Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n
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A48851
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A sermon preached before the House of Lords, on November 5, 1680 by ... William Lord Bishop of St. Asaph.
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Lloyd, William, 1627-1717.
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1680
(1680)
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Wing L2712; ESTC R20309
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18,469
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46
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Die Lunae 8. Novemb. 1680. ORdered by the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament Assembled That the Thanks of this House be and are hereby given to the Lord Bishop of St. Asaph for his pains in Preaching before their Lordships on Friday last being the Anniversary Thanks giving-day to Almighty God for the deliverance of this Kingdom from the Gun-powder-Treason and his Lordship is hereby desired to cause his Sermon then Preached to be Printed and Published Jo. Browne Cler. Parl. A SERMON Preached before the House of Lords ON November 5. 1680. By the Right Reverend Father in God WILLIAM Lord Bishop of St. Asaph LONDON Printed by M. C. for Henry Brome at the Gun in St. Paul's Church-yard 1680. TO THE LORDS Spiritual and Temporal Assembled in PARLIAMENT My Lords WHile I am paying my Obedience to your Lordships Commands for the Printing of this Sermon I humbly crave leave to say something for the clearing of my self from a Prejudice which if true would render me unfit to be so far owned by your Lordships as to be admitted to Preach before You and having done it to be commanded to Print my Sermon For I cannot but take notice that both before and since I received that Honour from you I have been tax'd as being not Protestant enough on account of a Book called Considerations touching the true way to suppress Popery in this Kingdom How far I was concerned in that Treatise the Preface to it sufficiently declares The Book it self was Publish'd in Michaelmas Term 1676. just two years before the Popish Plot was discovered The design of it was proposed to me as the likeliest Remedy at that time against the same Disease under which we are now labouring for Life or Death but it was before things were come to such a dangerous Crisis I saw it was much the same Design that many of the best and most eminent Protestants particularly Q. Elizabeth and K. James had at several times countenanced and put in practice with very good success they were next to the uniting of Protestants for the dividing of Papists whose chief advantage hitherto has been their Union such as it is and our needless Divisions But at that time I thought it more proper and seasonable than ever upon the best Iudgment that I could make of their and our Circumstances And I have some reason to think I was not mistaken in this For now I see that at the very time when this was brought to me and while I was forming my thoughts upon it the Papists themselves were in a great apprehension of this very thing as being of all other ways the most likely to blast their hopes and to preserve us from that Ruine which they were then bringing upon us Thus Coleman at that time wrote to the Popes Internuncio There is but One thing saith he to be feared whereof I have a great apprehension that can hinder the success of our Designs which is a Division among the Catholicks themselves How dividing them It follows by Propositions to the Parliament to accord their conjunction to those that require it on Conditions prejudicial to the Authority of the Pope and so to persecute the rest of them with more appearance of Justice and ruine the one half of them more easily than the whole Body at once And to shew that Coleman was not singular herein Cardinal Howard delivers this as their Iudgment at Rome where if any where they are Infallible Division of Catholicks will be the easiest way for Protestants to destroy them This being said for the Design from so good Authority I have this farther to say for my self that only the last part of that Book was my own in which I did justifie the Reformation of this Church and what I wrote in that part I am sure no Papist can disprove and I think no Protestant has cause to complain of it I thank God I have in this whole matter the witness of a goad Conscience and I hope likewise your Lordships good opinion of my honest zeal to maintain the Protestant Religion against Popery For a farther Testimony whereof and in obedience to your Lordships Commands I humbly present this following Discourse My Lords I am Your Lordships most humble and most obedient Servant W. Asaph A SERMON ON PSALM cxxiv 1 2 3. Verses 1. If it had not been the Lord who was on our side now may Israel say 2. If it had not been the Lord who was on our side when men rose up against us 3. Then they had swallowed us up quick when their wrath was kindled against us WHAT Deliverance it was upon which David made this Psalm at this distance of time we cannot certainly know But whatsoever it was this we find it was of the People of Israel And whensoever it happened we see they remembred it afterwards It was the manner of Gods people to remember a Deliverance many years and ages after they had received it and when that particular deliverance was forgotten yet still they kept up their Thanksgiving to God in a Psalm which being once composed for that former mercy might be used ever after upon any other like occasion The Deliverance of our Fathers on this day was as great as ever any was that God gave the Jews and we come now to celebrate it not many ages after but while some are yet living that remember it and we that have been born since are as sure of it as if we had been then living our selves and yet for fear it should be forgotten in our Age God hath been pleased to put us in remembrance by suffering the same Enemy to put us in fresh Dangers and then sending us new Deliverances If all this will not affect us with a sense of what we owe to God for his mercy we are so far from being like Gods ancient People that we deserve to be given up to strong Delusions to a belief of Popish Legends of a Cecil's Plot and such like sensless Fictions which none could give credit to that had not first subdued his understanding to the belief of any thing how incredible soever by the belief of Transubstantiation But if we may give any heed to our senses and to our reason if we may believe the Testimony of all men then living if we may judge from our own experience of the like designs since these I think are all the ways that we have to come to the knowledge of such things and it were easie to shew that all these ways we are sure of the Gunpowder-Treason As we cannot but think with horror of the danger that the King and Kingdom were then in so we cannot reflect on their Deliverance but with the greatest admiration We cannot think of it especially on this day without a thankful acknowledgment to God in such words as his antient people have left us in this Text If it had not been the Lord who was on our side now may Israel say