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A55776
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A sermon preached at Petworth in Sussex, September 9, 1683 being a day of solemn thanksgiving for the gracious and wonderful deliverance of the King, his royal brother, and the government from the late barbarous conspiracy, as trayterous / by John Price ...
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Price, John, 1625?-1691.
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1683
(1683)
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Wing P3337; ESTC R9268
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13,896
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27
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A SERMON Preached at Petworth in Sussex September 9. 1683. Being a day of Solemn THANKSGIVING For the Gracious and Wonderful Deliverance OF THE KING His Royal Brother And the GOVERNMENT From the late Barbarous CONSPIRACY As TRAYTEROUS By IOHN PRICE D. D. Concilia callida inhonesta primâ fronte laeta tractatu dura eventu tristia Tacitus LONDON Printed for Iohn Fish near the Fountain-Tavern in the Strand 1683. TO THE Truly Noble and Virtuous Lady ELIZABETH Dutchess of Sommerset MADAM YOur Grace upon the hearing of this ensuing Discourse was pleased to do me that unexpected Honour as to desire the Publication of it which by me ought dutifully to be interpreted as a Command you judging it might be beneficial to others beyond the Walls of this Parish-Church Which if it shall prove so let God have the Glory and Your Grace the Thanks All that I desire from the Reader is Candor and Pardon Madam Your natural and acquired Accomplishments Your Hereditary Honour and Estate brought you early upon the Stage and soon after into some afflictions in which I had a share in my thoughts for You but they have been such as have rendred You Prudent beyond Your years for You are so in my esteem without Flattery Your Grace hath chosen for Your Husband a young Noble-man who is the second Peer for Dignity in the Realm excepting the Royal Line whose Loyalty is well known among us and whose influence together with Your Graces may be able in Your Stations to encourage Loyalty and to discountenance Faction which to do is not onely the duty of the Nobility and Gentry but their interest too and indeed of every man who can call an Acre of Ground his own Madam as I did always and ever shall sincerely Honour Your Grace so I beseech God to Bless You with all Spiritual Blessings and that to those for this Life he would add the Blessings of Children to inherit them Madam I ask leave to be Your Graces Most Devoted and Dutiful IOHN PRICE 1 Corinth 10.10 Neither murmur ye as some of them also murmur'd and were destroyed of the Destroyer BEcause His Majesties Declaration represents to us the Methods contrived by Malevolent men to destroy his Sacred Person and his Royal Brother and subvert his Government which of all Governments that are nigh or known unto us is the most easie to the Subject not excepting the Democratical so admired of late but falsely as factiously called Common-wealths as exclusive of Kingdoms where the Soveraigns are not the sole Proprietors And of all Soveraign Princes known to us his present Majesty hath been most kind and indulgent to his People as many of them have owned by their publick Addresses which were seasonable Remonstrances of their Loyalty Withal the Declaration notifies to us what must have been the ill consequences of the Conspiracy had it taken effect I have therefore chosen to discourse to you from this Text wherein the Apostle bids the murmuring Corinthians look back upon the murmuring Israelites in the wilderness against their Leaders who had soon forgot their long oppression and cruel bondage in Egypt and their miraculous deliverance from it by the hands of Moses and Aaron as soon as we have forgot the Calamities of a long Civil War and the heavy oppressions that we felt and complained of from usurping Governours and our deliverance from them by the most happy Restauration of our King where the hand of God was most eminently seen as eminently as any humane record can produce would I allow my self time to survey it in all it's circumstances or were it for me proper now to do it But scarce was our Soveraign restored and with him our Laws and Religion and Peace at home but we were discontented at our own happiness Neither the sense of a Natural Allegiance nor the Sacred Tyes of Oaths nor Preferments nor Honours nor Riches could keep some men in the dutiful station of Subjects who from a false esteem they had gained for their wisdom and integrity to their Countrey as Patriots of it had inveigled great Parties to tread in the same footsteps of Disloyalty and to use the same measures to disturb the Throne and so our Peace as before had been done in the late Kings days all the same with the additional contrivance of the Black Box c. which were so publickly taken notice of that the late Lord Chancellour spake to this purpose to both Houses of Parliament That he hoped they would not see Three Kingdoms twice destroyed in one Age by the same Methods Examples are cogent Arguments if men are in their wits they will not fall into the same pit into which they have seen others fall before them even beasts will not do it be the bait what it will So St. Paul would have the Corinthians take warning from the Israelites whose Murmurings and Discontents are recorded in Scripture and recorded there not only to upbraid their ingratitude but as the Apostle speaks v. 11. These things happened to them for ensamples and they are written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the world are come Neither murmure ye as some of them c. Solomon gives a Caveat Say not thou What is the cause that the former days were better than these for thou dost not inquire wisely concerning this matter The murmuring Questionists of his age had the like before them and they have been since and ever will be so long as time is men will complain of the times and the little portion of happiness that God gives us in this life is disturbed by our own restless and repining nature by comparing the present with the former and because the former is past it is therefore better Any little petty accident at present doth more disturb us than a load that is past and gone off our Shoulders Israel was under the miraculous protection and deliverance of Heaven but wants some little convenience and presently we read of a loud and clamorous murmuring Would to God we had died in Egypt The hard bondage they had felt in Egypt was gone off now and the want but of a meals meat in the wilderness put them to murmur against God and their Governours As if it were not enough that man was born to labour as the sparks fly upward but we adde sparks to the fire When we are Children and under the Discipline of the Rod we complain that we were not born sooner and past the correction of our Master and when we are old we think we were never so happy as when we were Children indeed we are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The phansies that pleased us we are soon weary of and seek for new something it is that would please us better but what it is we know not Navibus atque Quadrigis petimus benè vivere c. This is not only a froward distemper whereby we create miseries to our selves but 't is a sin too though but little taken notice
in sending of them for he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the Children of men but if we repine and are impatient under correction there is for us a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as St. Chrysostom told his Auditors God may deal with us more severely than with Israel for we live in a fuller light and a greater experience on whom the ends of the World are fallen The aim of Israel was an Earthly Canaan our's is a Heavenly but we must pass through a Wilderness to the one as they did to the other but if God hear of our murmurings in it take care that he doth not Swear in his wrath to us as once to them If they shall that is we shall not enter into his rest The punishments that God afflicts on us we must patiently abide which if we do 't is to us a Signature of our adoption that we are Sons and not Bastards who will own him to be our Father which is in Heaven and so pray to him when he Corrects us with his Rod as well as when he Comforts us with his Staff But we have no reason to complain at any outward Calamities at this time but we have much to thank God for the peace and plentie we do enjoy There are scarce any parts of Christendom so unmolested as we are of whom some are now contending unto bloud for their Lives Liberties and Religion against the Mahometans My Brethren I will close with that of the Apostle Do all things without murmurings and disputings yea and suffer all things which God hath not put in our power by regular means to redress However make no complaining in our Streets until there be actual leading into Captivity for that is to exceed the example of Israel Fears and Jealousies in our Nation hath even anticipated our miseries and we brought real mischiefs upon our selves by hastning to prevent the phansied In a word the murmuring of Israel was against Moses and Aaron that is the King and the Priest which God took as done against himself Be wise before it be too late lest we fall into the hands of the Destroyer For the Declaration saith thus In case it had pleased God to permit these wicked designes to have taken effect there could have been nothing in prospect but confusion For instead of a Reformation they pretended their Success would have produced Divisions and Wars among themselves until the predominant party could have enslaved the whole Kingdom So far the Declaration Such intestine broyls might have brought in an Invasion indeed There were some years since Libellous Pamphlets under the Allegory of a Ship and its Officers in which the King the Duke c. were covertly traduced Allow me to speak under the like Suppose a Ship out at Sea many Leagues from Land in which a Conspiracy was made by some Male-contended Saylors and under Officers against the Captain and others but the Captain had so many true to him that with them and his Authority he still so kept them in awe that they durst not attempt an open Mutiny Wherefore these Male-contents secretly joyn in a Conspiracy to sink the Ship and for their escape to hoyse out the Long-Boat under some colour as the Mariners did Acts 27. Suppose now the Ship with the Captain and his friends were sinking and the Conspirators had cleared their Boat of the Ship and were safe in it rejoycing to see that their Plot and Revenge had taken effect The next thing they contrive for themselves is to agree what Land to make some are for directing their Course East some West c. In this difference they could not agree what Land to make but the case was such that the determination must be speedy but neither yeilding to each others conceit what Shore was nearest or best from words they fall to Blows So here I leave them and the Allegory to be applyed by every common capacity Wherefore let us bless God for the Deliverance we this day are required to celebrate and let us beseech him still to protect our Soveraign Lord the King and His and his Government as now it is in Church and State to convert those who have taken up any prejudices against either and to disappoint all the machinations open or secret of the Enemies of our peace which God continue among us FINIS Eccles. 7. Prov. 6.19 Exod. 15.24 v. 7. v. 10. Numb 11. Numb 11.4 v. 33. v. 10. 2 Pet. 1.9 Phil. 2.14