Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
lord_n	city_n	london_n	mayor_n	10,714	5	9.7889	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A67018	A sermon preached before the Right Honourable the Lord-Mayor, and Aldermen of the city of London, at St. Mary Le Bow on Wednesday the 19th of June, 1695, a day appointed for a solemn fast, for supplicating Almighty God for the pardon of our sins, and imploring his protection of His Majestie's person, by Josiah Woodward ...	Woodward, Josiah, 1660-1712.	1695 (1695)	Wing W3520; ESTC R23478	15,685	41

Mr. Woodward's SERMON before the Lord-Mayor On the Fast-Day June the 19 th 1695. Lane Mayor Jovis 20 die Junij 1695. Annoque Dom. Reg. Gulielmi tertij Ang. c. Septimo THis Court doth desire Mr. Woodward to Print his Sermon Preached yesterday at the Parish-Church of St. Mary Le Bow before the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor Aldermen and Citizens of this City Goodfellow A SERMON Preached before The Right Honourable the lord-Lord-Mayor AND ALDERMEN OF THE City of London At St. Mary Le BOW On Wednesday the 19th of June 1695. A Day appointed for a Solemn Fast for Supplicating Almighty God for the Pardon of our Sins and imploring his Protection of His Majestie 's Person and the Prosperity of His Arms by Sea and Land By Order of the Lords Justices By Josiah Woodward Minister of Poplar LONDON Printed for Ralph Simpson at the Harp in St. Paul's Church-yard 1695. TO THE Right Honourable Sir Thomas Lane Lord Mayor of the City of London AND THE Court of ALDERMEN My Lord SINCE nothing in the following Discourse can be supposed to have recommended it to the Hearers but those serious and seasonable Truths whereby it recommends it self to every Man's Conscience It must be look'd on as a Specimen of your Lordship's and your Worshipful Brethren's Integrity towards God and Fidelity to the present Government in a time when some so easily shake hands with both together That you desire to review what was humbly offered upon our late Fast-Day on those two Topicks of Duty to God and the King which the Nature of the Things and the Duty of the Day entwisted together And may these Heaven-born Twinns never be devided upon Earth For indeed they are but half-Friends if we may not call them Enemies to any Civil Government who are impatient of the Government of God by whose Blessing alone Kingdoms Flourish The sins of such Persons hurt the side they take more than their Assistance helps it And therefore when all is done unfeigned Holiness how lightly soever esteemed in these filthy dreggs of time is surely the most Honourable and useful accomplishment of Humane Nature The real Servant of God is the true Person of Quality being one of the Household of God And till any Empire can be found equal to that of God no Title or Employment can be of equivalent Honour to that of belonging to the Court of Heaven Yet we see the World laughs at this And according to the Notions of some there is Glory in the service of the Devil And the most like him in Pride Falsehood Revenge and Blasphemy are the finest Men. But are not these very horrible and very perverse Sentiments Has Bedlam it self any such reverse to common sense as this And will not insupportable shame succeed this Phrenzy when once they come to see things in a true light And this they will see to the purpose within a little while either in their Conversion or Condemnation God Almighty grant it them in the first Method not in the last It is not more evident that the Sun guilds and cheers this lower World than that Religion is the Light Glory and Advancement of the Intellectual part of it Happy are its Votaries yea blessed are its very Martyrs It is a very light thing to bear the mockery and Affronts of this World if we do but pass on directly to the Glory of the other Those that are blind will be apt to jostle those they meet in the streets But it is the Duty of such as see to endeavour to put them into the right way And therefore there is no Post beneath the Clouds so honourable as that of a Person in great Power employing it to reclaim and reform the Community to which it belongs It is like the Good Angel's leading Lot and his Family out of the reach of the descending Flames The comforts of which here is almost as inexpressible as it's Reward hereafter Vpon the whole if there be any such Great and Blessed Man or set of Men upon Earth by whose Piety Prudence and Power under God Christianity is to retrieve its Credit and God his Honour in the World Blessed is He or They above the common rate of Mortals All the sober part of Mankind will kiss their feet and the most remote Posterity will bless their Memory I confide My Lord That your just indignation to the wretched Atheism of this prophane Age will incline your Lordship to excuse the Prolixity of this Address to you to which shall now put a speedy Period so soon as I have implored this one mercy of God viz. That your Lordship and your Worshipful Brethren may by your pious and prudent Conduct establish the Peace restore the Piety and advance the Prosperity and Renown of this Great and Famous City And hereby ascertain to your selves abiding Mansions in that City which has Divine Foundations which is the unfeigned Desire of My Lord your Lordship 's very Respectful Humble Servant Joshiah Woodward Deut. IX 26. I Prayed therefore unto the Lord and said O Lord God destroy not thy People and thine Inheritance which thou hast redeemed thro' thy greatness which thou hast brought forth of Egypt with a mighty hand THE Solemn Duty of every Soul of us this Day but more especially of all Publick Persons is the same with that of Moses in the Text viz Humbly to importune our offended God for mercy to a sinful People And this in the method of Fasting and Prayer as Moses here did Yea the Parallel runs further in that about this time the Armies of Israel were to Attack their Enemies in their Entrenchments and Fenced Cities as we read at the beginning of this Chapter Hear O Israel thou art to pass over Jordan this day to go in to possess Nations greater and mightier than thy self Cities great and fenced up to Heaven v. 1. i. e. Very strongly Fortified so as to be impregnable by any Forces but such as were led on by the Lord of Hosts And therefore he takes this occasion to shew them the absolute necessity of making their peace with God and securing his powerful Alliance And may we in a like juncture prudently take the Hint But here the Parallel discontinues viz. In that Moses here had but one single Enormity of Israel tho' a very great one to lament before God and that too was happily nipt in the bud by an impartial execution of Justice on the known Offenders Exod. 32. 27. But our Sins alas are prodigiously many as well as great And these too are fatally ripen'd by long indulgence and impunity So that our Breach is very wide and we need many such as Moses to stand in the Gap and fill it up which I pray God raise up to us in this important Juncture in which the very Being of our Church and Nation lies at stake May the good God pour out a Spirit of Contrition and Supplication on us that every Soul this day may put it self out

elevated Devotions this day Let us indeed afflict our Souls before the All-seeing God lest our mock-Fasts make work for real ones and lest we hasten that wrath which we seem to deprecate Let us indeed do the needful work of Intercessors with God and that we may not want Arguments to plead for mercy the latter part of my Text will suggest something apposite to our Case which is summed up in my second observation viz. That a Peoples profession of the true Religion and being those whom God had signally deliver'd and defended in times past may be humbly pleaded with God as an argument for further Deliverance For thus Moses prays and pleads in the Text. O Lord destroy not thy People and thine Inheritance which thou hast redeemed thro' thy Greatness which thou hast brought forth of the Land of Egypt with a mighty hand In which he seems to argue thus Oh Lord may it please thee to make the procedure of thy Providence towards this People suitable to what it has been hitherto Thou hast hitherto preserved and defended them by astonishing dispensations We can never forget that dreadful succession of miraculous Plagues which thou broughtest upon our Enemies the Egyptians How grosly thou didst infatuate them and how eminently thou didst inspirit us and by what a wonderful Revolution thou wast pleased to free us from their slavery Oh Let us not now perish by that powerful hand by which we were so lately delivered 'T is true we are guilty of great provocations but thy mercy is greater than our perverseness Oh spare a very sinful People for thine infinite mercy sake Lest when the Egyptians hear of our destruction they triumph in our ruine in the Wilderness as much as we did in the destruction of the Egyptians in the Red Sea Yea lest they think thy power oftner displayed in Judgment than in Mercy This is the purport of the Plea in my Text which may be reduced to these four Particulars 1. He pleads for mercy for them on the account of their relation to God as they were his People Destroy not thy People and thine Inheritance They were a peculiar People by a very singular and selecting love of God Deut. 4. 43. Hath God essayed to go and take him a Nation from the midst of another Nation by Signs Wonders and by a mighty hand as the Lord your God did you c. So that now the honour of God seemed to be concerned for their preservation Now all that profess the incorrupt Religion of our Lord Jesus Christ may form an Argument somewhat like this and say Lord we are Christians we cleave to the Doctrine of thy Beloved Son for his sake whose Name we bear and for the honour of thy visible Church on Farth destroy us not And tho' alas too too few of us are duly influenced by our holy Faith yet we generally avow thee thee alone to be our God in opposition to Idols and other Gods Oh that we could say we are Christians in opposition to Hypocrisie and Prophaneness too then our plea would be irresistible II. There may be a further plea inferr'd from Moses his Prayer thus viz. For as much as there is seldom the profession of the true Religion without some hearty and entire embracers of it So that an Argument may be made like that of Abraham's Gen. 18. 24. If there be Fifty or Forty or but Ten Righteous Persons wilt thou not spare the corrupt generality for the sake of this little sound part This we have great hope may be pleaded in the behalf of this Nation yea of this City Even in a far greater Number than that which Abraham began his Plea with But truly the number of the Good is too too small And indeed except the Lord had left unto us this small Remnant we had been altogether as Sodom and like unto Gomorrah Isa 1. 9 But we trust we shall fare the better for the sake of these III. Another part of Moses's Plea is grounded on the past Mercies which God had vouchsaf'd to this People This is the People says he which thou hast redeemed thro' thy greatness and brought out of Egypt with thy mighty hand In this respect also some Plea may be made for England It is a Land which God has by a Series of Wonders freed from the Slavery and Corruptions of Popery An infinite Blessing which we have now enjoy'd for almost two Centuries of Years And tho' there have been many Combinations and restless Plottings against us yet blessed be God they have hitherto proved abortive And we are at this day thro' infinite mercy a Free People enjoying the blessed Beams of the Gospel and the Just and Antient Rights of our Mother-Country O! may that Bountiful God who has hitherto thus seasonably thus marvelously appeared for us still be our Guardian May his infinite Goodness never leave us but flow down with the same exuberant Streams on us and our Posterity to the latest Generations So that we may here say as Solomon The Lord our God be with us as He was with our Fathers let him not leave us nor forsake us 1 Kings 8. 57. IV. Another part of Moses his Plea is taken from the Insolence of the Enemy ver 28. Lest the Land whence thou broughtest us out say Because the Lord was not able to bring them into the Land which he promised them and because he hated them he hath brought them out to slay them in the Wilderness The World is apt to judge of the goodness of the Cause by its success and to make very wild Interpretations of the Language of Providence Wicked men are apt to conclude that God is on their side when their Mischievous Designs take effect So that on this account also we may form a Plea for Mercy For if Protestants be consumed the Papists will be sure to glory in their Ruine as in the Fall of Miscreant Hereticks Especially since their Cardinal Champion makes outward Prosperity and Victory the mark of his splendid Church * Ultima Nota est faelicitas temporalis Divinitùs ijs collata qui Ecclesiam defenderunt Bellarmin de Notis Ecclesiae cap. 18. Which by his leave would better have fitted the mouth of a Turk than a Christian For Mahomet proposed to propagate his Faith by the Sword which our Blessed Saviour never did but the very contrary Now therefore since the French Papists have so glutted themselves already with the groans and blood of the Protestants in their own Country should their bloody Designs against us prosper too how would they blaspheme the Reformed Religion and triumph in their own Delusions May the Lord of Armies therefore enfeeble the Power and blast the Designs of those Massacring Legions And if our sins are so ripe that Infinite Justice can spare us no longer nor infinite patience any longer suspend our punishment may we fall into the hands of God rather than Men. Rather the Pestilence or Scarcity or any earthly Plague