Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
|
A53899
|
A sermon preached November V, MDCLXXIII, at the Abbey-Church in Westminster by John, Lord Bishop of Chester.
|
Pearson, John, 1613-1686.
|
1673
(1673)
|
Wing P1009; ESTC R23235
|
9,602
|
27
|
in case of a failure or non-performance And so this work was still in the dark Moreover we might conceive our selves safe from such a machination of any Christians by that Divine determination We must not do evil that good may come of it For if their damnation were just who slanderously reported of S. Paul that he said Let us do evil that good may come who could imagin that in any case of conscience this should be admitted And indeed a great scruple arose even in the minds of the most confident Assassinates whether the nocent and the innocent might be destroyed and perish together That be far from them to do after this manner to slay the righteous with the wicked and that the righteous should be as the wicked that be far from them though all ought to have been accounted innocent in respect of them who had no authority to make such a discrimination or to condemn and execute justice upon either Yet the sacred Oracle could determin that if the good to be expected were greater than the evil which was to be executed if the destruction of the innocent might be compensated by the advantage which followed then it was not only evidently lawful but so far as the good exceeded the evil meritorious And now let the evil be never so great they were sure in the opinion of those whom they consulted the propagation of the Roman Faith the advancement of the Catholick Cause the restitution of the Papal Jurisdiction was the greatest good imaginable to which the ruin of the nocent or the innocent could bear no proportion All this was sought in the deep to hide their counsel all this was wrought in the dark and they said often among themselves Who seeth it who knoweth it Wherefore if notwithstanding all this contrivance of secrecy to hide their counsel the horrid Conspiracy was revealed the snare discovered and their turning of things upside down esteemed as the potters clay God did then proceed to do a marvelous work for this people and nation even a marvelous work and a wonder This is that which the Lord hath done and it were the greatest wonder if it were not marvelous in our eyes Which is the first part of our Case Secondly The wonderful work of this day is never to be forgotten God hath saved our lives by a great deliverance as Joseph said and can we ever be ungrateful to him who hath given us such a deliverance as this as Ezra speaks What can we ever expect to make us mindful if upon such a deliverance as this we prove forgetful The Text teacheth us that it is the design of him who wrought it that we should remember it and shall we fulfil the design of our enemies whom he defeated Let them deny it who may be ashamed of the intended cruelty let not us forget it who ought to rejoice in the mercy lest we be unmindful of him whose the mercy was and for which he expecteth to be honoured by us God made the memory of his wonderful works to be part of the Religion of his antient people such were the Passeover and the Sabbath let us think it a part of our Religion to remember this wonderful work Let this day never fail from among us nor the memorial of it perish from our seed May we never live to see those times in which the memory of this day shall be blotted out or rather cast out with indignation may we never hear of such an Act of Oblivion Nor is it our Duty only to desire but also to endeavour the perpetuity of this Recognition and consequently to use the just and proper means to perpetuate it It was our Religion the setled Religion of the Church of England which was then aimed at and nothing will preserve the due memory of this day but the preservation of that Nothing but that procured the enmity nothing but that obteined the mercy We know no other reason why men of the same nation but of a different persuasion in matters of Religion should so combine against us we are conscious of no other motive on our part to incline the infinite goodness of God to be so propitious to us nor can any other consideration without this set a sufficient value upon the mercy received Let us therefore earnestly contend for the Faith which was once delivered unto the Saints Let us keep that which was then preserved if we expect the generations to come should praise the Lord for this deliverance The persons are now dead whose lives were then preserved if we suffer the same Religion to perish which was then so signally owned there will be little left for which the memory should be continued Thus let us endeavour to perpetuate the memorial of this day as the most just and innocent revenge But these things are in the hand of God that God who saved our late Sovereign alive upon this day and suffered him to be cruelly murthered upon another When I consider the present condition of our Church and Nation and fear that our sins begin to be full I cannot but think the enemies of our Religion the Papal Emissaries have now much an easier way to destroy it They shall not need to seek so far into the deep or to lay so vast a work in the dark but then I cannot chuse but remember those words which I read so frequently in the Scriptures God save the King God save the King God save him from the open rebellion of the Schismatical party the ruine of his Father God save him from the secret machinations of the Papal Faction the danger of his Grandfather God save the King and let all the people say Amen FINIS Rev. xiv 1. Isa. l. 2. Psal. xxix 2. Isa. ii 11. ver 1. ver 1. Neh. ix 5. Psal. xvi 2. Exo. xii 14. Deut. v. 15. Exo. xvi 32. John vi 41. Jos. iv 3. 7. Esth. ix 27 28. Psal. lii 9. Psal. lxxv 1. Psal. lxiii 3. Rom. xiii 7. Psal. xxix 2. cl 2. Psal. cxlvii 1. cvii. 8. Psal. lxxi 8. Psal. xliv 1. Matth. x. 29. Matth. x. 31. Eph. ii 2. Jude 6. Rom. iii. 8. Gen. xviii 25. Jude 3. 2 Sam. xvi 16 c.