Selected quad for the lemma: death_n
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A49126
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The original of war, or, The causes of rebellion a sermon preached in the castle of Exon on the 15th of January, 1683, before the Right Reverend Father in God, Thomas Lord Bishop of Exon, and other His Majesties justices of the peace for the county of Devon / by Tho. Long ...
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Long, Thomas, 1621-1707.
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1684
(1684)
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Wing L2978; ESTC R3712
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28,102
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44
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you may do God and the King your selves and your Country most acceptable Service For in this Text you have a discovery of the first most secret motions that tend to War and Confusion which as it is said of the Basilisk being first seen they die but if they surprize us we perish I shall therefore wave all formalities and delays and become your humble Sollicitor to take immediate cognizance of the merits of the Cause that OLD CAUSE which hath formerly involved the three Nations in War and Confusion and is like to set us all on a flame a second time And I doubt not to produce such clear and unquestionable evidence concerning the matter of fact that not one though interessed and prejudiced person shall return an Ignoramus but agree fully in the Verdict with St. James That the wars and fightings among our selves can proceed from no other cause but those lusts that war in our members And in this I dare make every man a Juror being as well under the Oath of God in his Baptism as the Oath of the King in his Allegiance both which oblige him to discover and bring to condign punishment those lusts that fight against God against the Peace of our Soveraign Lord the King and the temporal and eternal Peace of our own Souls Three things the Text directs us to enquire into 1. The matter of Fact Wars and fightings 2. The Persons engaged Among you or between your selves viz. the twelve Tribes to whom St. James writes this Epistle 3. The Original whence these Wars came which our Apostle assures us was from no other cause but those lusts which did war in their members First of the matter of Fact which was more than private Stirs and Heats as some term them there was some fire and flames and Behold saith our Apostle how great a matter a little fire kindleth it proceeded to Open Hostility and Murther For although by Gods just Judgment upon them they had been for above an hundred years under the Power and Government of the Romans and owned no King but Caesar by whom they were permitted the enjoyment of their Religion Laws and Liberties under the easie tribute of one peny yearly for each person which was the ordinary pay of a Labourer or Souldier for one days service yet did they not onely often rebel against their lawful Governours on the account of that Tribute but frequently by more than Civil Wars did execute most barbarous and bloudy Fights among themselves being divided into many restless Factions each striving to be uppermost until they were all ruined This our Apostle plainly expresseth v. 2. Ye fight and war and again ye kill and desire to have i. e. to get dominion and unlawful possessions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the word is and it seems to refer to a Generation of men that called themselves Zealots who under a pretence of Justice and Religion made it lawful to kill and destroy all that opposed their ingrossing the Power Wealth and Trade of the Nation for that was the Religion of those men And thus began those unnatural Wars the People were perswaded by these Zealots that their Religion Laws and Liberties were invaded by their King that Prince of Peace the anointed and Holy One of God Against whom the great Council and some chief Priests stirred up the People and conspired to put him to death And having all the Factions at their beck against him as their common Enemy that would let in the Romans upon them and having by many intolerable affronts and indignities driven him from his Royal City and hunted him from place to place they corrupted a Judas to betray him for a sum of money and by Subornation of false Witnesses and a Pagan Judge and mockery of Justice they murthered him as it were at the Gates of his great City Jerusalem whose thirst of bloud he had a little before endeavoured to quench by a floud of tears O Jerusalem Jerusalem which killest the Prophets c. This our Apostle observes ch 5. 6. Ye have condemned and killed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Just One Parallel to Acts 3.14 Ye denied the Holy One and the Just and desired a Murtherer to be granted unto you And now that the Royal sence was digged down what could be expected but a deluge of Bloud even the days of Vengeance wherein all things that were written were to be fulfilled Luke 21.22 And Judgment was to begin first at the house of God Accordingly we find Acts 6.9 that Some of the Synagogue of the Libertines and Cyrenians c. accused St. Stephen the Proto-Martyr For they being not able to resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he spake and by his sharp but just reproofs ch 7. 5. being cut to the heart v. 54. the People Elders and Scribes caught him and brought him to the Council and set up false witnesses which said that he had spoke blasphemous words against Moses and against God and would change their customs ch 6. 11. And him they prosecuted with a rage that reached up to Heaven for they gnashed on him with their teeth and cried with a loud voice for his bloud and stopped their ears to all sober counsels and ran upon him with one accord and stoned him calling upon God and praying for his enemies Lord lay not this sin to their charge Acts 7.60 Then Herod their usurping king vexed the whole church imprisoned St. Peter and slew James the Brother of our Lord with the sword And those men of whom the world was not worthy were counted worthy to die and die they did like worthy men for they took joyfully the spoiling of their goods and had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings bonds and imprisonment and being tempted to deny the faith chose rather to be sawn asunder and slain with the sword What havock was made of the Flock of Christ by these grievous Wolves after that the chief Shepherds were smitten is too large to be repeated Onely as Geographers are wont to describe great Countries and Cities Battels and Devastations in a little Map I shall present you with a prospect of those Wars as it was delineated by our Saviours own hand whereof it was impossible but every tittle should be true Mark 13.9 He says They should deliver one another to the council and beat them in their synagogues That brother should betray brother to death and the father the son and children should rise up against their parents and cause them to be put to death that a mans foes should be those of his own house and whoever did kill his disciples should think that he did God good service That there should follow those wars great afflictions pestilences famines such as had not been from the beginning of the world That they should fall by the edge of the sword and be led captive into all Nations and Jerusalem should be trodden down of the Gentiles Luke 21.23 for their enemies should cast a trench
about them and keep them in on every side and lay them even with the ground and her children within her until there were not one stone left upon another And shortly after our Saviours death began these troubles of which we have some account in the Acts ch 5. 36. Theudas boasting himself to be an extraordinary person as it was foretold that false Christs and false Prophets should arise and deceive many began a Rebellion with 400 men whom he dissuaded to pay Tribute to Caesar who was slain and all that obeyed him were brought to nought Then Judas of Galilee on the same occasion drew much people after him and he and his party perished Acts 5.36 37. Then Bar-Jesus a false Prophet sought to discredit our Saviours Miracles by his Sorcery Acts 13.6 Another false Prophet led out 4000 men into the wilderness who were Murderers Acts 21.38 these as Josephus says increased to 30000 but were overthrown by Felix 8400 were slain at Joppa 20000 at Cesarea not one escaping 50000 at Delta and a great slaughter was made of them that followed Simon a Galilean by Coponius See Josephus l. 2. 19. 22. c. And another great Massacre on Eleazar and his Party who refused to sacrifice and pray for the welfare of Caesar So that these turbulent Jews finding no success in their attempts against the Romans turned their Swords against each other and they who boasted most of being true Israelites were true Ishmaelites that had their hands lifted up against every man and every mans hand against them The tribe of Ephraim against Manasse and both against Judah City against City and Brother against Brother they who called themselves the Religious and Zealous threw off their Cloaks and appeared to be Sicarii very Thieves and Cut-throats as Josephus calls them Jerusalem that had been a City at unity within her self was by these men crumbled into to Factions and made an Aceldema or field of blood which was shed as water on every side of Jerusalem Mount Sion the glory of the whole earth was like Mount Sinai surrounded with blackness and tempests and the sounds of trumpets The holy lamps were extinguished and NEW LIGHTS set up on every Turret which burnt them to the ground The Temple had no other Sacrifices but heaps of slain men and the blood of the Priest shed before the Altar whom the Zealots slew with as little regret as the Priests were wont to slay the beasts for Sacrifice All sacred things were profaned and prophane things accounted sacred Having neither King nor Priest left every one did what seemed good in his own eyes and like Cain that had slain his Brother thought every one he met would slay him and therefore dealt with him as an enemy Here you might see three Independent Armies strugling in the bowels of their common mother Jerusalem and putting her into so many throws and pangs as caused her dissolution John the Priest against Eleazar the Religious and both against Simon the Zealot who being defeated slew his Wife and Children first and then himself Here the Souldiers eat their leathern girdles for hunger and women their Children of a span-long the aged and young dying for Famine the rich and the Nobles slain with the Sword and none to make lamentation over them or to bury the dead This was the condition of that Holy land when the Kingdom of Israel degenerated into a Common-wealth If any mans heart be not affected with this short relation of the Jewish Wars let him read those larger Commentaries which their Countryman Josephus who was an eye-witness of those confusions transcribed from the Originals written with their Swords in Blood And he must have a heart harder than those Swords or the Adamant it self that is not mollified by so much humane blood but still retains an edge and appetite for War which none can relish but they who have surfeited on too much Plenty and too long Peace and being displeased with themselves by their insatiable lusts and distracted Consciences seek to find ease and diversions as the Devils do by drawing others into the same condemnation like those unhappy Princes who being disturbed by frequent Seditions of their Subjects at home do invade the Dominions of their Neighbours and make their Territories the Seat of War Thus the lusts that did war in their members carryed on the war against the head and heart of the Nation which minds us of The second particular to be enquired of Vnde bella inter vos For this was no necessitous people no Highlanders or Inhabitants of the Desarts of Arabia Petrea but of Canaan which flowed with milk and honey for the poorest they were fed with the flower of the kidneys of wheat to strengthen them and drank of the generous blood of the grape to comfort their hearts and Rivers of Oyl to make them of a cheerful countenance God rained flesh among them as thick as dust and feathered fowl as the sand of the Sea Heaven and earth contributed all their Treasures to make them a happy people But the provision that God gave them for the comfort of their lives they used as provocations to their lusts and as Jesurun of old they waxed fat and kicked they forsook God that made them and lightly esteemed the rock of their Salvation And from hence came those Wars He delivered their power into captivity and their beauty to the enemies hands he gave his people over to the Sword and was wroth with his inheritance The Surfeit of a long-continued Peace and Plenty is fatal unto sensual men it puts them into such Feavourish Distempers and freaks of madness that they can neither indure the disease nor the remedy but seek to destroy those that come to save them 2. Whence come these Wars among you Who had as often felt the dismal consequences of war as they had provoked God by their murmurings their ingratitude for good and lusting after evil things They could not forget their sore bondage in Egypt and their miserable captivity under the insulting Babylonians who cryed Down with them even to the ground ROOT and BRANCH that the name of Israel may no more be had in remembrance and they were scarce recovered out of those confusions which Antiochus Epiphanes had brought upon them see 1 Maccab. 1.11 who drew them into a Rebellious Covenant and proudly entred into their Sanctuary and took away the golden Ornaments and the Crown and the hidden treasures and made great Massacres and covered all the house of Jacob with confusion he laid waste their Sanctuaries as a wilderness and shed innocent blood on every side of Jerusalem he forbad their offerings and sacrifices in the Temple polluted their Sabbaths and Festival days set up Altars and Chappels of Idols lest their Children uncircumcised to the end that they might forget the Law and changed all the Ordinances He murthered the Priests of the most high God and ruled all according to his own ungodly lusts driving the