Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n
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A42952
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Trade preferr'd before religion and Christ made to give place to Mammon represented in a sermon relating to the plantations : first preached at Westminster-Abbey and afterwards in divers churches in London / by Morgan Godwyn ...
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Godwyn, Morgan, fl. 1685.
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1685
(1685)
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Wing G974; ESTC R15652
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53,257
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54
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faithful Israelites with which it will be replenished thro the numerous and large access unto it from these Nations The happy fruit and benefit whereof will redound as well to the Sower as to the Reaper For God is not unrighteous that he should forget our Work and Labour that proceedeth of Love which we have or shall shew for his Name and his Gospel's Sake Nor can any one lay out his Endeavours to greater Advantages either of the increase of God's Kingdom the glory of Christianity or the good of Mens Souls If we consider the vast multitudes of these Nations the greatness of their danger and their both aptness and readiness to embrace Christianity if duly applyed to them For as Acosta hath proclaimed it to the World long since Indorum Aethiopum certè copiosissimam paratissimam segetem cernimus neque aliud quam falcem Evangelicam expectantem Alacritate admirabili sese Coelorum regno aptissimam proclamantem invidorum segnium calumnias facile propulsantem operarios ipsos laetissime allicientem multitudine ubertate oculos omnium ad sese atque animos convertentem c. Which is no less true of them in every particular even at this very day could we be persuaded to use the means and to set about it But Oh! as the same Author doth most passionately lament tho with infinite less cause than we have here When will it come to pass that Men will cease to be Men When c. This will be the true removal of the Accursed thing the putting away those Baalims and Ashtaroths the false Gods and the false Religions that are amongst us The dismission of the captivated Ark The true Brazen Serpent to our Israel deriving Health to our Bodies and Prosperity to our Nation and the alone means both to secure and promote our Interest in those parts This will be the means to rid our Country of those Vermin and Diseases the Mice and Emerods that do so vex our Persons and mar our Land This the repairing of the Breaches and the rebuilding the shattered Walls of our Jerusalem And we no longer deferring to give to the God of Israel the Glory due unto his Name he will lighten his hands from off us and from off our Gods and from off our Land Lastly This will be to comply with our daily Prayers viz. That God's Name may be hallowed and his ways made known unto all Nations and Conditions of Men therein and that all Jews Turks Hereticks and Infidels may be converted to the Faith and saved among the remnant of the true Israelites And without which our Prayers are but a very Mockery and an Affront to the Diety unto whom they are presented Which whosoever utters cannot but at the same time be inwardly convinced of that Pharisaical Hypocricy which our blessed Lord so severely rebuked of drawing nigh unto God with his Mouth and honouring him with his Lips whilst his Heart is far from him and for which Exore tuo will be his Judgment and Condemnation Out of thine own-mouth will I judg thee thou wicked and slothful Servant To conclude It is the nature of God to do the good as saith St. Dionysius the Areopagite Every one then that will be like unto him must first fall to the Imitation of him One of the Fathers hath this Note That the Salvation of Man was Opus dignum Deo an Imployment not unbecoming God himself It cannot then be beneath even the best of us And there is a saying of S. Chrysostom to this purpose That for a Man to know the Art of Alms was more than to be crowned with the Diadem of Kings but to convert one Soul unto God was more than to pour out ten thousand Talents into the Baskets of the poor And if the Conversion of a very few unto Christ be worth the labour of many all their days what must it then be to be the Instruments and Means of converting so many Solomon ascribes the Epithet of Wise to those that win Souls And saith the Prophet Daniel They that be wise 't is Teachers in the Margent shall shine as the brightness of the Firmament and they that turn many to Righteousness as the Stars for ever and ever And S. James makes it almost meritorious Let him know saith he that he that converteth a Sinner from the Error of his way shall save a Soul from Death and shall hide a multitude of Sins I shall end all with that devout Prayer of Syracides for the Conversion of the Heathen Ecclus. 36. 1 c. Have Mercy upon us O Lord God of all and behold us And send thy fear upon all the Nations that seek not after thee Lift up thy hand against the strange Nations and let them see thy power As thou wasty sanctified in us before them so be thou magnified among them before us And let them know thee as we have known thee that there is no God but only thou O Lord. Shew new Signs and make other strange Wonders glorify thy Hand and thy right Arm that they may set forth thy wonderous Works Raise up Indignation and pour out Wrath take away the Adversary and destroy the Enemies of thy Truth Make the time short remember the Covenant and let them declare thy wondrous Works Smite in sunder the Heads of those that say There is none other but we and let them perish that oppress thy People O be merciful to Jerusalem thy holy City the place of thy Rest Fill Sion that it magnify thine Oracles and thy People that they may set forth thy Glory Give Testimony to those whom thou hast possessed from the beginning and raise up Prophets that may speak in thy Name and let thy Prophets be found faithful O Lord hear the Prayer of thy Servants according to the Blessing of Aaron over thy People that all they which dwell upon the Earth may know that thou art the Lord the Eternal God Amen FINIS Rom. 14. 15 20. Esther 4. 14. Howell's Fam. Letters Vol. 1. §. 3. Lett. 33. * Acts 13. 6 7 c. Bar-Jesus or Elymas did oppose Christianity as not believing it but these whilst they profess it do yet oppose it Prov. 31. 8. * Alienus ab ira alienus à justitia Psal 39. 3. Job 13. 13. Mic. 3. 8. Isa 62. 6 7. St. Mat. 21. 28. St. Luke 18. 5. * Viz. In the Negro's and Indian's Advocate p. 111. * See Mr. Ricaut's Maxims of the Turkish Policy wherein he often mentions the Turks Zeal to promote their Faith Also Pet. Daniel in his History of Barbary tells us That the Turks will shew you kindness to make you embrace their Religion Pag. 308 309 310. 311. Quest By what Authority or Law he could do this to that or any other Person * In his Temple If the Negro knew his Priviledg he need not to desire Baptism for the obtaining of his freedom *
those Plagues and Judgments which this Impiety if longer persisted in must necessarily draw down upon us In the first Queen Elizabeth Act for Vniformity there is extent a certain Clause containing an Adjuration in God's Name earnestly requiring the due and true execution thereof as they should answer to Almighty God for such Evils and Plagues wherewith he might justly punish the neglect of it So that it seems in those Days there was some apprehension of Plagues and Judgments to follow Impiety and the neglect of Religion Nay long before that the Persian Monarch Artaxerxes was not wholly insensible of the same when he issued forth that strict Decree for the speedy re-edifying of the Temple fortified with this Reason For why should there be wrath upon the Realm of the King and of his Sons 'T is true some Apostate Israelites before their Captivity to save themselves the labour of reforming their Lives we read had fallen into a most abominable practice of scoffing at and denying Providence affirming That the Lord had forsaken the Earth or tho he had not yet that he did neither good nor evil But these it seems by a hard Journey they afterwards made to Babylon became in a short time better instructed For upon an Appeal which the Prophet Zechariah made to the Children of these prophane Scoffers whether God's Words and his Statutes which he had commanded by his Servants the former Prophets had not overtaken their stubborn Fathers They in despite of their proud Hearts were forced to confess That like as the Lord had purposed to do unto them according to their ways and according to their doings even so had he dealt with them And Hast thou not procured this unto thy self saith our Prophet here in the Text in that thou hast forsaken the Lord when he led thee by the way And hereupon the Prophet Hosea doth not doubt to declare God's Judgments for Sin to be as clear as the Light that goeth forth There are then Judgments for Sin There is a flying Roll which brings a Curse along with it There is a Leprosy in the Wall which rotts and consumes the Timber and eats out the stone-work thereof And why then must this above all other escape this so black a Sin of Irreligion which striketh directly at God himself and therefore as good old Eli reproving his wicked Sons saith is the hardest to be intreated for And of which God had bound it with a most solemn Oath that it should not be purged with Sacrifice nor burnt-Offering for ever And rather than let it go unpunished 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as St. Gregory speaks God doth often cause even Contrarys to unite and agree together for to effect it This was it which at first brought the Deluge upon the Earth and reduced the whole World to but one small Family For before the Flood saith Berosus the Giants were Contemptores Religionis Deorum Agreeable to that of Moses God saw that the wickedness of man was great whereupon ensued that severe Determination I will destroy Man whom I have created from off the Face of the Earth And to bring one Instance for all of our own Country To this very Sin viz. of neglecting to preach the Gospel to the Saxons and Englishmen it is that Gildas ascribes his Britains overthrow And can we then persist in the same tho clog'd with abundance of aggravating Circumstances and not live under a fearful expectation of God's Judgments due for it How can we read of Aaron's Calf of Achan's Wedg of Saul s massacring the Gibeonites Israel's Apostacy and Judah's Abominations with the various Calamities and Mischiefs pursuant thereupon And if we believe them not at the same time dread the like or worse for this so much more horrible Irreligion and equally Vniversal And since these did prove such fatal pull-backs to them can any less be the Issue of this more inexcusable Wickedness this so palpable Elymasm if I may so call it And if God hath been pleased to chastise meer Heathens for their Enmity to his Religion with which 't is possible they were wholly unacquainted and has threatned to smite with most grievous Plagues those Infidel Regions and Kingdoms who have not called upon his Name of which haply they had not heard what portion of God from above or Mercy can be extended to those who as it were in a prophane mockery of profesing his Name and that too in the most refined and purest manner have been actual Enemies thereto And that under the disguise of the greatest Zeal for it even in this its Purity have been the Stiflers and Betrayers of it only in favour of their accursed Mammon Certainly if ever Judgments do fall it must be upon such and of all Judgments none beneath the most calamitous and the most lasting And tho other Punishments a thing next to impossible should fail yet the divine Vengeance may stir up these very Soul-oppressed People as it did the Arabians and the Philistins against wicked Joram and make them the Rods of his Anger to chastise this Sin That so their own wickedness may correct them and their own back-slidings reprove them and that they may know and see that it was an evil thing and a bitter that they have thus forsaken the Lord their God and that his Fear was not in them as our Prophet speaks And that by such a severe Discipline nothing less being like to be of force so as to work upon them they may be brought to understand as the Holy Scripture speaks of Rehoboam's Invasion by Shishack the difference between God's Service and the Service of the Kingdoms of the Countries that is of the wild and barbarous Heathen And that what they do so frequently most blasphemously give out as the mischievous effect of Christianity may thro the want of it be brought upon them and that by the same Sin wherewith they have sinned they may be punished And so in the end they may with that inhuman Tyrant Adonibezeck be compelled to acknowledge God's Justice in requiting them even as they have done unto others And then for such at home who have so patiently over-looked the Sufferings and Miseries of Religion in those parts and have been at least unconcerned Spectators tho perhaps not actual Partakers in those bloody Tragedies and therefore may lean upon the Lord and presume that no evil shall happen unto them those soft Pillows which they thus plant under their seared Consciences will but deceive them and the untempered Mortar with which they plaister over their Impiety will be in like danger of being washed away by the overflowing Showre For Jupiter being offended doth punish all said the Poet and in common Judgments and Calamities 't is not only the most guilty that are seized as in the several Captivities of Tobit and of Daniel are to be