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	roman_a	rome_n	3,452	5	6.8287	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A53973	A sermon preached at Westminster-Abbey on the 26th of July, 1685 being the thanksgiving-day for His Majesties victory over the rebels / by Edward Pelling ...	Pelling, Edward, d. 1718.	1685 (1685)	Wing P1098; ESTC R34550	13,634	40

as he hath been all along with our Fathers so He is still with Us that in all circumstances and junctures he is able to take care of us and that his good Providence shall not be wanting to us if we be not wanting to our Duty but adorn our Faith with sincere obedience to Himself and his Vice-gerent and so put our Trust and Confidence in him as good and honest hearted Christians ought to do Give me leave to deal plainly with you for the condition of the Times requires plain-dealing It hath been generally believed that a Prince who is in the communion of another Church must needs endeavour the alteration of the Establisht Religion if it be different from his own Men are ready to think it must necessarily be thus and that it cannot possibly be otherwise But this is a very great mistake and to prove that it is so I appeal to a most memorable story that I perceive is not taken notice of and yet the truth of it is acknowledg'd by one that is well known to be of Republican Principles and that a while ago wrote a very Seditious Book to Subvert our Monarchy and to reduce our Government to the Venetian form I mean the Author of Plato Redivivus That very man tells us pag. 207 that a few years since a Duke of Hanover was reconciled to the Roman Church and even went to Rome to abjure the Protestant Religion Yet upon his return home he lived and govern'd as he did before without the least animosity of his Subjects for the change he had made and without any endeavour of his to introduce any change in his Government or People but reigned peaceably fourteen years and then dying left the Establisht Government and Religion entire to his Brother the Bishop of Osnaburg who was a Protestant Here now is plain experience and matter of Fact which shews that 't is very possible for a Prince to Reign very quietly and peaceably over a Church that is of a different Faith in some things from his own Consider this instance well it may be a good means by the blessing of God to remove those in ordinate jealousies which are so destructive both of the Kings and the Peoples peace and which we should carefully stifle for that reason especially since our Prince hath given us so many Solemn Assurances and in all his actions hitherto hath given Real Demonstrations of his sincerity A Prince not of Absaloms temper unstable fraudulent false but one of that True Honor and Greatness that he never yet deceived any part of mankind and I am perswaded never will unless it be in one point I mean as to their Fears those indeed he hath deceived already and truly the World is bound with all Thankfulness to forgive him that But I was speaking of the Providence of God and of casting our selves upon it in all Circumstances and Conditions And do but consider I beseech you what is it but the Providence of God that all Princes and people live by And what is it but that wonderful Providence which hath made our Prince and us to out-live these late dangers which threatned us with no less then utter and remediless Destruction Here we have had fresh Experience of Gods over-ruling Providence at Home in a Deliverance that may trouble an inquisitive Historian to find out it's parallel if you take it all together and consider how black the Cloud over our Heads was and how suddainly it increased from the bigness of a mans hand and what Assurances so many Sons of Belial went upon and how ready the hearts of vast multitudes more were to run to their assistance and what Encouragements they would have had upon the least success and how near that Success was and yet how this great Complication of dangers was broken dissipated and utterly destroyed in a moment in the turn of an hand in the twinkling of an eye as if God was making us a new world after the same manner he made this when he only spake the word and it was done What can there be more to encourage us to an intire and constant dependance upon the good Providence of God Especially if we remember what David said when he reflected upon that satisfaction and ease of mind which was the result of his Integrily This I had because I have kept thy Commandments Psal 119. 56. And this perhaps We have had too as the Reward of our integrity For though we are far from ever owning the doctrine of Merits yet 't is not immodest to think that God who hath a Respect unto the Meek Regard to the Lowly and a Favour to all such as are true of heart hath in this our late Deliverance shew'd some regard and favour to our Zeal in the late Times for true Allegiance Justice and Honesty when others did not care what evil they did as long as it tended unto good Though for a good Conscience-sake we ran the greatest hazards and were wrapt up in the greatest difficulties and yet had but very little Encouragements before us yet blessed be God we were mindful of our Duty and Resolved to Live and Die by it and acted like good Christians though seemingly at all manner of disadvantage and all this upon that firm trust and confidence we had in the Providence of our God And now we see his Providence hath not failed us nor have our hopes made us ashamed but God hath marvellously done the blessed Work for us and strangely restored us to a blessed condition while his just judgements have been such upon the Enemies of our peace that all those Arts and Methods which they employed for Our ruin have after a most stupendious and unaccountable manner turned to their Own I dare say that if you trace over all those wicked practices which they have used for several years last past to undermine the Throne to blow up the Church to destroy and overthrow All you will find that true which David observed of such men in his days that they are sunk down in the pit that they made that in the Net which they had hid their own foot is taken that they are caught in the devices which they themselves imagined for others that they are fallen into the ditch that they digged with their own hands that their mischiefs are returned up-upon their own heads and their violent dealings come down upon their own Pates Blessed be God that it is so it is marvellous in our eyes 3. Lastly therefore that I may conclude all by applying my self to such as hate the sins of Faction and unfaithfulness let the consideration of this astonishing deliverance strengthen our hopes and confidence still that God will perfect that good work which he hath wrought in us I was upright before God saith David upon the consideration of his deliverances in Psalm 18. Therefore hath the Lord recompensed me according to my righteousness according to the cleanness of my hands in his eye sight With

to stifle all further efforts of Loyalty to bury our Monarch beyond all hopes of a Resurrection to ingulph the Church in an eternal Chaos so that you should hardly have seen the very Ruins of it to dash down at once the whole frame of the present Government and to leave it to Time and Fortune and the Decision of the Sword what other Model should be set up And what would have been at the end of all this but Irreligion and Atheism accompanied with the most dismal Confusions and a perpetual War till by weak'ning and killing one another each Party must have given a Forreign Power the fairest opportunity of Invading and Captivating all Nothing could destroy such a bulky such a barbarous Design but the Arm of God whose extroardinary providence is then wont visibly to interpose when dangers are so Immense so Imminent and otherwise Inevitable And the Truth is the Conspiracy was too great to prosper too excessively monstrous to give any but Atheists promises of success the Mercy of God being such that amidst all our Corrections he hath still kept us from Ruin and has always saved us from the Ax though we have been often delivered most deservedly to the Rod. 2. Again the Conspiracy was laid so very broad as one of the Criminals himself confest that there is little reason to doubt but that innumerable numbers of disaffected men in all parts of this great Island divers of the most Potent many the most Active all the most Violent of the Faction were more or less actually engaged to carry the Design on so that had not that good God wonderfully interposed who commands the hearts and stilleth the madness of the people by his own secret and unaccountable but yet over-ruling and efficacious power in all humane probability no way could have been left for innocence to escape And when the Rebellion was now begun by the most Forward of the party that gave the Alarm to the rest who only waited for an invitation to distract the whole Kingdom Sheba had so posted himself in one part of it and Absalom in another that all such whose hearts were after both had their choice given them of repairing unto either had not God restrained and dampt their spirits and made even resolute men Cowards This we must needs ascribe to the particular providence of God especially if we do consider that those ordinary Forces throughout the Nation on which we confided for the curbing and suppressing of Rebels were for the most part what through cowardise what through perfidiousness and what through both much prepar'd and much more desirous themselves to turn Fugitives Not but that God permitted the Foeces of the people to gather together into a considerable nay I must call it because we once thought it a formidable body for never is there an inundation without a great scum But yet such was the good Providence of God to us that all this was more for our Terrour then to our Injury that by making us sensible of our Conquest God might shew us our danger which had it not appeared at our Doors might have made no more impression upon us than a Dream in the Night 3. And in this Thirdly the Hand of God was most plainly seen that after so many preparations on the one side after so many terrours on the other and after so many uncertainties on both the Scales were turn'd so in a moment that we no sooner heard of a Conflict than we were sure of a Victory and that in such a Nice and Critical juncture that we might have thought our selves happy might have blest God for but a Drawn Battle they that shall duely consider what a condition the Kings affairs was in that Fatal Night for it was the most Fatal Night-work that ever Absalom had in hand how disproportionable his Majesties Forces were in Number how secure they were like so many good Consciences at their Repose how unexpectedly fire and Sword came against them how silently he stole upon them like a Thief whose design was to plunder a whole Kingdom and yet how suddenly that desperate engagment ended I do not say in a Victory but in an utter defeat and overthrow of the whole Faction they must needs look upon it as a Miraculous deliverance and grant the providence of God to have been as visible then in the Preservation of the Crown as it had been before in the Restauration of the Prince himself Lord how in a moment was that great work done which the Government had been labouring at for so many years and yet unsuccessfully How soon were all the Councels of Achitophel turned into foolishness and all the Arts and Machinations of his numerous Adherents brusht down all at once like a Cobweb in the twinkling of an Eye After so many designs against the Monarchy and the Church which had been so Politickly and so deeply laid after so many close and Treasonable consultations that had been held after such along trade of Perjuries that to the wounding of their consciences and to the scandal of Religion had been practiced after so much industry that had been used in lying Libelling and debauching the World with wicked Principles after so much pains that had been taken in setting up Magistrates to overlay and stifle the Laws after so much villainous Hypocrisie which profligate Souls had been guilty of even before the Altar of God after so many correspondences that had been maintain'd thro'out these Kingdoms to hew down all the pillars thereof after such a train of Arts which they had been laying so many years to begin and carry on a Rebellion after such a vast expence of time and Mony Mony like that which Judas received that may cost even the Creditors their Necks after all this I say and a great deal more the whole controversie was ended as it were at a Blow by a few men by an hours push and so that those very methods which they used for the Ruin have effectually served to the Establishment of the Throne they have made our Prince though against their own Wills a glorious King indeed and Us his faithful Subjects an happy and safe People And all by the good Providence of our God who for his Mercy sake govern'd and over-rul'd even Midnight surprises and in that critical and most dangerous juncture kept us All from being the prey to the fury or cruelties of those Abaddons 4. And yet Fourthly the Providence of God did not stop here but as his bare and out-stretched Arm had now unexpectedly defeated those villainous Enterprises so to Crown the Victory after a signal manner his vengeance pursued and overtook the Men even the most Principal Traytors to deliver up those to the Law who had escaped the Sword This was a singular and very remarkable Work of God because on this our future Peace and Felicity did depend and to see how strangely God doth sometimes bring his great purposes to pass this Last this greatest