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A62951
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Innocency no shield against envy A sermon preached on Friday, April 11. being the fast-day appointed by the Kings proclamation to seek reconciliation with God, &c. By George Topham, rector of Boston in Lincolnshire. Perused and approved of by the right Reverend father in God, Thomas, Lord Bishop of Lincoln.
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Topham, George, d. 1694.
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1679
(1679)
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Wing T1906; ESTC R220703
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23,634
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then I would have hid my self from him But it was thou a man mine equal my guide and mine acquaintance c. thou whom I had honoured thou whom I had preferred thou whose growing greatness knew no Rivality But David had his faults and great ones too for which he was punished It is true he had so but none to provoke his People to disobedience they were private and personal not of publick Concernment his Government was just and moderate never taxed by God as his faults and if this must be assigned a just cause for disturbance that they were governed by a Man not by an Angel by one subject to humane infirmities like themselves all the World would be in a flame and none left to rule in peace What has the Subject to do with the private failings of his Prince He that was King of Israel was accountable to none but the God of Israel and therefore he says Psal li. 4. Against thee thee only have I sinned and well he might say so for as to the people entrusted to his charge he was so upright and discreet in the managing his honour and power that he gave them no offence So equal in his Justice so obliging in his Favours that he committed no fault against them And so I pass to the last particular proposed Davids resolution to praise God for delivering of him Vnto thee O my strength will I sing For thou O God art my refuge and my merciful God Where we may observe I. The Person resolving and that is David I will II. Of what he resolves and that is to sing Vnto thee O my strength will I sing III. The reason of this his Resolution For thou O God art my refuge and my merciful God First I will says this holy King and it was but his duty he in the first place he to lead the way he to give the example The deliverances were publick and he a publick person and so more concerned in them than any other yet all obliged too as well as he though not in so high a degree even in those dangers that aimed only at his Person As the Members for the Head if that be wounded all suffer with it And that the Israelites were very sensible of this see what an esteem they set upon Davids preservation 2 Sam. xviii 3. when that unnatural Absolom had blown the Trumpet of Rebellion and the warlike King was once more resolved to give his Subjects a further proof of his personal valour Thou shalt not go forth for if we flee away they will not care for us neither if half of us die will they care for us but now thou art worth ten thousands therefore it is better that thou succour us out of the City If the King be safe the Nation is secure and when he has cause to sing if he say I will it is then a shame and folly too as well as sin for the Subjects to be silent so to mind our Private as if we had no relation to the Publick no obligation to mourn for to endeavour to remove National Calamities Or to sing and rejoyce for publick mercies and deliverances since that is each particulars interest and therefore as every man is concerned in the benefit every man must betake himself to the duty that is thankfulness Vnto thee O my strength will I sing The next particular If Gratitude be within something will appear without if there be that apprehension that estimation of the blessing as it deserves it cannot be kept shut in the heart no more than fire in the bosom Gods glory and his delivering from dangers will make a good man speak even when terrour it self hath commanded silence In Luke xi 14. our Saviour cast out a dumb devil and the dumb spake and the people wondred Many are possessed I am afraid in this Age of ours with this dumb devil So that to hear one of them sing forth the praises of the Almighty for his deliverances would make all the people wonder The Tongue was principally given you know to set forth his praise and glory and it concerns us to use it accordingly we offend we pull down Judgments by it and it is but meet we give thanks with it for our deliverances else we have but dull resentments of his Favours And therefore says this Princely Prophet Vnto thee O my strength will I sing For thou O God art my refuge and my merciful God That David look'd upon God to be his Asylum his refuge and his only sanctuary of defence his many Psalms penned as the records of his gratitude sufficiently enform us Deliver me says he Psal xxxiv 19. O God for vain is the help of man And in the height of distress he cries out Psal xxv 22. Deliver Israel O God out of all his troubles It was Rabshakehs blasphemy Isa xxxvi 20. What God can deliver out of my hand What God He found it to his cost Till Lot be escaped not a spark must kindle The impartial Sword must not touch Rahab nor the destroying Angel offer a blow to the sprinkled doors Those Ministers of Justice Ezek. ix 4. have an Inkhorn as well as a Sword An Inkhorn first to mark the chosen and then to go and smite It were endless to multiply proofs out of Scriptures which are but the Registers of his Providence and you cannot look besides them there And it is no less apparent unto reason for that finds there is a God and from thence concludes a Providence So that should I lead you out of the Church into the Schools of the Heathens of all sorts you will find them by the very instinct and light of Nature asserting the same truth ever ascribing all good successes to their Daemons and accordingly giving thanks courting them with Sacrifices and Holy days dressing their Images with Garlands and devoting part of their spoils taken for the maintenance of their Worship and making magnificent their Temples But unto what times O Lord hast thou reserved us For to our great shame and greater grief be it spoken Have we not some in these days I fear many more heathenish than the Heathens who will not allow God to govern in his own House to have the managery of his own Family that deny his taking care of things below and having the confidence to assert that he is so far from delivering us from dangers that he takes no cognizance how we come in or how we get out A perswasion that thwarts the common Notions of mankind that destroys that confounds the advancement of all noble resolutions that wholly makes void and ridiculous the duty we are about and indeed all other for it is totally destructive of all Vertue Religion and Government none of which can subsist or be long lived without a belief a sense a reverence of some Divine Power that does not only protect guard and defend us from dangers but that will be sure to call for an account of our
delight in bloud Let me rather direct the discourse to our selves the fault is our own if we perish Heaven has not nor will not be wanting if we do but our parts And therefore that Iniquity may never be our ruine that God may never repent of his protecting and delivering of us let us resolve for the future to be in good earnest Pious to our God Loyal to our King and Loving and Charitable one towards another Let our Repentance be a real 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a devesting of our selves of all those sinful habits with which we have provoked Heaven let each man rend his heart with sorrow for his own sins and the sins of his People let every man ransack his own soul and life and offer an holy violence to all those sinful Corruptions that may hinder heavens protecting of us and let not these resolutions end with the day let us not think it enough to forbear a meal or to hang down our heads like a Bull-rush for a day but let us break the bonds of wickedness and in a true contrition of soul vow and perform better obedience Let our Loyalty be such as it ought true and ingenuous let no murmurings nor complainings find entertainment in our breasts It is the trick of Mutineers of impenitent Covenanters to say the former days were better than these And if they once come to wear their teeth in their Tongues as Shimei did they will do what they can to have the Trumpet at their mouths as Sheba had Let not us that decry Romes Supremacy make a Pope of an Anarchy God himself says By me Kings Reign not by the Pope nor by the People In a word let us not be less free in exposing our Lives and Estates for the preservation of our King and Country than our Adversaries are to destroy both It is a pity but his Neck should hang in suspence with his Conscience in a halter who scruples to venture all for his King the Church and his Country Lastly Let us learn to be unanimous it is by our disunion our Enemies are so strong Were we but so wise as to stand as a City that is compact together and not fall out about Circumstances and Points of less moment while we agree in the main substance the Skirts of the Scarlet Whore had been rent to pieces ere this and the Walls of Babylon with the Trumpet of the Gospel would have long since fallen down as Jericho at those of the Sanctuary To conclude Let us keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace and though we may differ in Opinions let us not differ in our Affections but unite against these common Enemies of our Interest and make our hearty Prayers to God that he may still continue his mercies infatuate and defeat the Counsels of these our bloudy and unparallel'd Adversaries continue the light of the Gospel to us and our Posterity bestow his abundant blessings upon his Sacred Majesty and this present Parliament make us all happy here and eternally happy hereafter AMEN FINIS Books newly Printed for and sold by Thomas Fox at the Angel in Westminster Hall A Sermon preached at the Funeral of the Right Honourable William Lord Paget Baron of Beaudesert c. by John Heynes M.A. and Preacher of the new Church Westminster quarto stitch'd A seasonable advice to all true Protestants in England in this present posture of affairs discovering the present designs of the Papists c. by a sincere lover of his King and Country quarto stitch'd Holy Rules and Helps to Devotion both in Prayer and Practice in two parts Written by the Right Reverend Father in God Bryan Duppa late Lord Bishop of Winton in the time of his Sequestration Twelves bound The Legacy of the Right Reverend Father in God Herbert Lord Bishop of Hereford or a short determination of all Controversies we have with the Papists by Gods holy Word The second Impression Corrected with additions by the Author Quarto stirch'd Grand Cyrus compleat a Romance Folio Clelia a Romance Folio Dr. Peter Heylins Geography Folio Farindons Sermons in three Volumes Folio Pharamond a Romance Folio Queen Elizabeths last Speech and thanks to her last Parliament after her delivery from the Popish Plots c.