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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
earth_n	heaven_n	power_n	world_n	12,187	5	4.5664	4	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A60387	A sermon preach'd at St. James's Church, Westminster, April 2, 1696, upon the discovery of the late horrid conspiracy against the person of our gracious King William by James Smalwood ...	Smalwood, James, d. 1719.	1696 (1696)	Wing S4008; ESTC R10066	10,726	33

A SERMON Preach'd at St. JAMES's Church Westminster April 2. 1696. UPON THE DISCOVERY of the late Horrid Conspiracy against the PERSON of Our Gracious KING WILLIAM By JAMES SMALWOOD Chaplain to the Right Honourable the Earl of ROMNEY c. Published at the Request of the Parish LONDON Printed for the Author and Sold by E. Whitlock near Stationers-Hall 1696. A SERMON Preached at St. James's Church Matth. XIII 13. Seeing they see not and hearing they hear not neither do they understand THese Words are a short Character of the Jewish obstinacy against the clear Light of our Saviour's Gospel and the undeniable Testimonies that did attend it But I design not at present to Discourse upon that Subject Certain it is our Saviour Christ both taught and did such things as none but God or one acted by a Divine Power could possibly have taught or done And therefore those Men that were Eye Witnesses to all his Miracles and saw him daily and hourly perform such things as were contrary to the course of Nature and above the Skill of any Impostor nay the Power of Angels or Devils to perform and still would hold out against all those Condescending Demonstrations of his Power Those Men I say were most stupidly perverse and were deservedly given over as Brute Creatures beyond Conviction And indeed our Saviour speaks these words out of an Ancient Prophet as an accomplishment of a Curse fore boded upon that People In them says he is fulfilled Ver. 14. the Prophecy of Esaias which saith by hearing ye shall hear and shall not understand and seeing ye shall see and not perceive And I could heartily wish the Prophecy had been fully compleated and had ended there it were well if it did not reach down even to our times and that there were not even amongst us Christians some to be found that are as obstinately blind as ever the Jews were Men that will not see even in these their days the things that belong unto their Peace Tho' God Almighty Luke 19 42. in the distribution both of his Mercies and his Judgments has sufficiently manifested himself to the World yet seeing they see not and hearing they hear not neither do they understand The Text being thus brought down and made applicable to our own Times I shall first lay down these two Propositions which seem to be intended by it First That it is the highest contempt and grossest affront that can be offered to the Divine Majesty for Men after the clearest manifestations of God's Power and Wisdom still to hood-wink their Understandings and to persist in Blindness Secondly That it is the heaviest Curse that can befall Men to have their hearts waxed gross and their ears dull'd and their eyes closed Mat. 13. 15. and so to be forsaken of God And then Thirdly I shall enquire who they are that may most deservedly be judged to fall under this Curse 1. It is a high affront to God after the clearest demonstrations of his Wisdom and Power for Men still to persist in Blindness And the Reason is this because it is a plain despising of God's two chief Attributes his Wisdom and his Power 1. It is a contempt of his Wisdom the Wisdom and Knowledge of God is like himself Infinite By this he is able to penetrate into the hidden Thoughts and Contrivances of the Hearts of Men and to discover all their secret and conceal'd Designs Woe unto them says the Prophet Isaiah that seek deep to hide their Counsel from the Lord and their work is in the dark and they Isa 29. 15. say who seeth us Surely your turning of things upside down shall be esteemed as the Potter's Clay God knows the whole Bent and Inclinations of Men for he first endued their Minds with what Faculties and Powers they have He that made the Heart surely knows all its Turnings and Windings all its Corners and Labyrinths Thus holy David argues He Psal 33. 15. fashioneth all the hearts of Men and therefore he understandeth all their works that is the Works acted in their Hearts in the innermost Closets and Recesses of the Soul he needs no Spies to inform him of Men's Consultations all things are naked and open to his Eyes from all Eternity By vertue of this Infinite Knowledge God is privy to all Plots be they never so closely laid How successfully might Men carry on their Plots if they could be but once assured that no body plotted but themselves But this is sometimes apt to startle them and make them less Confident of their Projects when they have a Suspicion that others are at work too and such as are every way equal to themselves in Cunning and Conduct Now in this Particular God by his Infinite Knowledge has a vast Advantage against all the Policies of Men As they Plot so does he too he has Designs as well as they and Designs beyond them he is always present at their Cabals and Consults and shifted Meetings and therefore can trace and observe their Motions And it 's wonderful to consider what Methods and Instruments God Almighty is sometimes pleased to make use of to baffle the most Dark and Secret Conspiracies How he does sometimes employ his very Enemies for the promoting of his own Cause How he can inspire sometimes some of the very Agents to betray the Villanies of their Fellows How he can govern and over-rule both the Understandings and Wills of Men as shall best serve his own wise Purposes and Decrees Let Men design things never so warily and make them never so secure even to a Confidence of an Infallibility let them reckon of it as a Blow that cannot miss yet after all God can defeat and frustrate them he can clap in his Arm just between the Dagger and the Body he can as the Prophet Isaiah speaks Put a hook Isa 37. 20. into the nose and a bridle into the lips of a proud and insolent Enemy and can turn him back by the way that he came If therefore God be of that Infinite Knowledge as to be always present to Men's most retired Thoughts if he sees from all Eternity every little Occurrence that can either further or prevent their Designs how plainly do those Men contemn and villifie God's Omniscience that perceiving all this will still be driving on their foolish Plots and will not comply with the present Government of Affairs tho' they know God governs all Which brings me to the Second Attribute of God which these Headstrong Men by their conceited Devices do plainly affront and that is his Power 2. The Power of God is almighty irrisistible and uncontroulable 'T was he that made the Heavens and the Earth and then we may well make the Prophet Jeremy's Conclusion from it that nothing is too hard for Jer. 32. 17. him He that with a Word made this great Fabrick of the World may surely with the turn of his Hand manage every thing in it so as to

be subservient to his Will But not to insist upon that wide and extensive part of God's Power which must be acknowledged in the Government of the World let us consider it only as it can govern the Hearts and Minds of Men that so those Men that will run blindly in an Error and will shut up their Eyes against the plainest Convictions may if they please to abate a little of the Heat of their Tempers and to mitigate their Passions return once to a better mind and forsake that Jewish Stomachfulness which is directly opposite to the gentle and mild Genius of the Gospel That God therefore has a Sovereign Power over the Hearts and Passions of Men as well as any other part of his Creation is as certainly true as that he himself was the first framer of them He that can set bounds to the Sea saying hitherto shalt thou goe and no further can also quiet and subdue the most swelling Thoughts and disorderly Affections of weak Man he can let them loose like the Winds when he pleases and for Reasons best known to his Wisdom to bluster and make disturbances in the World a while and when they have finish'd the work that he design'd he can call them back again compose and quiet them in an instant Dicto citius tumida aequora placeat Virg. Mat. 8. 26. he can rebuke the Winds and the Seas and make the black Cloud that was charged with Thunder and ready to burst upon us pass gently away into Smoak and Vapour Therefore not only the Wisdom but the Power also of God appearing evidently to be thus great and irresistible what Notions of God must we suppose those Men to have who will not submit to His Government and that which is so signally appointed by him What sort of Spirit must influence the Minds of these Men to make them so resty and untractable under a meek and merciful Master What makes them as the Jews of old to rebel against Moses whom the Lord has as a Guide and Ruler set over them and who has safely conducted them through many Dangers and Difficulties and long for some Foreign Egyptian Pharaoh to bring Slavery and Bondage upon them and to blacken the Face of their Religion and drown the Light of the Gospel in a thick Darkness Nothing certainly can be said of these Men but that they are perfectly infatuated and wilfully in the wrong II. And this leads me to the Second General namely That it is the heaviest Curse that can befall Men to have their Hearts thus waxed gross and their Eyes dulled And that Curse God sends upon them for Two very good Reasons 1. Because they will not consider the Judgments of God 2. Because they will not consider his Mercies 1. It is a great Curse not to consider the Judgments of God King Pharaoh was an eminent Sufferer under God's Wrath upon this Account For we read the longer that he resisted the Judgments of God the more was his wicked Heart hardned till at last he arrived at a monstrous degree of Hardness having been as the Text tells us hardned under Ten Plagues And the whole Nation of the Jews have a long time been and still are a lively Instance of God's Indignation for this Sin of Obstinacy after many and great Judgments for their Correction sent upon them 2. It is a great Curse not to consider the Mercies of God and this we find charged as the highest piece of ingratitude upon the People of Israel that they remembred not the Lord their God who had delivered them out of the hands of all their Enemies neither shew'd they kindness to Gideon who had been their Judg. 3. 34. Deliverer according to all the goodness he had shewed Israel God resented it highly that they were ungrateful to Gideon whom he had made the Instrument of their Deliverance Gideon that Mighty Man of Valour that demolished the Idolatrous Altars of Jude 6. 12. 6. 27. 9. 17. Baal that often hazarded his own Person in Battle against their Enemies and at last Conquer'd and Subdu'd them And yet for all these his good Services that they should make such unkind and unworthy returns to him God we read was very much displeased at them and as a token of his great displeasure we may read afterwards what a Curse God laid upon them for not long after they became a Prey to their Enemies And that which aggravates this sort of Sin and provokes God's anger against it is chiefly that it is committed against our own Knowledge we see and feel God's Mercies and Judgments and yet we are still so perverse and incorrigible as not to be prevail'd upon by them neither the Afflictions that God exercises us with nor the Deliverances that he works for us make any impression upon us We I am sure of this Nation have often been tried by both God has used all means both to sweeten our Blood by gentle Lenitives and to purge it by sharper Remedies and if there still are found amongst us Men that will not be Converted and be Heal'd they must be Mat. 13. 15. given over as Men in a desperate Condition and beyond Cure which brings me to the third General and that is III. To enquire who those Men are that may deservedly be thought to fall under this Censure And there are two sorts that I think most justly do and those I shall not scruple openly to name one is the downright professed Papist and the other is he that affects to be call'd a Jacobite Men tho' of different names yet both embark'd in the same Cause and both full of the same turbulent Spirit 1. What Spirit the former of these are of not only their Actions all along but numbers even of their own Books do inform us It is a Spirit that does not only thwart the orderly and peaceable Principles of Christianity but is contrary to Humanity it self These Men by Plots and Conspiracies by Fire and Sword and by Subverting the Peace and Order of the World have always endeavour'd to promote and advance their Religion nay they value not the Sacrificing of Kings and Princes to the accomplishing their Wicked Ends and Purposes as if the God whom the Christians Worship were not a God of Order but Confusion and Kingdoms and Societies of Men were form'd for no other end but to be a Victim and Burnt-Sacrifice when ever any warm Zealot or bigotted Priest should so think fit But what a scandal must this be all this while to the Christian Religion what exact representations of Christian Love and Charity here are how far more honourable apprehensions of the Divine Nature had even the Heathens themselves than these Men Dii Immortales ad usum hominum fabrefacti paenè videantur says Tully the Nature of the Gods seems to be exactly framed for the use and benefit of Mankind But when Religion once comes to supplant Moral Honesty and to prescribe Rules contrary both to