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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A48852	A sermon preached before Their Majesties at Whitehall, on the fifth day of November, 1689 being the anniversary-day of thanksgiving for that great deliverance from the gunpowder-treason, and also the day of His Majesties happy landing in England / by the Bishop of St. Asaph, Lord Almoner to Their Majesties.	Lloyd, William, 1627-1717.	1689 (1689)	Wing L2713; ESTC R20308	14,855	38

be troubled with them no more their Enemies being so disabled with their fall that they will not have strength to do them hurt or so dismay'd that they will have no mind to it for fear of worse another time There is but one thing more to be wisht and prayed for upon such a disappointment of our Enemies and that is that it may be a means of their Conversion from Error and Sin. Of this we ought never to despair tho' our hopes of it have failed us at other times But the greatest hope we can have is from such a disappointment as this If this would convince them of their sin and of their folly in fighting against God so it would be a means of their Conversion and so it would be a happy fall to Them. Happy that fall by which Men rise to everlasting life Oh joyful sight to all good Men upon Earth and to the blessed Angels in Heaven But without this where it cannot be had a bare Deliverance when God sees fit to grant no more and especially if it be a perfect Deliverance from our Enemies such as David here describes this is that which deserves a Thanksgiving to God such as followeth in the next words It is a Thanksgiving that begins in the right place My Heart is fixed oh God my Heart is fixed How it was so he tells us elsewhere it was by trusting in God Psalm 112. 7. The righteous man's heart is fixed trusting in the Lord. And for this Trust as we have a sufficient ground from what we know of God's Goodness to his Church and much more from his Gracious Promise of Preservation so we are abundantly confirm'd by such an experience as this of the truth of his Promise and of his Goodness to us in particular Secondly Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks What one is full of he cannot but impart it to others and every one will do it his own way This was David's way in my Text I will sing and give praise The Hebrew word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here used signifies both to sing and to play upon an Instrument it joyns Vocal and Instrumental Musick together So that David's words exactly rendered would be these I will compose a Psalm and I will sing it to Musick He teaches us upon such a Deliverance to use all the expressions of Rejoicing and Thanksgiving together that can be made forth by any outward Act to stir up our selves to praise God for his Mercies and to stir up others likewise to do it by our example All these things which I have said in general I am now to bring home to our present Case in both the Deliverances that we are to remember this day And first as concerning the Gunpowder Treason I ought to say something of the Danger before I speak of our Deliverance from it But before both these I ought to say something in answer to them that would perswade us that there was no Danger at all They tell us it was a Plot of our side into which some few of their Catholicks were drawn by the then Secretary of State and when he saw his time he discovered it as they say he might easily do the whole thing being contrived by his wit and carried on with his privity In answer to this I am first to do right to the Justice of the Nation as well as to the Honour of that great Minister and to shew that this was a Plot of the Conspirators against the State and not of the State against the Conspirators Having shewed that it was truly so then I shall proceed to shew you the Danger of it in those three degrees of Danger in my Text. First the profound Secrecy of it Secondly the Nearness to execution Thirdly the mischief if it had taken I want a word great enough for it It had been a Death's wound a Fatal blow both to Church and State to our Religion and Laws to every thing that is Sacred in this Nation For the Conspiracy it self it was so black so Inhuman it so outdid the wickedness of the worst of Mankind that one would think none but Devils could have devis'd or would have had to do in it But there are Principles that make Men like Devils The Men of those Principles are called the Frogs that come out of the mouth of the Dragon Rev. 16. 13. I doubt not that Prophetical description was intended of the Jesuits whom I mention as being the Authors of this Devilish Conspiracy The prime Architect in it was Father Garnet their Superior in this Kingdom who took in as many more of his Order and of their chosen Disciples as were thought fit to be trusted with the Secret of it And let their Successors excuse it how they will by saying as they do at this distance of time that it was Secretary Cecil that drew them into this Plot That 's a thing that was never heard of in those days The Parties themselves never charged him with it they never laid it upon any other then themselves they all own'd it and some of them gloried in it both Living and Dying I appeal to their own Confessions for the truth of what I say and to all the Writers of that Age for the truth of their Confession But because in saying all the Writers I may seem not to be particular enough I shall therefore name Cardinal Bellarmine in particular He writ against King James in the Name of Matthaeus Tortus but he afterwards own'd that Book to be his and writ the Vindication of it in his own name Bellarmine was a Jesuit himself and zealously concern'd for his Order he shews it sufficiently in his Book which he wrote at that time He might very well have inform'd himself from Father Tesmund who was in the Plot and fled for it to Rome where to shew how little they Abhor'd that wickedness he was preferred He was then the Popes Penitentiary And yet for all the Information he could give him Bellarmine knew nothing of this He never thought of this Shift to thro it upon Cecil So far he is from that that he owns that King James's Deliverance was not without a miracle of Providence which he could not have said without mocking God as well as betraying his Cause If he had Imagin'd that the Minister of State had bin Author or so much as privy to that Conspiracy But if any Papist would see and be convinced of the lateness of this Imagination let him look into Morus the Jesuit's History of the English Mission of the Society He writ this Book above fifty years after that time it was but a little before King Charles the Second's Restauration There he gives an account of this Treason and of the Fathers of the Society that were in it and that Suffered for it But he has not a word of this excuse He lays the matter wholly upon themselves as an excess that they run into out of a Zeal

for their Religion and so he leaves it upon them of his own Order which most certainly he would not have done if he had had any knowledge or any opinion of this Fiction Much more I could say of this kind if it were proper to load my discourse in this Presence with multitudes of Quotations But thus much I thought might be needful to shew that we have not mocked God all this while and that we are not doing it at this time by giving him thanks for that which was not His for that which was in truth but a Trick and not a real Deliverance How Real and how Great a Deliverance this was I am next to shew by setting before you the danger we escap'd and that in all the Circumstances of my Text. First for the Secrecy of it that was wonderful Nay it had bin wonderful in any other hands but it was not so in theirs that had the management of this There is no People in the World so provided as they are for Secrecy First by their Doctrine of satisfaction for Sin and of Merit by promoting their Catholick Cause This passes generally with them of the Roman Church and 't is that which so animates them with Zeal for their Religion But particularly among the Jesuits their Doctrine of the lawfulness of Lying for the Cause they call it the Doctrine of Equivocation by which they can affirm any thing tho' it is never so false they can deny any thing tho' it is never so true nay they ought to do it as their Casuists say when it is needful for the Service of the Church Add to this their Clergy's power over the Laity which enables them to infuse what they will into their heads and they must believe it as they commonly do with an Implicit Faith and they follow it with as blind an Obedience Then on the other hand If the Laity have any design it is delivered under the Seal of Confession to the Clergy So Garnet said at first he came into this Secret it was delivered to him by Catesby under the Seal of Confession and being askt why he had not discovered it then for the preservation of the King and Kingdom He did not stick to say That it were better all the Kings of the Earth should perish than that he should discover what was said to him in Confession But besides all these general things which are of great use for the covering of any design there was that particular Secrecy in this because not only their Lives depended upon it but the Salvation of so many millions of Souls as were by this means to be brought into the Catholick Church These were most weighty Considerations they are Charms that never miss their effect wheresoever they are apply'd We see what effect they had formerly in that great Secrecy before the Missacre of Paris I shall say nothing of it but what I have from Capilupi a Roman that writ soon after the Massacre and described it as a glorious thing and carried on with admirable secrecy He saith it was carried on so for Four years time whereof for twenty months together it was known to no more but five besides the King he saith for six Months after it was known only to Fourteen Persons but it was known to above Two hundred Persons for two days before the Execution and yet all this while it was kept so close by all that were privy to it that as that Author sufficiently proves the Hereticks were not aware of it They were so far from that that they had not the least supicion till it broke out all on a sudden at midnight first at Paris and from thence it ran in a Train all France over till as Thuanus saith who is of undoubted Credit there were murthered no fewer than Thirty thousand Persons who were many of them the most considerable of all the Reformed in that Kingdom We see yet stranger effects of these Charms of Secrecy In Ireland we saw a great instance of it in our Memory The design of the Massacre and of the Rebellion there was carried on by numbers of Men throughout the whole Nation They covered it so that there was no suspicion of any evil Design There was no ground for a Suspicion unless it were their excessive civility and kindness and endearments to the Protestants at that time more then any other They were some of them so over kind as to make themselves the Guests and to lodge in the Houses of those Protestants whose Throats they were to cut the next day But when once it had broken out it was carryed on with all fury to the slaughter of I know not how many Thousands But I will tell you what I have read in a Book that was soon after printed at Lisbon it was writ by one of their Priests that calls himself Constantinus Marullus he tells us the Protestants say there were kill'd above a Hundred thousand it may be so utinam omnes would we had kill'd them all saith he in his Catholick Charity Now knowing these Instances of their Secrecy in such Matters and knowing the Principles from which it proceeds we cannot wonder that in the hands of Men of the same Principles this Gunpowder design was carried on with the same Secrecy Tho it must needs be known to about Twenty Persons that had their particular Parts to Act in it and tho there was a general notice of it that the Papists had throughout the Kingdom they knew that there was something extraordinary in hand for the good of their Catholick Religion and they had especial Prayers for that purpose yet none knew any thing of it but themselves The Protestants had no suspicion of it how could they when they had given them no provocation No Provocation did I say they were so far from that that they oblig'd them with Favours I say this out of King James's Book He tells us that during those three years that he had Reigned before the Gunpowder Treason which Treason was a hatching all the while yet all that while there was no Papist in England that suffered any thing upon the account of Religion On the contrary they were treated with favour as if they had the Laws on their side They were admitted to Court They were employ'd in Embassies They had Honours conferred upon them as well as others and they seemed to be in as good humour as they had reason to be in these Circumstances But all this did not hinder them from going on with their design nay it rather encouraged them it helpt them to carry it on For being under no manner of Jealousie they found themselves so secure that at last they were even open in what they did They had their meetings both in City and Country they workt in their Vault without fear They bought and laid in their Powder and other Materials They armed themselves at home They held Correspondence abroad They left nothing unprovided for that was