Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n
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A51229
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A sermon preach'd before the King at St. James's, April 16, 1696 being a day of publick thanksgiving for the discovery of a horrid design to assassinate His Majesty's person, and for the deliverance of the Nation from a French invasion / by ... John, Lord Bishop of Norwich.
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Moore, John, 1646-1714.
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1696
(1696)
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Wing M2554; ESTC R321
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17,039
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38
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A SERMON Preach'd before the KING AT St. JAMES's April 16. 1696. Being a Day of Publick Thanksgiving for the Discovery of a Horrid Design to Assassinate His Majesty's Person And for the Deliverance of the Nation from a French Invasion By the Right Reverend Father in God JOHN Lord Bishop of NORWICH Published by His Majesty's Special Command LONDON Printed for Will. Rogers at the Sun over-against St. Dunstan's Church in Fleetstreet MDCXCVI The Bishop of NORWICH's THANKSGIVING-SERMON Before the KING AT St. JAMES's April 16. 1696. A SERMON Preach'd before the KING at St. JAMES's PSALM L. 15. I will deliver thee and thou shalt glorify me THE Goodness of God which inclined him to create so great a number of Beings of whose Service he could have no want having all Perfections contained in his own Nature and essential to it moved him ever since they did exist to preserve them Among the Creatures of several Kinds and Ranks which God brought into the World to some he gave a Capacity to discover his Being and that he was the Maker of all things and did conserve and govern them who by considering the Works of his Creation and either viewing them singly or comparing them together must discern Wise Design Exact Order Mutual Fitness and Subserviency one to another every where among them and thence necessarily conclude that the Author of all these Productions is endued with Infinite Power Wisdom and Goodness and that it is most reasonable for them who have receiv'd so Noble a Nature from him to reverence love and honour him for it But what he did enable his Creatures to find out by their Reasoning Faculties he has manifested more fully to them by Revelation as well what concerns the Excellency of his own Nature as what relates to them and their Dependency upon him He has taught them that he is their Sovereign Lord of whom they hold all and that it is their Duty to worship and praise him for his Loving-kindness that as he only can furnish them with the common Supports of Life so they are to pray to him for them that as he will rescue them out of danger so they ought humbly to recommend themselves to his Care and Protection and after he has made a way for their Escape heartily to return him Thanks for their Deliverance Thus to be grateful to our Principal Benefactor is not only agreeable to Natural Light and Justice but the great Law of our Religion I will deliver thee and thou shalt glorify me In the Text these Two Propositions are plainly contained 1. That Deliverances are from God 2. That it is our Duty to glorify and honour him for them In treating of the first I will shew 1. That all Deliverances are from God 2. That some are more evidently so as having the plain and visible Marks of his Hand impress'd upon them 1. That all Deliverances are from God Before I enter upon the Proof of which I would premise 1. That this Assertion does not imply That God will deliver us if we do nothing our selves towards obtaining our Safety he has promised that his Grace shall attend and promote our honest Endeavours but gives no ground to the idle and negligent to hope for his help who will make no use of their Natural Powers derived from him for their own Preservation 2. Neither from hence does it follow That God will encourage men in the pains they themselves take to get out of Trouble if they do not humbly address to him for his help The calling upon him in the day of trouble being the express Condition upon which he will deliver us 3. Nor though men pray vehemently to God have they the least reason to expect he will fetch them out of those Dangers they have run themselves into by being engaged in any wicked Design Should Robbers Pyrates Murderers Assassines Traytors to their King and Countrey pray for the Success of their Villany and that they may escape the Stroke of Justice God would be so far from granting their Petitions that he would take their Prayers for a new Injury and Affront and abhor their Sacrifice as much as their Sin 4. Neither are these things to be so strictly understood as if the wicked should never escape out of any danger for they sometimes may call upon God and he may have so much regard to their Prayers as to take them out of the hands of their Enemies who may be worse than themselves to induce them to repent and return to him and their Duty they may humble themselves before God and he defer the Calamity to a further time which he had threatned to bring presently upon them Thus upon the Humiliation of Ahab who did evil above all that were before him God delays the Execution of the Judgment he had denounced against his House unto the days of his Son Moreover very bad men sometimes do deeds of Charity and Mercy and God suffers their few Good Works for a season to cover their many Evil ones so that they are not always brought immediately to Light and Punishment God also may permit the Wicked to succeed in their Evil Designs in order to correct and reform his own People when they trust more in the Arm of Flesh than in God their Saviour and when upon any loss or disappointment they grow uneasy and ungrateful and do not retain a due sense of his great and manifold Mercies Lastly The Wicked often do prosper and are suffer'd to climb high not out of kindness to them but that their fall may be the greater and that the Divine Vengeance may be the more conspicuous in their final overthrow These things being premised I proceed to observe That Deliverances are of several sorts both with respect to them for whom they are wrought and with respect to the Evils from which they set us free Some are confined to single Persons or reach but to private Families or Towns and some extend to whole Countreys and Nations indeed to all the Race of Mankind as that Transcendent Deliverance in the Redemption of the World by our Lord Jesus Christ And as the Redemption Christ did purchase for us with his Blood was the most comprehensive taking in the whole Stock of Men so was it the most valuable as rescuing us from the power of Sin which brought the Wrath of God upon us and from the wages of Sin everlasting Punishment which is the greatest of Evils As to single Persons God guards their Souls against the Designs of their spiritual Enemies the World the Devil the Flesh either by keeping them out of the way of the Tempters or by enabling them to overcome their Temptations so as they shall not be hurt or led captive by them It is also to the Goodness of God that particular men owe the preservation of their Health Life Reputation and Estates He defends their Lives from the malignity of Diseases from the covetousness of Oppressors who would kill that they
our Enemies insomuch that if we had had them in our own keeping and cou'd have made them move according to our mind we shou'd have been expos'd to the utmost hazard of being over-run by a foreign Enemy Wherefore if we have no command over many of those Causes which bring of stop Victories and that contribute to the safety or destruction of Kingdoms and if we had any Influence might often use it to our own disadvantage let us look to God from whom comes our help Let us adhere to him in all the Changes of Life to whose Goodness and Power we must attribute the Beginning the Increse and the Accomplishment of all our Virtuous Designs let us beg his Guidance in our Undertakings and his Blessing upon them without which they will come to nothing and glorifie him as for all his Mercies so particularly for this our Deliverance We come now to consider by what Actions we shall glorifie God acceptably for these his gracious Dispensations and make such Returns as will please him 1. We glorifie God by a sincere acknowledgment that he as has been prov'd is the Author of our Preservation and that it was the Work of his Providence that our Enemies were discover'd and put to shame and that we have escaped out of the Snare they had laid for us We must with thankfulness confess that all our own Cares and Projects wou'd not have been sufficient to preserve us had not God appear'd on our side and that with less Preparations our Enemies might have destroy'd us had not he fought against them God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the saints and to be had in reverence of all them that are round about him In thy name shall they rejoyce all the day and in thy righteousness shall they be exalted For thou art the glory of their strength in thy favour our horn shall be exalted For the Lord is our defence and the Holy One of Israel is out King Psal 89. 7 16 17 18. 2. We honour God by stirring up in our minds a true Sense of the Mercies we own he has done for us We glorifie him when we reflect upon his Works with Pleasure and Joy and have entire satisfaction in his administration of the Affairs of the World when we heartily believe his Government to be Wise and Merciful and that the crossest Dispensations will turn to and end in the Advantage of his faithful Servants There must be an agreeableness in all the Motions and Inclinations of our Hearts to the sense we have of God's kindness After such large Experiments of Faithfulness and Care we ought not to distrust his Providence in any future Difficulty or Danger and when any unreasonable Fear begins to lay hold of us we must endeavour to banish it by Reflections on the great things he has done sor us already Neither ought we to repine at the Expences which are necessary for the defence of our Country nor to murmur at Grievances which the wisest Governments have never been able wholly to prevent since how great soever they seem to us they bear no Comparison with the wonderful Mercies we have receiv'd 3. We glorifie God when we are not content only with cherishing a secret Sense of it in our Souls but when we testifie before Men what marvellous Kindness he has shewn to us when we lay hold of every opportunity to publish it to others that our Friends our Neighbours and all good People may rejoyce together with us and hence be encouraged to trust in God and to cast their Care upon him But the highest Testimony of Publick Thankfulness is to assemble our selves in the House of God and with united Hearts and Lips to set forth his Praise And if we do bring Minds fill'd with Love and Gladness our Christian Sacrifice will ascend up into Heaven with a sweet savour such as God will graciously receive And the Angels who shew so much Joy at the Conversion of Sinners will be much more delighted with the Triumphs of the Saints in ascribing Glory to God 4. We glorifie God by endeavouring to preserve in our Memories these Deliverances of his whereof at present we have so lively a Sense So that neither Business nor Pleasure nor length of Time may wear them out of our Minds It will pass for a true Mark of the Honour we have for God that his Favours have made so deep an Impression in us as will last all the Days of our Life And when also we convey the History of them down to our Posterity and afford them Matter of Thanks to render to him for the glorious Works of his Providence done not only in their own time but in the Days of their Fathers Thus what the people of Israel had heard or known or their fathers had told them they were bound not to hide from their children but to shew to the generations to come the praises of the Lord and his strength and his wonderful works that he had done that the generations to come might know them even the children which should be born who should arise and declare them to their children that they might set their hope in God and not forget the works of God but keep his commandments Psal 78. v. 3 7. 5. We glorifie God by our humble Confession that we did not deserve the great and many Deliverances he has wrought for us but that they were wholly due to his infinite Goodness Such a sincere Acknowledgment cuts off all pretence of Right to his Mercy and the more we exclude our own Merit the higher we exalt God's free Grace And surely it much enhances the Kindness manifested in our present Escape that God has snatch'd us an ungrateful People from the Brink of Ruin who are so far from having any Claim to his Favours as having served him better than others that we must ascribe it to his infinite Goodness and Mercy that the open Prophaness avowed Irreligion monstrous Unthankfulness of so many amongst us have not yet provoked him to give us up not only to our Lusts but to the Fury of our bitter and implacable Enemies 6. We glorifie God by letting the Mercies he has bestow'd on our Country incline us to Love and Charity and to be reconciled to one another It is natural to imitate the Examples of those we have in the highest esteem and if we really honour God in our Souls we shall strive to do like him in all Instances wherein Creatures can copy after their Creator By forgiveness of Injuries by healing of Breaches and renewing of Friendships we do that good to one another which God has extended to us all and make our Behaviour much to resemble his No course like this will fix and continue his Favour among us and encrease our strength to resist our Enemies As nothing will more discourage and ruine the designs of wicked Men against us than the firm Union of our Minds and Affections so nothing has