Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n
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A47540
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The samaritan rebels perjured, by a covenant of association discovered in a sermon preach'd at the assizes holden at Northampton, March 30th, 1682 / by John Knight.
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Knight, John, 1651-1712.
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1682
(1682)
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Wing K688; ESTC R17067
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17,530
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39
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THE Samaritan Rebels PERJURED BY A Covenant of Association DISCOVERED IN A SERMON PREACH'D At the ASSIZES holden at Northampton March 30 th 1682. By JOHN KNIGHT M. A. late of New-Inn-Hall in Oxford and now Vicar of Banbury Printed for William Thorp Bookseller in Banbury in Oxfordshire and are to be Sold by Randal Taylor near Stationers-Hall London 1682. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE CHRISTOPHER Lord HATTON OBRIAN Lord CVLLEN The WORSHIPFUL HARVEY EKINS Esq High Sheriff of the County of Northampton And the Right Worshipfull Sir JOHN EDGERTON Bar t. Foreman with the Rest of the Baronetts Knights and Gentlemen of the Grand Inquest for the Assizes holden at Northampton March 30 th 1682. Right Honourable and Much Honoured IF it might be a competent Atonement for my Inflexible Disobedience to your just Commands I am not only willing to acknowledge my Fault but I have here publisht my Discourse to evidence my Repentance I no sooner indeed return'd from my Attendance upon your Honourable Assembly but shameful Reflections upon my Rudeness dogg'd me to my Home 'T is true your inimitable Indulgence allowed me to Capitulate when I should have Obey'd And I had leave to Trye my Discourse by the Judgement of the Right Reverend Bishop of Oxford an Ordeal I well hoped would have burnt it But thô I have some Years lived upon the Excesses of his Charity and have been surprized with Instances of his Favour too great for any thing but Heaven to recompence yet now I found a Censure I did not look for I found He had too high an Opinion of your Judgements to suffer or allow me even to seem to distrust them And now My Lords and you Right Worshipfull Prompted by the Patronage of so much Piety as Mortality can pretend to for such is his and actuated by so great a sence of Duty as I am capable of conceiving the necessity of my begging your Protection is doubly superseded I will be bold therefore to put this Print into your hands meerly with that design with which 't was dictated to your Ears only to Inform Convince or to Confirm The Argument I hope will defend it self whatever Enemies it may meet to oppose it That it will find none I am not so fond to imagine having already heard the Eccho of their Calumnies Complements peculiar to some men * Quod scelus perpetrari cùm de talibus benè audiam whose kind Resentments of an Honest Discourse are enough to blast its deserved Reputation There is a Praise which sheds a disgrace a villanous Commendation that ruines the Credit it offers to support as an Encomium upon Religion given by an Atheist is a mischievous Satyr against all Virtue Wherefore as I can scorn their Flattery so can I bid defiance to their Envy having the Felicity of a Forehead of Flint to obviate those of Brass But since the Reverence I had for Truth and the Awfull regard it influenc't me with in the composing and speaking this Sermon as also the Deference made to it by that Honourable and Reverend Assembly it was spoken to Since I have found all these too thin a shield to defend either my self or it I will here offer at a justification of both My design it 's said was my own Preferment not charitable Edification nor the Glory of God My Matter and Managery too intolerable to endure the Hearing As to the First thô I have ever been a Dissenter from the Doting World and thought such Shrines too poor for such a Sacrifice as my Conscience yet I have no provocation to invade the Honour of the Almighty with them by searching to find out the Hypocrisie of their Hearts But however I am glad to hear that they grow Jealous Religious Loyalty has such Encouragement for 't is not long since things lookt as if That Virtue had been the wrong way to promotion And had not the Star that directed me been in Heaven there was a Sun newly †Or rather Setting For we that are on this side the Line can behold the Sun in such a Position onely as that its Rising and Motion is from our Left to the Right Hand But the Medal shews it so as past the Meridian and in its Declension From whence I collect That either this Planet of the Gravers was to be supposed to be of an Irregular motion and unheavenly or 't was design'd for a Foreign Plantation under or beyond the Line where it might be imagined Rising and so Adored as Carolina or those parts of the World or else the Almighty was so concerned at the Carvers Blasphemy that he thought fit to over-rule the Project and make the Frame it self the Prognostick of the Idols fall Risen whose Votary I might have been with greater assurance of a Popular Reputation I mean that Idol lately out in Plate which presents you with a Sun breaking out of a Cloud suppose it a Cloud of Guilt and a magnificent City under it beneath which you read Laetamur as if their Dwellings had been but Triumphal Arches Erected to the Honour of the Malevolent Planet and the very Foundations of their Houses joyfully affected with the Reappearance of their Guardian Deity Now if this Comment be Analogous to the Text then is it possible for the Metropolis of the Land to Honour the Genius of a profligate Rebel more than they Revere the Lord or his Anointed And consequently the likelier Doctrine to have got Preferment had been the Reverse of this I have here publisht These Samaritan perjur'd Tribes should have had my Justification and the Villany I censure should have been celebrated by my praise As to the Matter I delivered here it is and more for I was so strictly caution'd against a tedious Discourse that I omitted some few Periods which I have here supplyed but not a Tittle of that I heard objected to by my Audience If there be any Errour it is not malicious and therefore as I will gratefully resent Conviction so by the Charter of Humane Society I will demand a Pardon The Truth is the Enemies I have known to speak against this or the last Discourse I delivered in the same place upon the same Occasion are such as are desperately guilty or men that shew you Heads like those upon Clipt Money without Letters Nor can I conceive there are any so lewd as to Remonstrate against what I have here said concerning Perjury by a Covenant of Association but such as have been disciplin'd under the Paedagogy of the Delphick Devil and therefore are never to be reclaimed by any Dictates from the Oracles of God Wherefore as Constantine once * Socrat. lib. 1. cap. 7. said to Acesius the Heretick Quaere tibi Scalam ad Coelum solus ascende so must I declare That be the Advocates of Perjury and Rebellion what they will I would not be in Heaven in their Company except those Impieties were Repented and Forgiven And now My Lords c. If I have not more