Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	glory_n	life_n	sin_n	8,915	5	4.4862	4	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
B04311	A sermon preached on Sunday the XXVI of July, 1685. Being the day appointed for solemn thanksgiving to almighty God, for his Majesties late victory over the rebels. / Preached at Wakefield by Obadiah Lee, M.A. and vicar there.	Lee, Obadiah, 1636 or 7-1700.	1685 (1685)	Wing L885B; ESTC R222844	9,795	31

A SERMON Preached on SUNDAY The XXVI of July 1685. Being the Day Appointed for Solemn Thanksgiving to Almighty God for His Majesties late Victory over the REBELS Preached at Wakefield By Obadiah Lee M. A. and Vicar there Printed for and Sold by Elizabeth Richardson Bookseller in Wakefield MDCLXXXV A SERMON 2 Sam. 18.28 The latter part of the verse Blessed be the Lord thy God which hath delivered up the men that lift up their hand against my Lord the King The whole verse runs thus And Ahimaaz called and said unto the King all is well and he fell down to the Earth upon his face before the King and said blessed be the Lord thy God which hath delivered up the Men that lift up their hand against my Lord the King THis day being set apart not only as a weekly Sabbath Commemorating these Spiritual mercies which we receive by the Victorious and Triumphant Resurrection of the Lord of Life and Glory over our spiritual Enemies Sin Death and Hell but also by His Majesties Royal Proclamation as a day of special Thanksgiving to God for his happy Victory over his and our Enemies whom no former pardon could ingage nor acts of grace mollifie to a due discharge of their duty I thought this History this particular part of it now read to you would not be unsuitable to the occasion and accordingly made choice of it The Wise man tells us Eccl. 1.9 There is no new thing under the Sun and ver 10. Is there any thing whereof it may be said See this is new It hath been of old time which was before us Accordingly we have Absalom and Achitophel after some revolution of Ages once more upon the stage in these last and therefore worst of times pursuing the same methods of destruction under the same pretences and though Israels politick Achitophel did long since wisely dispose of himself to the Halter to save the Hangman a labour and their Rebellious Absalom was caught up between earth and heaven as unworthy of either the senseless Oak becoming a just avenger on him whom its likely the doting fathers indulgence would have spared yet severest instances of heavens wrath will not discourage those Ambitious spirits who have a glistering Crown and an advanced Throne in their prospect But blessed be God our Achitophels projects failing he dies of the sullens in a Foreign Nation and our Absaloms Rebellious rout is defeated and himself become a prey to Justice good news this and who fitter to have the first Tidings of it then Israels King Loyal and couragious Ahimaaz offers himself to Joab the General to be the first messenger of such happy Tidings and we have him delivering his message to the King in the words of my Text blessed be the Lord thy God which hath delivered up the men that lift up their hand against my Lord the King Thus you see my text is the first Tidings brought to King David of the total defeat of the Forces of Rebellious Absalom delivered in the pious strain of Thanksgiving and Praises to King Davids God blessed be the Lord thy God c. That I may the more clearly proceed in the handling of the text it will be not unuseful to give you an account of the occasion in order whereunto we must know that Absalom the main subject of the story was blest with that high Prerogative of being the King of Israel's Son one whom God had indowed with the most exquisite accomplishments of nature of goodly personage and surprizing beauty and comeliness the more remarkable because natures workmanship in none so exactly delineated in Scripture as this of Absalom as if God had in him given an exemplar of perfect beauty chap. 14.25 We read that in all Israel there was none so much to be praised as Absalom for his beauty from the sole of his foot even to the crown of his head there was no blemish in him And no wonder that so goodly a presence a person endowed with such advantages attracts the eyes and affections of all beholders No sooner does he appear in Israels famous Metropolis but all the news and discourse was of the beauty and perfection of the young Absalom For the endowments of his soul he knew how to resent an injury hide his resentment with shows of kindness and take the surest and most opportune revenge Witness his behaviour towards his brother Amnon for the Rape of the beautiful Thamar so that he was a person of most profound dissimulation And as he was thus cunningly Revengeful so of an haughty Ambitious spirit as he was the Son of a King so ambitious to be one for no sooner had he obtained the King his Fathers pardon for his Brothers Murder and regained His Majesties favour but he appears in the splendor and state of heir apparent to Israels crown Beauty and greatness made him proud and great spirits will not rest contented with moderate prosperity and therefore because outward Pomp and unwonted shews of Magnificence affect the light minds of the vulgar Absalom to the height of his birth and the incomparable comeliness of his person adds the unusual state of a more than Princely Equipage chap. 15.1 He prepares him Chariots and Horsemen and fifty men to run before him And now his Chariots rattle and his pampered Horses praunce it proudly through Jerusalems streets with his fifty Footmen in goodly Liveries running before their glistering Master the City rings of the glory of their Prince and are ready to adore these continual triumphs of peace and though excess and novelty of expensive bravery in publick persons give just cause to suspect either vanity or a Plot yet true hearted David misdoubts no such matter construes all as meant to the honour of a Fathers Court or the expressions of joy and thankfulness for a late reconcilement This gives advantage First to flatter and thereby gain the mobile to his designs he rises early stands in the gate and with prodigious humility in mascarade he courts the Communalty seems to pity the want of a free course of justice in which was he good Man concern'd none should have cause to complain See says he thy matters are good but alas none is deputed of the King to hear thee Knowing that no musick is more sweet to the Ears of the unstable multitude than to hear well of themselves ill of their Governours And now every one speaks of his praise crying out oh brave Prince Absalom the World hath not so compleat a Prince as Absalom Thus are the unwary unthinking subjects hearts stoln by the close Traytor from their lawful Sovereign but certainly as no natural face has so clear a white and red as the painted so such over fair shows are a just argument of unsoundness However having by these Arts scrued himself into the affections of the people the next advance must be a Cloak of Religion to perfect the treachery of an ungracious Son that carries Peace in his Name War in

Kings and Princes then think it strange that such there are since such there have been indeed when one considers Rulers as an Ordinance of God the strict commands of obedience and subjection to them the judgments of God in this Life and that wrath that abides for such in the Life to come he would think there should be none that should dare to lift up their hand against the Lords Anointed but what will not men attempt for Rule and Domination but men first cast of the fear of God before they attempt to put Kings in Fear and where men have no regard to God and Religion what will they not adventure upon though it be to their own destruction and therefore having the example of so many pious good and wise Kings Rebell'd against and that under the fair disguise of Piety Religion and Liberty it may make us the less wonder that such there should be in our days VSE 2 Have the best of Kings their Enemies Let not us think the worse of them because they have such as lift up their hand against them You see none so good but had the like and therefore let not us harbour the worse thought of them for it and while they report them careless or tyrannical let us remember that it was Scripture long before this Rebellious age had a being is it fit to say to Kings you are wicked or to Princes ye are ungodly Job 34.18 We should not be ready to hearken to the cunning insinuations of Rebels but if we have but so much as thought evil against the King the Wise man advises us to lay our hand upon our mouth in token of shame and abhorrenbe of our selves for it Proverbs 30. 32. Thus much of the first thing in the Text there were men that lift up their hand against the King The best of Kings have their Enemies which I have been the briefer upon because it is only supposed and implyed in the Text. Secondly These men thus lifting up their hand against the King are delivered up to death and destruction Ruine is the ordinary consequence of Rebellion Those that seek to destory the King shall find destruction to themselves their mischief shall fall down upon ther own heads and their violent dealing shall come down upon their own pate Psalm 7.16 The Wise man who himself also was a King tells us Proverbs 17.11 An evil man only seeketh Rebellion and therefore a cruel Messenger shall be sent against him Cartwright understands this messenger by a Synecdoche pro omni infortunio seu plaga quacunque for all kind of misfortune or any sort of Plague or such a cruel messenger shall be sent against him as shall prove inexorable as shall inflict the utmost severity upon him Thus as one of the Criticks upon the place observes the Rebel dum quaerit malum alienum justo dei judicio consequitur malum proprium while he seeks anothers bane he finds his own Yea whosoever breaks the hedge of Government some Serpent or other shall bite him Eccles 10. 18. They who are impatient of rule over them have ruine very near them Need I prove this by Examples it hath been the observation of some that the ruine of no sort of sinners hath been so sudden so unavoidable as the Rebels We read of none in Scripture who opposed Authority but have been punished eminently in this Life nor hardly do we read of a Seditious person who was not taken away by a violent death The first example of Rebellion was also a sad example of Gods great judgement upon them that they who had given future ages a patern for the Sin should give them also an example of suffering Korah and his Accomplices were the first that rose up to oppose Authority and they who by their sin had provoked heaven and disturbed earth heaven and earth conspire together for their ruine The Earth opening her mouth to swallow into her bowels the Ring-Leaders of the Rebellion as unworthy to live upon the face of it so that as the Psalmist expresses it Psalm 55.15 An horrible death seiz'd upon them and they went quick into Hell when such wickedness was in their dwellings and among them And immediately Heaven it self appears in flames of fire to act a second part in that avenging Tragedy on the rest of the two hundred and fifty Complices who were ready to cry up the Rebels as the good people of the Lord so that though they had escaped the astonishing Chasma yet vengeance suffered not to live Thus God by his immediate and astonishing judgments on the first Authors of Rebellion recorded in the Annals of Scripture does shew to all succeeding Ages how displeasing this sin is So that let pretences be never so popular and seemingly Religious the persons concerned never so great and famous yet God is no respecter of persons in the execution of his judgments This present Story where my Text is gives another dreadful instance of the truth of this Doctrine but this I need but name now because I have enlarged upon it before in the introduction to my discourse And had Zimri Peace that slew his Master no certainly Baasha conspires against his Master Nadab and slew him Zimri by a retaliation of Treason conspires against his Lord and Master Elah the Son of Baasha and slew him but so little Peace had Zimri after his Conspiracy that within seven dayes a short reign he is Besieged by Omri and all Israel and since it would be no better he in a desperate fury kindles his own funeral Pile casts himself into the flames of his own kindling burns the Kings Palace over his head and thus puts an end to his Treason and Life And that Monster Phocas who slew his Lord and Master Mauritius how lamentable was his Life How dreadful and detestable his death During his short reign he was so transcendent for Vice and Wickedness that he was called the calamity of the Roman Empire His actions were ever unprosperous who ever he engaged against he was overcome and by the loss of many Provinces he so weakned the Empire that it never recovered its former strength and splendor and in the end he became so hateful to all men that his own Son-in-law with others conspired against him and brought him to Heraclius the Emperour of the East by whose Command his Head Feet and secret Members were cut off and the stump of his Body given to the Souldiers to be burnt with Fire Maximus who slew the good Emperour Gratian was himself betrayed by the same Souldiers whom he had stirred up against his Prince and in whom he reposed his trust who seiz'd on him deprived him of his Habiliments and Ornaments of Empire presented him bound like a slave to Theodosius and before his face tore him to pieces Another sad Example this days occasion does present us with a Person who might have liv'd the happiest of Subjects the honour of the Nation by Rebellion become a prey