Selected quad for the lemma: city_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
city_n	call_v	king_n	people_n	5,295	4	4.4420	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A46650	A sermon preached on the day of the publick fast, April the 11th, 1679, at St. Margarets Westminster before the Honourable House of Commons / by William Jane ...	Jane, William, 1645-1707.	1679 (1679)	Wing J456; ESTC R13564	23,060	50

Sabbati 12. die Aprilis 1679. ORDERED THAT the thanks of this House be returned to Mr. Jane for his Sermon Yesterday Preached before this House and that he be desired to Print his Sermon And that the Members that serve for the Vniversities do return the thanks WILL. GOLDESBROUGH Cler. Dom. Com. A SERMON Preached on the Day of the Publick Fast April the 11 th 1679. AT St. Margarets Westminster BEFORE THE Honourable House of Commons BY WILLIAM JANE B. D. Canon of Christ-Church in Oxford and Chaplain to the Lord Bishop of London LONDON Printed by M. C. for Henry Brome and Richard Chiswel in St. Pauls Church-Yard 1679. A SERMON ON HOSEAH vii 9. Strangers have devoured his strength and he knoweth it not yea gray hairs are here and there upon him yet he knoweth not THE Argument of this Chapter is much of the same nature with the foregoing only with this difference that in that the Prophet directs his speech against Judah in this against the Ten Tribes And because in the end of the former Chapter he had given the Jews some hopes of their return from Captivity he proceeds in this and those which follow to lay open the sins and aggravate the guilt of the people of Israel and thereby to cut off from them all occasion of complaining against God as if he had adjudged them to too severe a doom in not affording them the like promise of a Temporal restitution He makes a distinct discovery of the sins and provocations of all orders and degrees of men amongst them not only of the common people but of the Princes and the Rulers not only of the lesser and inferior Cities but and that principally of Samaria the great Metropolis of their Nation And this seems to be the design of the Prophet in almost every Verse of this Chapter First to lay before them the sad calamitous condition whereto their sins had brought them Secondly their senselesness and stupidity which increased upon them in proportion to their miseries and grew the more incurable by the methods of their recovery Thus we read Verse 7. They have devoured their Judges all their Kings are fallen there is none among them that calleth unto me By which words as I conjecture the Prophet endeavours to represent to them those Treasons and Conspiracies and horrible Butcheries of the Kings of Israel which are more particularly described 2 Kings xv and which at last determined in the utter destruction of their Kingdom And yet notwithstanding the posture of their affairs was so dismal and amazing though there appeared among them such visible tokens of the Divine vengeance in so many revolutions of their Government so many changes of their Kings who all succeeded one another by Sedition Treachery and Murther yet which is the more dreadful prospect of the two there was no man among them so far wrought upon by the sense of the publick calamities as to humble himself before God to reform his life or to implore the Divine assistance for repairing the breaches and restoring Peace and settlement to a perishing and distracted people The like argument with some variety of expression is again repeated in the words of my Text. In which we find represented to us 1. The misery of Ephraims Captivity Prov. xviii 11. strangers have devoured his strength By strength here we may understand first that which the Wise man calls a Defence a High-wall Eccl. vii 12. and a strong City the Wealth Treasure and Riches of a people And how far this had been impaired together with the occasions of it we have a very large account from the xiii to the xvii of 2 Kings Under Jehoahaz the son of Jehu they were so thresht and worn out by the King of Syria that there remained to Jehoahaz of all the people but fifty Horsemen 2 Kings xiii 7. ten Chariots and ten thousand Foot And though afterwards under Jeroboam there began to appear some glim ps of settlement and restauration yet these glorious hopes were soon defeated by the Invasion of Pul the King of Assyria who forced Menahem the King of Israel to a composition of a thousand Talents of Silver xv 19. that so his hand might be with him to confirm the Kingdom in his hand And in this state they continued wasting and consuming till the coming of Salmanasser xvii 3. who like an insatiable gulph devoured and exhausted all Or II. By strength here may be understood that wherein the true safety of a Nation doth consist which is the Divine Providence and Protection Without this the Fortifications of Cities the Courage of Souldiers the multitude of Counsellors the vastness of Revenues are of no avail at all to the defence and security of a people For when ever God withdraws his presence and favour from a Nation he dismantles their Fortresses Isaiah xix 3. mingles a perverse spirit in the midst of their Counsels makes the heart of a people to melt and their spirit to fail within them he curses the Treasures of the wicked and makes the increase of his house to depart and flow away Job xx 28. And as Ephraims strength in the former acception had been devoured by strange men so in this by strange gods 2 King xvii 12. For they served Idols of which the Lord had said unto them ye shall not do this thing And what more likely course could they have taken to cut off all their claim and interest in the Divine favour They chose new gods Jud. v. 8. then was war in the gates And surely for the people of Israel to whom God had made such clear Revelations of himself and by so many repeated experiments of his love an earnest of his assistance while they continued stedfait in his Covenant for them I say thus in a plain defiance to their known duty to forsake the Lord who brought them out of Aegypt and to fly for refuge to the gods of the Nations what is this but to distrust the veracity of Heaven and scorn the Protection of an Omnipotent Arm to renounce the Covenant which had Espoused them to their Maker and consequently to proclaim a war with the Sovereign of the world What in all likelihood can be the consequence of such a daring heinous provocation but what we read 2 Kings xvii 20. Therefore the Lord rejected all the seed of Israel and afflicted them and delivered them into the hand of Spoilers until he had cast them out of his sight This then is the misery of Ephraims Captivity strangers have devoured his strength 2. We have the symptoms of his approaching ruin Gray hairs are here and there upon him Gray hairs may denote either the intension and greatness or else the duration of his Calamity And in either signification the meaning of the expression will amount to this that the people of Israel had been so long kept under a continued series of pressures and afflictions that they were in a