Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
religion_n	church_n	protestant_n	roman_a	3,280	5	7.8264	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44456	A sermon preached before the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor, aldermen and citizens of the city of London, in the parish church of S. Mary le Bow, September 3, 1683 being the day of humiliation for the late dreadfull fire / by William Hopkins ...	Hopkins, William, 1647-1700.	1683 (1683)	Wing H2754; ESTC R17537	23,331	39

severe courses suited not our temper it may be we are of that generous disposition which is to be wrought on by kindness and favours have not been ill bestowed upon us I would to God it were so But alas is not the contrary evident Doth not Prosperity make us proud and wanton Deut. xxxii 15. Have we not with Jesurun waxed fat and kicked have we not forsook the God that made us and lightly esteemed the Rock of our Salvation Quievit parumper Inimicorum audacia nec tamen nostrorum malitia Recesserant hostes à civibus nec cives à suis sceleribus Gildas de Excid Britan. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Philo in vita Mosis How have we in the midst of God's blessings forgotten all Sobriety and Gratitude forgotten both God and our selves The lucid Intervals of mercy have not brought us into our right minds nor yet prevailed with us for the least intermission of sinning As Gildas complains of our Ancestours Nay as it is observed of Pharaoh the onely use we have made of that respite we have had between Judgments hath been like Wrestlers to take breath to recover spirits and strength for a fresh combat with Heaven and that we may be able with greater fury and violence to sly in the face of God Had we been as is suggested of that generous temper that must be managed by fair means God hath made sufficient Tryal of us in that way He hath heaped favours upon us and even laden us with his benefits Isai XLIII 24. But in return we have made him to serve with our sins and wearied him with our iniquities If the Fire drave out the unclean Spirit that haunted our old buildings he seems to be now returned with seven other evil Spirits more wicked than himself and to have taken possession of our new habitations For our Impiety and Contempt of God is greater than ever our Pride and Vanity prodigious our Luxury and Debauchery hath outstript all examples of former ages and are not to be out-done Nil erit ulterius quod nostris moribus addat Posteritas Juv. Sat. 1. I wish they never may be matched by the generations to come Have not Oppression Deceit and Perjury overspread us And may not that be said of London that the Prophet spake of Gilead Hos VI. 18. It is a City of them that work iniquity and is polluted with bloud Are not Adultery and Whoredom esteemed so venial Sins that they are seldom chastised with greater severity than a smile Is not the cry of Sins gone up to Heaven like the cry of Sodom and yet we dread not a like overthrow Nay as though our Wickedness brought on ruine too slowly whilst it operated onely in a moral way as the meritorious cause of it we have of late traded in those Sins which have a natural and more quick tendency to Destruction We have rent the Church by causless Schisms and divided the Kingdom against it self by disloyal Factions We have been Heady and Ungovernable which is the most certain sign of approaching ruine In the heat of our clamorous zeal for the Protestant Religion we have dishonoured it in the highest degree and after all our fierce outcries against Popery the worst of its abominations have been committed amongst us God speaks thus to Judah Thou that hast judged thy Sisters Samaria and Sodom bear thine own shame for thy sins which thou hast committed more abominable than they they are more righteous than thou be confounded and bear thy shame in that thou hast justified thy sisters Ezek. XVI 52. Is not this discourse very applicable to us May not God thus reproach us You have judged your Sister Rome but have equalled if not outdone her abominations And the villanies you condemn in her you have justified by worse practices Are there Jesuits among the Papists so are there among us if agreement with them in their worst principles and practices may intitle men to the Name who want almost nothing else but the Order and Habit Are their Jesuits dangerous Incendiaries so are ours Do the Romish Jesuits subject Princes to the Pope ours subject them to the People Do their Jesuits contrive the deposing and murthering of Kings so do ours Do they give the Pope a power to absolve Subjects from their Allegiance and dispense with their Oaths ours make quicker work of it and without that piece of Superstition and Formality allow every man to doe it for himself Do they allow Equivocation and mental Reservation ours doe worse who condemn it in the Principle but admit it in Practice Do they make Oaths and Sacraments the Bonds of iniquity the Seals of secrecy in their hellish designs ours are not very unlike them who conceal as hellish Treasons contrary to their Oaths to discover them who take Oaths and Sacraments to qualifie them for the service of a Faction and to possess themselves of Power to ruine both Church and State Do they at Rome propagate Religion by Assassination and Massacres there have been also those among us who stuck at neither for the accomplishment of their Devilish Plots And though they do not canonize or saint Traitours as the Pope doth they dub them HEROES and ASSERTORS of RELIGION and LIBERTY which poor reward may for ought I know animate our Zealots to as desperate attempts as a Saintship doth the Romish When I consider what zeal for the Purity of Religion these men pretend that they are for purer Congregations not onely than the Roman but even the best reformed Churches that they would be thought Reformatissimi the most sincere most zealous nay the onely Protestants in the Nation these pretences aggravate their crimes beyond those of Romish Traytors And I shall not fear to say they have justified their Sister and the Papists are more righteous than they In short our bloud Feuds and the devilish Confederacies of Atheists and Enthusiasts presage ruine to us and we act as though we designed to prevent the stroke of divine Vengeance and become our own Executioners When the greatest part of this City lay in ashes and its wealth was consumed by the Fire when nothing but desolation presented it self to our view and thousands lay in the Fields a man would have thought London was as miserable as it could be made But when I behold the universal Corruption of manners the Debauchery the Uncleanness Profaneness and other abominations which are committed in it without shame and though not with allowance yet with impunity when I see how factious Non tam maenium subversione domorúmque exustione Civitas perire dicenda est quàm justitiae exterminio morum corruptione Nic. de Clemangiis Ep. 101. heady and ungovernable men are I must needs profess that in all its present Splendour I look upon the condition of this City to be worse than when it lay in ruines For a City is not so effectually undone by the demolishing of its Walls and burning of