detests such wicked practices they might well gather that their courses are not warrantable or as some of them in indignation have blundred out that the Judge of all the world is become a Lutheran If we are as the same Author expostulates such damnable Hereticks as they would make us how comes it to pass that God so takes our part Is it possible that their Doctrine that is so Catholick or those Catholicks that are guided by an Infallible Head should venture so far and attain so little profess such Infallibility and be so often deceived sure if they were not given up to a spirit of delusion such palpable tokers of Gods Judgments against their proceedings and such manifestations of his Mercy towards us might breed at least a suspition in them that something is a miss and force them to a serious Examination to know where the cause lyeth They call much for a Judge of Controversies between them and us but why take they not notice how God hath time after time shewed himself a Righteous Judge pleading our cause and preventing their Plots but never more then in the preservation of our Religion and our selves on this day for never was Wickedness nearer being acted nor more strangely discovered nor effectually defeated then this was so that the Pit they have dug for others they have fallen into themselves How near this work of darkness was to have been brought to a fiery light judge you it was not according to Jonas Prophecy forty days nor four days nor scarce so many houres one night betwixt and but a part of that neither er'e the Terrible blow had been given and we destroyed the hand of wickedness was ready to have done the work before it was known to be lifted up the snare on our heels before it was discovered to be laid we might well say had we known it there was but a step between death and us all things were so ready and we so near being undone that these wretched Conspirators applaud themselves in their pregnant hopes and believe all their own The Letter said God and man was agreed to punish the wickedness of the times but stay man was agreed God was not blessed be his Name he was at but not of their Council he who is a present refuge stept in trapping them in their own snare and discovered his Justice in detecting their Mallice and indeed none but he could do it not man but the Devil devis'd it not man but God defeated it so that in this if in any thing the Lord was known as a just Judge Do but trace the several steps of the discovery and you will plainly see it was not it could not be any other but God himself that snared them in their worke and so brought it about by his wonderfull providence that he makes these very Traytors to be the betrayers of themselves For the discovery was made but the night before by the delivery of a monitory Letter written in an obscure stile and given by a Lackey crossing the street to the Lord Monteagle son and Heir to the Lord Morley wherein he is desired to Retire into the Country where he might expect the event with safety for tho there be no appearance of any stir yet I say they shall receive a terrible blow in this Parliament and the danger is past so soon as you have burnt the Letter which Letter my Lord Salisbury who first carried it to the King concluded to be an Idle Paper design'd only to amuse the Lord to whom it was written or to make him the subject of some mirth if upon it he should absent himself from the Parliament the Principal words were the danger is past as soon as you have burnt the Letter this might seem a slight danger indeed and not worth the warning if it had not been meerly to amuse one but the King on the contrary from this very sentence devin'd the whole Truth of the matter interpreting it thus That the danger or blow intended to the Parliament should be past as soon or as quickly and in as short a time as that Paper should be blazing in the fire So concluding it to be something of Powder the Rooms under the Parliament were searched and the whole Villany discovered and prevented and that by as signal a Providence as is to be found in the Records of any Nation and which is such a mark of the Divine favour to us and to our Church and Rellgion as can never be too much praised and admired by us in our Annual Thanksgivings Now I beseech you consider what was it that extorted the means of revealing this from his Pen whose Tongue had sworn Concealments that made him who was Plotting the ruine of many to consult for the preservation of one not any innate pity in the Traytor but the over-ruling Soveraignty of God What was it that inclined the heart of that noble Lord who affected their Religion to communicate the Letter which detected the Treason to the King not Popery or carnal policy but the all disposing Providence of God What was it that inspir'd I can call it no less the breast of that Royal King otherwise free from Jealousie as a badge of Tyrany to suspect the danger and by a violent unnatural construction of a phrase to find out the violent unnatural destruction that was hatching not so much his own prudence tho otherwise great but the wisedom of the Almighty What was it that infatuated the Traytors who while the Plot was but suspected had oppertunity to escape that they should try the utmost and afterwards sharpned the edg of all mens spirits against them to kill some and surprise the rest even before a Proclamation could overtake them but that just severity of God So that all the attributes of God were concentred and met together in this days deliverance and therefore not unto us not unto us O Lord but to thy name be the glory of this and all our deliverances for it is of the Lords Mercies that we were not consumed because his compassions faild not Lam. 3. 22. For if the Lord had not been in our side may we now well say if the Lord had not been in our side when men rose up against us the had blewn us up quick when their wrath and their match was kindled against us Psal 124 1 2 3 O let the Lords Mercy and their Cruelty never be forgotten The Israelites had their Pascha and Purim Holydays set apart for the acknowledgment of their grand deliverance from Pharaoh and Hamons Treason so let this days solemnity be continued with everlasting thankfulness for the miraculous discovery of the Powder Plot let the People learn from our Pulpits and our Children understand in our streets the barbarousness of this design the profession of the Actors the danger that would have fallen on their innocent heads if the Lord in judgment to the contrivers and in mercy to us had not prevented it and insnared
A SERMON PREACHED IN THE CATHEDRALL CHURCH OF St. PATRICK'S DUBLIN On the 5th of November 1690. Before the Right Honorable the LORDS JUSTICES of IRELAND By JOHN FINGLAS Prebend of St. Audoens DUBLIN Published by their Lordships Special Command Dublin Printed by Joseph Ray on Colledg-Green and are to be sold by the Booksellers in Dublin 1690. To the Right Honourable HENRY Lord SIDNEY Viscount SHEPPY and THO. CONNINGSBY Esq Lords Justices of IRELAND May it please your Lordships YOur Commands first gave the ensuing Discourse Life and now Publication as to the latter there is so little of my own in it that I can thereby design not so much the publication of it as of my obedience But that there is so little may I hope be believed was more out of choice then necessity for tho the notions of a Braine rufsted and disordered by a violent and tedious Distemper might fall short of any reasonable performance yet there is no invention so weak or barren but might upon such extraordinary occasion abound with more then ordinary productions But indeed considering our present circumstances I thought nothing more proper for that occasion then to lay open the Principle of that Church to which we are beholding for the design'd Treason of that Day And let their pretences to Loyalty be what they will yet they must give me leave to assert that where the Popes Supremacy is maintain'd there the King looses always so much in a Subject as his Holiness gains in him I am very far from the least design of exasperating your Lordships against any of that Profession now amongst us Your prudent Conduct of which they themselves are witnesses may I hope prove a more successfull instrument of their Reformation then Ruine and Power Your Lordships Zeal for the Truth without making use of either is already conspicuous enough and will yet more eminently appear in Commanding these Sheets that with so much plainness assert it to the Press Their dress I must submit to your Lordships favour but their truth to the greatest severity if in the former I have been so unhappy as to have done ill yet considering my present state I have the happiness that Charity may construe I might have done better Them together with my self I lay at your Lordships feet and beg leave to subscribe my self My Lords Your Lordships most Faithfull and Humble Servant John Finglass A SERMON Preach'd on the 5th of November 1690 Psal 21. latter part of the 11th verse They have imagined a mischievous device which they are not able to perform IF we call to mind the Mercy of this Day we may say of it as the four Lepers surprized with joy at the sudden vanishing and disapearance of the Syrians Army This day is a day of good Tidings and we should not do well to hold our Peace 2 King 7. 9. Should we hold our Peace the very Stones as our Saviour told the Pharisees troubled at the triumphing of the Disciples would Immediately cry out for if ever any People we if we for any Deliverance for this and if for this on any day much more on this day may well say and sing with the Psalmist in the words of the Text They have Imagined a mischievous Device which they are not able to perform Before I come particularly to the Text method requires that I disingage it from some connexion And that may be best done by casting a glance on the foregoing Psalm It is spent in Prayer for the King was penn'd by David and by him committed to the praesect of his Musick as a sorm to solicite God with in the troublesom times and days of Danger And removing your eye from that Psalm to this you will find this to stand as a Talley to the former containing a Form of Praise in return of the Mercies there prayed for what the Church begged of God in the foregoing they bless him for the receipt of in this psalm They are none of those Orators whom affliction only makes so who never cry but under the lash nor list up their hands to God but when he laies his hand upon them such as the Prophet tells us of Ila 26. 16. Lord in trouble have they visited thee they poured out a Prayer when thy chastening hand was upon them But even now when God hath remembred them they will not forget him now they are past danger they are not past duty now they are set out of hazard they set their hearts and tune their spirits to thanksgiving To beg of God when we are empty may speak Faith in the Heart but to bless him when we are full is the breathing of an excellent Spirit The Text then is a part of that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Triumphant Song sung by the Jews in acknowledgment of Gods goodness to David their King and in him to the whole Kingdom Pollicy or Common Wealth of Israel The sum or substance whereof I shall deliver in these two Conclusions First The Enemies of Gods Church and People are of a plotting devising and mischievous spirit and temper They have imagined a mischievous thing Secondly Let the wicked design what they will or plot what they can they shall not be able to accomplish their desire or design Which they are not able to perform First the Enimies of Gods Church and People are of a Plotting Designing Mischievous spirit and temper The Mischievous thing here designed was the overthrow of David and his People by the Forces of the Children of Ammon with the Auxiliaries of Syria under the Command of their Capt. General Shobach of which we read 2 Sam 10. But Davids Victory that this and the foregoing Psalm refer to plainly declare tho they imagined a mischievous device they were not able to perform It were easie to manifest this truth either by Scripture or the History of the Primitive times I could shew you that Gods People were no sooner owned to be so but they were soon oppressed for how did Pharao who prosessed that he knew not the Lord nor would hear his voice nor let the People go begin his Reign but by consulting how to keep Gods People under by heavy Burthens and hard Task-masters but when that succeeded not the more they were vext the more they increased he adds to the former cruelty a Charge that the Midwifes should kill all the Males of the Hebrews in their birth but neither did this prodigious cruelty prove so successful as he desired For the Text tells us that the Midwifes feared God and did not as the King Commanded them but preserved alive the Men Children Exod 1. 17. and therefore transported by rage as one that had lost Humanity itself he makes a more publick and general Law charging all his People that every Man child that was born they should cast into the River and Drown if V. 22. With what sury and violence after he had made them weary of their lives by sundry oppressions did he pursue them
the wicked in the work of their own hands and let us return all possible Praise and Thanksgiving to him who on this day mercifully declared himself both the Protector of Sion and a Detector of her Enemies Who should we praise if not God and for what if not for this I may use St. Augustines words quisquis non videt caecus est quisquis videt et non gaudet ingratus est whosoever beholds not both the mercy and severity of God in this is grosly blind whosoever beholds and rejoyceth not is ingratefully dumb O happy fifth of November wherein our Sun had been turned into blood wherein our name had been changed into Ichabod wherein had been set up again the abomination of desolation but God for his own name sake hath turned it into a glorious day a Day of Joy and Gladness to all true hearted Protestants Had this Monster which was come to the birth been brought forth England's Funeral had been with them a new Festival how had this Fact been extolled at Rome and Registred in the Popes Calendar as one of the most glorious exploits that ever was attempted How should we then instead of this pure worship these blessed opportunities we now enjoy either have been plunged into gross Superstition as adoring Images turning over Beads mumbling to Saints wandring in Pilgrimages or else have been dragged to the Rack or Stake the proper Engines of that Romish Cruelty But that God who still brings to light the hidden things of darkness and who hath from time to time delivered us from all the Malicious Merciless and Restless attempts of our Adversaries hath likwise blasted this bloody design so that though they imagined a mischievous device yet they were not able to perform To conclude all Let us beware of that Church whose Principles and Practices are such as you have now heard and from whose growing and cruel Usurpations we have been so lately and providentially delivered What shall we say or what can we do to manifest our gratitude to him who next under God was the Author of our deliverance who so generously exposed himself to preserve us and not only to him but to his Royal Consort our gracious Queen to whom we are originally beholding for our miraculous escape from an inundation of Slavery and Popery but under the auspicious conduct of a Sovereign truly meriting the Noble and Ancient Title of King of men and Shepherd of the People and the yet more dignified addition of Defender of the Faith and which is beyond that amongst us the restorer of it too For had it not been for them I verily believe that neither we nor possibly this place especially in this decorum and lustre had been standing here this day That Syons stones had been pittied and any have favoured the dust thereof so that she did not sink into eternal and irrecove rable Ruines Psal 102. 14. That our Church is not sitting solitary like that Widow in the Lamentations bemoaning her miseries and begging pitty of Passengers Is it nothing to you all you that pass by behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow which is done unto me wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his anger Lam 1. 12. That we have no leading into Captivity no complaining in our Streets but our eyes see Jerusalem a quiet habitation a Tabernacle that shall not be taken down That the Designs and Contrivances of unreasonable men are discovered their Purposes disappointed and their Arm broken That our Necks are not under persecution and we labouring without rest Servants ruling over us while there is none to deliver us out of their hands Lam Ch 5. 5. 8. In a word that we are not incomparably wretched as miserable as error and wickedness as malice or a misguided Zeal can make us is soelly and wholly next under God by and from them To whom likwise next under him we owe not only our Estates our Quiet our Plenty our Liberty but our very lives I could not forbear enlarging upon this but that I must not anticipate the day * being the 16th of this month appointed a Day of Solemne Thanksgiving for our deliverance which is at hand and purposely designed for it But while then and always let us admire them as the generous Redeemers of the true Reformed Religion as the truly indulging Father and Mother of our Church and Country and respect them as the Israelites did David the light of our Israel and as they did Josiah the breath of our Nostrils the serious acknowledgment whereof will not suffer us to be wanting in all submissive obedience to them whom God long continue over us and let all that love the Peace and happiness of Church or State say Amen Amen FINIS