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A66606
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A sermon preached before the mayor, aldermen, and Common-Council of Nottingham in St. Peter's Church, on the 14th of Febr. 1688/9 being the thanksgiving day for our deliverance from popery and arbitrary power / by W. Wilson.
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Wilson, William.
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1689
(1689)
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Wing W2956; ESTC R39123
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18,013
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45
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Government of the French mode rescued out of the hands of French and Irish a Church to stand in spight of Ecclesiastical Commissioners and a State preserved in spight of dispensing Judges we have seen the enemies of our Church and State falling I cannot say into the Pit that they dug for us for God knows they dig as deep as Hell and nothing on this side utter destruction can possibly satisfie their rage and fury but from the greatness of their expectations and I hope from all possibility of ever occasioning the like convulsions among us in a word we have seen the worst of Enemies baffled and the best Religion and Government in the World preserved and I had almost said which is the only Blessing we want to complete our happiness that we have seen a broken Church made whole and Protestants united but though this as yet is the matter of our Wishes and Prayers yet I hope we have seen at least I am sure we ought a very fair step towards it in the uniting of our hearts and affections and that whatever is wanting towards so great a Blessing is as much the desires of our Souls as the generous endeavours of our honourable Convention This this alone will fully complete our Deliverance for as there is nothing has given the Romish Party so great an advantage against us as our Divisions so nothing will give us a more assured conquest over them than our Union and how much soever we owe to that good and great Prince whose zeal for Religion and concern for the good of Christendom prompted him to hazard his Person through Winds and Waves into a foreign Countrey at a season when Navigation is most dangerous and Armies retire to warmer Quarters than the Field covered with Snow or soak'd with Rain yet 't is only then I shall begin to think we are fully delivered when like Brethren we dwell and assemble together in Unity And now what remains but we should consider 5. What reason we have to fear and glorifie God. As our danger was from Jesuites the worst of Enemies and our Deliverance from Popery and Slavery the greatest of evils that can threaten our Souls and Bodies these are such things as may well astonish us and teach us to fear and glorifie God. 1. To fear For as the Passions God has planted in our Nature were designed to be serviceable to the ends of Religion it is highly reasonable that we should fear the Lord of Hosts and at all times tremble at his Majesty but when he represents himself fearfull in praises and terrible in his doings it is very fit that a Creature that is apt to fear where no fear is and to dread the effects of a much less power should be struck with an awfull regard of his glorious Majesty and feel our Souls stirr'd within us to such apprehensions as are suitable to the greatness and glory of his Works Tremble thou earth at the presence of the Lord at the presence of the God of Jacob. Ps 114.7 Though God in respect of the immensity of his Being be always present with us so that if we should take the wings of the Morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the Sea yet there his hand leads us and his right hand holds us yet the greatness of his doings among the Children of Men are such glorious manifestations of his presence that we who at other times see very little of him cannot but behold it and when God does put on righteousness as a Breast-plate and a Helmet of Salvation on his Head it is a time that our fear should be as great as his Attributes are conspicuous and that the glory of his presence in dispensations so full of wonder should take down all hour high thoughts and abash us into the most humble frame I am troubled at his presence when I consider I am affraid of him saith holy Job Ch. 23. v. 15. And again I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear but now mine eye seeth thee wherefore I abhor my self and repent in dust and ashes Ch. 42. v. 5 6. to such a low and humble posture was this good man brought when he saw nay when he considered the presence of God. And it is not only that which God designed we should be wrought to by the consideration of his glorious Attributes when he gave us the affections of our Nature but what the astonishing Dispensations of of his stupendious Providence ought more effectually to cast us into 2. To glorifie God to ascribe to him the honour of his doings and with Souls full of gratitude to say This is the Lord 's doing and it is marvelous in our eyes this is the day which the Lord hath made we will rejoyce and be glad in it For as the divine purpose in such mighty and admirarable occurrences is to restore a decaving Piety to life and to renew the impressions of his Perfections in our Souls which Time and secular cares are apt to wear our so it highly becomes us to express our resentments in the efforts of the most livey and vigorous Piety O God my heart is fixed I will sing and give praise even with my glory i.e. with my tongue and all the faculties of my soul which are the glory of humane nature will I commemorate thy goodness and signal mercie Awake Psaltery and Harp I my self will awake right early I will praise thee among the people and I will sing Praises among the Nations For thy mercy is great above the Heavens and thy Truth reacheth unto the Clouds Be thou exalted O God above the Heavens and thy Glory above all the earth Psal 108.1 2 c. 'T is not enough indeed that we can ascribe to the great vertue of that Heroick Prince whom God in mercy raised to be our Deliverer It was not the glory of a Crown that tempted him to so hazardous an enterprize for besides that a little time would in all probability have given him a more easie possession thereof his Piety would never have permitted him to have invaded the right of so near a Relation as a Father if his Piety to God had not strongly prompted him to endeavour the preservation of those sacred Truths which he beheld to be miserably invaded and ready to be destroyed But it was the setling a tottering state and the supporting a sinking Church nay the securing the little tranquillity that was left to all the Reformed Churches in Christendom from the furious insults of those that threatned them with utter extirpation This was the thing that he declared for and so true has he been to his Declaration that he much rather deserves the Character of the Just and the Faithfull than any other Prince to whom with the greatest industry it has been given For when he might have taken the Crown as the fruit of his Labour and Conquest he waited till it was given him by the Honourable Representatives of the Kingdom with the Concurrence of the Peers as the Reward of his Merit But as it is not without the Lord that is come up to this Kingdom while we admire his Wisdom and Conduct his Courage and Success let us remember to give God the Glory of so mighty a Deliverance Let us in contemplation of so signal a Blessing say with the Psalmist The Lord is my light and my salvation whom shall I fear The Lord is the strength of my life of whom shall I be affraid Though an host of Men should encamp against me my heart shall not fear though War should rise against me in this will I be confident One thing have I desired of the Lord that will I seek after that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to behold the beauty of the Lord and to enquire in his Temple For in the time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion in the secret of his Tabernacle shall he hide me he shall set me up upon a Rock And now shall mine head be lifted up above mine Enemies round about me therefore will Loffer in his Tabernacle sacrifices of joy I will sing yea I will sing praises unto the Lord. Blessed be the Lord God of Israel who only does wondrous things And blessed be his glorious Name for ever and the let whole Earth be filled with his Glory Amen Amen FINIS Books sold by George Monke at the White Horse without Temple Bar and William Ewrey at the Golden Lyon and Lamb over against the Middle Temple Gate COllections of Travels Through Turkey into Persia and the East-Indies Giving an account of the Present State of those Countries As also a full Relation of the Five years Wars between Aureng-Zebe and his Brothers in their Father's Life time about the Succession And a Voyage made by the Great Mogul Aureng-Zebe with his Army from Dehli to Lahor from Lahor to Bemher and from thence to the Kingdom of Kachemire by the Mogols call'd The Paradise of the Indies Together with a Relation of the Kingdom of Japan and Tunkin and of their particular Manner and Trade To which is added a new Discription of the Grand Seignior's Sergalio And also of all the Kingdoms that encompass the Euxine and Caspian Seas Being the Travels of Monsieur Tavernierbernier and other great Men Adorned with many Copper Plates The Lively Oracles Given to us or the Christian's Birth-right and Duty in the Custody and Use of the Holy Scripture By the Author of whole Duty of Man.
a character that though we are not capable of knowing him as he is yet we may know so much of him as is sufficient to excite becoming affections in us toward him but while we converse with earthly and visible objects our minds are drawn so much downwards and become so overcharged with terrene affections that it is with great difficulty that we exalt them to Heaven and enter upon any serious considerations of the Glory of our Creatour But now when God by any visible demonstrations of his Being Providence does discharge our minds of that weight that hangs upon them like Men roused out of a dream we wonder and stand astonished at the Greatness of his Power and Exellency of his Wisdom and the Miracle of his Goodness Though he has not left himself so much without witness that the notice of his Perfections is altogether new to us yet the consideration of them is and by being raised to more brisk and vigorous Reflexions than usually we begin to say within our selves as the Jews did when they beheld this Miracle We never saw it on this fashion as Saint Mark 's expression is Ch. 2. v. 12. And 3. God does expect that the remarkable instances of his Power and Goodness should make such impressions on us As the natural tendency of them is to awake us to those considerations of his Being and Providence which are the proper exercise of our reasonable faculties so the very reason of his doing them is that he may overcome the stupidity of our Minds and quicken that sense of his Majesty which worldly cares and solicitudes are apt to decay and stifle He has made the glorifying his Name the great end of our Beings and because we are too apt to employ our faculties so much in projecting for a temporal happiness as in time to grow cool and languid in our affections toward him he makes use of his strange works as an extraordinary means to remind us of our duty and to be as stupid as Beasts before him who are not capable of considering the greatness of his Power when he strikes so forcibly upon our Minds is as well an argument that we have lost the sense of our duty as that we have put off the genuine and proper affections of our Nature For the reason why things of this Nature are called his wonderfull Works is not because they are strange and astonishing to him who very well knows the extent of his Power and Goodness but because they ought to be so to us whom he intends thereby to make more apprehensive of his Being and more heartily to glorifie him 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 all the upright in heart shall glory saith holy David Psal 64.9 10. In which words the Royal Prophet does not onely recount the Events which do naturally result from such eminent occurrences but the duties we are obliged to upon the account thereof For as he tells us Psal 111.4 God has made his wonderfull Works to be remembred The great design and intent of them is to oblige us more firmly to the interests of Religion and to give us the most unanswerable reason for that love and dependence upon him that he expects from us And therefore he frequently charges it upon those whom he has so eminently discovered the Majesty of his Providence unto as a prodigious ingratitude to him as well as stupidity in themselves when they make no such return unto him Our Fathers understood not thy wonders in Egypt they remembred not the multitude of thy Mercies Psal 106.7 Let favour be shewed to the wicked yet will be not learn Righteousness in the land of Vprightness will he deal iniquity and will not behold the Majesty of the Lord. Lord when thy hand is lifted up they will not see Is 26.10 11. As God in all the works of his Hands does aim at his own Glory the exalting his Name and the rendring his Perfections amible and acceptable to the World he expects that all his Creatures should concurr with him in promoting these ends and to receive the astonishing Effects of his Power and Goodness that he may not appear to have miscarried in his design The Lord has made his holy Arm bare in the eyes of all the Nations and all the ends of the Earth shall see the Salvation of our God. Is 52.10 So that to see his Salvation is the gratefull return that he looks for when he makes his Arm bare and stretches out his hand to bring to pass the astonishing purposes of his Goodness Thus when he sent his Son to be the Redeemer of Mankind he styled him The light to lighten the Gentiles and the Glory of his People Israel and this was such a manifestation of himself to the World as did to a miracle exceed all those occasional appearances whereby he had made himself known to the preceding Ages And the compassions he expressed to the house of Israel even when by defiling their own Land by their doings they had provoked him to scatter them among the Heathen were for the sanctifying his great Name which was profaned among the Heathen that they might know that he was the Lord. Ezek. 36.23 Thus to observe his doings is not only accounted a proof of our Wisdom Let him that gloryeth glory in this that he understandeth and knoweth me that I am the Lord which exercise loving Kindness Judgment and Righteousness in the Earth Ger. 9.24 but is both God's way of exalting his Name and making his Praise Glorious and that retribution which he expects from Creatures that he has obliged by such remarkable instances of the goodness of his Providence Thus when he promised to plant in the Wilderness the Cedar Tree c. his purpose therein was that his People might see and know and consider and understand together that the hand of the Lord had done this and the Holy one of Israel had created it Is 51.20 And accordingly 't is made the mark of folly and stupidity the Character of a brutish Man not to know and of a Fool not to understand And now having given this general Account of these words I come 4. To consider how great reason we have to be amazed and to say we have seen strange things to day For we have seen such things as will make the compilers of our History go near to be suspected by future Generations as ingenious improvers of the circumstances of things rather than read as the impartial deliverers of matters of Fact For will it easily be believed that a free Prince should be so much in love with Bondage as to be willing to take that heavy yoke upon his neck again which his Predecessours had found so uneasie and troublesome while they bore it and had taken care by many wholesome Laws to secure their Posterity from when they had thrown it off That