and shall we not through him offer to God the Sacrifice of praise continually May we still partake of the Wine as well as Bread in the Eucharist and shall we not receive the Cup of Salvation and call upon the name of the Lord Is Jerusalem safe notwithstanding her Enemies cry'd down with her down with her even to the ground and may our Feet stand in her Gates may we yet frequent her solemn Assembly and praise the Lord of Heaven with Musick Vocal and Instrumental and shall we be silent If any thing strikes us dumb but wonder and astonishment at the greatness and strangeness of our Salvation we shall deserve to continue so and that our tongues should cleave to the roof of our mouths 't is fit the neglected Harps should be hang'd for ever upon the Willows and the skilful hand that toucht them forget its cunning if they make not a chearful noise to the God of Jacob upon so Joyful an occasion and if we prefer not Jerusalem above our chief Joy and join not in one of the Songs of Zion for her deliverance in the Temple of God how deservedly may God give her up to the will of our Enemies suffer them to carry us away Captive and tauntingly require of us in a strange Land a Song and Melody in our heaviness My Brethren this is the business for which Authority has this Day call'd us together and who ever can willfully disobey that call and without very just reason refuse to come up with the multitude to the House of God with the Voice of Joy and Praise with the Multitude that keep Holy-day they give but just cause of suspicion that they were Well-wishers to the Villainous Design and are sorry 't is defeated I am very glad to see such a numerous appearance in this place and hope that better Principles than Formality or Curiosity or fear of Censure that a true sence of the never to be forgotten Mercy and hearty desire to express your thankfulness to the gracious Author of it has brought you together And oh that I could say any thing to increase that sence in you and to enlarge your Hearts and raise up your Souls to the highest pitch of Gratitude and Devotion Assure your selves if the greatness of the destruction which threatned and was within few days of over taking us if the wonderfulness of our deliverance who are escaped as a Bird that was taken in the Snare if the visible appearance of the hand of God in our rescue who saw the Snares and Designs our Enemies were privily laying while we were secure and unapprehensive of them and discover'd and broke them before they could take effect if these are any motives of thankfulness they have their full strength and force upon us in the present case All that is valuable to us as appertaining either to this Life or Godliness our Lives with all the Comforts of them our Liberties our Estates our Friends and which I hope we esteem above all our Reformed Religion were all upon the very brink of ruine The Blow was near being given and we knew nothing of it so far were we from being able to have warded it of which must either have Murdered us presently or if any had survived it for some time they must have lived Slaves and then died with the miserable prospect of leaving their wretched Posterity such fetter'd both in Body and Mind under Temporal and Spiritual Chains and nothing has prevented this Blow or saved us from this ruine but a merciful and watchful Providence Let us then say in the words of our Royal Prophet Blessed be the Lord God the God of Israel who only doth wondrous things and blessed be his glorious name for ever and let the whole Earth be filled with his glory Amen Amen 3. But lastly to conclude let us repose our Trust and Confidence in this God for the future and say with Israel our help standeth in the name of the Lord who made Heaven and Earth 'T is certain this Church and Nation have been for some time preserved in that peaceable and happy state we enjoy by little less than Miracle God has as plainly appeared for us as he did of old for his People whom he brought out of Aegypt with a mighty hand but yet as they were questioning his power even in the midst of Miracles and distrusting his goodness at the same time that they had present Experience of it He smote the stony Rock indeed but can he give bread c. Those mouths which should have been opened only in his praise were filled with nothing but murmurings and diffidence so has it been with too many among us complainings and repineings doubts and despair almost have been heard in our streets and how justly might God have verifyed our unreasonable and unthankful fears When St. Peter at his own request was commanded by Christ to come unto him upon the Water he walked safely upon the surface of it while his Faith boy'd him up but when at the raging of the Winds his Faith began to shake and he was afraid as if Christ who he saw at that time Commanded the Seas and they obey'd could not govern the Winds too and secure him against both how reasonably did Christ chastise his despondency and want of Faith by letting him begin to sink And so might God have dealt with us withdrawn his Protection from us and suffered the Waters to have over-whelmed us when we had so unworthily distrusted his Power and Readiness to Rule the raging of them after he had so often forced them within their Banks and for our sakes said to them hitherto shall you come and no further But he has rather chose to upbraid than correct us for our repining and doubting and to bring us to our duty of an humble affiance and trust in him by giving fresh instances of his Power and Goodness than punish our neglect of it by withdrawing them from us How should this even shame us out of our insidelty I can call it no better and give us a holy Confidence in him and Dependance upon him that he who has so often and strangely appeared for us will be our God and Guide for ever that he who has deliver'd us from so great a death and doth deliver will yet deliver us and perfect in his time that good work which he has begun and carried on so far for us But then in order to this trust and relyance that they may be reasonable and well grounded we cann't but think there is something to be done by us and what is that but to endeavour to walk worthy of that goodness which God has shew'd to us by improving the mercy he continues to us to his Glory and by making him the returns of a filial fear unfeigned Love and an universal Obedience without this our Faith will be but a vain Considence and meer Presumption We have the best Government and Laws in the World but if
A SERMON Preach'd at the Cathedral Church of Worcester Upon the Thanksgiving Day April 16. 1696. By W. TALBOT D. D. and Dean of Worcester Publish'd at the Request of the Mayor and Aldermen of that City LONDON Printed for T. Bennet at the Half-Moon in St. Paul's Church-Yard MDCXCVI To the Right Worshipful Nicholas Fayting Esq Mayor and the Worshipful the Aldermen of the City of Worcester Gentlemen THE general Joy and Thankfulness which have appear'd throughout the Kingdom upon the discovery and defeat of the late Designs of France against Us make me hope that the Eyes of this People which some have been so busie to put out by all the Dust they could raise are at last clear'd and that many well-meaning Persons who have been misled by the Cunning of such as lie in wait to deceive do now begin to see that after all the pretences of Honour on the other side the Water and Conscience on this the Question is come to this short Issue Whether we will live like a Free-People under our English Laws and Government which have been so bravely asserted by our Ancestors and enjoy our Reform'd Religion which has been seal'd with the Blood of Martyrs of our Spiritual Fathers and Brethren in Christ or Exchange these for a French Servitude and Papal Bondage and bring a Yoke upon our selves and Posterity which neither we nor our Fathers have been able to bear This You and your Worthy Citizens were certainly sensible of when upon the late Thanksgiving-Day for the Deliverance of His Majesty and these Kingdoms from the designed Assassination and Invasion You appear'd in such Numbers in the House of God and exprest your respect to it in such Instances as have scarcely been parallell'd upon any occasion in this place I heartily wish That my Health and Leisure would have permitted me to have made that part of the Solemnity that fell to my share of a Piece with the others and that when all the rest deserv'd to be set in as bright a Light as that with which You illuminated your Streets upon the Evening of that Joyful Day it only might not have wanted a Veil to cover it But however needful it may be I am sure I must not offer at any Apology for making it publick None can be made on my part but what may be answer'd in those words of St. Peter to Ananias While it remain'd with thee was it not thine own And as to You Gentlemen Now it is yours tho' You may wish that I had made such a return to your Commands as the Elder Brother did to those of his Father in the Gospel who said Sir I go and did not rather than with the second profest my unwillingness to comply and afterwards repented and did it You must be contented to account for it to take it wholly upon your selves and not expect that I should say one word for it for that would be unwarily to intitle my self to its Defence when I can so fairly rid my hands of it and lay it at your Doors If any of those good Ends shall be served by Printing it which You spoke of when You honoured me with a Visit the Day after it was Preach'd I shall think it but reasonable that the acknowledgments thereof should be made only to You who must bear all the ill Consequences of it as having commanded it from me by your Authority which I do own is very great over Worcester Apr. 20. 1696. Gentlemen Your most Obedient and Faithful Humble Servant W. T. PSAL. CXXIV 6 7 8. Blessed be the Lord who hath not given us as a Prey to their Teeth Our Soul is escaped as a Bird out of the Snare of the Fowler the Snare is broken and we are escaped Our help is in the Name of the Lord who made Heaven and Earth The former Part of the Psalm is thus If it had not been the Lord who was on our side now may Israel say If it had not been the Lord who was on our side when Men rose up against us Then they had swallowed us up quick when their wrath was kindled against us Then the Waters had overwhelmed us the Stream had gone over our Soul Then the proud Waters had gone over our Souls Blessed c. THE Title of this Psalm shews the Author of it to be King David and the occasion of his composing it was certainly some signal Deliverance either Personal or National which God had bestow'd upon himself or his People Whether it were his Deliverance from the several Designs and Attempts upon his Life of his Father-in-Law King Saul or from the Conspiracy and Insurrection of his Son Absalom or from the Philistines who came up to seek him upon their hearing that he was anointed King over Israel in Hebron or from the Ammonites afterwards with their hired Succours the Syrians or whatever the particular Mercy was that the Royal Prophet had an Eye to when he made this Eucharistical Song 't is most admitably contrived and fitted for the Use of any Nation or People professing God's true Religion upon any eminent Deliverance of themselves or their Prince from the wicked Designs of the Enemies thereof I say of themselves or their Prince For David here makes this grateful Recognition of the Divine Goodness in the Name of Israel as if his People had been in great danger and very narrowly escaped when yet according to good Commentators 't was a personal Deliverance from a Design against himself that he here commemorates and indeed not without Reason for the Head and the Body-politick are very nearly related what touches the one must affect the other and if when one Member suffers another Member suffers with it when the Head is hurt the whole Body must sympathize with it I speak of such a Head as has that tender Care for the Members which that relation calls for that looks upon himself as exalted above them only that he may the better watch over them and more essectually provide for the Security and Common Good of the whole that is a true Father of his Country and treats his Subjects not as Slaves but Children that is a good Shepherd and feeds his People according to the Integrity of his heart and guides them by the Skillfulness of his hand as was said of David he does not defraud them of any thing that is their due much less does he butcher and make havock of them no that is the Character of the Robber who climbs into the Skeepfold only to steal and kill and destroy The good Shepherd is as careful of the Lives of his Sheep as of his own nay so much more so that when the Wolf comes he leaves not the Sheep but exposes himself in their Defence and rather than that Beast of Prey should catch and scatter and tear his Flock he ventures his own Life for them proving himself thereby to be no Thief or Hireling but the true Shepherd whose own the Sheep are He
of the Vngodly and let the oppressed Captive go free Great Reason therefore had Israel for such a miraculous Escape to make these Acknowledgments and Returns to the Author of it which we here see they did namely 1. To ascribe their Deliverance wholly to God as the doing of that right hand only which bringeth mighty things to pass If the Lord himself had not been on our side we had been swallowed up quick and the Stream had gone over our Souls 2. To give him the Praise due unto his Name for it Blessed be the Lord who has not given us over as a Prey to their Teeth 3. And Lastly to declare their Confidence in him and intire reliance upon his Power and Goodness for the time to come Our Help standeth in the Name of the Lord who hath made Heaven and Earth That God who manifested his Power and Goodness by Creating the World out of Nothing by a Word of his Mouth and giving Being to all the Creatures in it has as evidently shewn forth those glorious Attributes in our strange Preservation and Rescue out of the Hands of our formidable and implacable Enemies there will we therefore place our Confidence not fearing what Man can do unto us On God we will depend He only is our Rock and Salvation our Defence and Refuge through him we shall do valiantly and he shall tread down our Enemies This is that short Account of this Psalm of Israel's imminent Danger their wonderful Deliverance from it and grateful Behaviour thereupon I proceed now to take a View of our own Case It will not I suppose be expected that I should go about to prove the Plot That there has been a most Horrid and Hellish Design on-foot against the Life of our King and the Laws and Religion of this Kingdom After the voluntary Depositions of several that were to be concerned in it and these confirm'd from abroad by the visible Preparations that were made on the French Coasts for a Descent upon us a great number of their Forces drawn down thither and Vessels ready to bring them over when the Signal an Account of the Dreadful Blow should be given them the mighty boast of their great Design and Confidence of Success which were express'd in Letters from some of the first Quality in that Kingdom and the Harangues of their Ministers at other Courts This confirm'd also at home by the Confessions of those who have been Convicted and Executed here who have all own'd the shares they were to have had in it upon their Deaths and some gloried in it While a Papist at his Execution looks back with regret upon the part he was to have acted in the bloody Tragedy as a Crime he was led into by his own Rashness and Passion as a Wickedness which he repents of and for the punishment of which particularly he acknowledges he was brought to suffer Death by the just Hand of God our Protestant Conspirators to the reproach I hope not of our Holy Religion which I am sure is far enough from countenancing such things but of their wretched Guides boast of the Villainy take Pride and Comforts at their Deaths in it so far were they from repenting or expressing the least Sorrow for it and yet had Absolution publickly after a very unusual manner which plainly shews what Thoughts their Confessors had of that Matter for which they died Blessed God! how amazing is it that any that had ever heard of thee or thy Nature or Properties especially that had ever look'd into those Revelations thou hast made thereof in thy Written Word should call the Assassinating the best of Princes and involving his Subjects in Blood Destruction of the best Church and the over-turning the best constituted Government in the World the Murdering their King in cold Blood and which must have been a consequence the Butchering of many Thousands of their innocent Fellow-Subjects the making all that surviv'd Slaves to France and Rome subjecting both their Bodies and Minds to the worst of Tyrannies How amazing I say is it that any should call these the Causes of God Religion and the Laws as if the Blood of Kings shed by their own Subjects was an acceptable Offering to God as if Religion were promoted by forcing us into the Communion of such a Church as will lock up the Scripture from us teach us to believe without Reason to Pray without Understanding and give the Worship of God to his Creatures as if our Laws would be safe in the hands of such a Guardian who Tyrannizes Arbitrarily over his own Subjects and would have had the pretence of Conquest to use us worse if possible If these are the Cause of God and Religion I know no such thing as the Works of the Devil and what we renounc'd as such in our Baptism was a meer Chimera This shews how much the Interest of a Party when a Man 's throughly embark'd can blind his Reason as well as harden his Conscience how dangerous it is to engage at all in a Faction since a Man knows not where he shall stop when he is once in how by steps he is lead to call Evil Good and Good Evil and practice accordingly and to make the measures of both the serviceableness or diserviceableness of any Action to the Party and how careful every one that has any regard for his Soul should be when he choosest out for the directors of his Conscience and intrusts with the Conduct of it But to return after all this I say 't would be but to abuse your Time and Patience to offer at any other proof of the truth and reality of the wicked Design whoever can call for further Conviction does the least need it 't is no breach of Charity to believe that none can pretend to doubt of it but such as know it too well Let us then briefly see what the Design was and as to that examine the same Particulars which we did in Israel's case who were engaged in it what they intended against us how near they were to effect it and how strangely we escap'd it Our Enemies like theirs were such whose Wrath was kindled against us Nothing under God has or does so much obstruct the aspiring and wicked Designs of our Neighbour on the other side of the Water as this Nation and Church nothing can satisfie the Pride and Ambition of that Prince less than an universal Monarchy and no Methods does he stick at how base and ungrateful how fraudulent and treacherous how violent and cruel soever that may promote his great end no ties of Honour and Conscience no Obligations of Justice or Mercy no Treaties or Leagues neither Word nor Oath can hold him but he breaks through them with as much ease as Sampson did the Wit hs that bound him which were as a Thread of Tow when it toucheth the Fire But while he makes War and disturbance every where that he may have quiet within that if at any time