that Defended it from the Arrows that flew by Day and from the Pestilence that walked in Darkness It was in Eighty eight when the Spanish invincible Navy came like Great and Formidable Castles floating to our Coasts with Sails swell'd with fury and puffed up with hopes of Victory but the Lord fought for us by Fire Winds by Rocks and Tempests how did the Lord then display his Wonders for us in the deep How wonderfully did he then deliver us from the hand of the Enemy Oh that men would therefore Praise the Lord for his Goodness and declare the Wonders he hath done for the Children of Men It was in the Reign of King James the first of Blessed Memory that the Execrable Gun-Powder Plot that damnable Contrivance was formed under Jesuitical Wings but when it was grown to Maturity and ready

and which is more dangerous within when no small Tempest lay upon her when all hopes of her being sav'd were taken away it pleased the Lord to visit her to arise and have mercy upon Zion to redeem her from the hand of the Enemy to still the proud and insulting Waves to make the storm to cease and to bring her to the haven where she would be Oh that we may therefore praise the Lord for his goodness Secondly Hath his Providence watch'd over us with a careful Eye Hath he in the time of trouble and imminent danger rais'd us up a Prince a Prince of the greatest Courage and Conduct the Terror as well as the Envy of France and Rome a Prince equal to His Ancestors in all Noble and Vertuous Qualities enrich'd with Wisdom and the greatest Integrity a Prince of a Martial and Noble Temper who will really venture his Life in Defence of this Nation and in the preserving of it in all its just Rights and Liberties a Prince who will be a Courageous Defender of our Faith as well as of our Laws who is resolv'd to encourage and protect us and our excellent Religion But here Behold a Miracle indeed Stand and admire the Divine Providence God hath not only Blessed us with a Prince who will be a Nursing Father but also with a Princess who will be a Nursing Mother of our Church our Church was never more Blessed before a Princess of our own Nation as well as Religion a Princess of exemplary Piety and unparallell'd Goodness Now I say hath the Lord given us such Blessings What then shall we render unto him for all his Benefits What return shall we make for this his transcendant Love and admirable kindness Nothing but thanks for his unspeakable Gifts nothing but an heart possessed with a grateful Sense and Affection nothing but the Sacrifice of Praise and Thanksgiving O then sing unto God and sing praises unto his name praise him in his name yea and rejoice before him But this is not all We must praise the Lord our God not only with our Lips but in our Lives We must not express our Joy for our stupendious deliverance by Rioting and Drunkenness and such like extravagancies but by walking in all Holiness and Purity of Conversation let me beg of you always to remember the Holy Apostle St. Paul's humble and passionate request which is the fi●st sentence in the Form of Prayer for the day and the first verse in the second Lesson I beseech you Brethren by the mercies of God that ye present your bodies a living Sacrifice holy acceptable unto God which is your reasonable Service This is the only way to endear us to the God of Heaven and to entitle us to his Almighty Favour and kind Protection We seem indeed to be the peculiar care of Heaven to be the only Blessed Children of the Lord yet if we live not as becometh a reformed and a redeemed People if we live not as highly sensible of God's reiterated mercies which sense we must demonstrate by a life conformable to his Divine Laws then though our Sky at the present is beautified with an Evening Redness which speaks the Clouds thin and the Air pure tho' our Firmament now looks bright and serene yet God if provok'd by our ingratitude and impiety can in the twinkling of an Eye change it from an Evening to a Morning Redness can in a moment make the Firmament lowring by condensing the Clouds and veiling the Sky with darkness will certainly bring us into worse circumstances than before and pour upon us fiercer instances of his anger and heavy displeasure But Lastly One word of Exhortation and I a' done As we are obliged to render unto God Almighty our most Solemn Thanks for the comprehensive Mercy we this Day Celebrate in the deliverance of this Nation from Popery and Arbitrary Power so let the serious consideration thereof oblige us to hold the Faith in Unity of Spirit and in the bond of Peace to be like minded to have the same love to have no divisions amongst us to be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment to live together in Brotherly love and Christian charity Charity the Essential mark of a true Church Charity which out-shines all other Christian Vertues and Theological Graces it is the Characteristick of our Holy and Incomparable Religion it is a Grace so singularly eminent and ornamental so necessary a Vertue that without it all our doings are nothing worth without it whosoever liveth is counted dead before God without it no Beatifick Vision no Joys of Immortality Charity is represented by St. Paul as a Vertue of the greatest Beauty and Comeliness he hath engraven upon it the most illustrious Character as you may read 1 Cor. 13. where we find that it is a permanent and durable Vertue all other Gifts and Graces of the Holy Ghost only display their Glory in this sublunary World but this Grace this Vertue Charity shall retain it's native splendor and dazling brightness will be useful and necessary to us after our translation from hence to the Mansions of Eternity and therefore the Holy Apostle gives it the Honor of Precedency the highest Encomium ver 13. And now abideth Faith Hope Charity these three but the greatest of these is Charity We have considerable Enemies both at home and abroad who as they envy so no Question will set all Engines at work will strenuously endeavour to disturb our Repose and ruffle our Happiness and Tranquillity Now nothing can be more pleasing or grateful to them nothing can give them a better Prospect of Success than Difference and Discord amongst our selves for where such things are there is nothing but Confusion and every evil Work nothing but Misery and Distraction Emnity and Strife is the Rock they have all along endeavour'd to run us upon and indeed nothing can more effectually split our Religion and Government A Nation divided a Kingdom without Peace and Unity in it self cannot stand This is the Voice of Truth it self If a Kingdom be divided against it self that Kingdom cannot stand Mark 3.24 It is not for nothing too that the Royal Psalmist cries out Behold how good and joyful a thing it is for Brethren to dwell together in Unity The Papists are very sensible that nothing consolidates or fortifies a Nation more than Unity and therefore it hath been their constant Practice to foment Divisions to enkindle Jealousies to set us at Variance one with another But remember Sirs we are Brethren Now as we are not ignorant of their Devices so let us strive to live together in mutual Love and Charity For if we keep Innocency and preserve Unity we shall not only disappoint our Enemies Expectation and become invincible but we shall also oblige Heaven to be our Succour and Defence GOD will then continue His Mercy and Favour towards us the Lord of Hosts will secure and protect us will alwaies deliver us from the hand of the enemy Now to God the Father to God the Son and to God the Holy Ghost be ascrib'd as is most due blessing and glory and wisdom with thanksgiving both now and for evermore Amen FINIS Books Written by the same Author DOctor Scott's Christian Life Part I. from its beginning to its consummation in Glory Together with the several means and instruments of Christianity conducing thereunto with directions for Private Devotions and Forms of Prayer fitted to the several states of Christians The Fourth Edition 's Christian Life Part II. Wherein the Fundamental Principles of Christian Duty are Assigned Explained and proved Vol. I. The Second Edition 's Christian Life Part II. Wherein that Fundamental Principle of Christian Duty the Doctrine of our Saviour's Mediation is explained and proved Vol. II. The Second Edition 's Sermon before the Lord Mayor Decem. 16. 1683. on Prov. xxiv 21. 's Sermon before the Lord Mayor July 26. 1685. on 2 Sam. xviii 28. 's Sermon at the Chelmsford Assizes Aug. 31. 1685. on Rom. xiii 1. 's Sermon before the Lord Mayor Sept. 2. 1686. on John v. 14. 's Sermon at Sir John Buckworth's Funeral Dec. 29. 1687. on Eccles xi 8.