Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	day_n	king_n	year_n	16,086	5	5.1009	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A48856	A sermon preach'd before the House of Lords at the Abbey-Church of St. Peter's-Westminster, on Saturday the 30th of January, 1696/7 being the anniversary of the death of King Charles I of Glorious Memory / by ... William, Lord Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield ...	Lloyd, William, 1627-1717.	1697 (1697)	Wing L2717; ESTC R20280	14,839	34

we are to Confess before God and what we are to amend if they yet continue amongst us I cannot pretend to give a very particular Account of our National Sins at that time Nor dare I take upon me to Charge the meritorious Cause of that Judgment upon this or that sort of Men. Some indeed have been too lavish that way in declaiming against the Sins of the Court and of the Governing part of this Nation but they have done it with a wicked Design to blast the Memory of him that had the least share of them I Beseech God it may not be laid to their Charge But for the Sins of the Nation in General I think it cannot be denied they all sprung from a Surfeit of the Blessings of God Our Religion our Liberties and our Properties were all in such a flourishing State as made us the Envy of all other Nations round about us And yet here at home through the Practises of some Ambitious Men every thing was then represented to the People quite contrary They were even frighted out of their Wits with false Cries of Tyranny and Popery In a blind Belief whereof Multitudes of the People run into Sects and those inflamed them into a horrible Rebellion which the rest of the Nation the Generality of them did but too tamely comply with And they that according to their Duty opposed this yet too many even of them so far provoked God with their Sins that he thought fit to punish the whole Nation by depriving it of all those Blessings at once in suffering that Excellent King to be Murthered as upon this day I Charge it upon none at this time but the Sins of the Nation for it must be a National Sin that bringeth down a National Judgment And this Judgment was taken aright by many devout People of the Church of England at that time Who immediately humbled themselves under the afflicting hand of God and kept a true Fast on this day for many Years before there was any Law to Authorize it All which time the Authors of this Cursed Fact having then the Government in their hands gave the whole Kingdom full occasion to see what a woful Change they had made But this must needs be said to do right to those Usurpers that they severely Corrected all Vices but those that were chiefly their own Especially Drinking Swearing and Cursing were punished more severely in those Times than at any time before in our Memory Adultery was one while made a Capital Crime and though I think none suffered the Punishment yet I must needs say it was not then so much in Fashion as it hath been since Our Vices were then the more capable of being brought within Bounds because their Nurse Luxury was so much disabled by the Havock and Spoil that the Wars had made upon most of the Great Estates in the Kingdom At last when the Usurpers came to divide among themselves that united all the rest of the Nation All Enmities seemed to be forgotten at that time The People being thus prepared for such a Mercy God heard the Prayers of his poor afflicted Ones and especially of them that had Fasted and Mourned in secret on this Day and according to their Prayers God wonderfully brought about the Restauration of the Royal Family upon which This Fast was Enacted by Law and now and ever since it hath been observed by the whole Nation It hath been so now these Six and Thirty Years But even from the Beginning of that Time might not God well say Was it to me even to me That most Pious Learned Man who was not the best Interpreter of Prophecies yet was in this a true Prophet himself Dr. Hammond at his Death which was just before the King's Restauration prosess'd He was more afraid of the Ill Effects of that than he was of any thing that had happened He feared that the Prosperous State of the Church coming in so upon the sudden before Men were prepared to receive it would do the Church more hurt than all its Persecutions had done hitherto Sure enough that sudden Change so turned many Mens Heads that they were as the Psalmist faith like Men that Dream If they had been Awake they would have acted wiser than they did And for the generality of the Nation it was wonderful to see what an Alteration this made in them The very Pomp of the King 's coming in revived the Luxury of the Nation which had been much Chastised and brought down in the Troublesome Times The Universal Joy of it set all People to the Drinking of Healths which before was grown quite out of Fashion The Corruption of Morals in other kinds more than I can Name spread from the Court downwards into all Parts of the Nation And those Immoralities tainted even Religion it self Wheresoever they took they disposed Men either to Atheism or to Popery It was Popery indeed that made its Advantage of all the other Horrible Things and even of Atheism it self as it appeared when Popery was come into the Government Then within a short Time a profest Atheist was look'd upon as next to being a good Catholick He that was but profligately Vicious was thought to be in a fair way to it And no Man was accounted throughly fit for publick Trust that would not do Things against his Conscience This was so notorious That it did even turn a great many Mens Stomachs against Popery They loathed the gross Immoralities which they saw were so fulsomly courted by it Drinking and Swearing were in a manner yielded up to the Roman Catholicks There was scarce any capital Crime that would not be pardoned to a Convert The very Atheists that had any sence of Honour were ashamed to be thought of that Religion For our Religion They that had no Zeal for it before were even fond of it when they saw it going away The Dissenters themselves all but those that would have given up the 5th of November for the 30th of January of them I have nothing to say but most of the rest of them were so ready to join with us in the common Danger that tho' they did not wholly unite with us yet they differed from us Amicably These were fair Dispositions for that Mercy which God had then for us in store And he shewed it soon after when we were come to the utmost Necessity When he look'd and saw there was none to help then his own Arm brought Salvation to us It was the hand of God that raised us up a Deliverer to save us from the very brink of Destruction God brought us two Plants united together out of that Royal Oak that was cut down upon this Day and he covered a third of them under the hollow of his Hand which otherwise had been certainly snatched away from us Now upon such a Deliverance as this was we might have believed that God had accepted our Fasts Now we might have hoped he would have turned them into