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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	church_n	king_n	law_n	3,272	5	4.8232	4	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62602	A sermon preach'd at the Cathedral Church of Worcester upon the thanksgiving-day, April 16, 1696 by W. Talbot ...	Talbot, William, 1658 or 9-1730.	1696 (1696)	Wing T124; ESTC R9963	17,703	30

of the Vngodly and let the oppressed Captive go free Great Reason therefore had Israel for such a miraculous Escape to make these Acknowledgments and Returns to the Author of it which we here see they did namely 1. To ascribe their Deliverance wholly to God as the doing of that right hand only which bringeth mighty things to pass If the Lord himself had not been on our side we had been swallowed up quick and the Stream had gone over our Souls 2. To give him the Praise due unto his Name for it Blessed be the Lord who has not given us over as a Prey to their Teeth 3. And Lastly to declare their Confidence in him and intire reliance upon his Power and Goodness for the time to come Our Help standeth in the Name of the Lord who hath made Heaven and Earth That God who manifested his Power and Goodness by Creating the World out of Nothing by a Word of his Mouth and giving Being to all the Creatures in it has as evidently shewn forth those glorious Attributes in our strange Preservation and Rescue out of the Hands of our formidable and implacable Enemies there will we therefore place our Confidence not fearing what Man can do unto us On God we will depend He only is our Rock and Salvation our Defence and Refuge through him we shall do valiantly and he shall tread down our Enemies This is that short Account of this Psalm of Israel's imminent Danger their wonderful Deliverance from it and grateful Behaviour thereupon I proceed now to take a View of our own Case It will not I suppose be expected that I should go about to prove the Plot That there has been a most Horrid and Hellish Design on-foot against the Life of our King and the Laws and Religion of this Kingdom After the voluntary Depositions of several that were to be concerned in it and these confirm'd from abroad by the visible Preparations that were made on the French Coasts for a Descent upon us a great number of their Forces drawn down thither and Vessels ready to bring them over when the Signal an Account of the Dreadful Blow should be given them the mighty boast of their great Design and Confidence of Success which were express'd in Letters from some of the first Quality in that Kingdom and the Harangues of their Ministers at other Courts This confirm'd also at home by the Confessions of those who have been Convicted and Executed here who have all own'd the shares they were to have had in it upon their Deaths and some gloried in it While a Papist at his Execution looks back with regret upon the part he was to have acted in the bloody Tragedy as a Crime he was led into by his own Rashness and Passion as a Wickedness which he repents of and for the punishment of which particularly he acknowledges he was brought to suffer Death by the just Hand of God our Protestant Conspirators to the reproach I hope not of our Holy Religion which I am sure is far enough from countenancing such things but of their wretched Guides boast of the Villainy take Pride and Comforts at their Deaths in it so far were they from repenting or expressing the least Sorrow for it and yet had Absolution publickly after a very unusual manner which plainly shews what Thoughts their Confessors had of that Matter for which they died Blessed God! how amazing is it that any that had ever heard of thee or thy Nature or Properties especially that had ever look'd into those Revelations thou hast made thereof in thy Written Word should call the Assassinating the best of Princes and involving his Subjects in Blood Destruction of the best Church and the over-turning the best constituted Government in the World the Murdering their King in cold Blood and which must have been a consequence the Butchering of many Thousands of their innocent Fellow-Subjects the making all that surviv'd Slaves to France and Rome subjecting both their Bodies and Minds to the worst of Tyrannies How amazing I say is it that any should call these the Causes of God Religion and the Laws as if the Blood of Kings shed by their own Subjects was an acceptable Offering to God as if Religion were promoted by forcing us into the Communion of such a Church as will lock up the Scripture from us teach us to believe without Reason to Pray without Understanding and give the Worship of God to his Creatures as if our Laws would be safe in the hands of such a Guardian who Tyrannizes Arbitrarily over his own Subjects and would have had the pretence of Conquest to use us worse if possible If these are the Cause of God and Religion I know no such thing as the Works of the Devil and what we renounc'd as such in our Baptism was a meer Chimera This shews how much the Interest of a Party when a Man 's throughly embark'd can blind his Reason as well as harden his Conscience how dangerous it is to engage at all in a Faction since a Man knows not where he shall stop when he is once in how by steps he is lead to call Evil Good and Good Evil and practice accordingly and to make the measures of both the serviceableness or diserviceableness of any Action to the Party and how careful every one that has any regard for his Soul should be when he choosest out for the directors of his Conscience and intrusts with the Conduct of it But to return after all this I say 't would be but to abuse your Time and Patience to offer at any other proof of the truth and reality of the wicked Design whoever can call for further Conviction does the least need it 't is no breach of Charity to believe that none can pretend to doubt of it but such as know it too well Let us then briefly see what the Design was and as to that examine the same Particulars which we did in Israel's case who were engaged in it what they intended against us how near they were to effect it and how strangely we escap'd it Our Enemies like theirs were such whose Wrath was kindled against us Nothing under God has or does so much obstruct the aspiring and wicked Designs of our Neighbour on the other side of the Water as this Nation and Church nothing can satisfie the Pride and Ambition of that Prince less than an universal Monarchy and no Methods does he stick at how base and ungrateful how fraudulent and treacherous how violent and cruel soever that may promote his great end no ties of Honour and Conscience no Obligations of Justice or Mercy no Treaties or Leagues neither Word nor Oath can hold him but he breaks through them with as much ease as Sampson did the Wit hs that bound him which were as a Thread of Tow when it toucheth the Fire But while he makes War and disturbance every where that he may have quiet within that if at any time

the Wounds he gives his Neighbours should touch his own Conscience his Parasitical Priests may pour in their Oil and speak Peace to him he at their instigation and direction must attone for these Barbarities by committing others as 't is no new thing for those Confessors to enjoin for a Penance the repetition of those Crimes which have been acknowledged in Confession the Ambition of the universal Monarch may be serv'd if at the same time care be taken to satisfie the Pride of the occumenical Bishop and let him use the most wicked and cruel Methods to enlarge his Dominions and bring Countries under his Tyranny they shall be forgiven him if he will do so meritorious an act as to put the same Methods in practice to extend the Papal Yoke and bring Hereticks into the Bosom of the Catholick Church And what he has done in order to both these ends is too notorious to need my insisting upon it and does sufficiently demonstrate how violent and impetuous those Designs are which are suggested by Ambition and false Zeal and how eagerly such pursue them as are spurr'd on by their own Pride encourag'd by the blandishments or driven with the lash of a Confessor and what Indignation then may we imagine will such conceive against all those that are obstacles in their way break their Measures and defeat their Designs Time was when England was in the Interests of France giving her helping hand to the enslaving the Nations of Europe and her self among the rest and not many Years since our Romish Adversaries had a prospect likewise at least as they flatter'd themselves to have establish'd their Antichristian Religion here and indeed had that unhappy Alliance continued had this Nation assisted them or but stood neuter till now in all probability before this time the Shackles the wooden Shooes had been on the Ears of Europe had been bored and had they succeeded in their Attempts upon this Church and by Fraud or Violence destroyed her the great Bulwork of Protestancy would have been gone and the Northern Heresie as they please to call it laid open to be torn up by the Roots But this Kingdom has broke with France and joyned with the other Princes of Christendom in defending their common Liberties and Rights and opposing that torrent that was over-whelming them all and we may say without Vanity in our selves or Injustice to others that our Forces in conjunction with theirs have stem'd the Tide and that the weight of them has turn'd the Ballance and that just Zeal that Strength and Courage wherewith the Fathers and Sons of this Church encountred the daring Attempts of the Priests of the Romish Communion in the last Reign have given such a foil to that Church have so baffled their Cause exposed the Weakness as well as Wickedness of it that it must lie dead as long as the Trophies of their Victory remain nor can revive till their Enemies can have an opportunity of treating their Books as they would their Persons committing both to the Flames which indeed is the quickest and surest way of stopping the Mouths of Hereticks and confuting their Writings No wonder therefore if they look upon us as their worst Adversaries who have given such a check to the careers of that Monarch and the designs of that Church and have all the Malice and Rage against us that disappointment in their greatest hopes can suggest But this is not all we have a Prince who does not more oppose the Ambition of that Monarch by his Arms than he eclipses his Glory by his Personal Character while He bravely leads his own Troops and exposes Himself in the hottest Action and gallantly faces Death in a thousand Shapes How does He reproach that undue tenderness and over care which the other has for his Person who never ventures it within the reach of Danger or sight of an Enemy and while One maintains the glorious Character of a Father of his own Country and a Friend and Patron to the Neighbouring ones how little doth it make the Other 's Figure who is a Terror to his Subjects an Oppressor of his Neighbours dreaded at Home and hated Abroad 'T is not strange then if the Wrath of Enemies to whom we have given so great and insupportable Provocations be kindled against us and ready to break forth with the greatest Violence even to the consuming of us if their Power be equal to it And so indeed it had like to have done For the mischief they intended and were ready to execute was no less than the Murdering our King and the invading the Kingdom in the distraction that that sad occasion would have put us in 'T is more than probable that that cautious Monarch who never had the Courage to meet his glorious Enemy in the Field laid or was privy to the Design of taking him off after such a base and barbarous manner The dying Criminals that were so careful to clear many others from being accessary to it say nothing to acquit him and indeed it is not to be imagined that men would of their own heads have engaged in so black and hazardous an Enterprize for which if they had succeeded in it he must have sacrificed them to his honour he would have been bound in Prudence and Policy to have wash'd his hands of the blood of the Murdered King in theirs that shed it 't is not I say to be believed that any would have engaged in such an undertaking upon such terms unless they had some previous assurance from him that could give it them not only of impunity but reward And if he had not design'd the Assassination as a Preliminary not only expedient for the facilitating his intended Invasion but indeed as absolutely necessary in order to the success of it why upon the discovery and prevention of that has he desisted from this However that were a competent number of hardned Villains much such a number as bound themselves with an Oath to kill St. Paul were ready for the design Horses and Arms provided and the place pitch'd upon each had their Post assign'd them and they waited for nothing but an account of the King 's going abroad to put it in Execution If the blow had been given what a surprize what a consternation would this Kingdom have been in if our Shepherd had been Smitten how should we have been Scattered like a flock of silly helpless Sheep our head would have been gone and our hearts failed us we should have had neither Counsel nor Courage to have opposed those Forces that were at that time to Land upon us but must have fallen an easy pray to them Reflect a little my Brethren if you dare what would have been the dreadful consequences if this design had taken effect One cannot without horror think upon a French Army wasting our country burning our Towns and Houses butchering our Friends and Relations what comfort could any one have taken that should have escaped with his Life