Selected quad for the lemma: power_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
power_n	king_n	parliament_n	sovereign_a	5,223	5	9.3738	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A45350	A sermon preached in the cathedral and metropolitical church of St. Peter of York, on Thursday the fourteenth of February, 1688/9 being the day appointed by the lords spiritual and temporal, assembled at Westminster, for a publick thanksgiving to Almighty God, for having made His Highness the Prince of Orange, the glorious instrument of the great deliverance of this kingdom from popery and arbitrary power / by George Halley ...	Halley, George, 1655 or 6-1708.	1689 (1689)	Wing H454; ESTC R6579	12,462	36

Princes What great Reason then have we to magnify Divine Providence What an obligation do we all lie under to pay all imaginable respect all possible gratitude to the Lord who hath Redeem'd us from Popery and Slavery from a Remorseless Bloody and Treacherous Religion Let us give thanks whom the Lord hath so wonderfully delivered from the hand of the enemy We have the best Religion the best constituted Government in the whole world a Religion which meer flesh and blood never revealed a Religion that is retrench'd from all False Doctrine and Superstitious Practices a rational Religion a reasonable Service against which our Roman adversaries have no exception But that it preferrs the written Word before uncertain Traditions and the all-sufficient blood of Jesus Christ before the impure and imperfect works of Mortal Men. A Government too incomparable for its constitution the legislative Power is so lodg'd that nothing can be Enacted without the King and Parliament thus as the inferiour Orbs do by their transverse and opposite motions stay and moderate the rapid force of the primum mobile or first Sphere so Parliaments by their Fabian Counsels do temper and moderate the quick motion of Sovereign Power All our Laws and Decrees by which we are govern'd are first of our own choice and then confirm'd by the King neither the morning nor the evening Star in the Heavens is more beautiful than the frame and complexion of our Government we have Laws that are sufficiently able to make us a Nation of Righteousness if they be but actuated by men of impartial Justice and Integrity Now Was this our excellent Religion in danger of being overflown with the filthy streams of Popery and Superstition Was this our incomparable Government brought by Arbitrary Power to the very brink of Destruction And hath God preserv'd both our Religion and Government Have we now a blessed and a comfortable Hope of seeing our Religion and Government flourish Of having our Judges restor'd as at the first and our Counsellors as at the beginning Isai 1.26 How ought we then to magnify the Divine Goodness How prudently and religiously have our Senators acted in appointing this day of solemn thanksgiving to pour forth our Praises to him who hath so strangely redeemed so miraculously deliver'd us from the hand of the enemy A Redemption that bears the most legible Characters of Divine Providence That God should send us over a Deliverer at a season when sailing was dangerous at a time when the Waves of the Sea rage horribly and swell when the Winds are most tempestuous that most of our Nobility and Gentry that a standing-Army too in which the Papists seem'd to repose the greatest Confidence because Numbers of their own Religion were mix'd with it because several Regiments therein were under the command and conduct of Popish Officers should concurr to our deliverance and that there should be no effusion of Blood this was Digitus Dei the Finger of God and we cannot reflect upon it without Astonishment and Admiration A sudden and a seasonable deliverance A deliverance which argues the vigilant Eye of Providence and the powerful Hand of God the deep waters of the proud had gone even over our Soul we escaped even as a Bird out of the snare of the Fowler the snare is suddenly broken and we are delivered our enemies were stopp'd in their Career their undermining Projects and base Designs were prevented by a sudden and an unexpected change of the Scene by a most strange and astonishing revolution Thus the Lord on a sudden dash'd in pieces the black contrivances of wicked Haman when he had procur'd a Royal Decree and fixed a time for the quenching of his thirst with Torrents of Jewish Blood thus the Lord discomfited the Egyptian Host dispirited their Horses and affrighted Pharaoh with Thunder and Lightning made the Sea to swallow him and his Army when he was upon the heel's of the Children of Israel thus when Sennacherib had encamped against Jerusalem with a formidable Army and had made all necessary preparations for a storm the Lord sent an Angel who rais'd the siege by the destruction of one hundred and eighty five thousand 2. Kin. 19.35 and indeed in several other places of Holy Scripture we find this to be the frequent practice the usual method of Divine Providence It is true God can blast a project God can defeat an hellish Design upon its first formation in its very Embryo but to Illustrate his Providence he generally suffers it to come to some ripeness and maturity to the very birth and then deprives it of Strength to bring forth permits the Projecters to mount up to the top of confidence and then tumbles them down stays till his innocent People are placed upon the very precipice and then with his own right hand and his out-stretched Arm doth he catch hold of them and saves them from the design'd destruction when men are thus snatch'd as it were from the jaws of Danger when both Church and State is as it were pull'd out of the fire they cannot but see that the Lord hath done it unless they wilfully shut their Eyes against the light they cannot but perceive that it is his Work this cannot but enforce them to magnify the Lord and praise his Divine Goodness And such a sudden and an unexpected deliverance was ours the Enemy cry'd Come and let us root them out that they may be no more a People and that their name may be no more in remembrance our heart was disquieted within us and the fear of death was faln upon us and an horrible dread overwhelmed us Why Because Treason walk'd barefac'd in our Streets at broad noon-day with the greatest effrontery and impudence because unrighteousness was in the City because a false and superstitious Religion wrestled with our own and endeavour'd to lay her honour in the dust nay it was not only an open and a declar'd Enemy that struggled with her but even some who call'd themselves her Children who came to the house of God and pretended to her Doctrine and Worship and yet intolerable hypocrisie endeavour'd as much as in them lay to throw down her Walls and destroy her Fences to overthrow all her hedges and break down her strong holds to take away such necessary such good and wholsome Laws as were her greatest visible Security and Protection If such low-priz'd Souls such mercenary Creatures whose God was Mammon who studied nothing but their own advancement to honour and promotion to profitable employments to build their nests on high tho' it were upon the ruins of their Mother I say if those temporizing Persons had once broken down the hedge of our Religion her Grapes then would soon a' been pluck'd off the wild Boars would soon a' rooted her up the Romish Priests and fiery Jesuits would soon have been possess'd of our Garden of Eden and sow'd it with the seeds of Popery and Superstition Thus when our Church had Enemies without