Selected quad for the lemma: christian_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
christian_n	church_n	faith_n	holy_a	3,820	5	4.8736	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A67018	A sermon preached before the Right Honourable the Lord-Mayor, and Aldermen of the city of London, at St. Mary Le Bow on Wednesday the 19th of June, 1695, a day appointed for a solemn fast, for supplicating Almighty God for the pardon of our sins, and imploring his protection of His Majestie's person, by Josiah Woodward ...	Woodward, Josiah, 1660-1712.	1695 (1695)	Wing W3520; ESTC R23478	15,685	41

elevated Devotions this day Let us indeed afflict our Souls before the All-seeing God lest our mock-Fasts make work for real ones and lest we hasten that wrath which we seem to deprecate Let us indeed do the needful work of Intercessors with God and that we may not want Arguments to plead for mercy the latter part of my Text will suggest something apposite to our Case which is summed up in my second observation viz. That a Peoples profession of the true Religion and being those whom God had signally deliver'd and defended in times past may be humbly pleaded with God as an argument for further Deliverance For thus Moses prays and pleads in the Text. O Lord destroy not thy People and thine Inheritance which thou hast redeemed thro' thy Greatness which thou hast brought forth of the Land of Egypt with a mighty hand In which he seems to argue thus Oh Lord may it please thee to make the procedure of thy Providence towards this People suitable to what it has been hitherto Thou hast hitherto preserved and defended them by astonishing dispensations We can never forget that dreadful succession of miraculous Plagues which thou broughtest upon our Enemies the Egyptians How grosly thou didst infatuate them and how eminently thou didst inspirit us and by what a wonderful Revolution thou wast pleased to free us from their slavery Oh Let us not now perish by that powerful hand by which we were so lately delivered 'T is true we are guilty of great provocations but thy mercy is greater than our perverseness Oh spare a very sinful People for thine infinite mercy sake Lest when the Egyptians hear of our destruction they triumph in our ruine in the Wilderness as much as we did in the destruction of the Egyptians in the Red Sea Yea lest they think thy power oftner displayed in Judgment than in Mercy This is the purport of the Plea in my Text which may be reduced to these four Particulars 1. He pleads for mercy for them on the account of their relation to God as they were his People Destroy not thy People and thine Inheritance They were a peculiar People by a very singular and selecting love of God Deut. 4. 43. Hath God essayed to go and take him a Nation from the midst of another Nation by Signs Wonders and by a mighty hand as the Lord your God did you c. So that now the honour of God seemed to be concerned for their preservation Now all that profess the incorrupt Religion of our Lord Jesus Christ may form an Argument somewhat like this and say Lord we are Christians we cleave to the Doctrine of thy Beloved Son for his sake whose Name we bear and for the honour of thy visible Church on Farth destroy us not And tho' alas too too few of us are duly influenced by our holy Faith yet we generally avow thee thee alone to be our God in opposition to Idols and other Gods Oh that we could say we are Christians in opposition to Hypocrisie and Prophaneness too then our plea would be irresistible II. There may be a further plea inferr'd from Moses his Prayer thus viz. For as much as there is seldom the profession of the true Religion without some hearty and entire embracers of it So that an Argument may be made like that of Abraham's Gen. 18. 24. If there be Fifty or Forty or but Ten Righteous Persons wilt thou not spare the corrupt generality for the sake of this little sound part This we have great hope may be pleaded in the behalf of this Nation yea of this City Even in a far greater Number than that which Abraham began his Plea with But truly the number of the Good is too too small And indeed except the Lord had left unto us this small Remnant we had been altogether as Sodom and like unto Gomorrah Isa 1. 9 But we trust we shall fare the better for the sake of these III. Another part of Moses's Plea is grounded on the past Mercies which God had vouchsaf'd to this People This is the People says he which thou hast redeemed thro' thy greatness and brought out of Egypt with thy mighty hand In this respect also some Plea may be made for England It is a Land which God has by a Series of Wonders freed from the Slavery and Corruptions of Popery An infinite Blessing which we have now enjoy'd for almost two Centuries of Years And tho' there have been many Combinations and restless Plottings against us yet blessed be God they have hitherto proved abortive And we are at this day thro' infinite mercy a Free People enjoying the blessed Beams of the Gospel and the Just and Antient Rights of our Mother-Country O! may that Bountiful God who has hitherto thus seasonably thus marvelously appeared for us still be our Guardian May his infinite Goodness never leave us but flow down with the same exuberant Streams on us and our Posterity to the latest Generations So that we may here say as Solomon The Lord our God be with us as He was with our Fathers let him not leave us nor forsake us 1 Kings 8. 57. IV. Another part of Moses his Plea is taken from the Insolence of the Enemy ver 28. Lest the Land whence thou broughtest us out say Because the Lord was not able to bring them into the Land which he promised them and because he hated them he hath brought them out to slay them in the Wilderness The World is apt to judge of the goodness of the Cause by its success and to make very wild Interpretations of the Language of Providence Wicked men are apt to conclude that God is on their side when their Mischievous Designs take effect So that on this account also we may form a Plea for Mercy For if Protestants be consumed the Papists will be sure to glory in their Ruine as in the Fall of Miscreant Hereticks Especially since their Cardinal Champion makes outward Prosperity and Victory the mark of his splendid Church * Ultima Nota est faelicitas temporalis Divinitùs ijs collata qui Ecclesiam defenderunt Bellarmin de Notis Ecclesiae cap. 18. Which by his leave would better have fitted the mouth of a Turk than a Christian For Mahomet proposed to propagate his Faith by the Sword which our Blessed Saviour never did but the very contrary Now therefore since the French Papists have so glutted themselves already with the groans and blood of the Protestants in their own Country should their bloody Designs against us prosper too how would they blaspheme the Reformed Religion and triumph in their own Delusions May the Lord of Armies therefore enfeeble the Power and blast the Designs of those Massacring Legions And if our sins are so ripe that Infinite Justice can spare us no longer nor infinite patience any longer suspend our punishment may we fall into the hands of God rather than Men. Rather the Pestilence or Scarcity or any earthly Plague