Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n
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A34430
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A sermon preached at Islington upon the 26th day of July, 1685, in the afternoon being the day of solemn thanksgiving to almighty God for His Majestie's late victories over the rebels / by Shadrach Cooke.
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Cooke, Shadrach, 1655?-1724?
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1685
(1685)
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Wing C6038; ESTC R29331
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10,001
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32
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in War Tumults Blood and Murder to ruin our Church destroy our Prince and all true Loyal men Is not this sufficient cause to make them look about them and now at length seriously to repent of and renounce all such impious ways and practices 3. Considering in the Third place That this seems to be both the greatest and the last means and method God may use for the bringing these men to repentance and a sound mind for what is there that can or will be prevalent with them if this be not If after all those demonstrations God has given us of his mercy and their impious designs you will not see and repent you give the world too much reason to believe that you lie under that Pharisaical judgment to have eyes and see not ears and hear not hearts and will not understand And therefore Sirs as you will answer it to your Consciences now and to God hereafter be rouz'd out of this fatal Lethargy and hearken to this awakening and perhaps last call of Almighty God be not still perverse and obstinate to your utter ruin both of Soul and Body 't is high time to look about you and now at length having seen all this to shew your Repentance which we earnestly hope and desire to see in these following respects which is our Fifth particular V. I. In an utter renouncing of your former ways and doings those especially that have had any manner of Aspect or tendency to the promoting or incouraging these impious designs and practices cast a serious sincere and impartial reflection upon your late and your former actions and see whether you have not one way or other justified incourag'd or promoted these designs whether by herding with the multitude against publick Rule and Government by countenancing or speaking or thinking well of them that did by acting or voting what you knew was displeasing to the King and contrary to the practice of undoubtedly Loyal men by discouraging truly Loyal honest Orthodox Preachers that would tell you the Truth without guise or dissimulation and adhering to or thinking well only of such that you knew or fancied to be otherwise In a word Examine your own knowledge and Consciences and make a thorow search of whatever way means or actions through fault or misfortune you have promoted the Cause and Interest of such as are thus Factious and Rebellious and be now at last convinc'd of your error detest what you have done this way with zeal and heartiness This is the first mark and token of Repentance we desire and expect from you 2. Hereupon ensues another very signal mark and token of your sorrow Repentance and true Conversion and that is a sincere and hearty Loyalty to your Prince That you practice this your selves and promote it among others to the utmost of your skill and power that whoever are in your families under your care or committed to your charge may be instructed in the sound Principles of Loyalty and Obedience according to the Doctrine and Institution of the Church of England And is it not high time seriously to enter upon this course and practice seeing the fatal designs and consequences of disobedience and Rebellion the works of those that forget or abandon their Duty and Allegiance to their Prince you will not and cannot secure your selves from such impious practices but by your being thus heartily and truly Loyal in Thought Word or Deed to the utmost of your Power for if it be only in outward formality or expression or according to the indifferent and moderate way and manner of some men 'T is such as will be neither acceptable to God serviceable to your Prince or safe to your selves Wherefore to shew your selves truly penitent you must endeavour to be eminently Loyal and remarkably Obedient and dutiful to the King for the future which is the only opposite to Faction Sedition and Rebellion 3. As another sign of your true Repentance we do exhort you to and expect from you a thorow and strict conformity to our Church The best if not only Constitution that does sincerely teach and promote true Loyalty and Obedience for you may take this as a sure rule which you 'l find true by constant observation and experience the more any do dissent from or dislike the present Constitution of our Church the greater friends or promoters they are or have been of what either was or tended to Sedition or Rebellion against which there is no prevention or security but by a firm and strict adherence to the Church of England And this besides other incomparable advantages shews the great priviledge of those who are truly of it and the miserable state of such that are bred up in any other courses Wherefore to repent of what you have been or done and to avoid or prevent such designs or calamity and to be heartily honest Dutiful and Loyal for the future You must be sincerely conformable to the Church of England studying it your selves and teaching others its Doctrines and Principles frequenting its Communion devoutly joyning in its Prayers and doing every thing that becomes a sincere Conformist and a true Churchman And thus as you have heard are you to manifest your Repentance First by an utter renouncing your former ways and practices that have been any ways Factious or Seditious Secondly to become heartily Loyal and dutiful to the King Thirdly sincerely and strictly Conformable to the Church And as we just now pray'd may God to this end take from them all their Prejudices and all their Passions their confident mistakes their carnal ends and their secular interests and open their eyes that they may see at least in this their day the things which belong to their peace and soften the most obdurate heart into a meek humble and docible temper that they may no longer resist the truth bow down the stiff neck and the iron sinew take away the brow of brass and the whores forehead sweeten if it may be the gall of bitterness and loose the bands of iniquity and guide their feet into the ways of peace 4. After which you will be fit and ready for the Fourth and last advice which is to shew your Repentance by joyning with us in returning Praise and Thanksgiving to Almighty God for this great Deliverance for I dare say whoever is heartily thankful to God for this Mercy and Blessing was either altogether unconcern'd in those horrid designs from which we are thus deliver'd or does sincerely repent of them Let us therefore with one heart and voice glorifie God by giving him the honour due unto his Name The sole glory of our deliverance That we acknowledge it to be the Lords doing and the day which the Lord hath made And let us endeavour to express our gratitude not only with our lips but in our lives by giving up our selves to his service and studying to serve him all the days of our lives For the Lord your God he it is that fighteth for you Take good heed therefore unto your selves that ye love the Lord your God Josh 23. 10 11. And now I cannot instance in any one thing that does so much manifest our Religious Duty and Thankfulness together as that of Charity and Beneficence to the Poor the great obligation of a Christian at all times but peculiarly necessary and almost indispensable at a solemn time of Praise or Thanksgiving Were your Charity which we now beg of you for our Poor large or bountiful it would be but a slender return for this present Deliverance and the Mercies we enjoy by it However 't is an acknowledgment of God's goodness towards us which therefore we cannot omit without being insensible of his mercies or ungrateful for them May none of you therefore slight or neglect such a fair seasonable and blessed opportunity of shewing your selves Thankful to God Loyal to the King and Charitable to the Poor FINIS
actions but of mortal and damnable sins and does it prompt them to suitable acknowledgments and expressions in Mourning Sorrow and Lamentation for this which is to us a good day a day of Joy and rejoycing to such as these should be a day of sorrow and humiliation not as some may make it because the mischief did not succeed but for their being any ways concern'd or instrumental in it for it will be your most aggravated crime and condemnation if you yet continue your obstinacy And ye when ye had seen it repented not afterwards So that this great goodness of God in our present most gracious deliverance should now at length prevail upon such who were concern'd in the Rebellion or any ways favourable to it to be sincerely penitent for their great sin in this case Though God knows and with sorrow we speak it their obstinacy appears even yet to be very great and almost incorrigible And ye when ye had seen it repented not afterward In speaking on this Subject I shall consider I. What it is in the case before us that should prevail with men to repent where we shall remember the great mercy and goodness of God in some of our late Deliverances II. The persons that yet continue Impenitent III. The little or no grounds or reasons we have to believe them Penitent Notwithstanding IV. The great cause they have to be so at this time or occasion V. We shall lay down the more particular signs or tokens of their Repentance which we may and do justly expect from them I. Were we to consider the several mercies favours and deliverances God has bestowed upon us the time would fail us to speak of them However we may very usefully for a while entertain our selves on this point by representing to you some short account of those many and great deliverances God has given us from these Phanatical Republican Spirits that are near at hand or fresh in our remembrance 1. And here we might in the first place bring to Your minds the Great Rebellion which some of you have known or been concerned in which cannot but call to our minds the dismal Scene of a most distrest and unhappy Nation overwhelm'd with Blood Ruin and Confusion both in Church and State and will be evermore black and remarkable for that most horrid murder of the best of Kings But how good and gracious was God towards us even in the midst of this great Calamity for that good Prince who is lately gone to his long home and our present Soveraign that were the great sufferers in those times and chiefly aimed at were wonderfully preserv'd in great dangers by land and by water and at length brought to succeed and sit in their rightful Inheritance And indeed when we consider the present we have great reason to call to mind and bewail those rebellious times for These among us have been some of the very same men that were then notorious for this villany and is no doubt the self-same Phanatical Spirit that runs through all these designs which is and ever will be addicted to Treachery and Rebellion So that we do in a great measure owe all or most of our present Sects Factions or Parties to those times These being the Tares now grown up that the Devil did then sow among the Wheat 2. The next remarkable deliverance from this sort of men is very legible in that impious design of Excluding our present Prince from What was inviolable by the strictest laws of God and Nature A design full of Ingratitude and Irreligion Therein more resembling a Fanatick contrivance He that had suffer'd such hard things for his Countries good and was banish'd from his own home He that had ventur'd his own life and lost his dear Royal Father in the defence of Truth and a good Cause He who when restor'd to his own Country and native soil would yet again resolutely hazard himself in a most dangerous Naval fight He that has often ventured his life for the defence of this Nation must now for a requital be debar'd from that his most undoubted and inviolable Right in it What an unparallell'd baseness and ingratitude is this and such as will be a lasting shame to the Impenitent Promoters and Abettors of it in all ages Being withal most unchristian prophane and impious contrary to our Solemn Oaths and all the obligations both of Scripture and Conscience So that for the honour of our Nation and Religion too all honest Loyal Churchmen must look upon and bless God for our deliverance from that impious unchristian and truly Fanatick Conspiracy 3 Which brings us to consider a Third Instance of their wicked designs and our great deliverance That of the Rye Conspiracy being the result of their disappointment in their former design for when the pretence of Law would not effect their business now comes out That their black hellish contrivance of Murdering the Royal pair after a most dismal and horrid manner which when one of the design'd Actors in it did openly confess He acknowledgeth himself to be a Hearer of the Baptists Independents and Presbyterians Now we cannot but look upon this to be a most Providential and remarkable Instance of Gods wonderful mercy and deliverance towards us A sudden fire hastning Their return before the Villans were ripe and prepar'd for that horrid execution 4 And now as a branch and consummation of that and all their other Plots let us as behoves us consider and reflect upon our deliverance from their late horrid traiterous Conspiracy that unnatural open Rebellion for which we are now especially to magnifie the Lord and exalt his Name together I shall not need surely to spend much time in shewing you the heinousness of all Rebellion and this in particular having done it already in some late Discourses only let us remember that our Religion our Prince the lives of all honest men and whatever is dear to us in this world were in danger by the designs of these ambitious restless and bloud thirsty men To whom had God given us over as a prey as our sins most justly deserved our bloud would have been spilt like water upon the ground we must have lost all that is dear to us in this world and we should have been overwhelmed in a deluge of Sects and Heresies of wars and confusions of which we could not have expected to see any other issue than the final ruin and destruction of this Kingdom and God's Church among us This is in short the account of our deliverance or the grounds of our Joy for it and certainly if any thing can make us truly chearful and pleasant and heartily thankful to God we have abundant reason to be so for this his present mercy and goodness towards us Who has so graciously rescu'd us from these most accursed and damnable designs contriv'd and carried on by the several Sects and Parties of pretended Religion the known and avowed enemies to the present