Selected quad for the lemma: duty_n
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A62325
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A sermon preached at Blockley in Worcestershire upon the thanksgiving-day, Sept. 9, 1683 by Samuel Scattergood ...
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Scattergood, Samuel, 1646-1696.
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1683
(1683)
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Wing S844; ESTC R8062
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11,501
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31
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A SERMON Preached at BLOCKLEY IN Worcestershire UPON THE Thanksgiving-day Sept. 9th 1683. By Samuel Scattergood M. A. Vicar of Blockley and late Fellow of Trinity College in Cambridge LONDON Printed by J. Heptinstall for Thomas Yeate at the Bell in Duck-Lane 1683. A SERMON Preached on the Thanksgiving-day Sept. 9th 1683. PSALM 64.5 6 7 8 9 10. They encourage themselves in an evil matter they commune of laying snares privily they say Who shall see them They search out iniquities they accomplish a diligent search both the inward thought of every one of them and the heart is deep But God shall shoot at them with an arrow suddenly shall they be wounded So they shall make their own tongue to fall upon themselves all that see them shall flee away And all men shall fear and shall declare the work of God for they shall wisely consider of his doing The righteous shall be glad in the Lord and shall trust in him and all the upright in heart shall glory WE are this day assembled together to pay the tribute of our devoutest praise and thanks to Almighty God as for the latest so perhaps for the greatest Deliverance that ever he hath wrought for this Church and Nation 'T is the onely tribute this which a Creature can pay to his Creatour and 't is that which our Creatour daily expects from us and which he declares to be highly acceptable and well pleasing in his sight Whoso offereth me praise saith he glorifieth me Psal 50.23 But though this duty be continually to be performed by us and as the Apostle exhorts us Eph. 5.20 we ought to give thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ forasmuch as every day every hour we partake of his goodness and taste of his mercy and loving kindness yet then is it especially and most indispensably necessary when by shewing some signal and extraordinary favour toward us God himself calls for it as it were by a voice from Heaven And this is our present case every minute circumstance of which we have described to us and presented to the life in this portion of Scripture I. Here is our danger that threatned us Cursed Sons of Belial combine together and contrive an Hellish Plot to destroy us They encourage themselves in an evil matter c. II. Here is God's gratious deliverance from this danger But God shall shoot at them with an arrow c. III. Here is our duty thereupon All men shall fear c. These are the things which my Text offers to our consideration of which in order And first Here is a Plot contrived to destroy us They encourage themselves in an evil matter they commune of laying snares privily they say Who shall see them They search out iniquities they accomplish a diligent search both the inward thought of every one of them and the heart is deep Which words contain a most exact description of the methods and devices which cunning and malitious Traytors make use of in contriving and managing the most execrable and devilish Plots and Conspiracies for the Subversion of the Government under which they live The Psalmist here traces their footsteps all along pursues them from their infancy to their maturity from their first trembling initiation into Sedition through all their secret whisperings and murmurings their stollen Cabals and Conventicles untill they are become Masters of the Mysteries of Treason and are ripe fruit for the accursed Tree And so I shall endeavour to expose them to your view in the same method that the Royal Prophet hath prescribed to us And First They encourage themselves in an evil matter Though it be most true that all men are conceived and born in sin yet it is as true that no man can all of a sudden and as it were in a moment become a complete sinner and arrive at the height and perfection of Wickedness and Villany But though that secret infection which the sin of our first Parents hath conveyed to all their posterity if it be not subdued and restrained by the grace of God be strong enough and sure enough to bring any man to Hell by breaking out into common and ordinary sins which unrepented of will certainly lead him to the chambers of death yet to become one of Satan's principal Agents one of the chief Ministers of State in the Kingdom of Darkness this requires Pains and Sweat and he must serve a most insufferable Apprenticeship that will attain to it and whosoever will embarque his Soul on this manner for Hell especially if he hath been born and bred in a Christian Church must endure many sad conflicts and storms in his Conscience before he can thoroughly make shipwreck of his faith and fit himself for the desperate attempts of so fatal a voyage When the Prophet Elisha told Hazael what cruelty he should shew toward the Children of Israel 2 King 8. that he should set their strong holds on fire and should slay their young men with the sword and dash their children and rip up their women with child he answers him as if he were astonished at such actions What saith he is thy servant a dog that he should doe this great thing And yet he did doe it afterwards as the story shews us And so likewise it is not at all improbable but the most bloudy minded of all the Traytours that were concerned in this late Conspiracy should a man have surprized him on a sudden and asked him If he would undertake to stab the King or to fire a Blunderbus in his Face before he had been fitly prepared to hearken to such proposals would have rejected the thing with horrour and have lookt upon it to be compared with Nero's insatiable thirst after bloud when he wished that the people of Rome had but one neck that he might destroy them all at a blow For though a man must be beholding to a tender Conscience and to the assistence of the Divine Grace to preserve him from smaller sins and to enable him to abstain from all appearance of evil yet such horrid crimes as this of Treason Assassinating Kings and ruining Kingdoms and procuring the destruction of perhaps more than an hundred thousand innocent persons in a moment I say such villany as this looks so dreadfull and ghastly that even common humanity startles at the sight of it as if Hell it self were open to its view and it had a full prospect of the terrours of the Infernal pit and therefore it is not to be propounded to any persons but such as by a previous preparation are duly fitted and qualified for it And so David tells us here that the Conspiratours lay their designs accordingly and the beginning and rise of all Plots is this They encourage themselves in an evil matter Those that are already thoroughly disposed for Treason themselves that they may draw others into their confederacy labour to possess them with an ill opinion
our Church and Nation by stirring up Faction and Sedition amongst us and contriving Plots and Conspiracies against the Government All men shall fear First here is a Duty of Thankfulness to God for this gratious Deliverance This is the duty of this day to which God hath so signally obliged us and which the King in his Name commands us to perform And whosoever performs it not sincerely and cordially most humbly and devoutly offering up to the Divine Majesty the sacrifice of Praise and Thanksgiving surely hath neither any true Religion nor Loyalty in his heart but in contempt both of God and the King doeth what lies in his power to pull down a Curse instead of a Blessing upon himself and the whole Kingdom For where God sows plentifully he expects to reap so too and when he bestows upon us extraordinary favours it is but just that our gratefull sense and acknowledgment of them should be as far as is possible answerable And he can be no better than an enemy to his King and Countrey that will not acknowledge the discovery and disappointment of this hellish Plot to have been a peculiar and extraordinary demonstration of the Divine Goodness toward us 'T is a Mercy that hath continued to us as great a Blessing as we can desire and has delivered us from as dreadfull a Judgment as we could fear A Mercy that hath preserved our Church from being made the second time a Den of Thieves that would have establisht Schism and Heresie among us by a Law and given us as fair a Plea for Damnation as ever we had for our Liberty and Property A Mercy that hath freed us from the heavy Curse of having the Kingdom of God taken away from us and instead thereof hath confirmed that Kingdom unto us and hath settled amongst us I hope surer and firmer than ever the best Religion under the happy government and protection of one of the best of Kings I speak not this in flattery but as a truth of which I am so confident that I make no doubt but that the very dissatisfied party of the Nation themselves if they look round about cannot name any one King now reigning in Christendom whom they would rather have to rule over them than He under whose Government they are at the present so restless and uncasic But the truth is they would have no King at all but a Commonwealth and so it is a plain case that if our Saviour himself as the Fifth-Monarchy-men dream should come down from Heaven incognito and reign over persons of such Principles as these he would meet with as bad entertainment amongst them as he did amongst the Scribes and Pharisees They would be sure to treat him with Libels and Lampoons and endeavour to perswade the people that he intended to introduce Popery and Arbitrary Government If then ever any Nation had certainly we have reason to say with Israel If the Lord himself had not been on our side if the Lord himself had not been on our side when men rose up against us they had swallowed us up quick when they were so wrathfully displeased at us But praised be the Lord who hath not given us over for a prey unto their teeth Since God hath been pleased to stretch out his omnipotent Arm to defend us and to preserve our Liberty our Lives and Fortunes and which ought to be dearer to us than they all our Religion from the fanatick and brutish rage and fury of the worst and most inexcusable generation of Schismaticks that ever infested the Church of Christ if we pour not out our hearts in the devoutest praise and adoration and thanks to our Almighty Deliverer surely we are the most ungratefull wretches that ever received any favour from Heaven The Psalmist tells us here in my Text that to praise and magnifie the Name of God for such a Deliverance as this that he hath wrought for us is a piece of Wisedom For saith he they shall wisely consider of his doing and then not to doe it must necessarily be an evident demonstration of Folly And therefore whosoever neglects the duty of this day and refuses to give unto God the honour that is due unto his Name proclaims himself to be a Fool and that in the worst sense either an Atheistical fool that regards not the works of the Lord nor the operation of his hands or else a Rebellious fool that in his heart favours the design of the Traytors and inwardly grieves and repines at the Goodness of God that hath disappointed it If then we desire to escape the just imputation of Folly and Sin let us all this day wisely consider of God's doing and declare his work And that we may doe it wisely indeed let us be carefull to praise him as our Church teaches us to pray that we may not onely with our lips but in our lives by giving up our selves to his Service The Son of Sirach tells us that Praise is not seemly in the mouth of a Sinner But if we utter Praise in Wisedom then the Lord will prosper it Ecclus 15.9.10 And so saith David in my Text The righteous shall be glad in the Lord and shall trust in him and all the upright in heart shall glory Let us therefore this day make a new Covenant with the Lord our God to walk in his ways and to keep his Commandments Let us search and examine our hearts narrowly and cleanse and purifie them that there may be no accursed thing in them to defile our Sacrifice and to render the Tribute of our Praise unpassable in the Court of Heaven Thus if we doe God that hath hitherto protected us will protect us still and scatter our enemies that delight in bloud But if we doe otherwise with that Rod which he hath at this time onely shewed us in great Mercy to affright us into Obedience and with which he hath once already most severely chastised us he will e'er long in his just Anger dash us in pieces I shall conclude this Point with the Prophet Samuel's Advice to the people of Israel 2 Sam. 12.24 25. Onely fear the Lord and serve him in truth with all your heart for consider how great things he hath done for you But if ye shall still doe wickedly ye shall be consumed both ye and your King And so I proceed to the second duty recommended to us in these last words of my Text and that is A Duty of Caution to take heed of such men as these that encourage themselves in an evil matter and labour to disturb the peace and tranquillity of our Church and Nation by stirring up Faction and Sedition amongst us and contriving Plots and Conspiracies against the Government All men shall fear This very counsel St. Paul gives to the Romans and with great importunity begs of them that they would receive it and follow it Rom. 16.17 18. Now I beseech you Brethren mark them which cause Divisions and Offences contrary