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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30430	A sermon preached before the House of Peers in the Abbey of Westminster, on the 5th of November, 1689, being Gun-Powder Treason-Day, as likewise the day of His Majesties landing in England by the Right Reverend Father in God Gilbert Lord Bishop of Sarum.	Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715.	1689 (1689)	Wing B5889; ESTC R4055	13,400	39

to Corrupt their Morals and then to Debauch them in their Religion or as it is expressed by the Spirit of God Rev. 2. 4. He taught Balak to cast a Stumbling-block before the People of Israel to eat things Sacrific'd to Idols and to commit Fornication lewd Women were sent in among them to intice them first to Vice and then to the Idolatry of Baal-peor the Rites of which were so Indecent that as the Scripture wraps them up in general words so it is better to pass them over than to explain them This had the desired effect the People did defile themselves in both They sate down to eat and drink and rose up to play But though God was by this highly provoked yet he would not deliver them up into the Hands of their Enemies he sent a Plague among them by which in one day there fell Four and twenty Thousand This was done in Shittim which is here mentioned in my Text but when the Wrath of God had broke out upon them in so severe a manner that besides the destruction made by the Plague Moses was commanded by God to hang up all the Heads of the People against the Sun and he charged the Judges to stay every one of them his Men that were joined unto Baalpeor this struck the whole Congregation so that they were weeping before the Door of the Tabernacle But so impudent a thing is Vice when strengthned by Idolatry that Zunri one of the Princes of Israel brought in a Prostitute before them all as if he had gloried in that which was his shame This was an Object that must needs have given Horrour to all that saw it and it raised such Indignation in Phinehas that in a Transport of Zeal he killed them both upon which the Plague was staid God was reconciled to his People and in a Battel which they had soon after this Balaam that was the Author of this cursed Advice was slain This is that transaction which the Prophet calls upon them to remember and in doing it to consider of the Righteousness of the Lord. Righteousness in the strict notion of the Word is Iustice and in that sence they might in calling to mind the passages of that story reflect on God's righteous Judgments in punishing their Fathers when they had departed from him in sending a Plague among them in stopping it upon their Repentance and upon Phinehas's zealous deportment and in turning the course of his Wrath upon the wicked Instruments that had cast those Temptations in their way and particularly on Balaam the chief Author of the Counsel But if Righteousness may be taken as it often is in a larger sence for Goodness and Mercy then these words import this That in reflecting on that Story they should observe God's Goodness to his People in disappointing all the Designs of their Enemies in restraining a false Prophet that would have willingly divined for hire and prophesied whatsoever Balak should have dictated to him and afterwards in not suffering that Corruption which began to spread among the Israelites to go long unpunished but by the early punishing of a few staying the Progress of the Defection and upon that zealous performance of Phinehas staying the Plague likewise Here are eminent Characters both of Justice and Mercy And therefore since the People were at this time so apt to fall into Idolatry it was fit to put them in mind both of the Severity and of the Goodness of God that in both they might see effectual Reasons to perswade them to serve God as it is expressed in the following words in doing Iustice loving Mercy and in walking humbly with their God. So far I have gone in explaining my Text as it related to the People of Israel I come now to make it look towards this Nation and the Blessings of this Happy day I shall not stretch the Parallel so far as to make every thing come within it or to force any strained Allusions but shall only consider such things as are both obvious and easie It is well known that when we had got out of the House of Bondage the neighbouring Nations began to be afraid of us they combined against us to enslave and destroy us they had their false Prophet more entirely at their command than Balaam was at Balak's who was of his own accord ready enough to curse us he needed no Hire to be perswaded to it his own Interest was deep enough engaged in it It is true his Thunders were spent in angry and lofty words without the designed effect Wars were indeed raised within and without and a mighty League was formed above an Age ago which went on with great success for several years till it had its Crisis in 88 and then a Fleet armed with all that either the Blessings or Curses of that See could add to it came against us while we seemed to be as Sheep numbred out to the Slaughter or at least appointed to be Slaves but all this Storm went over and in it we had many occasions that invited us to reflect on the Righteousness of the Lord when all that Scene of Curses was spent and turned on them that had denounc'd them against us Then the open Methods of Enmity proving so unsuccessful secreter Practices were thought the safer We were cursed and devoted to endless Destruction so that nothing was thought too bad for us and by a succession of many Conspiracies the Life of that Great Princess upon which our Safety then depended was struck at most of those were well laid many of them were almost quite ripe when by unlook'd-for Accidents and Methods they were discovered At last a Design was laid in which there was a complicated Train of all the Mischief that could possibly be done us in one minute and even that was brought so near its conclusion that had not the tenderness of a Sister prevailed over her zeal for her Religion to the preserving her Brother as is generally believed the greatest and happiest Nation in Europe had become in a moment the most miserable How far this was concerted among the Balaks and Balaams of that time we do not certainly know But a Case of this nature being put by one of their Writers some years before in a printed Book and determined in the Negative That a Priest was bound not to reveal any such design if discovered to him in Confession gives a shrewd indication that it was then projected among a sort of Men who have never seemed guilty of the least tenderness of Nature when Heresie was in the case But when their Curses proved harmless things and their Designs were fatal only to themselves and to their Friends then they fell on new Methods which have indeed succeeded better with them One has been the dividing us among our selves and the engaging us into such mutual quarrellings that their assistance might be alwaies some way or other necessary to the Party that was

and Infatuation seemed to have been poured out upon them I need not repeat things that must still be fresh in all your memorie and I hope will be so long for we must ever acknowledge that we owe our Preservation and Deliverance much more to Their Folly than to Our own Wisdom When we were broken to pieces they used Arts on design indeed to divide us further but they helped to reconcile us When we were guilty even to madness of believing every Promise that they made us they took care to let us see how little regard they themselves had to any of them When we could not believe that they would break any of our Laws they broke through them all at once and shewed us what feeble things either Promises or Laws are when Heresie stands in their way And thus God in his just and righteous Judgments suffered them so far to precipitate all matters that they ruined their own designs by their over driving them We must have acknowledged that God had been just and righteous if he had delivered us over as a prey unto them We had by our contempt of the Gospel and by the ill use we had made of all his Mercies and of all former Deliverances provoked him to cast us off and when we consider the extreme Miseries into which he has cast other Churches the long Oppression and the hard struggle through which Scotland has pass'd and the pangs in which Ireland continues still being now a Scene of Blood and Misery and like to be so yet for some time if we do not more effectually interpose for bringing their Deliverance to a quicker Conclusion and if we compare with all this the gentle Visitation that we have had and that has pass'd over us in so easie and harmless a manner that few broke their sleep or interrupted their method of living for it We must in our reflections on these things change the signification of the word Righteousness and instead of using it in the sense that imports strict Iustice we must take it in the other that imports Mercy and Goodness for who can reflect on these Two Fifths of November without adoring the riches of God's Mercy and Goodness to us in them both The former was in it self a great Deliverance but its Consequences were not so signal as might have been expected If that cursed Train had wrought the designed Effect it had been indeed the most fatal Blow that ever was given but after all the Nation tho' cast by it into a most dreadful Convulsion would probably have had strength enough to have recovered it self the Crime would have been revenged and the Nation for ever purged from all such Instruments of Cruelty The Circumstances of the Discovery and the Judgments of God on the Conspirators had particular Characters of his Righteousness in them as the prevarications and denials of the Criminals had also their Characters of that cursed School in which they had learned the depths of Satan The whole thing was such a Contexture of the Wickedness of Man on the One hand and of the Mercy and Goodness of God on the Other as is indeed without an Example in the Histories of former Times But without derogating from the Blessing of such a Wonderful Preservation it may be affirmed That as the Danger which we lately run was greater so by Consequence the Deliverance which had its beginning this day is not only the fresher Blessing and so the more sensible to us but is likewise the more Important in it self of the two The Gunpowder-Treason was a Personal thing but the late Conspiracy was National The former was levelled at the person of one King and some of the Branches of the Royal Family but the latter was against the Crown it self by which one half of that Authority that belongs to it was to have been surrendred up to Rome and the other half must have become tributary to France Our Religion must indeed have suffered highly by the one but it was to have been quite extirpated by the other A great many had perished in a quick and sudden fire by the one whereas the end of the other would have been that we must all have languished in such slow fires as Inquisitors might have made for us or under the studied Cruelties of Dragoons according to the French Pattern if we would not have consigned our selves over to Everlasting Burnings by renouncing our Religion Our Laws and Liberties might have suffered in the One tho' Spain at that time was not in a condition to have made so great a Conquest But all must have gone now when they had so vast a Power so near them as France is to have supported and compleated that Destruction of our Liberties which was so barefacedly begun and that had already made so great a progress among us And when I have named France I have said all that is necessary to give you a Compleat Idea of the Blackest Tyranny over Mens Consciences Persons and Estates that can possibly be imagined where every Thing that the Subject possesses is at the Mercy of a boundless Power and of a Severity that has no mixtures either of Truth or Goodness to govern or allay it and by which Subjects are treated with as much Cruelty as Enemies are with Barbarity That has broke thro all that is Sacred among Men and has bid Defiance both to Heaven and Earth This is a short view of that from which we are now a second time delivered I need not enlarge on the particular Characters of the Hand of God in our Deliverance These were too visible not to have been observed by all Men and they are yet too fresh in our Memories to be forgotten by any but that which few are apt either to reflect on or to remember is the Design of Heaven in all this that so we may understand the loving Kindness as well as the Righteousness of the Lord in it We had by our Sins and our Divisions brought our selves very low we had provoked God and irritated one another therefore he has made us to see and feel the Effects both of our Sins and Follies that so we may be brought to repent of the one and to correct the other Let us then resolve to turn to God in good earnest and not to provoke him any more lest if we stir up his Wrath again against us his Displeasure break out upon us in as terrible a manner as has been hitherto again and again designed by our Enemies but still prevented by his watchful Providence Let us grow ashamed of those Vices which have so dispirited and corrupted the Nation that we were both fit for Destruction and had made our selves an easy Prey to our Enemies being so shamefully degenerated from the Vertues of our Ancestors Let us compose our Minds to softer Thoughts of one another that those Animosities which have arisen from some small Diversities in Opinions and Ceremonies may be allayed and that we may make such Observations on the Practices of our Enemies as from these to form righter Judgments of Things and so come to such temperate Resolutions as to love one another at least if we cannot be so wise or so happy as to agree all our Differences And let us in a more particular manner rejoice in the Goodness of God who now gives us the hopes of happy Days under the Man whom he has made so strong for Himself whom he made first the Instrument of saving the best Church and People upon Earth after our own and who now again has been put on to preserve and rescue us as if he were born to be the Deliverer and Darling of Mankind God be blessed for it we have now a King and Queen whose Examples we hope shall have a great an Influence over us for making us truly Good as their Government has for making us really Happy Let us then study to be Peaceable and Obedient to them and thankful to God for them and then we need not fear what either the Balaks or the Balaams that are contriving our Destruction and consulting the Methods of doing it can project or set on foot against us For if we are at peace with God and united at Home we may assure our selves that the course of Blessings which has hitherto followed Him whom God in his Providence has set over us shall not be interrupted but by a glorious Progress of Triumphs it shall be carried on till both the Balak that is now set on our Destruction shall fall before him and those Balaams that divine for her and that prophesy falsly be put to confusion Which God of his great Mercy grant for the glory of his great Name through Jesus Christ. Amen FINIS Books lately printed for Ric. Chiswell THE Doctrine of Non-Resistance or Passive Obedience no way concerned in the Controversies now depending between the Willia●●● and the Iacobites Jacobi Usserii Armachani Archiep. Historia dogmatica Controversiae inter Orthodoxos Pontificios de Scripturis Sacris Vernaculis nunc primum 〈◊〉 Accesserunt Ejusdem dissertationes de Pseudo-Dionysii scriptis de Epistola ad Laodicenos ante hac inedite Descripsit digessit notis atque Auctuario 〈◊〉 pletavit Henricus Wharton A. M. R. Archiep. Cantuar. à Sacris Domest 4º A Discourse concerning the Unreasonableness of a new Separation 〈◊〉 Account of the Oaths With an Answer to The History of Passive Obedie●●● A Discourse concerning the Ecclesiastical Commission opened in the Ierusalem-Chamber Octob. 10. 1689. Fasciculus Rerum expetendarum fugiendarum cum Appendice underta●● to be Printed upon Subscription by Richard Chiswell is now finished 〈◊〉 will be ready for delivery on the 25th day of this instant November at 〈◊〉 Rose and Crown in St. Paul's Church-Yard to which place all Subscrib●●● are desired to send in their second Paiment and their Acquittances for 〈◊〉 First Verse 3. Numb 21. 21. Numb 22. 7. Verse 13. 15. Verse 20. Numb 24. Verse 17. 19. Numb 23. 24. Numb 24. 10. 17. Numb 22. 23. Numb 25. v. 1. v. 4. 5. Ps. 106. Numb 16. 31. v. 8. Ps. 112. 8 .9 Ps. 116. 5. Prov. 10. 2. Mar. 1. 19.