Selected quad for the lemma: death_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A41888
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The great concern and zeal of a loyal people for a good king's preservation in the hazards of war. And the duty of such a people opened and enforced, in one of our monthly-fasts in a country parish. By the minister thereof.
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1691
(1691)
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Wing G1679; ESTC R212854
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49,196
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44
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some one Parliament as we have had We thankfully acknowledg the Settlement of their Royal Majesties in the Throne and the Succession of the Crown and the Liberties of the People We gratefully acknowledg the Wisdom and Clemency of God in their Majesties choice of great Men of Temper for the Candle-sticks of their Sees We hope these will not think their Eyes so full of sight as to use others as if they had none but must resign their Consciences to their Conduct and drive them by force if they will not follow We hope and pray that as one Light hath brought forth more so all these Lights will find out and shew us the true Path of Church-Peace and Concord Let us hope that that Observation may not be a Proverb any more in Israel That Bishops always hindred the Progress of the Reformation As God made way for their Majesties Coming to the Throne of the Kingdom by a Vacancy so he hath made way for their coming to their Thrones in their Churches How many Vacancies hath God made by Death and how many Vacancies have others made by themselves And will they do nothing for God more than they who have always done too little one way and too much another Enough hath been said and written to file off the Asperity and Roughness of the temper of their Predecessors and every Succession exceeded the former in Impositions for which they pleaded Obedience more from the Supremacy of our Kings and Obedience to the Laws than the Nature of the things themselves or their Expediency but we have seen gracious Offers from our supream Governours at a temper therefore we fear no Obstruction from them and they have seen who they were that opposed it and have retarded it and know how they stand affected And surely now once again we may hope that they will not love their Enemies and hate their Friends God hath made way for it and the best in the Nation expect it Walk in the Light while you have the Light said Christ take the Opportunity while you have it In our Prayers for our Monthly-Fasts we do acknowledg there are Dregs in the Reformed Churches which we pray God to purge away Are not we one of those Reformed Churches and are these Dregs only in Foreign Churches and none in ours O see them and purge them out while we have Light to help us 5. Are our Lights but Lamps that may be quenched or if not quenched by Violence will go out of Course then this is one reason of the Mutability of the best State of a Kingdom and therefore good Kings do mightily oblige their Subjects and Posterity also When they spend their Days and Abilities in a holy religious righteous active and diligent course of Government when they lay out themselves continually from a Principle of sincere Love to God and his Glory and their Peoples Happiness for they know not how soon their Light may be quenched and then they are for ever laid aside and can do no good to themselves nor their Subjects 6. May our Lights be quenched O then when Kings prepare for War and Battel how piously should they prepare for Death and bless God for Life when they come off with it They who carry their Lives in their Hands who fear not the Face of an Enemy not of an Ishbi-benob should therefore fear God who can kill the Body and the Soul and cast both into Hell O fear him It will be an everlasting Shame and Dishonour to fall under the Power of Death as an Enemy to God When they carry the Weapons of War how careful should they be to put on the whole Armour of God! What wise King will ingage in a War and make no Preparation for it that designs not to conquer What inexcusable Rashness and Madness is it for a King that is wise and valiant in the Eyes of Man to be unprovided for the last Enemy True he shall be destroyed but by whom Christ and he who doth savingly believe in him And Death destroys all that are not the living Members of Christ that are not saved by Grace and with what Shame and Contempt shall they rise out of their Graves which vain Men call a Bed of Honour though they come to it by dishonouring God that died in their Sin and not in Christ or in the Faith as Abraham and the Patriarchs did Heb. 11.13 c. 7. May the Lamps of Israel be quenched O then as truly as we love and honour them let us not idolize them nor think of them above what we ought to think Cursed is the Man that trusteth in Man and maketh Flesh his Arm and whose Heart departeth from the Lord i. e. by trusting in Man and making the Flesh his Arm that is his Confidence and Strength Jer. 17.5 This is the way to bring a Curse upon our selves and Death upon the Arm we trust upon It was a Presage of an approaching Death to that great Deliverer that died in his Glory Gustavus King of Sweden he thought God would e're long take him away because the People did over-value and deify him I beseech you let us pray and study for a true Christian Temper of Spirit towards the Lord of Hosts our King and the Cause of God 1. Let us assuredly look upon our King as a great Instrument in the Hand of the Lord of Hosts 2. The number of his Years are with God 3. His Work is measured out to him by God 4. Our Light sprang out of great Obscurity and from very small Beginnings See Bishop Burnet's Lett. from Nimiguen it was a great sign of following Successes and that he was singled out for great Actions when he was not afraid to encounter the most potent King of his Age growing greater daily by Successes and in his full Strength when the Condition of the States was desperate and irrecoverable if the then young Prince of Orange had but despaired also but even then he gave a check to that overgrowing Oppressor and is by the great Power of God being with him grown to be formidable to him and may the Sound of his Name by the Terror of the Almighty make his Sleep to depart from him and his Heart tremble when he thinks and consulteth what to do 5. What would we have God to do for us that he hath not done or is not ready to do Some considering true hearted wise Observers have faithfully declared what they thought to be the cause of many Miscarriages in England and Ireland by Sea and Land and in particular since our Monthly-Fasts were laid down and intermitted God hath not gone on to do us good though he hath not utterly departed from us But though our Sins have with-held good things from us we are in a better State both at home and abroad than we were when God sent us a Deliverer There is a Generation among us who have cast off the Fear of God a profane carnal sensual debauched Multitude that