Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	honourable_a	lord_n	privy_a	3,111	5	10.0848	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A32958	A sermon concerning national providence preach'd at the assizes held at Ailesbury in Buckinghamshire, March 13, 1693/4 Ab. Campion ...	Campion, Abraham, d. 1701.	1694 (1694)	Wing C406; ESTC R4878	20,450	44

A SERMON CONCERNING National Providence Preach'd at the ASSIZES Held at AILESBURY IN BUCKINGHAMSHIRE March 13. 1693 4. By AB CAMPION D. D. Rector of Monks Risborough Bucks Printed for Anthony Piesley Bookseller in OXFORD An. Dom. 1694. TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE Sir JOHN HOLT LORD CHIEF JUSTICE OF ENGLAND AND One of their Majesties most Honorable Privy Council MY LORD WIthout leave I presume to prefix Your Lordship's Name to this Discourse That it was Preach'd I my self stand accountable but that it was Printed It has Nothing to justify it but Your Lordship's Command whom nothing can or do's resist For the greatest Obscurities of the Law It s most sullen difficulties scatter before Your Lordship's Eye as the Clouds before the Sun The most intricate knotty Cases You untye with that Ease and Dexterity as that they seem of themselves to open It is not in You to cut or force It consists not with that sweetness of Temper by which You so charm all You have to deal with as that You seem most deservedly to inherit that Glorious Title of the Great Vespasian of being the Darling of Mankind For the very Curse of the Law You manage with that Tenderness and Indulgent Affection as even that the Condemn'd go away satisfied if not pleas'd That I might not therefore appear the only stubborn Thing in Nature I submit and subscribe my Self My Lord Your Honors most humble and obedient Servant AB CAMPION A SERMON Preach'd at the Assizes c. 127. PSALM I. Except the Lord keep the City the Watchman waketh but in vain A GREAT and pregnant truth that deserves to be fix'd as a Motto to every Charter It holds good in what ever sense we take the word City It is true of all sorts of Societies greater or less families or Empires From the little dirty Prince of a Cottage to the proudest Monarch that stiles himself King of Kings and Lord of the whole Earth of Him especially most true so disproportionate are his abilities to the weight of his burthen that except the Lord uphold Him He is undone It may perhaps be thought an unnecessary undertaking to prove or vindicate an overruling Providence The world has generally appear'd in some measure sensible of it but yet it must be said that it seems to have had but a disturb'd Possession in the minds of Men sometimes confess'd sometimes doubted of or disputed against but almost always practiced against The Epicurean was loth to put his God to the trouble of looking after the World thinking all happiness to consist in a slothful ease and having nothing to do like some Men of Quality and Fortune conceiving all business a profess'd enemy to enjoyment and a mark of Honour to be useless The Stoick made his God a servant to something or rather nothing He knew not what but call'd it Fate But to put the best interpretation his Fate seems capable of He represented his God so tying up his own hands by his own positive peremptory Decrees as that he thereby destroy'd if not all Providence yet all Religion i. e. all such Providence as is the true foundation of Religion For if it were true that God took such an original care of all his Creatures as from the beginning to appoint every one his portion by an irreversible Decree what ever thanks may be due from such who have a prosperous beneficial lot in this World yet as the Roman Orator well argued it seems in vain to pray to or implore the aid and assistance of their God in times of danger or distress if all things were from the first sullenly fix'd so as not to have left to Himself liberty to succour the oppressed reward the good or punish the wicked To which the Apostle assents as a thing fundamentally requisite to all Religion Heb. 11.6 That whosoever would come unto God must believe that He is a Rewarder of such as diligently seek him Some there are who under the Name of Fortune have fallen very foul upon Providence For this they must mean if any thing If Fortune be not a meer name a fancy a word without sense an Invisible overruling Power must be understood thereby which is the Providence we contend for But yet how infamously do's she stand branded for her blindness her levity and inconstancy her rashness madness and what not So do fools under this feign'd Name curse their God and reproach his Wisdom Because they are kept strangers to the Councels of the Most High and discern not therefore the true reason of events the affairs of the World appear to such short-sighted Creatures as a meer jumble of action and heap of uncertainties This tempted the wise Philosopher to exclude the Providence of God from things done under the Moon and had the things above the Moon been contrived according to his foolish scheme he might much more justly have excluded Him thence too But among Christians it is hoped there is little need of vindicating the Providence of God Truly if such I may call all those who have been baptized into the Faith in no Age has the Being and Providence of God been more derided and scoffed at than in this For God governs the World now in a spiritual manner not by visible appearances of Angels or messages of Prophets His foot-steps are only to be discern'd by the eye of Reason and Faith He works by second causes and under them lies conceal'd from careless or perverse minds that will not see His Finger is only to be discried by their admirable concurrence and wonderful effects beyond the power of any visible cause Such is the Art of God or stupid blindness of Man that He that do's All things is by vulgar eye seen to do Nothing But even among the better sort of Christians we may observe the sense of God's Providence to be very weak and faint For were it heartily believ'd what mean the bleatings of the sheep whence those impatient complaints in times of Calamity or Affliction Why so dejected because the Clouds gather blackness Why do's the heart ake the Countenance wax pale at every evil tiding if they are verily perswaded that they are in the hands of God a good God their best Friend and that nothing can befall them but what He ordains or permits what He knows and observes and that no danger can be so great but that He has Power and Wisdom sufficient and Goodness too to extricate them out of the difficulty This Doctrine heartily believ'd would work its wonders Let us proceed therefore to view it and its influence from the words I have read Except the Lord keep the City the Watchman waketh but in vain Which words do naturally afford these Heads for the subject of our discourse First That the care of the Watchman is not alone sufficient to keep the City Secondly That therefore it is to the Lord that the City ows its safety And to excite us to render our selves fitter Objects of Gods care