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ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A54098 An address to Protestants upon the present conjuncture in II parts / by a Protestant, William Penn. Penn, William, 1644-1718. 1679 (1679) Wing P1248; ESTC R15359 141,914 254

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and that is the Voice of God who requires us to Fear him and obey his Righteous Commandments at the Peril of making him our Enemy whom we should make our Common Friend and Protector for upon his Goodness depend our very Natural and Civil Comforts So that it is our Interest To be Good and that is none of the least Arguments for Religion that the Piety and Practice of it is the Peace and Prosperity of Government and consequently that Vice the Enemy of Religion is at the same time the Enemy of Humane Society Who then should be more concern'd for the Preservation of Virtue than Government who in its Abstract and True Sense is not only founded upon Virtue but without the Preservation of Virtue it is impossible to maintain the Best Constitution that can be made And however some particular Men may prosper that are Wicked and several private Good Men Miscarry in the things of this World in which sense things may be said to happen alike to all to the Righteous as to the Wicked yet I dare boldly affirm and challenge any Man to the Truth of the thing that in the many Volumns of the History of the Ages and Kingdoms of the World there is not one Instance to be found where the Hand of God was against a Righteous Nation or where the Hand of God was not against an Unrighteous Nation and where a Just Government perish't or an Unjust Government long prosper'd Kingdoms are rarely as Short lived as Men yet they also have a Time to Die but as Temperance giveth Health to Men so Virtue gives Time to Kingdoms and as Vice brings Men betimes to their Grave so Nations to their Ruin 'T is the Reason given by God himself for the Destruction of those Countries that he gave into the Hands of the Children of Israel They were Full of Uncleanness Adulteries Fornication and other Impieties And though he is Soveraign Lord of the World and may dispose of the Kingdoms therein as pleaseth him for he that gives can take away and he that builds can cast down and Mankind is but a Tenant at Will to receive or surrender at his Lord 's Good Pleasure yet he useth not that Prerogative to Justify his Gift of those Countries to the Jews but at the End of his Prohibition of Unlawful Marriages and Unlawful Lusts he charges them in these words Defile not you your selves in any of these things for in all these the Nations are defiled which I cast out before you And the Land is defiled therefore do I Visit the Iniquity thereof upon it and the Land it self VOMITETH OUT her Inhabitants Ye shall therefore Keep my Statutes and my Judgments and shall not Commit any of these Abominations neither any of your own Nation nor any Stranger that sojourneth among you that the Land Spue not you Out also when ye defile it as it Spued Out the Nations that were before you So Saul's Disobedience was his Destruction and his Sin made Way for David's Title Saul died saith the Sacred Story for his Transgression this made the Philistines Conquerors his own Sins Beat him and Kill'd him Saul died for his Transgression then if he had not sinn'd he had lived he had beaten his Enemies and kept the Kingdom yes the place implies it This then should deter all Men but Kings especially who have so much to lose here and so much to answer for hereafter But what was Saul's Sin It was First not keeping but disobeying the Word of the Lord both as it came by the M●●th of Samuel God's Prophet and as it spoke the Mind of God to him in his own Conscience for Moses had said before that the word of God was nigh in the Heart and in God's Name commanded the Children of Israel to Obey and Do it In short he refused the Counsel of God and God for his Counsellor For in the Next place he betakes himself to One that had a Familiar Spirit for Advice saith the Story He enquired not of the Lord therefore he Slew him and turned the Kingdom unto David There are too many people troubled with Familiar Spirits it were well if they were less Fami●iar with them Had Saul trusted in God he needed not to have been driven to that Straight He that was made King by God's Appointment and endued with a Good Spirit so basely to degenerate as to run to a witch for Counsel To this Darkness and Extremity Iniquity will bring Men. And truly a Wo follows all such persons answerable to that Expression of God by the Prophet Wo unto them that take Counsel and not of me when Saul saith the place was little in his own Eyes God honour'd him he made him Head and King of the Tribes of Israel but when Saul grew Proud God deserted him for his Disobedience destroyed him And what befell the Family of Saul in some After-Ages befell both Kings and People and Worse for their Land was Invaded first by the Aegyptians and then by the Caldeans and Babilonians Their Temple was rifled their Treasures taken and their Kings Princes Nobles Artificers and Mighty Men of Valour yea all save the Poorest of the people were kill'd or carried away Captive by the King of Babilon The Reason rendred is this Because the Kings did that which was Evil in the sight of God and stifned their Necks and hardned their Hearts from turning unto the Lord God of Israel and because the Chief of the Priests and of the People transgressed very much after all the Abominations of the Heathen and when God sent his Messengers to Reprove and Warn them and that out of his Great Compassion they Wickedly Mocked his Messengers Despised his Words and Mis-used his Prophets till his Wrath came upon them I will here End my Instances out of Sacred Story and let us now briefly Consider what the Histories of other places will tell us that we may Observe some Proportion of Agreement in the Providences of God throughout the World The First Empire had Nimrod's Strength and the Wisdom of the Caldeans to establish it and whilst their Prudence and Sobriety lasted they prosper'd No sooner came Voluptuousness then the Empire decayed and was at last by the Base Effeminacies of Sardanapalus in whom that Race ended transfer'd to another Family It was the Policy of an Assyrian King to subdue the Strength of Babylon then under good Discipline not to Invade it with Force but to DEBAUCH it Wherefore he sent in Players Musicians Cooks Harlots c. and by those means introducing Corruption of Manners there was little more to do than to take it Nebuchadnezzar by his Virtue and Industry seen in the Siege of Tyre and in many Great Enterprises recover'd and enlarg'd the Empire and his Discipline those Times consider'd was so Excellent that it was prais'd in Scripture But when he grew Proud and Foolish forgetting that Providence that had shown itself so kind to him he became a