Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
|
A61862
|
A sermon preached at the assizes at Hertford, Jvly viii, 1689 by John Strype ...
|
Strype, John, 1643-1737.
|
1689
(1689)
|
Wing S6025; ESTC R685
|
13,242
|
36
|
A SERMON Preached at the ASSIZES AT HERTFORD IVLY viii 1689. By IOHN STRYPE M. A. Vicar of Low-Leyton in Essex IMPRIMATUR Iulii 22. 1689. C. ALSTON LONDON Printed for Richard Chiswell at the Rose and Crown in St. Paul's Church-Yard MDCLXXXIX To the Right Worshipful Richard Hutchinson Esq HIGH-SHERIFF of the County of HERTFORD SIR I Acknowledge it a Satisfaction to me that this plain SERMON preached at the late Assizes found such a general good Acceptation both from the Iudges and Gentry insomuch that many of them put you upon obliging me to make it publick But it added much to the satisfaction that the subject matter of the Discourse was so well approved by so great a Body of Honour and Quality as then appeared Nor does it a little tend to the Reputation of that County that the Magistrates and Gentry thereof allow so well of Discourses of this nature shewing hereby their True Affection to the Protestant Religion and to Christian Peace and Love and how sensible they are of the singular Mercies and Deliverances vouchsafed by God to this Nation both in former times and of late especially Sir You have the honour to be reserved for the First Sheriff of Hertford-shire under the Auspicious Reign of KING WILLIAM and QUEEN MARY And it was your Happiness as well as your Honour that you were laid aside from serving that Office the last Year after you were pricked and published in the Gazette in the List of the High Sheriffs as being judged no doubt too good an English man and too true a Protestant to serue the Turn that was then driving on I have you see in compliance with your desire exposed what I preached to publick view praying God it may be of some benefit to you and all others that shall take the pains to read it for the promoting of Christian Wisdom and Sobriety and then I have my end I am SIR Your very much obliged humble Servant IOHN STRYPE A SERMON Preached at the Assizes at Hertford IVLY viii 1689. I SAM XII vii Now therefore stand still that I may reason with you before the Lord of all the righteous Acts of the Lord which he did to you and to your Fathers I Come not here to instruct Judges not to teach Magistrates their Duty As this would not become me to do so neither I presume do they need it whose great Wisdom And Gravity is able to direct them in the Businesses that lie before them Their Office indeed is as Weighty as 't is Honourable to distribute Justice to see good Laws well executed to right oppressed Innocence to bring Wickedness to Shame in a Word to maintain the Kings Peace and the Churches Peace a Great and Divine Employment But where there be Principles of Loyalty and a Love of Iustice planted in the mind accompanied with Piety to God and a grave Iudgment and many Years Experience these are far better Monitors than the best Preachers can be And I am persuaded I have Men enriched with such Endowments to be my Auditors at this Time. That I may not therefore seem to misdoubt your Integrities or Abilities Right Honourable and Right Worshipful nor expose my self to the Censure of too much Assurance and Presumption and yet that I may speak in some proportion to this present occasion I have chosen these Words which are part of the Charge of a great Judg in Israel of whom the Scripture gives this Character That he went from year to year in circuit to Bethel and Gilgal and Mizâ—â—h and judged Israel in all those places And so you see the Words may be suitable in respect of the Person that spake them And they were delivered at a very great and solemn Convention of People as yours now is and so they are suitable in regard of the Auditory that heard them And the Matter of them being a serious Exhortation to reflect upon God's Goodness and their own Ingratitude can neither now not at any time else be unsuitable for Ministers to preach nor Christians to hear Here then we have Samuel the Judge beginning his Charge Now therefore stand still that I may reason with you before the Lord of all the righteous Acts of the Lord which he did to you and to your fathers The Word which we translate Let me reason with you is a Law Term among the Hebrews signifies To plead and contend in Iudgment for some wrong done And is as much as if the should have said Let me plead on God's side against you A good Judg is alwaies an Advocate on God's behalf and zealous in his Cause Israel had wronged God dealt unjustly with him How so By sinning against him For every Sin is an Injury done to God. Samuel now stands and takes God's Part against them by shewing them how gracious God had been to them and how well he had deserved at their Hands by his Mercies and Favours expressed towards them for so the Word which we render Righteous Acts often signifies And by shewing them withal how illy they had requited the Lord disobeyed his Commandments and rebelled against their Heavenly King. And that his Expostulation with them from the Topic of God's Goodness might make the deeper impression upon them he descends in the following Verses to enumerate the Righteous Acts of God towards them When Iacob was come into Egypt and your Fathers cried unto the Lord then the Lord sent Moses and Aaron which brought forth your Fathers out of Egypt So that their Escape out of Egypt was one of these Righteous or Merciful Acts of God to them And then it follows And made them dwell in this place This place that is The Land of Canaan where they now were That was another of these eminent Favours or Righteous Acts of the Lord. And when they forgat the Lord be sold them into the hand of Sisera Captain of the Host of Hazor and into the hand of the Philistins and into the hand of the King of Moab and they fought against them And they cried unto the Lord c. And the Lord sent Ierubbeal and Bedan and Iephtbah and Samuel and delivered you out of the hand of your Enemies on every side and ye dwelled safe They had Enemies it seems round about them that plotted and combined to destroy them but GOD alwaies interposed for their safety This is a Third Mercy of GOD vouchsafed them And upon these three signal Manifestations of GOD's Goodness to them the Prophet Samuel grounds his reasoning with them For indeed they were Favours of that nature that the Iews could not think of them but they must needs have been touched with a quick sense of the Distinguishing Love of GOD to them and under what mighty Obligations they were to Him as namely to review them again I. That GOD had brought them away from Egypt where they were a poor miserable oppressed People under intolerable Slavery crouching to an insulting proud Tyrant who laid
polluted by a Mass of Fooleries and Corruptions and Errors restored to its Primitive use and practice and a reasonable Service celebrated and Preachers appointed to teach and instruct men concerning the Contents of our Holy Religion and Means of Saving-knowledg more and more brake in upon us And thus we were then delivered And this Mercy of God will appear to be the greater if we consider what a small part of Christendome in comparison enjoy it beside our selves God seemed to have picked us out from the rest of the World to manifest This his Kindness to for the greater part of Christians still sit in Darkness concerning CHRIST and his Religion and while their Priests pretend to keep knowledge they communicate little enough to them they tell them it is enough for them to believe as the Church believes That they must resolve their Faith into the Authority of the Church But what the Faith of the Church is they need not trouble themselves to know let them but hear Mass and mumble over their Rosaries and their Latin Prayers let them but kiss a Crucifix and kneel before a Saints Image and sprinkle themselves with Holy Water and arm themselves with the sign of the Cross and 't is enough This I say is the condition of most Christians but God hath dealt more bountifully with you my Brethren He hath given you means of more perfect knowledge of JESUS CHRIST and of the way and means of Salvation by him In a word We have our Christian Religion that had been defac'd blotted and blurred by Popish Superstition cleansed from its Corruptions and restored to us as it was in the Primitive Ages a most invaluable Mercy and Blessing so that nothing now remains for us to do but to live according to the knowledge and means of Grace which we have And this is one Rank of Divine Favours vouchsafed us of this Nation viz. Our deliverance from the Bondage and Tyranny of Rome answerable to that of the Iews from Egypt II. Another singular Mercy of God to this Nation parallel to that God vouchsafed the Iews is the good Land wherein God hath planted us As the former concerned our spiritual Good so this our Temporal indeed a blessed Country ours is a true Canaan a Land flowing with Milk and Honey The British Islands were antiently and truly reckoned one of the best and happiest Soyles in the World. And here I might insist upon the Fruitfulness of the Land the Plenty of all things for the Life and uses of Men the Temperature and Wholsomness of the Clime the Health and long Age of the Inhabitants the Manners and Dispositions of the People who are naturally Loyal and True Sober and Manly Couragious and Valiant For so the antient Inhabitants were reputed to be and if they are not all so now 't is owing to their Sins whereby many of us have marred and emasculated our Natures Moreover I might insist upon the happy Situation of this Island walled about with Seas to defend us from Foreign Invasion that ambitious Princes may not so easily make Inroads upon us and bring in their destructive Armies God hath placed us in a World by our selves and we were therefore sometimes called Alter Orbis The other World. Under the consideration of the Happiness of our Country I might likewise entertain you with a Discourse of our moderate and easie Government and wholesome Laws Our Kings rule by Law and are not arbitrary our Laws are framed and modelled by our own Representatives and so in effect we are under Laws of our own making And among the rest of the Priviledges of the English Nation this must not be forgotten at this time especially That for the saving us both the Labour and Expences of long Journies up to Westminster-Hall the Reverend the Judges leave their Seats there for our Ease and Convenience and are sent down among us twice a Year in these their Circuits to hear and determine our Grievances and to do us Right and to take Vengeance on Malefactors the common Mischieves of a Country And thus Justice is brought home as it were to our own Doors In all which Respects many wife Men not only our Country-men who may be thought to speak partially but Foreigners have held the English Government To be one of the best constituted Governments in the World. These things I can now but mention but these well thought on will enhance the Value of this second Rank of Mercies referring to the Country wherein God hath placed us insomuch that we may truly use the Words of the Psalmist The lines are fallen to us in a pleasant place and we have a goodly Heritage III. There is another Mercy still behind wherein God hath resembled us to his own People the Iews and that is The Protection of our Church and our Land from the Malicious and Unwearied Attempts of our Enemies Miraculous have been the Deliverances that God hath wrought for us from Foreign Invasion and Domestick Conspiracy I need but mention the Invincible Armada in the Year 88. when the Pope and the King of Spain and the Princes of Italy marshalled up all their Strength and Wealth and set forth the greatest Fleet that ever the Sea bore with an intent to invade our Land to massacre our Persons and to reduce us to the old Egyptian Bondage again But here the Winds and the Seas were on our side and fought for us and then God shewed strength with his own arm and scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts I can but name that prodigious and unheard of Plot of Gun Powder that should have made but one stroke of the three Estates and cut them off at one blow whereby both our Civil Government and our Protestant Religion should have been dispatched at once But this God by a strange Discovery disappointed also And when of later times we were embroiled in lamentable Civil Wars and the Lord 's anointed our Natural Sovereign slain by wicked Hands and our antient Government subverted in due time did the good God take pity upon the sad Estate of these Kingdoms and brought back our Natural Prince and restored our Counsellors as at the beginning and gave us our old Government again in Church and State. And thus God delivered us then also But there are later Deliverances than any of these fresh in our Memories wherein our merciful God hath aggrandized his Mercy and magnified his Goodness to us namely in the two last Kings Reigns when so many Plots and mischievous Projects were hatching and secretly carrying on against us and of late more openly and avowedly by our implacable Enemies of Rome to enslave our free-born Persons to overthrow our antient Government and which was worst of all to extirpate our excellent Protestant Religion having also the countenance of Authority on their side and a powerful standing Army to back them And they thought and so indeed did we all That their Work was as good as done nor