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cause_n	know_v	lord_n	see_v	3,997	5	3.2299	3	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A31846	A sermon preached before the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor, aldermen, and citizens of London at the Church of St. Mary le Bow, September the second, 1684, being the anniversary fast for the dreadful fire in the year 1666 by Benjamin Calamy ...	Calamy, Benjamin, 1642-1686.	1685 (1685)	Wing C219; ESTC R5723	17,267	37

Disobedience Prevailing and crying Sins of a Nation or City without timely Repentance never scape Publick Judgments And indeed it is in a manner necessary for the Government of the World and preserving some good Order in it and keeping up in Men the awe of an Invisible Power upon high and publick Provocations when Men insolently bid open Defiance to the Laws of God I say it is necessary that God should manifest his Power and Displeasure by some remarkable Punishments inflicted on Places generally infamous for their foul Ingratitude towards and horrid Contempt of his Divine Majesty When Sin and Irreligion mightily abounds and hath gained reputation amongst foolish people and like a great Flood carries all before it when it hath once got an Head and formed a strong Party and Men of all Conditions and Qualities are engaged on the side of Vice and Profaneness all Reason and Argument shall at such a time be easily run down and the soft voice cannot then be heard God must appear in a great Storm with Thunder and Lightning as he did of old to the Israelites if he would have the Inhabitants of the Earth look up to him or would convince them of their Folly and Danger Such publick Judgments are rightly compared to publick Executions which are sometimes necessary for the Support of the Government and making People to stand in dread of the Laws They serve especially to excite in the generality of Mankind a more quick and lively sense of God's Power over and Presence with them to rouse Men out of that Stupidity and dull Lethargy which long and prosperous continuance in Sin betrays them into I will cause you to pass under the rod saith God by the Prophet and then shall you and all that hear and see it know that I am the Lord. Thus did not that miserable Fate which befel Sodom and Gomorra serve to awaken the neighbouring Cities Countries when they beheld the bright Flames to ascend towards Heaven to inquire into the Causes of such Severity and to examine themselves whether they were guilty of the same Sins which had so highly incensed God And would not they have been glad to have been at good terms and at peace with that Almighty Being who hath such dreadful Punishments in store for the Refractory and Impenitent And was it not thus with us at the the time of the late terrible Conflagration which we are this day more particularly to call to our minds I appeal to all amongst you that were then present at it Did you not then humbly acknowledge the Hand of God in it Did you not then accuse your selves and did not your Consciences loudly charge you with those Sins that you could not but think did fully deserve so severe Vengeance Did not some of you blame your Covetousness and niggardly hoarding up those many Goods which now suddenly perished in the merciless Flames Did not others of you curse your Injustice and Falseness in your Trades others your Intemperance and Riot and many in this City their odious Hypocrisie and base prostituting Religion to unworthy Ends which with other Sins provoked God to so great Anger Did you not then make many serious Promises of better living should you any ways escape or ever recover so great a Calamity What would you not then have undertook nay performed onely to have been assured that in so short a time you should be again restored to your Dwellings Trades and Possessions that this City should so soon rise out of its Rubbish and Ashes and all of us return to live in greater splendour and ease than we did before And O had we lived answerably to those Vows and Promises which this surprising Providence did then extort from us in the day of our Fears what an holy what an happy City had this been But alas do not the same Vices to say no worse reign amongst us which did before Sixty six So that we have great cause to fear tho' I am loth to speak it that it is e'en now time for God to think of some more smarting Punishment more grievous than any we have yet felt which may give some check to the overflowing Atheism and Wickedness of this Age. And doubt not but he will do it in his due time unless we stop his Hand by a general Reformation God doth not take any delight in such Severities It is no pleasure to him to make such havock in the World This is his strange work He is very loth to be brought to it He doth not willingly grieve any particular Man much less doth he love to exercise his Power in laying whole Cities and Kingdoms waste But onely when he is concerned in Honour to vindicate his Authority his Laws his Name from bold Profanations and open bare-fac'd Affronts then neither our Wealth nor Power nor Policy can secure us from the Omnipotent Arm of Divine Justice And indeed it is very great Impudence for us to expect or hope that God should bless or protect that People who live in open Rebellion against him By all this it appears that Vice and Wickedness is not onely by its own Malignity apt to destroy us but also where it prevails and abounds doth as it were necessitate God Almighty to visit such a People especially when they are irreclaimable by any gentler Methods with such signal and remarkable Judgments as may keep the World in some awe of him and make them confess That there is a God who judgeth the earth Whereas the general Practice of Religion recommends and intitles us to the Almighty's Protection engages him on our side secures to us the constant Succours and Aids of Divine Providence God will watch over our Cities and Houses will bless our Land with Increase will deliver us from all our Enemies and think nothing too much or too good for us Seek ye the kingdom of God and the righteousness thereof in the first place and all these things shall be added to you 3. In the last place I appeal to the Experience of all Ages and we shall certainly find the State and Condition of any Kingdom or Society to have been more or less prosperous according to the Manners that have prevailed amongst them Which was of old acknowledged by the Orator in that known Saying Omnia prospera eveniunt colentibus Deos adversa spernentibus The People that have a care of Religion are always successful but unhappy when they are Irreligious God indeed may defer pouring forth his Wrath for a while to give Men time and space of Repentance but at last when their iniquities are full as the Scripture expresseth it Divine Vengeance hath overtaken them which hath commonly been so much the sorer the longer it hath been delaied If we look therefore upon any one whole Kingdom or great City as joyned together in one Society we shall generally find that according as Vertue Justice Temperance Sincerity and Fidelity hath flourished amongst them so long have they thrived

grown Great Powerful and Wealthy and abounded with all Good things and never hardly were there any Times or Places famous for Publick Prophaneness Debaucheries and Contempt of Things Sacred but they also remarkably bore the sad Tokens of the Divine Displeasure There is nothing more evident than this in the whole Story of the Jews that as long as they continued constant to the Worship of the True God in that manner he had prescrib'd to them they either lived in Peace or their Arms were always successful and their Land flowed with Milk and Honey But when at any time they fell into Idolatry it was always attended with some mortal Disease or the devouring Sword or a long Captivity Their Sins would poyson their Air blast their Corn weaken their Hands in the Day of Battel till at length after many various Dispensations of Mercy and Judgment when they refused to be amended by the Preaching of the Son of God himself their City was sacked and burnt by the Roman Legions their glorious Temple demolished their Polity dissolved and their whole Nation involved in one common Ruine But because it is usually objected in this Case That God hath not dealt so with other People and Nations as he did with the Jews whose Political Sovereign and Governour he was after a more peculiar manner and that we are not to argue from Gods special Providences towards them nor draw his Proceedings with Jerusalem into a President to other Kingdoms and Cities we may therefore search into Profane Histories and every Age will give in some Testimony to this Truth If we inquire into the Causes of the Dissolution of those Potent Empires and States which once were so famous in the World or of the Destruction of those great and populous Cities of which the bare Names onely now remain and we can hardly find out the Places where they once stood we shall see abundant reason to impute their Ruine to their own Follies and Wickedness Either they fell into Parties and Divisions and so crumbled into Pieces or their Strength and Wealth being wasted by Ease and Luxury they were exposed to the Fury of a Foreign Enemy or else by the Cry of their enormous Sins provoked God to overthrow them by Inundations Earthquakes Fire or some such depopulating Judgments This is particularly observed by almost all that treat of this Argument concerning those mighty Revolutions which hapned in the Four first Monarchies as they are commonly called That which gave occasion to the enlarging the Babylonian Monarchy and made it spread so fast and wide was neither their own Courage nor Counsel but the Transgressions Provocations of the Eastern Nations which moved God to give them over as a Prey to the King of Assyria whom he calls by the Prophet the rod of his anger and made use of to destroy and cut off nations not a few And when the Lord by him had performed his whole Work and the Sins of Babylon were ripe for Vengeance then did God raise up Cyrus who at a time of a great Feast in the midst of their Jollity and Security entred into that City and fulfilled all those Threatnings which God's Prophets had often denounced against that People When in process of time the Persians had sunk into the same Vices for which God had destroyed the Babylonians how easily and suddenly were they conquered and over-run by Alexander and his Grecians to whom God gave Success vastly beyond their own Hopes greater than they themselves could expect either from the Number or Strength of their Armies After which the Grecians themselves being softned by Persian Luxury and infected with the Vices of Asia soon submitted to the Romans of whom the forenamed Cicero affirms Non calliditate ac robore sed Pietate Religione omnes gentes nationesque superavisse That they overcame all the Nations not by Force or Craft but by piety and Religion And of them it is commonly taken notice of in the Roman History That whilst their Senators and People inviolably maintained that strict Justice Faithfulness and Sobriety that was so remarkable in the first Founders of that great Empire so long they flourished and enlarged their Dominions till at last they were themselves enslaved to the Vices of all the Nations they had subdued and then how miserably were they harass'd with Civil Wars and in the issue became a Prey to Barbarous People God giving them up to be over-run by the Goths and Vandals and Hunns a cowardly and contemptible People if compared with the Romans whose Success yet was so strange and unaccountable that it could not be attributed to any Second Causes but onely to the Hand of God by them punishing the Christians of the West then grown luxurious and almost incorrigible by too much Felicity as one of their Generals Attila stiled himself Flagellum Dei God's Scourge to chastise the Wickedness of that People Should we go no further than our own Country our own Historians do all along observe That those great Desolations which have been made in this Island either by Foreign Invasions or Intestine Divisions or Infectious Diseases were always preceded by a notorious degeneracy and corruption of Manners And against this I believe there are but few Exceptions and where there are any such single Instances are not according to God's ordinary establish'd Rule and Method according to which we ought to expect he will always deal with us By this time I hope you are all convinced of the evil nature of Vice and Wickedness where it prevails and abounds how contrary it is to and destructive of the Publick Peace and Prosperity of any Kingdom or City What remains is to make some particular Application to our selves which I shall do by drawing these four Inferences 1. Hence we may learn what great disservice they do unto and what great dishonour they bring upon Religion who make pretence of it to the embroiling and disturbance of Societies and the breach of the Publick Peace Government and Society was setled in the World from the very beginning of it by the general Providence of God as being absolutely necessary for our common Peace and Safety and therefore nothing ought to be admitted as any part of Revealed Religion which is plainly inconsistent with this Prime and Original Institution of God I should call that any thing rather than Religion which makes Men Factious and Seditious that prompts them to publick Outrages and Mischiefs that teaches them to burn Cities and to make Stirs in a Kingdom that inspirits Men with a fierce Zeal which transgresses all Bounds keeps no Place or Rank observes no Mean or Decorum that is promoted by secret Plots and open Rebellion If such a Religion could be supposed to come from Heaven we might change the Words of St. Paul and more truly say That God was the Author not of Peace but of Confusion But in this last Age the false Visard and Mask of Religion hath been so often