Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n
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A54465
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A sermon preached on the 16th day of April 1696 in the parish church of St. Michael in New-Malton, being the thanksgiving day appointed for the discovery and disappointment of the horrible and barbarous conspiracy &c. / by William Perse.
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Perse, William, 1640 or 41-1707.
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1696
(1696)
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Wing P1656; ESTC R25780
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18,110
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33
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who made this Conspiracy to be the happy Instruments of his wonderful Deliverance and Preservation Thus God when he pleases to appear for the safety of the Church and his People can turn a Lion into a Lamb he can make of Saul who was a Persecutor of the Saints a Paul a Preacher and an Apostle and a Propagator of his Holy Gospel Thus near was this Deadly Execrable Plot of being fully executed upon us And that there was something at that very time extraordinary in the Wind some great matter hoped and suddenly look'd for by that Party which is still though God be praised for it unsuccessfully plotting the Downful both of our Church and State might easily have been conjectur'd neither did it miss the Observation of some by the more than ordinary Feasting and Revelling and meeting together of the professed Enemies of our Religion the Flocking together of those ill-boding Vultures in unusual numbers of that time in the chiefest Places of concourse shewed that they more than smelt the Bloody Design and that they were in daily expectation of their long-look'd for Prey waiting to be gorged with Royal Blood and that with the Gore of those innumerable Sacrifices of both the Senatorian Orders as well as of those of inferior Ranks which must have indistinctly fallen to have made way for the compleating of that detestable and almost unparallel'd design which they had undertaken And indeed the time of extremity of Danger is the usual Season that God for the manifestation of his own Honour and to shew that it is his Hand that does it chuses for the Discovering and Frustrating the Wicked Counsels of those who are in deep Consult to overthrow the Foundations of that Government he hath establish'd and for the Deliverance of his Chosen Servants When the Mandatory-Letters were sent Post by Haman's Order to destroy to kill and cause to Perish the whole Nation of the Jews then was God pleased to give Esther so much favour in the sight of the King as to obtain to have them counter-manded and to turn the Destruction intended against them upon the Heads of the Authors themselves O may we ever as the Jews did keep solemn the two days of our Purim for our wonderful Deliverance when the Lot was on both days cast to consume and destroy us That these Days may be may kept Holy to the Lord by an Ordinance according to their appointed time every Year that they may be remember'd in every Generation and the Memorial of them be continued to our Posterity after us Again when the Match was laid to the Train and the Conspirators were in expectation every Minute to hear the Fatal Crack then GOD when they least expected it was pleas'd to open the long hidden Mine and to discover their Magazine of Ammunition that was laid to have blown up the King with all the Flower of his Nobility and Gentry together with our Religion at one blast Thus God suffer'd this damnable Conspiracy for the greater Confusion of the Traytors who fell so suddenly from their hopes with which they were puff'd up and to give us the greater occasion to Praise and Magnifie his Goodness towards us to come just to the Birth and then would not give it strength to come forth He saw them all along follow'd them from one place of Meeting to another his Eye pursued them from one Tavern to another for there in those Temples Dedicated to Bacchus they held their most Private and nocturnal Consults there on his slippery Altars they sacrific'd their Drink-offerings in intemperate Bowles for the success of their unhallow'd and most bloody Conjuration and when they were thorowly heated with the furious Spirit of their impure Deity then were they fittest to contrive and the most audacious to execute the maddest and most desperate Designs Dignum sanè Patellâ operculum a fit Cover for such a Mess A proper Place and fit Ingredients for the carrying on such a cruel and bloody Enterprize that no Man in his right Wits and in a sober Mind durst so much as think on Thus Cataline such another bold Conspirator against his Country as these were who plotted the Death of one of the Chief Magistrates Tully the best Consul they almost ever had and the burning the City the slaughter of the Senate and the ruin of their Temples and all that was Sacred among them just such another Holy and Worthy Project as this was kept all his debauched Consults by night with all manner of lewd Intemperance and Excess and when they were high flown then he carried about a great Goblet wherein Wine and Man's Blood was mix'd together and when all his Accomplices had tasted of it and taken that Sacrament of Confederation to be true to one another he swore them all to Secrecy and then participated his Intentions and then consulted for the most proper time and means for the execution of them but when all their black and horrid Designs which they had formed against their Country Laws and Magistrates were ripe for to be put in Action and a Day appointed for the same even a time prefixt in the Month of February as the Historian tells us their Plot was discovered to the Consul by one of their own Party and the City saved and his Life with the Lives of the Patricians and the whole Order of Senators and their Liberties preserved Thus God to shew how easily he can baffle all the most cunning contrivances of the wisest Achitophels let 's them go on without seeming to take the least notice of them he suffers them to Pride and boast themselves in the happy invention of their bloudy Project and of the fitness and convenience of the place for the Execution of it he lets them go on to fill up the measure of their Iniquity and then on a suddain when they think they have their Prey so safe in the compass of their Net that he cannot escape them and that nothing can intervene to frustrate their expectation Behold a Bird of the Air a Message from Heaven sent by God into the Heart of one of their own Tribe which prompts him to a Discovery carries the Tidings and that which hath wings tells the matter And now what can we think of a Religion if we may call it one which Authorizes Allows and Commands the acting such barbarous Villanies for promoting the Interest of the Roman Catholick Faith as it is by themselves incongruously and absurdly called and the bringing a Nation back again to that Spiritual Thraldom and Captivity out of which God had wonderfully deliver'd it which even the worst of Heathens would have been asham'd to own or in the least to countenance to the great scandal and reproach of our most Holy Pure and peaceable Christian Profession which suffers much in its Credit and Reputation by such pernicious Doctrines as the Church of Rome teaches and prescribes to those of her Communion under the colour and pretended Authority of Religion
they contrive with the greatest Sacredness that can be the most bloudy and inhuman Murthers and Treasons imaginable making even the Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist the Bond of their wicked Confederacies and Combinations both their Obligation to commit their execrable Villanies and their Tye not to confess it if it may tend to the prejudice and discerdit of their Holy Mother Church when it is done Now what Security and Guard can Mankind have against such as have no regard for whatever they say do or swear when the Cause which they have espous'd is concern'd or when their Lives Fortunes or Reputations are called in question Who can but detest and abominate such cruel and Faithless Principles as destroy all Morality and good Nature and which incourage their Proselytes to Murder Princes in cold Blood and to do the Devil's work who was a Murderer from the beginning in God's name under the mask and pretence of doing him good Service They consecrate Danners with Exorcisms and Holy Water for a more successful Invasion and that they may the more deeply and effectually take the Dye of Protestant Blood they Hallow Daggers and Pistols with all the dire Ceremonies of their formal and soppish Superstition that they may enter the sooner and pierce the further into the Hearts of Gods Vicegerents But God be praised who hath defeated all their pernicious Counsels who hath discovered all their deep-laid Designs who hath turned back all their vast Preparations with shame and dishonour and hath made that proud insulting Monarch who by these vile Arts and unchristian unmanly as well as unkingly practices thought to have over-run us and our most Holy Religion a scorn and a by-word and an object of Contempt and Reproach to all Christendom Though Satan and his Adherents sate in full Consult for the ruin of our Religion and the Chief Head under Christ of it yet the everlasting Counsellor who always advises the best for his chosen hath infatuated all their Designs and hath brought that untimely Fate which they intended to others upon their own Heads this God hath done for us and it ought to be marvelous in our Eyes That God who hath assured that he will make all things conspire and make for the Good of those who love him and put their Trust in him who makes even the wrath of Man to praise him and whose fierceness he can when he pleases restrain and make their most wicked Conspiracies instrumental to their future Security and Preservation A Tree shaken by the Wind and whose Roots are loosened thereby within the ground thrives the better settles the faster and bears the more Fruit when the Storm is over and this Government whose Foundations seemed to be shaken by the violence of those furious attempts which have been made by the Prince of the Air to overthrow them shall be the stronger and more firm for those vain and empty blasts which these bold Conspirators have rais'd against it It hath cut off some of the rotten and unsound Members already and I hope will either hinder many from being infected with the same Contagion or cure them if they have been already tainted with it It hath united and confirmed the Hearts and Affections of all Good Men and made them unanimous in their Resolutions of defending the Sacred Person of their valiant Leader and of taking new and more effectual Methods with submission still to and reliance on God's Providence which hath hitherto watched over him and us for the securing both Him and our Religion which through him was aimed at from the like dangers for the time to come It will and ought to make us the more watchful and to have a stricter Eye over those whom we now find to be according to the Character that St. Paul gives First Chap. to the Romans of those whom God had given up to a reprobate Mind to be filled with all manner of Vnrighteousness and Maliciousness to be full of Envy Murder Debate and Deceit to be inventers of Evil things Covenant-breakers without Natural Affection Implacable and Vnmerciful whom no Kindness can oblige but are still studying and plotting to disturb the Peace and quiet of our Jerusalem But above all this it will in all Humane Probability have that good Influence and Operation upon a Party within our selves as to open their Eyes and to convince their Judgments and to make them own that Duty and Allegiance which they have so long neglected and forgot to pay when they cannot but see before their Faces the Base Unworthy and inhumane Practices that have been used by the Papists Permissu Jussu Superiorum and by some among themselves to bring about their Wicked Designs and when they must if they have the least grain of Sense left acknowledge that if what they have so passionately wish'd and strove for had for our Sins been accomplish'd by a French Power which I hope now they will no longer deny that they themselves must have fallen a Sacrifice among the rest to their besotted Bigottry unless they would abjure that Religion which hitherto they seem so Zealously to profess and to fall down before the Golden Idol of Rome Surely they will be asham'd to herd with the Papists for the time to come seeing as their Principles lead them to it so now they are actually detected and convicted by Plain and Undeniable Evidence of the most Barbarous and Ungenerous Attempt that almost was ever made against the Life of a Prince by secret Treachery and Ambushment who hath so Freely and Bravely exposed his Person to the most imminent Dangers upon all Occasions not only for the Preservation of the Protestant Religion and the Rights and Liberties of his Subjects which but for him under GOD had long since been swallow'd up by that great Leviathan who spares nothing that comes within his reach and grasp but also for the recovery of the Rights and Possessions of most of the Princes of Europe which have been invaded and encroach'd on by the common Disturber of the Peace and Welfare of Christendom O how happy should we be if all our Divisions and Differences were composed among us then should all our Enemies either Abroad or at Home be discouraged to make any more attempts against us then should our Religion flourish and the Prosperity of the Nation be firmly establish'd among us Let us therefore make that right use of GOD's Mercy thus signally and visibly conferr'd upon us by the Discovery of that Detestable Conspiracy against His Majesty's Royal Person and Government as to lay aside all distinctions and frivolous Disputes about Words more than Realities and bear a Dutiful and unconstrain'd Allegeance to the best of Princes who thinks nothing too hazardous to undertake nothing too painful to undergo to procure the Happiness of his People and the Security of their Religion And as we have praised God this Morning in that excellent Form of Thanksgiving composed by his Order for the great and signal Deliverance of his Person and Government from all the Wicked Designs that were laid against both so let us shew the sincerity of our Thankfulness unto God by our conformity to his Laws and by yielding a cheerful Obedience to the Commands of his Vice-Gerent for whose safety he hath so graciously appear'd Lastly As we have joyntly set our hands in token of our readiness to imploy our whole Strength and to use our utmost Endeavours to assist for the Defence of his Royal Person and support of his Government and to bring to condign Punishment those who shall offer any violence to the one or disturbance to the other so let us now with one accord lift up our Hearts and our Voices and associate our selves this Day to present our humble Address to the Divine Majesty of Heaven in behalf of our Dear and Dread Sovereign King WILLIAM that he may be long the Care and Darling of the Almighty and the Joy Comfort and Safe guard of these and all other his Realms and Dominions whatsoever He hath long O Lord abode in the heat of the Battel under the cooling and refreshing Shadow of thy gracious and protecting Providence thou didst cover him with thy large and capacious Wings from the Bullets that flew about him and now thou hast quash'd all those Midnight-Plots and Conspiracies that were hatch'd in the depth of Hell and they are by thy goodness discover'd and come to nothing O contime thy loving kindness unto him because he hath known thy Name and when he calls upon thee do thou answer him Let thy Truth and Mercy be still his Shield and Buckler Let him take to himself the Jealousie for thine Honour for compleat Armour and let him put on Righteousness for a Breast-plate and true Judgment instead of an Helmet Let thy Hand O GOD hold him fast and thy hand strengthen him Hide him from the Secret Counsels of the Wicked and from the Insurrection of Evil-Doers who encourage themselves in Mischief that they may suddenly shoot at him that is perfect and commune among themselves how they may lay snares and say that no Man shall see them But do thou O Lord suddenly shoot at them with a swift Arrow that they may be wounded Yea let their own Tongues make them fall that whoso seeth them may laugh them to scorn and that all Men may say This hath the Lord done for they shall perceive that it is thy Work then shall the Righteous rejoyce and put their Trust in thee and all they that are true of heart shall be glad And that he may be a long Blessing to this Nation do Thou continue to deliver him from the Evil Man and preserve him from the Wicked Man who imagines Mischief in his Heart and stirrs up strife all the Day long Keep him from the hands of the Ungodly who had purposed to overthrow his Goings Keep him from the Snares they have laid for him and from the Traps of the Wicked-doers Let the Ungodly fall in their own Nets together and let him ever escape them Grant this and whatever else we have prayed for in much mercy to us and this Sinful Nation for thy Dear Son Jesus Christ's sake to whom with thy self and Holy Spirit be ascribed all Honour and Glory World without end Amen FINIS