Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
religion_n	king_n	law_n	liberty_n	6,707	5	6.5575	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A92765	Gods warning to England by the voyce of his rod. Delivered in a sermon, preached at Margarets Westminster, before the Honourable House of Commons, at their late solemn fast, Octob. 30. 1644. By Henry Scudder, Rector of Collingborn-Ducis in Wiltshire. Published by order of the said House.	Scudder, Henry, d. 1659?	1644 (1644)	Wing S2139; Thomason E18_20; ESTC R209986	35,861	47

the Armie Divisions in Counsells Divisions every where amongst all sorts in the Kingdome Whilst God doth thus divide us and doth in his just judgement give us over thus to make Divisions certainly he meaneth that by our selves we shall be destroyed We would not in time of Peace agree together to serve him with one consent he will therefore that we shall agree in this By our dis-agreements to destroy and consume one another I beseech you take into your serious consideration those Symptomes which argued our utter ruine and destruction to be neere if not speedily prevented as you heard them so you may help your memories if you can gain time to read them in the ensuing Sermon which as it was Preached so now is Printed by your Order Are not gray haires upon us here and there already Hos 7. 9. Is not much of our strength devoured Are we blind Or will we still winke with our eyes and not see And not know all this Doth not our wickednesse which aboundeth more and more in England even while we are under the Rod testifie unto our faces that we do not return to the Lord our God and seeke him with our whole heart for all this When you were pleased to call me to go before you and to bear a part with you in your day of Fast and solemn Humiliation I looked upon our Nation in this ill Condition I knew no better Subject to Treate of to be applyed to your selves and to all that then heard me then to teach you or atleast to remember you of a timely and profitable Use-making of the Rod of God which is now so sore upon us Namely to learn what God teacheth us by it To be shewed our danger in which we are and the neerenesse of our ruine for our sinnes will be no discouragement unto you in the work of standing in the gap and Psal 106. 23. making up the breach in which you have so long stood and which with unweariednesse and undauntednesse you have to your eternall Renown endeavoured maugre all the mountains of opposition and difficulties which you have met withall But it should rather put an edge to your courage as all difficulties do to men of courage and true valour You are Honoured and worthy Patriots the repairers of our breaches under God Be ye Mosesses and Phineasses to our Israel When Israel sinned in the matter of the golden Calf God said He would destroy them had Psal 106. 23. not Moses his chosen stood before him in the breach to turn away his wrath lest he should destroy them When Phineas executed Judgement the plague was Psal 106. 30. stayed you are called not extraordinarily as he but in an ordinary way to do it God when he foretold his purpose to destroy the Kingdome of Judah did look for such as you are to make up the hedge and stand in the gap before Ezek. 22. 30. the Lord that he might not destroy it These Worthies by prayer held Gods hands from striking Exod. 32. 10 27. and by executing judgement for him did save the Kingdome did save the people from destruction Whatsoever the event may prove Noble Sirs Let the fear of the Lord be upon you Be strong Let 2 Chron. 15. 7. not your hands be weak deal couragiously The Lord will be with the good and your work shall be rewarded 2 Chron. 19. 11. and you may expect a happy issue But however it is honourable for a Souldier to dye in maintaining or making up the breach and your work shall be with the Lord and if you save not the Kingdome you shal without Ezeck 14. 18 20. fail as it is sayd of Noah Job and Daniel save your own souls and may expect some temporall deliverance Neither should the knowledge of our likelinesse and neerenesse to ruine disanimate any or should it weaken the hands of the people of the Land For when God sent Jeremiah to Prophesie against Jerusalem that he would destroy it and that they should be carried Captive this is the inference from it Therefore amend your wayes Jer. 25. 13. and your doings and obey the voyce of the Lord your God and the Lord will repent him of the evill Jer. 18. 7 8. that he hath pronounced against you Moreover let it be conceived that God is peremptorily determined to destroy a Nation which we cannot be certain of though we can see a Nation deserving it and is neer to it For God is not limitted nor can be prescribed to do what in like case he hath done yet it will be profitable for a people to be warned of it For they that fear God will thereupon endeavour to prevent it or to Ezek. 9. 4. prepare for it That making their own peace with God they may be marked for safety as those in Ezekiel were and may make their adresses to God as to a safe and strong tower thereby entring into the chambers spoken of in Isaiah and shut the doores about them and hide themselves for a little-moment that is cast themselves upon Gods Providence and Protection securing themselves Isai 26. 20. in him untill the indignation of the Lord be overpast No man can apprehend misery and destruction more certainly to come upon a people then the Prophet Habbacuk did at which at the first hearing he was much terrified yet it was much for his good and advantage For it did cause him to humble himself before God and to seek his face That he might rest in the day of Hab. 3. 16. trouble when the Chaldeans should come up and invade them with his Troops Through faith he could see safety and matter of comfort and joy in God so that he could say though he should be deprived of all livelihood and means of subsistance for his person and outward man Yet I will rejoyce in the Lord I will joy in the God Hab. 3. 1● of my Salvation c. I have here given you some account of the choise of the Subject whereof in my Sermon I spake unto you and have prosecuted more fully something which I did then but hint unto you I take the boldnesse to publish it and put it forth under the shelter of your honourable patronage I have onely this maine suite unto you that you would continue resolute for God and his true Religion for the Kings Majesties just Rights for the Laws of the Kingdome and just Liberties to which we are all born And the Lord of Hoasts and King of kings our good God He blesse and prosper the work in your hands wherewith you are intrusted The Lord prosper your handy work So prayeth dayly The unworthiest of those which you have imployed to serve you in the Lord HENRY SCUDDER A Sermon at the monethly Fast Octob. 30. 1644. BEFORE the Honourable House of COMMONS MICAH 6. 9. The voyce of the Lord cryeth to the City and the man of wisedome shall see thy Name

again chasten them Seven times more untill their Land shall be desolate and their Cities wast But yet so as if when he hath brought his sorest judgements upon them they should by them learn to humble themselves and confesse their iniquity and accept of the punishment of their iniquity God will remember his Covenant and be mercifull Levit 26. unto them Lastly when the rod hath taught all the former lessons if men will not hear it then it teacheth that the Lord may be so provoked as to give over smiting as one weary of striking and to say Why should you be smitten any more you will revolt more and more Isai 1. 5. And because they adde leudnesse to their filthinesse obstinacy and impenitency to their wickednesse the Lord saith to them as to those in Ezekicl Because I have purged thee that is by my judgments would have reclaimed thee and thou wast not purged Thou shalt not be purged from thy filthinesse any more till I have caused Ezek. 24. 13. my fury to rest upon thee You may in the taking away of his rod if he give over smiting hear him say I have taught and corrected you thus and thus and so long I see all is in vaine I will reserve you for utter ruine and destruction and sith by no means you will learn to know me and the things which concern your own peace and good You shall dye without knowledge you shall dye in your sins I will reserve you to the day of evill All this smiting Job 36. 12. John 8. 24. seeing it will not reforme you shall but prepare you for destruction and be an aggravation of your sin and condemnation There is no man of wisdome but can heare the rod speaking to all the purposes before mentioned You may hear most if not all these lessons of the rod in the thirty and sixt of Job verses 7 8 9 10 11 12. If they be bound in setters and be holden in cords of asfliction Job 36. 7 8 9 10 11 12. then he sheweth them their worke and their transgressions that they have excceded He openeth also their eare to discipline and commandeth that they return from iniquitie if they obey and serve him they shall spend their dayes in prosperitie and their years in pleasure But if they obey not they shall perish by the sword and dye without knowledge But the Hypocrites in heart that is such as professe they know God but in their works deny him that have a forme of Godlinesse but deny the power thereof they heap up wrath They cry not when he bindeth them that is they do not hear nor obey the voyce of the rod to mourn for their sins to aske pardon and to repent when God doth punish them We are greatly afflicted and under a most heavie Judgement we cannot but be sensible of it I beseech you therefore to hear the voyce of God now speaking by this rod. You do now beleeve it is for the sins of the Land it should therefore put us upon a sad and serious search of our wayes The Lord is now smiting wounding and in the way of destroying of us Let us consider our transgressions that they have exceeded And truely they are so many and so great that I tremble to think of them As God shall bring them to my minde I shall remember you of some of them praying you to remember that this Rod of God is upon us for our sin and for this end that we should humble our selves under his hand that we should repent and turn to him and seek attonement and reconciliation with him This is the work of the day let us with all our might apply our selves to it 1. It did please the Lord long since to begin a happie Reformation The sins for which God is now punishing England of Religion in this Kingdom and shortly after made triall what we would do whether we would stand fast to the Truth received or not But in the generality the Land returned to their vomit and also persecuted the true Religion and shed the blood of many Martyrs in the days of Queen Mary We have cause to judge that the guilt of that blood amongst other sins past doth lie upon the Land and crieth for vengeance and that God is punishing it this day We must not onely look upon present sins to be humble for them and to bewail them but upon them that have been committed long since by our ancestours that have been before us So did Daniel and Nehemiah confesse to God not onely their own Dan. 9. 6 8 16. Neh. 9. 33 34. present sins but the sins of their Kings Princes and Fathers that lived before them professing that for their sins also confusion of face was brought upon them acknowledging Gods righteousnesse therein It pleaseth the Lord many times to seal up as in his treasury Deut. 32. 34. Job 14. 17. 2 Kings 23. 26. 2 Kings 24. 3. 2 Chron. 33. 12 13. the sins of a Land and to keep them as in a Bag not punishing them so soon as they are committed and when they have heaped up more sins upon them and their sins are ripe then he reckons with them and punisheth them for all at once The sins of Manasseh brought judgements upon Judah after his death though he had repented him of his sin 2. Also when there was a Reformation both in King Edward and Queen Elisabeths time though they reformed much yet they wrought not a thorow Reformation Too much of Rome was retained both in Religion and the Government of the Church and the Land hath not been purged of it to this day Another great sin which hath been and yet is committed in the Land is Sacriledge I speak not of the converting of the maintenance of Abbies to other then pious uses which may admit of question whether it were sin or no I insist not on that I speak of robbing God of the maintenance whereby his Ministers were and are to be maintained which hath been a cause why many parts of this Kingdome have been destitute of such Pastours as should and could break unto the people the Bread of life There were none to minister unto them Spirituall things because their Carnall things paid to maintain them was turned another way This Sacriledge lieth still as a sin upon the Land provoking God against this Kingdom and you may believe it that he is now punishing it For you are cursed with a curse saith God to them Mal. 3. 8 9. that lie in this sin It is not possible for the law of man to make it lawfull to take away that maintenance that hath been designed and yet is paid for the maintenance of the Worship of God it making no other sufficient provision of maintenance for the Church in the place thereof I dispute not by what right Tythes are paid But sith they are paid for the maintenance of the Ministery and yet taken