Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n
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A94206
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God glorified, and the wicked snared in a thanksgiving sermon for the most happy preservation of His Majesty, King William III. from a most horrid and barbarous assassination, in order to an invasion from France / by A.S.
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A. S.
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1696
(1696)
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Wing S6A; ESTC R42325
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8,578
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32
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his Church and return of his People out of the Captivity of Babylon Isa 45. 1. Again Dan. 2. 22. 'T is said he changeth times and seasons and therefore these changes are in a peculiar manner attributed unto the providence and unto the Dispensations of God's Wisdom and to his Power for who can remove Mountains but he that lifted them up and who can exalt the Valleys but he that laid them low and who can change Times but the Author of Time it self and the Father of Eternity And therefore although thou wouldest not observe the Providence of God in lesser Affairs though thou wouldst not hear the Voice thereof whispering in small things yet when Divine Wisdom and Power thunder from Heaven when they appear in several great and wonderful Revolutions and Transactions in the World surely he that is not verily blind he must see at such a time as this is when the Hand of the Lord hath been so long and so dreadfully lifted up who can be so blind as not to see God's Hand here or who so hard and so obdurate as not take notice of the Judgments and of the Righteousness of God in such a case as this is 5. If God interpose and execute Judgment upon the Enemies of the Church when they are in their greatest Confidence greatest security this doing appears to be such as that it owns no other Author but God himself Isa 36. 18 19 20 c. Observe here what wonderful proud signal Confidence appears in Rabsheka and then see the Issue that falls upon this Confidence Chap. 37. 36. How many Thousands one Angel slew in one Night Observe God delights sometimes to check the Insolence and astonish the pride of vain Persons and of those that lift up themselves in Iniquity against him And that he may do this more effectually he astonishes them in their greatest confidence he destroys them in their highest Security and weakens them in the very Flower of their Strength signal Disappointments are generally attributed unto God and so are signal Deliverances also When we see such Effects wrought as cannot well own any second Cause upon whom can we Father these Effects but upon the first Cause only that is to say upon God himself If God shall by weak means produce great ends If he shall cut off the Head of a Gyant by the Hand of a Son of Jesse If he shall scatter a Conspiracy by the Light of a Candle If he shall remove a Mountain by a weak Arm this must needs make God known by the Judgments which he executes 6. If God find out and execute Judgment upon wicked Persons in their greatest Secrecies when they thought no Eye had seen when they were persuaded so thick a Darkness had been drawn over the Face of their Designs that none could pierce nor make a Discovery of it then for God himself to unfold and unveil the Monster this shews that God is Judge indeed He revealeth deep and secret things saith Daniel He knoweth what is in darkness and the light dwelleth with him Dan. 2. 22. In these Six Particulars may God be said to be known by the Judgments which he executes And thus indeed and in all these Respects was God known by the great Deliverance he vouchsafed to us in the Discovery of this late horrid Conspiracy against the Life of our present gracious Sovereign King WILLIAM and in him against our Religion Lives Laws and Liberties and in the great Judgment that he has exercised upon some of the wicked Contrivers of our Destruction In all these Particulars now mentioned did God make himself known 1. He surprized them in the very midst of their Sins he seized upon them in the very Bowels of the Plot he broke the Vessels while it was upon the Wheel and he dasht the Instruments of Death in Pieces even while they were preparing while they were forging or rather just forg'd upon the Anvil 2. God did also remarkably confound and scatter those wicked Contrivers away no sooner did the Day break upon their Designs and the Light peep upon them no sooner was the least Discovery made but like Men amazed even at their own Evil like Men afraid of the Monster that they themselves had formed hatched and contrived they run away they divide they scatter they loose themselves they know not where so strangely did God confound and amaze them so soon as ever they were discovered 3. God discovered them also in the very nick of Time when the Monster was at the very Gates of the Womb when it was just striving for Birth when it was just ready to devour the Prey when the Day and Hour fixed for the Execution of their black Treachery and unparallel'd baseness was already arrived and welcomed by the hellish Content and rejoicing of the Assassinators then did God point at the Evil by a Beam from Heaven then did he discover the Plot that was laid and so prevented it by the same Discovery 4. Great Affairs were now upon the Wheel and great Persons were at work the Safety of Christendom the Peace of Europe the Establishment of our reformed Religion were depending The Person of his sacred Majesty the chief Patron of this Cause of God and the main Obstacle to the Designs of the Tyranny that makes Head against Europe was therefore struck at They well guess'd that the Cedar of our Lebanon once fallen they might hew down the Shrubs with less difficulty or that the Sprigs which before were defended by his Shade would be crush'd by his Fall That the Peers and Commons assembled in Parliament though in themselves strong Props and Pillars of our State yet could not long stand the Foundation and Centre of their Strength being once rased Yea that the United Forces the Confederate Princes would reel at least before so mighty a Shock Providence therefore appeared signally in preventing so common a Ruine wherein not a single Nation only though mighty and numerous but the whole Interest of divers States were concerned and from which had it taken effect many Kingdoms might have dated their Misery 5. How secure and confident were these wicked Contrivers at this time the Traitors being cherished by the Goodness they ingratefully conspired against Goodness free from jealousy as it was from Injustice and Oppression and the Vipers seeing themselves nourished in the Royal Bosom thought they might unsuspected sting the Princely Breast Thus secure they had already swallowed the Prey in hopes they had shared and divided the Nations assigned the Keys of England to be the Holds of a Foreign Tyrant they had cantoned us into several Tribes for themselves to seize on and each had marked his intended Vassals They had resolved and that with great Confidence to have blown up all our Securities in a Moment and to have amaz'd the World with an Act of Villany surpassing the most accursed Treasons of all Ages past In Assurance of Success they insulted and divided the Spoil in their Thoughts all things but especially his Majesty's being above little Distrusts and full of Love which thinketh and suspecteth no Evil conspired to favour their Treachery which so hightned their Expectations that they imagined the Thunderbolt now might be against the Thunderer himself and that Lightning might be taught or constrained to ravish Heaven and their designs move against the Will of Providence and God's Designs in the World 6. These wicked men thought that no Eye had seen them like cunning Workmen they laid the Works of Darkness in the dark and contrived those secret and evil Designs with very great and signal Secresy But God rent the Veyl of the Pit that they digged and he broke the Day upon them and so the snare it self was broken also God would not that our Religion and Laws and Liberties and Prince and People should be surpriz'd in a Moment into Death Confusion and Slavery He would not so great was his gracious Providence that the Reformation which had been first produced with so much Labour and Toyl which had been the Fruit of so great Councils so many Martyrs so many Prayers and Tears so many signal and great Endeavours and Examples he would not I say that all this should be blasted in a Moment by the Contrivances of wicked and desperate Persons He had lately restored to England her Priviledges and Liberties which were well nigh enslaved by Arbitrary Power had anointed a David to bless and govern his Israel a Prince whose Vertue equals his Greatness and whose Dignity receives a Lustre from his Piety and he would not deprive us of a Mercy which we have as yet but tasted enough of to increase our Desires after its continuance he would not subject us to the same Yoke of Tyranny he had but lately rescued us from He would not that the Crown so lately fixed should so soon fall from the Head of him who had found Mercy not to stain its Glory with any unjust or unprincely Action Therefore for this Deliverance we have great Cause to bless him this Day and for ever And since God has preserved a King dear to us as our Lives and Religion let us make a return of Thankfulness proved in Zeal to the Honour of God and Religion and in all Loyalty to the Power preserved over us Our Zeal to Religion should discover it self in aiming at those Ends for which it was given scil The Peace of the Church and the Peace of the State and the Safety of our own Souls Let every Man that pretends to hate the Superstition of the Church of Rome hate the Treachery and the Rebellion of their Principles also What Advantage will it be to curse the Pope at Rome and to nourish Popish Principles under our own Roof nay in our own Hearts To conclude That Religion that makes us good Men will make us good Subjects also and if it do not make us good Subjects without doubt it hath not made us good Christians For it is one indispensible Law of Christian Religion that we obey Magistrates that we submit unto those Authorities that God hath placed over us and if we do not submit to them neither do we submit to God's Laws Let us therefore take care that none of us be deficient in the same Duty but let us obey God and let us obey Laws and live in Peace in mutual Love one of another and this is the way to be happy here and happy hereafter also FINIS