Selected quad for the lemma: city_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
city_n	answer_v	jerusalem_n	zion_n	72	3	9.1649	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A47369	Sermons, preached partly before His Majesty at White-Hall and partly before Anne Dutchess of York, at the chappel at St. James / by Henry Killigrew ...; Sermons. Selections	Killigrew, Henry, 1613-1700.	1685 (1685)	Wing K449; ESTC R16786	237,079	422

miscarry'd in their Journey We may therefore say of those that affect to be Proselytes to this Mountain what S t Paul says of the Corinthians That they more gladly submitted to those that took of them that brought them into bondage than to those that were Sincere towards them and abounded in labour for them Or else we may upbraid them as the Prophet Hosea did Ephraim Ephraim is like a silly Dove without heart they call to Egypt they go to Assyria i. e. to the places of their Captivity and Oppression So these delight in those that plume them and tyrannize over them that seal up their Eyes in Darkness and make them believe they towre towards Heaven and the Regions of Glory till they find themselves in the Precincts of Eternal Night And as Ephraim was not only made a Prey but a Scorn for their Folly This shall be their Derision says the Prophet in the Land of Egypt so those among us that call to go to the Spiritual Egypt shall be mock'd in the Day of Great Accounts as well as Condemned For what remains for those that would not be warned but to be laugh'd at for those that chuse Destruction but to be derided when they are fallen into it In the mean time let our Adversaries triumph in the Victories they obtain by their threefold Machinations Parley Violence and Stratagem for though they sometimes prevail upon Unstable Souls prepar'd by their own Vanity for Ruine yet they cannot prevail against our Cause they may deceive some particular Persons but they cannot overthrow our Foundations no more than the Enemies of David could his Which brings me to my second General Part The Absurdity or Impossibility of the Design of David's Enemies To destroy his Foundations for then the Righteous would not know what to do If the Foundations be destroyed what can the Righteous do What shall I do is the Expression of a Person driven to the greatest Exigence and knows not which way to turn himself in the Difficulties he is in they are the Words of the Unjust Steward in the Gospel when he was turn'd out of his Stewardship What shall I do says he Dig I cannot and to beg I am ashamed The only two Means of Livelihood left to those that are reduced to the Extreamest Poverty Labour and Begging were taken from him the one by Shame and the other by a Soft Education Such an Utter Distress as this the Words of my Text imply they being a Negative by way of Question which is the strongest kind of Negative What can the Righteous do i. e. They can do nothing And if any say Yes the Unjust Steward had still recourse unto his old Arts of Cheating and False reckoning and so David and other Righteous men in case their Foundations be destroyed may make some shift they may fly as a Bird to the Mountain of their Enemies I answer That this is not to be admitted Unlawful Remedies come not so much as into the Consultation of the Righteous be their Distress never so great what is Wicked is to them Impossible and what they cannot do justly they cannot do at all How can I do this great Wickedness and sin against God said Joseph when his wanton Mistress tempted him i. e. I cannot possibly do it He could have done it actually but he could not do it honestly and what was impossible to his Vertue he resolv'd to be impossible to his Practice But the Supposition here it self is vain That the Foundations of the Righteous can be destroyed But how some will say not possible to destroy their Foundations Why Commanders will affirm that no Place is impregnable and consequently that there are no Foundations but may be destroyed When Philip of Macedon was told of a strong Place which by reason of the steepness rockiness and narrowness of the Ascent to it was Inaccessible he ask'd in derision If an Ass laden with Gold could not get up to it Intimating that no place was impregnable to Force and Fraud both But the Distinction I gave before of a Visible and Invisible Foundation answers all such Objections David beside his Rock as ye have heard had the Rock of his Rock namely his God 'T is the Invisible Divine Foundation that is the Security of the Visible No City or Fortress is safe by its natural or artificial Strength for as the Psalmist says A horse is but a vain thing to save a man so Rocks and Bulwarks are but vain things to save a City Except the Lord keepeth it the Watchman waketh but in vain But on the other side if he be the Rock and Defence if he be the Sion himself unto Jerusalem no Force no Stratagem whatsoever can prevail against it but Jerusalem on Earth shall be as invincible as Jerusalem in Heaven whose Builder and Maker is God And if any say What is this to us who are not to promise our selves the Priviledges of Israel I answer If we be Faithful like them we may promise our selves God's protection no less than they For as Saint Peter says God is no Respecter of Persons but in every Nation they that fearh im and work Righteousness are accepted by him We have a Kingdom thanks be to Providence more strongly fortify'd by Nature than Israel was founded as the Psalmist says the World is upon the Waters He laid it in the Waters and founded it upon the Flouds And though our Foundations be moveable and fluctuating yet their Mobility and Mutability being only Local and not Substantial they are not less permanent We may compare our Political Foundations also with Israels But be our Material or Moral Foundations what they will our Invisible is the same with theirs For God is not only our Founder but our Foundation too he has not only founded us By but On himself He brought us one of the first of the Nations out of the Darkness of Paganism to the Light of the Gospel and again one of the first of the Nations out of the Bondage of Spiritual Babylon to the Liberty of the Truth and free Use of his Word and he has not only given us more Excellent Ordinances than he did to his people Israel but many Advantages even above our Fellow-Christians and no Church can boast more truly than ours That 't is built upon the Foundation of the Apostles and Prophets Christ himself being the Chief Corner-Stone and what is this but to be Founded on God himself And 't is our Reliance on this our Invisible Foundation which makes us with David not to fear the Designs of our Enemies upon our Material and Visible For though God has made us no particular Promise concerning our Temporal Prosperity in case we keep his Commandments as he did to Israel yet we may rest assured on his Holy and Divine Nature and Promises in general which are to Love and Protect the Righteous and not only Israel as the Psalmist says but all that put their Trust in the Lord shall

faithful God will continue to be favourable while they serve him he will protect them while their Righteousness is immutable their State shall be invincible at least their Foundations shall not be destroyed in their greatest Dangers they shall have a Refuge in their highest Exigents they shall know what to do The Time and Occasion of writing many Psalms are utterly unknown and we have nothing but the bare Conjecture of Expositors for them grounded upon the fansy'd comporting or agreeing of some Words in the Psalm with some Historical Passage and in the great Obscurity and uncertainty of the Occasion of the present Psalm before us all I can say is It seems thus to have stood with David when he wrote it He had cast the Jebusites a Nation of the Canaanites out of their Strong hold the City of Jerusalem flank'd with the Fortress of Sion which he made his Habitation the Seat of his Kingdom and of the Worship of his God But as it is said of the foul Spirit in the Gospel that when he was cast-out he was restless as in a Desart till he had regain'd his Possession So it far'd with the Jebusites here they could not sit down with the Loss of their Power and Dominion digest the Disgrace of their Deities and the baffling of their Confidences hear the taunting Scoff of the Lame and the Blind which themselves had Ironically utter'd of their Idols according to the Sence of the Hebrews not their own retorted and verify'd on them These things prickt and stung them to the heart and they could find no peace till they had restored their Gods to their Glory and themselves to their Country and Reputation and that by destroying David and his Foundations One while therefore they sought to subdue him by Force another while by Stratagems and treacherous Practices another while by Parley and friendly Advices representing to him the Danger of his Condition surrounded by so many Nations of a Contrary Religion to induce him to forsake his own and to fly as a Bird to their Mountain But he whose Heart was fixt and rooted in his God at once encourages himself and confutes his Enemies with this Fundamental Principle That God is the sure Rock and Refuge of the Faithful beats them with his Argumentation and Reasoning out of their Sophistry as he had before by his Arms out of their Strong-holds The Demonstration which he uses is that which Logicians call leading to an Absurdity and is the Strongest of all others for it evinces That if such an Assertion be not granted then some thing must which is a Contradiction to a confest Principle For example If the Foundations which I rely upon may be destroyed then this Absurdity will follow That the Righteous may be destitute of a Refuge brought to that pass as not to know what to do The Minor which for brevity is omitted and ought to be subsum'd is this But the Righteous cannot be destitute of a Refuge brought to that pass as not to know what to do therefore the Foundations I rely upon cannot be destroyed If the Foundations be destroyed what can the Righteous do In the Words thus explain'd we may observe these two General Parts I. The Design of David's Enemies It was to destroy his Foundations II. The Absurdity of such their Design or the Impossibility of it For otherwise the Righteous would not know what to do I begin first with their Design Which was to destroy David's Foundations And what were the Foundations which the Psalmist here speaks of For the Word is in the Plural Number and the Foundations of a Kingdom may be many Some Material and Visible as Fortresses Armies Rocks Mountains c. Others Immaterial and visible only in practice as Laws Civil and Ecclesiastical which are its Moral Fortifications for the Laws of a Land support it no less than its People Wealth Bulwarks and whoever seeks to subvert these though he attempts nothing against the Magazines and Strong-holds yet he undermines the very Foundations There is also an Invisible Foundation of a State which is God's Favour and Defence pointed at by the Prophet Isaiah Chap. 4. ver 5. in these words Over all the Glory shall be Defence And though David had a regard to all his other Foundations this was the Chief the Surest Rock in which he trusted as himself professes 2 Sam. 22. The Lord says he is my Rock and my Fortress he is the God of my Rock and saveth me from violence His Rock was strong but the God of his Rock was stronger his Habitations stood upon the Rock of Sion but then Sion again was founded upon God And thus as Ezekiel's Vision was rota in rota a wheel in a wheel so David's Foundation was Fundamentum in Fundamento a Foundation upon a Foundation The Heathen had also in their Superstitious Way an Invisible or Divine Foundation for as out of jealousie to their Neighbours they chose to plant their Cities upon Rocks and Hills so they dedicated again those Rocks and Hills to the Protection of some Deity which was the Rock of their Rock and Moses seems to allude to this Deut. 32.31 where he says Their Rock is not as our Rock even our Enemies themselves being Judges Now in the first place the Design of David's Enemies was to destroy All his Foundations not only his Material and Visible ones but also his Immaterial of his Laws and his Invisible of the Deity in which he trusted For the Gentiles had a conceit that the Gods themselves were conquerable They had a Sort of Godlings or lesser Gods which they assign'd to the Guardianship of Springs and Trees as Nymphs and Dryades which they thought Mortal and extinguishable with those Springs and Trees Other Great Gods again which they set over Kingdoms and Cities and though they believ'd these last to be immortal yet they fansy'd when the Cities or Kingdoms over which they presided were subdued that these Deities were also subdu'd Secondly As the Design of David's Enemies was to destroy all his Foundations in general of what kind soever So it was to destroy them Finally and Vtterly For as our Lord says of the Providence of the Children of this World in Temporal things That they are Wiser than the Children of Light So they are also in their Malice and Mischievous Designs they lay the Axe to the Root they dig as deep to destroy as others do to build Says S t Paul As a wise Master-Builder I have laid the Foundation but these on the contrary as Master-Destroyers aim to rase the Foundation knowing this to be the speediest way to make an absolute Destruction for the Super-structures must follow these Thirdly The Ways which the Enemies of David took to effect his Destruction are exprest to be three Parley Violence and Stratagem Parley is implyed at the first Verse In the Lord put I my trust how say ye then to my Soul Flee as a Bird to the Mountain Violence is