Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
|
A33249
|
A second defense of the present government under K. William and Q. Mary delivered in a sermon preached October the 6th 1689 at St. Swithin's in Worcester ... by R. Claridge.
|
Claridge, Richard, 1649-1723.
|
1689
(1689)
|
Wing C4435; ESTC R37670
|
18,377
|
36
|
wherein so many Amazing Providences concurr'd that had not our Eyes been Spectators and our Ears Hearers our Reason would be silenc'd and our Faith baffled If any thing can shake off our Lethargy and work in us a through Resentment of a Mercy methinks it should be this Behold Our Adversaries confounded and we preserv'd a Victory obtain'd without Fighting and a vast Army defeated without Garments roll'd in Bloud For it pleased God to come to us as once to his Prophet Elijah not in the Great and strong Wind that rent the Mountains and brake the Rocks in pieces nor in the Earth-quake nor in the Fire but in the still small Voice 1 Kings 19. 11 12. O wonderful work the Pit that was digg'd the Diggers are fallen into the snare that was laid has catch'd the Fowlers the Lion that stood open-mouth'd to devour hath deserted his Prey and the Babel-Builders were confounded in their Work and Language in an instant Those superstitious Oratories which the blind Devotion of Four Years erected the irresistable Zeal of Four Weeks levelled with the ground And the Breaden God who had taken possession of those Buildings was so unable to protect his Votaries that he could neither guard himself nor make his escape without their Assistance who gave him his Divinity And for their Great and Mighty Warlike Preparations the Lord turned the Wisdom of the Wise as he did the Counsel of Ahithophel into Foolishness and dampt the Hearts of their Men of Courage that One seemed to chase a thousand and two to put ten thousand to flight Deut. 32. 30. Thus fell the Popish Dagon before the Protestant Ark. Thus tumbled the Walls of the Roman Jericho at the mighty sounding of the Gospel-Trumpets And so let all thine Enemies perish O Lord but for everbe the Helper and Defender of thy People III. Let us see what present Supports the same Merciful Providence that brought us hitherto doth afford us As God was pleased to hear our Cries and own our Cause at the lowest Ebb so doth he notably maintain and support it He brought us not out of an Aegypt to destroy us in a Wilderness but hath given us an assurance of enjoying the Promised Land. Though we have not his Miraculous yet we have his Gracious Presence and instead of the Cloudy and Fiery Pillars we have the Glorious Light of the Gospel to conduct us We have another Moses too who hath Burnt the Molten Calf renewed the Tables of the Law and restored us to the Free Exercise of our Religion Nay is he not a publick spirited Prince the Repairer of the Breach the Restorer of Paths to dwell in Isaiah 58. 12. A Josiah to destroy Idolatry and a Zerubbabel to build the Temple of the Lord Doth not his singular Zeal to the Reform'd Religion sufficiently appear by what he hath already done and is now doing for it And is not his Moderation known unto all Men I mean to all unprejudic'd and disinterested Men his Moderation in the Exercise of his Royal Power shewing kindness even to the Unthankful and in the absolute Command of his Affections keeping them always within the bounds of sound Reason But above all his Moderation in Judgment about matters in Religion too hotly managed on both sides by contending Protestants to the disturbance of the Church's Peace and the Papist's Advantage By which Moderation I do not understand some low degree of Knowledge or Indifferency in Religion but a Sober Humble Modest and Charitable Judgment not tenacious of Disputable and Problematical Conceptions not censorious of others but allowing a Latitude in those things which are Matters Questionum non Fidei of Questions and not of Faith. And it is heartily to be wish'd that the same Moderation were in all his Protestant Subjects that we might live in an happy Union and Correspondence and our Religion be settled upon so sure a Foundation that there may be no danger of a Relapse into the like Miseries we were in at any time hereafter To further so good a Work let us be as forward as the Children of Israel were to build the Tabernacle as they brought their Bracelets and their Ear-Rings and Jewels of Gold Exod. 35. 22. So let us bring our Humility Moderation and Prayers Be sure the Blessing of Heaven will attend our charitable Endeavours in this kind for what the Apostle saith in another case I may in the present He that in these things serveth Christ is acceptable to God and approved of Men Rom. 14. 18. If we would but lay down our Prejudices which we suck'd in with our Milk as one not long since hath told the World he did his Passive Obedience and resolvedly submit to the impartial Arbitration of Scripture expounded by the Fathers of the first and purest Ages a Comprehension would not be opposed but promoted In those things which are said to be De Fide and absolutely necessary to Salvation we all agree the difference mostly lies in the Ritual and Disciplinary part wherein the mutual Condescension and Compliance of Us and our Brethren might render an Accordance easie But to return if I may call this a Digression to the subject in hand our Supports are as many as the Benefits we enjoy upon which I might enlarge but in a word the unparallel'd Accomplishments of our King and Integrity of our Parliament the steady Alliance of our Confederates the general Quiet at Home and wonderful Success of our Arms Abroad loudly proclaim the Divine Assistance and certainly foretell a prosperous Futurity if not prevented by our Impieties For IV. From what God hath already manifested himself for us in and the present supports he affords us we have a fair prospect of his Care and Protection of us for the time to come There is all the probability imaginable of a glorious conclusion of a work so happily begun and carried on Ex perceptione praeteritorum Munerum firma fit expectatio futurorum The receipt of former mercies is a firm ground for the expectation of future We may argue either from God's Attributes His Promises or The Examples of the Faithful 1. From his Attributes his Immutability assures us he is the same God still his Compassion that he will commiserate us and his Power and Fidelity that he is able to perform what his Wisdom sees fit for us in as ample manner as before 2. From his Promises touching which this Rule is to be observed That being generally made to all or particularly to some they are equally applicable to any in any condition unto which they are suitable For they all meet in Christ as the several Lines of a Circumference do in the Center and so are no otherwise divisible to several Believers than the Exigence of their particular Estates doth diversify them and so fit them for such Promises as now to others or at other times to themselves would be unseasonable When therefore we meet with any Promise in Scripture which
he escaped So the Ship of our Church and State having been long toss'd in a Sea of Misery and every moment was in danger of being sunk being now arriv'd by the Blessing of God and the Diligence of her Pilot at the Haven where she would be we may with Admiration reflect upon the many imminent Dangers she hath past To make which Reflection work the more kindly give me leave to remember you of what Almighty God hath so lately done for us by removing the Invasions made upon our Civil and Religious Rights and frustrating the grand Design upon the Reformation 1. For our Civil Rights what Invasions were made upon them the History of the late Arbitrary Reign is so well known that 't is impossible to be mistaken Liberty and Property the Birth-right of every English Man were rendered meer Titulary things and Parliamentary Law by which we ought to be govern'd was laid aside as useless while the Will and Pleasure of the Prince usurped the Legislature For the Dispensing Power the most exorbitant thing that ever could be advanc'd being set up above known Established Laws and made the sole Standard of Government brought both our Lives Liberties Honours and Estates entirely under it By vertue of this Dispensing Power we saw Popish Judges and Justices sit in Courts of Judicature the Militia was put into the hands of unqualified Officers and a standing Army kept up contrary to Law. The liberty of choosing Members of Parliament was wholy taken away by serving Corporations with Quo Warranto's and forcing them to surrender their Charters and to receive them again with such Alterations that might make room for Roman-Catholick Magistrates or at best such indifferent Protestants as were prepared not to hinder the great Intriegue The Violence done to Magdalen-Colledge in Oxford in outing the President and Fellows of their Freeholds by an illegal High-Commission-Court for their ever memorable steddiness to their Consciences and Statutes of their Founder and the imprisoning the Bishops and trying them as Criminals for presenting a most humble Petition that they might be excus'd distributing a Declaration grounded upon the Dispensing Power were but the beginning of our Sorrows the severe Prologue to a dismal Tragedy So that being invaded daily in our Civil Rights we had nothing left us but a fearful Expectation of merciless Oppression had not God sent us seasonable succour by his Present Majesty's means to whom under God we owe the rescuing our Lives and Liberties out of our Enemies hands Let this consideration be well weigh'd and unless Slavery be more eligible than Freedom and Tyranny than the Blessing of an easie Government as the Invasions made upon our Civil Rights were actually many and the subsequent justly dreaded dangers more so the Deliverance must be acknowledged to be extraordinary 2. As God has done great things for us in regard of our Civil Rights so has he done no less in defending our Religion which was the mark our Enemies chiefly shot at as is obvious from the Methods they indefatigably pursued to overthrow it Popish Chappels and Schools were erected throughout the whole Kingdom and Popery it self which is downright Idolatry condemn'd by Scripture and justly banish'd by our Laws was publickly tolerated against both Priests and Jesuits who were wont to walk in disguise put off their Vizards and as ambitious of being known appear'd openly at Mass They Married Baptized Consecrated made solemn Processions Proselyted the Loose Ignorant and Debauch'd and bid defiance to our Laws Statutes made against Correspondence with the Bishop and Court of Rome were suspended and Ambassadours were sent and Nuncio's received by none other Authority but the Omnipotent Dispensing Power The Declaration for Liberty of Conscience pretended a favourable Design but was soon discovered to be all sham for Liberty and Infallibility being utterly inconsistent it was quickly found out even by those they thought to have gain'd by it notwithstanding its specious pretexts of Conscience and Moderation to be a trick to engage Protestants whose strength lies in their Vnion into mutual Quarrels and Contentions that the Contrivers might thereby the more successfully have ruin'd us By these and such like Methods they vigorously proceeded and thought themselves so certain of Re-establishing their Apostolical Church that they ridicul'd our Religion call'd us Hereticks to our Faces and threatned us not only with the Writ De Haeretico comburendo but to sacrifice our Bibles to their Rage And had they prospered in their Counsels as God might justly have permitted them for our Sins this flourishing Kingdom had soon been turn'd into an Aceldama a Field of Bloud and the Marian Racks Stakes and Gibbets would have been acted over again I tremble to think what the French and Irish Protestants have suffered and what we might have lookt for from Men of the same bloudy Principles here I need not tell you that Cruelty is one principal part of their Religion that Transubstantiation has made more Martyrs than the Ten Persecutions Histories are so full of their Massacres and Murthers that 't is no Hyperbole to say the Butcheries of Christians have exceeded those of Pagan Rome and Christ's Pretended Vicar out-done the utmost Rage and Inhumanity of all the Heathen Emperours But this is not all for if they had succeeded according to their Hopes or rather Confidences How had this Kingdom of Christ become the Kingdom of Antichrist How had the goodly Vine of the Reformation which the Lord of the Vine-yard had planted made to take deep root in our Land pruned and cultivated and caus'd to spread out her Branches like the Cedars of Lebanon been rooted up and devoured by the Italian Boars and Wild-Beasts of Doway and St. Omers Psal 80. 8 9 10 13. In these very Houses set apart for the true Worship of God how should we have seen the Abomination of Desolation standing in the Holy Place How should we have heard the Legends of Imaginary Saints read instead of the four Evangelists have had the Lyes and Fictions of Idle Monks and Fryars impos'd upon us for Gospel-Verities and have been constrained as far as in them lay to go to Hell by an implicit Obedience But for ever Blessed be the Lord God of Israel who hath visited and redeemed his People and sent us by his Chosen Servants a Deliverance which had in all the Circumstances so eminently the Divine Hand in it that I admire any save Epicures and Romanists should deny it to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Lord 's doing and marvelous in our Eyes Psal 118. 23. If Physicians meeting with Distempers incureable by ordinary Medicines are driven to acknowledge that there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 something Divine in them and Politicians from the Changes and Alterations in Common-wealths are forc'd to confess there is some Superiour Cause called Fate by Machiavel instead of Providence which superintends Humane Affairs How can we but own the extraordinary Hand of God in our Revolution