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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-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
hopes of that Royal Family to murder a whole Nation together in their Representative then met in Parliament All was struck at together as if they had been but one person as if according to Caligula's wish they had but one neck They were for blowing them up for swallowing them up at once for overwhelming all that was Venerable and Sacred in this Nation for burying both our State and our Religion in one heap of destruction and ruine Good God! If thou hadst not been on our side what had become of us when men rose up against us to swallow us up quick Men Who would ever suspect men of such a wickedness We ought not to think that men were capable of it we ought not to entertain so hard an opinion of Humane Nature It was something else that put them upon it It was something which they mis-call Religion that made them put off their Humanity It was this which transformed men into such monsters that brought them not only to think of this but to design it For their part it was actually done I do not charge all of that Religion with this Action Religion do I call it I unwillingly use so good a word on so ill an occasion But since they call it so let it pass I say then that all the Authors were only of that Religion and they acted according to their own Principles those Principles which they received from their Spiritual Governors Their Counsellors were of the Governing Party They were Jesuites who had their Superior in the Plot. I need not tell you of the malice the closeness the subtilty the rage and cruelty of that Faction that hath sufficently appeared in a hundred other things in other Exploits they have out-done all other men but they out-did themselves in this unhumane this Devilish Conspiracy It was contrived with such foresight it was managed with such policy it was carried on with that closeness and secresie as not once to gather wind in some years till they had brought all their business to perfection There was but a short time but one night but half a night between the Plot and the Execution if God had not miraculously interposed The Vault was dug the Magazine was laid in the Iron-bars were laid over the Engineer was at hand the Match was laid it was sized for an hour a fatal hour of this morning of the Fifth of November In a minute of which in a moment all the governing part of this Nation and God knows who more all that came within reach were to have been swallowed up quick Lord What a thunderclap had it been to this Nation to this Church to this Kingdom What an Earthquake it would have been What a Chaos it would have made What a Tragical day to every thing but Popery Nay to Papists themselves I doubt not many would have abhorr'd it I am persuaded they would many would have abhorr'd their very Popery But they could not have remedied what was past nor have prevented the following miseries Then this day had stood in red Letters in their Almanacks though some are pleased to leave it out of ours Then they must have kept this a Holy-day that cannot now afford it a Thanksgiving Then they must have gone to Mass for it that will not joyn with us now in our Prayers and some that will not now give a Faggot must then have lighted one 'T is not in my power nor words nor in the wit of man to enumerate all the evils and miseries that would have come upon this Nation It could not have been otherwise if the Lord had not been on our side If the Lord had not been on our side we had been gone we had never been born or had cause to have wished we had never been Oh! how are we bound to thank God that he was on our side on this day How are we bound to praise his name for preserving us so many times since I need not reckon up to you the particulars I know of no great danger we have been in but hath more or less been occasion'd by the same sort of men or if they did not begin it they have struck in with it and contributed to carry it on all they could And shall we tempt God by doing nothing to secure our selves against them It is plain that this were contrary to Gratitude But what shall we do towards our safety there is nothing more worth our consideration But do I ask that when I know what this August Assembly hath judged And if your judgment be seconded as I hope it will be there is no doubt his Majesty will assent to it Then we shall have no occasion for any more such Miracle there will be an ordinary way to keep us out of this danger First they will be obliged all the Papists that stay in England at least for their own ease if not for the common security to consider whether they are bound in Conscience to be still of that Faction That is more than we have been able to bring them to for many years They would rarely endure any of our Clergy to speak to them They had their ears stopt against us for fear of better information If you can but bring them to hear Truth I am persuaded they cannot continue Papists I know they cannot if they have so much sense in them as to consider how little reason they have for it And for them that will not hear nor consider neither of themselves nor when Authority requires it what can be more reasonable than what you have judged I think none will judge otherwise that will consider the present case This I take it is the present case between them and us our main difference is in a plain point of practice whose Subjects they and we must be They will needs be subject to one that lives in Italy If they will be so who can help it Nay that will not content them but we must be his Subjects too That is hard when we can see no reason for it Nay we must or we shall never be quiet otherwise No Cannot we intreat them Cannot be oblige them to be quiet We have endeavoured to do it with all possible Civility and yet we cannot be quiet without being what we will never be Then it is time to part if we cannot live together that 's plain But now the question is Who shall go that would I with all my soul if Popery were the Religion of England I protest I would not stay in it And yet I have done nothing to make my Country afraid of me and I have nothing but my Religion to provoke any of them I hate the person of no Papist or man in the world I would have no man punished for his Religion no not them that destroy men for Religion I would not punish them but I would not live with them if I could help it I know no Sect among Christians that I would not live under rather than Popery But what matter is it for such a one as me I expect from them no regard to what I say But methinks they should have some regard for their Country I would tell them if they were present your Country is afraid of you She does as it were beg you to be gone For a hundred years she hath been in danger of you She hath not suffered but some way or other on your account The Spanish Invasion was for Popery The Gunpowder-Treason was for Popery One Civil War was in a great measure occasioned by Popery She is in danger of another Civil War by Popery I will not say what she hath suffered abroad for your sakes She hath suffered more than she can well bear and must she suffer still must she still be in fear for your sakes Why should you not be gone and free her from her fears If they are true that she may not be destroyed and if false that she may not be always in fear of you But perhaps we cannot expect so much favour at their hands and therefore we should be the more careful for our selves Let us do what we can do if we will without them We need not fear them so much if it were not for our Divisions That is the thing which makes us most in danger of them We divide and subdivide We take the way to make our selves weak and little and indefensible We promote their design by it to swallow us up We should not go down so easily whole as we may do in small pieces We cannot but see this Oh! that we had hearts to consider it that we would do what we can to unite our selves Surely we can if we will we could if we had but a real mind to it We will and must very speedily do it or else if we do not unite do what we will otherwise we shall let in Popery even by the ways that we take to keep out Popery Well! nothing can be too bad for us to suffer upon the account of our sins yet nothing can be too good to expect from that God who hath preserved us and will preserve us if we are not wanting to our selves If we Reform our lives according to our Religion if we eschew evil and do good if we seek peace and ensue it then we shall see good days then God will delight to dwell among us he will build us like Ierusalem a City at unity within it self that shall stand fast for ever The Lord grant it for his Mercy sake Amen FINIS * That is in the Booksellers style 1677. * Aug. 30. 1675. †p. 17. o◠the Collection of Letter◠set out by order of the House of Commons * March 1676. Ibid p. 82. * Bernard super Cant. Serm. 67. †Caesar. ab Heist dist 3. c. 16 17. * Dr. Burnet's Hist. of Reform Part. 2. The Bill against Popery that has pass'd in the House of Lords