Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	great_a	king_n	power_n	3,921	5	4.7466	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A53973	A sermon preached at Westminster-Abbey on the 26th of July, 1685 being the thanksgiving-day for His Majesties victory over the rebels / by Edward Pelling ...	Pelling, Edward, d. 1718.	1685 (1685)	Wing P1098; ESTC R34550	13,634	40

those Preferments could Content which would have contented Sheba nothing would satisfie him but the Crown His ungrateful Son Absalom that so basely rewarded him for his Longings after him when he fled from his presence to Geshur and for his Pardon for his Kisses upon his Return and upon that his most solemn though artificial submission at his Fathers Feet His perfidious Son Absalom that no sooner went out of his Fathers Court but ran to the Gates to steal away the hearts of his Fathers Subjects with such mean addresses to the Populace O that I were made Judg meaning King in the Land His hypocritical Son Absalom that pretending a desire to perform his Vow declared for the Throne and under colour of Religion raised an open and barefac't Rebellion This was such a dreadful Conspiracy as made David himself though a man of such Prowess and Conduct presently to flee for his Life For so it was that Absalom what with the gracefulness and beauty of his Person what with his Popularity and what with other sinister and sordid Artifices had insinuated himself strangly into peoples Affections the hearts of the men of Israel were after him saith the Scripture so that the Conspiracy was strong the business was laid very broad for the People increased continually with Absalom though at the First he was but two hundred Men strong as we read 2 Sam. 15. Had not the hand of God which commands the Seas govern'd and over-rul'd this design the King had been utterly undone and all his Loyal Subjects that clave to him Such a violent agitation were disaffected People in then that they were ready to flow to him from all Quarters like the meeting and inundation of many Rivers to make a Deluge But that which made this Conspiracy the more terrible was this that Achitophel was in the head of it Achitophel that had served to corrupt and debauch the young man Absalom and had ministred to his Lusts Achitophel that False and Treacherous Villain that had been one of Davids Counsellors nay the President of his Council as 't is plainly intimated 1 Chron. 37. 34. Achitophel that dexterous man at wickedness such a cunning and crafty Politician that he was lookt upon as infallible as an Oracle Achitophel that was so maliciously set against the King that nothing would satisfie him but the Assassination of his Person Achitophel that hardned Traytor and cursed Reprobate that when his Counsel and Bloudy endeavours would not take fled for it presently and through anguish and vexation hanged himself A sad End indeed for any Rebel to be his own Executioner though in some cases 't is pity that an Achitophel an inveterate and advising Rebel should ever die in his Bed When the highest Treason was formed by such working heads when 't was conducted by such Politick Counsels when 't was Executed by such desperate Instruments when it prosper'd on a suddain by such successful stratagems nothing could be expected but the Kings inevitable ruine had not the hand of God been more concern'd in the cause than the hand of Joab Herein was manifested the great power of God that notwithstanding all these Arts Enterprises and desired Events of wickedness the whole frame of the Conspiracy was dasht down in a moment the King was delivered Peace was restored the whole Nation was freed from commotions and dangers and all this by the unexpected and surprizing death of Absalom who as God would have it was caught in a Wood and hung by his Locks upon a Tree to shew the World what a Reward all they deserve that take up Arms and Rebel against their Lawful Prince 2. You have now seen some of Davids deliverances I mean his deliverances from Home-bred dangers from Enemies that were in his own Country in his own Bosome which as I conceive David had an immediate eye upon in this Psalm where he blest the God of his Salvation that he and his people were not delivered as a Prey unto their Teeth To proceed in the next place to the consideration of our own deliverances which is the necessary subject of our Meditations this day I know not any deliverances that can come nearer perhaps not so near to those of David either for the Quality or for the Circumstances of them then those wonderful deliverances from so many Sheba's and Achitophels which God hath from time to time wrought for this Nation Perhaps no Age no State no History can shew the Like instances of his good Providence so unwearied hath his Goodness been to our Princes as if he had entailed his Mercy upon Them as he did upon David and upon his seed for evermore 'T is true a most sad and shameful Truth God knows such was the monstrous impiety of the Last Age that it afforded one unpresidented unparallel'd instance of Gods wrath when that imparable Monarch the Glory of our Reformation and the Honour of the World was forced to bow his head down and to fall a Sacrifice to the Lusts of the most barbarous Villains as if God had forsaken him Yet I cannot tell but that God who draweth Good many times out of the greatest Evil did in that terrible juncture design to shew men the excessive sinfulness of their Follies in throwing away a Felicity always to be reflected on but hardly ever to be recover'd to the Worlds End However that some Compensation might be made for that superlative and otherwise irreparable loss by the due succession and after Greatness of his Posterity God hath multiplied those temporal Glories upon the Sons which he took from the Father and gave him a Blessed Eternity in Exchange for And to let the World see that resistance is criminal even when 't is prosperous and to punish Rebellion in a second Age tho' it escaped in the First God hath delivered the two Royal Brothers from six troubles and seven though Sheba and Absalom with their wicked Confederates joyned hand in hand to Execute a Conspiracy which had been long a forming by the Serpentine subtilty of a twining and party colour'd Achitophel This Deliverance was manifestly the work God For first our dangers were so immense and yet so close and privy that it both passed the sagacity and exceeded the reach of humane Force to prevent them and nothing could deliver us from them but the Power and Wisdome of Almighty God What were the Conspirators but the most daring and desperate Villains Men of the most desperate Principles ready and dispos'd for the most desperate undertakings and either so laden with the guilt of former Crimes or so linked together in the Communion of New ones that nothing less could be expected then the utmost of those mischiefs which are always acted by men of the most desperate Fortunes And what was the Conspiracy it self but a long studied and now ripe Design to draw in upon us a whole Deluge of Blood to overwhelm Prince and People with final slaughter to destroy the very Name as well as

Work was done after a most Providential manner and by the meanest and most ordinary Instruments For as that Sheba of the North was after a Months Invasion taken at last by three Servants in the Water so that Absalom of the West was after his Months Invasion or thereabout caught also by three Men of the like Figure and Condition and that like Absalom the First in a Wood among Brakes and Trees and hereby God shewed his just displeasure against All the Rebels both ways by exposing the most honourable of them to Disgrace and Shame as well as by bringing them to capital punishment And thus by a Wonderful and an uninterrupted course of Gods blessed providence he hath in a very short time wrought one of the greatest Deliverances for us and our Posterity these having been we hope the Last Efforts of that wicked Cause which for many years hath made such mischiefs in the World but God be blessed was brought at length to it's extream Agonies and is now Dead Dead and I hope Buried till the day of Final Reckoning when it 's more valiant Patriots will rise up in judgment and upbraid these for the less fortunate successes of their more Open and Notorious Wickednesses That I have thus particularly observed the several steps of Gods Providence in this case is not only to express mine own deep and humble Sense of those manifold Mercies which never fail us or to quicken the like Sense in you and to excite the Endeavours of us all to give due Testimonies and Expressions of the most Religious Hearts of Hearts Penitent for those Sins which drew the point of the Sword upon us and Thankful for our speedy and effectual Deliverance from it Though these are Eucharistical acts very suitable to the purport of this day very necessary to be performed by us for the infinite goodness of God to us when we were in trouble yet there are three other things which I would by way of practical Inference draw out of this whole consideration and methinks we are so plainly taught them by this our late Deliverance as if God himself did purposely intend to direct us to these three things with his own Hand 1. That we carry in our minds a Fixt and Awful Remembrance of a Deity Good God! That ever Atheism should prevail in such a Land as this where not only all Demonstrative Arguments have been used to prove a Being infinitely Wise Just and Good to Preside over the World but moreover where the Presence of God hath been so often so long and in all the vicissitudes and changes of this Sublunary World so constantly seen and manifested as if he had taken up his Abode with us as if he had said of this Kingdom as he did of Zion Psal 132. 14. This is my rest for ever here will I dwell for I have a delight therein And yet I may say truly but to our great shame that since the Creation of the Universe there never was such an Atheistical Generation no not in the most dark in the most distant in the most infidel parts of the World as this Nation hath groaned under of late years And yet 't is observable though it be very strange that none among us have pretended greater concernment for the Reformation for the interest for the security of our establisht Religion than those who have bid open defiance to all Religion whatsoever Men of the most Licentious Lives of the most seared consciences of the most profligate Reputation Open Drunkards profest Adulterers Notorious Cheats Forsworn Rebels Impudent Lyars perfidious Hypocrites and but the other day Scoffers at God and at the very shew of piety 'T is enough to move the meekest the most patient man on Earth to consider what foreheads of steel and Adamant those impious Wretches have that could take the confidence thus to gull and impose upon the World by a seeming zeal for Religion and especially that when they were now up in Arms for it they should Ravish Virgins commit Sacriledge and drink the most villainous Healths in the Bowls of the Sanctuary and even before the Altar of God such a barbarous profanation as Belshazzar himself would have dreaded amidst all his Concubines 'T is no wonder that the righteous God did presently write Mene Mene upon the Plaister of the Walls and made a very short Work with that Kingdom which they thought to have had for who could think that such monstrous Impieties could prosper And when God did on a suddain and after such a Providential and Signal manner blast the designs of those wicked men he did not only vindicate his own Holiness and gain himself Honour upon those sons of Belial that were Rebels against Himself as well as against their Soveraign but he did that too which was enough to Convince even the Actors of those wickednesses that verily there is a Reward for the Righteous and that there is a God that Judgeth the Earth In which respect God was so kind and good to those his Enemies too that he made their very Punishments to Instruct them and took a direct course to convince the Atheist by defeating and plagging and delivering up the Trayter I pray God all such of them as yet survive may be throughly sensible of his Providence and make a Christian use of it while it is called to day and that all such as have not God in their thoughts may learn once to make him their Fear by impartially considering the Exemplary fall of Absalom if I have not done him too Great an Honor in calling him Absalom whose persidious and mean spirit never argued him to be the son of a Prince 2. As for those in the Second place who own and acknowledg a Diety and yet are apt to stagger as many among us of late have done in their belief of the Divine Providence as if our trusting in God were a thing of small value as if we and our Religion were in a dangerous case as if ordinary means would do us no good and as if nothing but violent and indirect course could secure our Civil and Sacred Interests in the Name of God let such men seriously reflect upon this our Late Deliverance and thereby learn that excellent Wisdom in all Cases and Circumstances still to commit themselves to God in well doing That which was the Ground or at least the Pretence for the late Rebellion was this Unreasonable Jealousie which some weak men have entertain'd that the Ark of God which hath been blessed be God fixed in this Kingdom hath been so Glorious since the Reformation is now in a tottering in a falling Condition so that nothing but strong and Armed Hands can support it This you know is the Common Plea which Malecontents and Rebels use for their disobedience to and resistance of the Lords Anointed Now I am apt to believe that in working this late marvellous Deliverance for us one of Gods good purposes was to signifie from Heaven that