excellent and many useful Arts and Sciences were most happily begun and prepared for the universal benefit and satisfaction of Mankind Upon this very account we may presume it was that he permitted the Roman Eagle in times past to spread out her victorious Wings over the greatest part of the then known World for the sake of a general improvement and propagation of Arts and Sciences and that by the general reception of the Roman Laws and Language when the Emperors of Rome should become Christians as afterwards they did the great Mystery of Godliness and the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ might obtain an easier passage and a more agreeable admittance amongst them To this Head I cannot forbear to refer one Instance more and though some persons may think it too foreign to the Argument in hand yet with submission I think it sufficiently vindicates the interposition of a Divine Providence in the disposal and administration of Human Affairs For thus Augustus Caesar seems to have been purposely directed by the special Providence of God to tax the world Luke 2.1 in that uncustomary manner as he did that so every man repairing to his own City Christ by that means might be born at Bethlehem a City of Judah according as it was foretold by the Prophet Micha 5.5 And so likewise to verify the Prediction of another Prophet was the very same Person confirm'd and establish'd in the free and undisturbed possession of his Empire to the end that as an Instrument wherewith to accomplish the Eternal and Irreversible Decrees of a Superintending Providence he might shut the Temple of Janus and settle an Universal Peace throughout the World against that time when the great Prince of Peace was to be born in it But to wind up the whole thread of this Argument Let us further reflect on these following Particulars each of which well adverted to will abundantly illustrate the truth of what I have thus in general terms endeavoured to assert Had it ever constantly so fell out in the administration of a National and Publick Trust as it very usually does in the Transactions of a Domestick and Private Capacity And had there ever been so many uninterrupted Successions of Wise and Warlike Princes to inherit a Crown and to manage the weighty Affairs of some large Dominion correspondent to what may be observed in many private Families where there has been it may be a continual Generation of such as by their great Prudence and sagacious Conduct have encreas'd and conveyed down an Improv'd Estate to their Posterities The whole World would have truckled long since to the Arbitrary Subjection of some mighty Nimrod's Race And all the Kingdoms or particular Forms of Government that are now extant among us had but been so many precarious Tenures under some one great and Invincible Monarch In Popular Governments there may be perhaps for so 't was among the Romans a longer Succession of Worthy Magistrates and Brave Generals the Condition and necessity of such Governments requiring it should be so to secure men against the common danger of Foreign and Intestine Wars But in this Case too there is commonly a due Crisis which puts a period to the Success and Prosperity of their Sate For thus the excessive Wealth of Great men does either insensibly betray and deliver them over to Luxury Licenciousness and the most despicable degrees of Effeminacy in their Conduct or else in time their Boundless Ambition and Mutual Contention among one another for Superiority will effectually prepare a way as well for their own ruin as the final Subversion of their admired Leviathan But to reassume the first Observation if we consider the Successions that have hapned in most Countries we may well conclude from it that God's Providence for the Reason already suggested is very nearly and intimately concern'd in them all For seeing God Almighty whose Wisdom is unsearchable and his Ways past finding out is privy to and has eternally foreseen all the Natural Consequences and probable Event of Things and knows very well that in case he should give to this or that Nation a continual Race of Virtuous and Victorious Princes that then neither the Rivers nor Seas the Mountains nor Deserts would contain them or restrain their unbridled Ambition from invading the Territories of a Neighbouring Prince He therefore the better to keep the Ballance even between them and to preserve the distinct or separate Interest of Governments and Countries in the same manner as he hath long since established and setled it does very rarely bless any one Kingdom with Two Princes of the same Mind or the like Virtues Agreeable to which method of his Providence it was that Rehoboam succeeded Solomon that after Hezekiah came Manasses and so on in the several Reigns and Successions of the Kings of Judah and Israel The like happen'd as we read in Prophane History among the Romans when Tiberius succeeded Augustus and Domitian to Titus c. And there might be in the History of our own Nation a Collection made by those that are better at leisure than my self to do it of some Unhappy Princes that have not come up to the true Bravery the exact Justice and approved Wisdom of their Renowned Predecessors Much to the same purpose I might reflect on the many instances of unexpected Revolutions which have befallen the several States and Kingdoms of the World and so put it upon the experiment whether 't is possible for them to fail of giving your Conscience a due and sufficient Conviction that God is the only Judge upon Earth and Supream Governor of the World For we read in all Histories of Persons of all Ranks and Orders the Ignoble and Base as well as the first and high born that have been suddenly and unaccountably advanc'd to a Supream and Soveraign Power Now therefore to conjecture after all this that such important Occurences as these have happen'd only by chance in the World or that the God who numbreth the Hairs of our Head and without whose Knowledg and Privity so inconsiderable a Creature as a Sparrow does not fall to the Ground I say to think That such an Infinite and Perfect Being as God is who is Lord of all Things and Judge of all Men should sit by altogether unconcern'd as one that had no hand in these Affairs which have so immediate a tendency to the Happiness or Infelicity of Mankind would be a thought too too hard and absurd for a rational Creature to entertain of him who is Infinite in Power Wisdom and Goodness nay and I had almost said That 't was as good for us to have no God at all as to admit the Notion of such an one that either cannot or does not or will not concern himself to direct and appoint fit and proper Substitutes to govern the World under him When Good and Just Princes are exalted and promoted to a Throne 't is a publick Benefit and an inestimable Mercy to a People
Form of Government this which does eminently distinguish us from the Inhabitants of all the other parts of the World beside as having provided very amply for the greatness and glory of the Monarch for the dignity and authority of the Nobility and for the freedom and liberty of the Commonalty without intrenching upon or interfering with one anothers distinct Powers and Capacities which would be to the general Confusion and Detriment of the whole In a word A Government this which makes our Prince the truly greatest our Nobility the most Honourable and our Commons the freest and most happy of any in Europe The next Blessing obtain'd by the Restoration and which might well be insisted on as a very strong and pregnant Argument for our present Joy is the Resettlement of a True and Orthodox Religion among us in the room of the wild Phanaticisms the Enthusiastical practices and abominable Blasphemies of the late times I mean the Re-establishment of a Church that dispences the Holy Word and Sacraments of our Lord Jesus Christ with a Primitive Purity and approved Devotion A Church this is that whatever some of her Members have unadvisedly and unwarrantably done yet of Her self is not any whit uncharitable to those that shall differ from Her in Judgment provided mens scruples are truly Serious and really Conscientious Nor are Her Doctrines whatever indiscretions the heat of Times and prevalent Factions of a Court may have transported and betrayed some Persons into at all prejudicial to the ascertain'd Rights and Liberties of a Free People They were never designed however they might happen to be Preached up and applied by some particular Persons to advance the Arbitrary measures of a self-will'd Prince And it cannot be thought that this were intended to inculcate the Duty of a blind Obedience which supposes a servile Compliance with all Commands whatsoever without the least Reserve or Hesitation about the Reasonableness and Justice of them Nor to tye up the hands of a People when a Prince should Commission his Booted Apostles to Rifle them of their Goods to Dispossess them of their Estates and to rob them of their Lives in order to make them fit Converts for Popery and Slavery Alas it cannot in reason be thought That our Church whose Doctrines are all so Sound and Rational should ever intend such a Passive Obedience as this in cases where the Law and the King's Will do not joyntly concur to make up the just and indispensable Obligation of such a Bow-string Duty For 't is plain that our Church with respect to Civil Rights c. can require no other Obedience nor indeed does it than the State can or does lawfully require of us too So that the Obedience which is due to the Supream Powers is a Legal Obedience only and no more such I mean as subjects us to the Penalties of a known Law to which our own Consent was likewise had before it could have any force at all to affect or hurt us and not to the uncertain Capricio's and unforeseen Violence of any one single Person 's Will that shall happen to get the Administration and Execution of a National Trust into his Power And this I take it makes a wide difference betwixt us and Primitive Christians who lived under the Absolute Dominion of the Roman Emperors for with them to whom the Will of their Prince was an effectual and binding Law such a Notion as Passive Obedience in the rigid sense that some Men have talk'd and preach'd it up might be perhaps a very true and a sound Doctrine But to our everlasting Comfort the Case is otherwise here where the Law is the only Measure and Guide of our Obedience and where we are not to obey either Actively or Passively but as the Laws of the Land the Common Safety of the People and good Manners shall therein direct us To confirm the truth of this Notion I shall e'en refer ye to the whole Occasion Progress and Success of the late Revolution and to those many excellent and unanswerable Discourses that have been purposely wrote for the just Vindication of our Proceedings For seeing that our present King the Glorious Restorer of our violated Laws and Liberties was so generously invited into this Kingdom and afterwards so bravely assisted and accompanied in his Marches to this City and at length so unanimously voted to the Throne by those that were principally of the Church of England I mean by the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and by all the Commons 't is therefore very violently to be presumed That they thought it high time to rectify or rather to reject a Notion which a little better experience had inform'd them was not the real Intendment nor the true Construction of the so much talked-of Doctrines of our most excellent Church In a word the restoring us to Order and Decency in our Church to good Discipline and Sacred Orders to able Pastors to discreet Rulers was a true Cause of abundant Joy to our Afflicted and once Miserable Zion and a good reason if we value the peace of Jerusalem that we should as yet rejoyce and return unto God our due Praises and Thanksgivings for the same And what tho the vicious Practices and licentious Indulgences of the late times which were but the natural and proper Effects of Plenty and Prosperity did somewhat obscure the Lustre of this day's Mercy and Restoration And what tho Foreign Politicks and a Foreign Religion which came over along with it were like to have Eclips'd our Light and to have brought in another Egyptian Darkeness and Slavery upon us yet God be thanked we are rid of those our just Fears and we have still notwithstanding all that is past a good and firm ground for our present Joy and Thanksgiving Because these present Times are in a great measure the product of that Revolution Insomuch that had not the Restoration of King Charles the Second preceded the late Revolution which we have all of us had our hands in either more or less a Revolution that is now our happiness and has proved to the advantage and satisfaction of all Europe beside had never come to pass To conclude and sum up all Had it not been for the Restoration we had never enjoy'd what now we have the best Constituted Government in the World nor had we been blessed with the very best King and Queen that ever lived in any Age before them A King that fights our Battels and exposes his own Person to all Dangers for the Religion Lives and Liberty of his Subjects And a Queen that takes all imaginable Care for the Eternal Welfare of our Souls that not only prays for them her self and that prescribes the model of a most Virtuous and Religious Life for us to Copy after but that in all her Promotions in the Church has taken an effectual Course to provide fit remedies for the importunate Evils of a loose and degenerate Age. I mean Persons eminent for Learning and
Hymn of his own penning wherein he does very religiously acknowledge the special vouchsafement of God's Mercy and Goodness towards him in that he was advanced so miraculously and providentially from the low and despicable State of a Shepherd nay from the mean degree of a Fugitive or banished Person to sway the Scepter of God's People and in the room of his Father Saul to be another King over Israel My Text 't is true is not uncommonly nor improperly understood by all Divines agreeable with that application of it to the same purpose which the Apostle makes in Acts 4.11 to refer to Christ who being the stone which the builders i. e. the Jews refused and the Person which they did afterwards most despitefully Crucify is now being risen from the dead become the head stone of the corner or the chief Pillar and Foundation of the Church of God And therefore in a Prophetical Rapture being especially assisted thereunto by the Divine Spirit the Royal Psalmist is supposed hereby to celebrate even before it came to pass the Resurrection of Christ our Redeemer from the dead and to congratulate that most beneficial advancement of his Person to the Regalia and Supream Authority next under God his Father in the Kingdom of Heaven But waving this typical and figurative Interpretation though no question sufficiently intended by our Royal Prophet in this Psalm I shall take these words at present only in a literal sense as they are part of that grateful and devout acknowledgment which Holy David did humbly offer to the Divine Majesty for those repeated Deliverances which the watchful Eye of Providence had ever afforded him amidst all his manifold Dangers and Tribulations but more especially for that unexpected and surprizing Revolution in the Exaltation of his Person and Family to the Throne and Scepter of Israel Considering the extraordinary pre-eminence of King David above all other Kings as well upon the account of his Prophetical Spirit as of the peculiar designation by an immediate Divine Appointment that he and his Family should sway the Scepter of Israel which was such a Title to a Crown as no Kings out of the Jewish Oeconomy have ever since been able with the utmost assistance of all their Mercenary Advocates for Arbitrary Government to justify a claim to I say considering this and his other many personal Merits especially his Exemplary Devotions and the tender regard which he always had to the Profession of God's True Religion it may perhaps be a just Scruple to some how far such an occasional Comparison might be well prosecuted which my Text invites me to make between King David and that Prince whose wonderful and happy Restoration to these Kingdoms we are this day conven'd by the Order of our Government to commemorate and out of a religious sense of the great Blessing to return unto God the Author and Procurer of it our devoutest Acknowledgments and most pious Thanksgivings And though some Persons in the former Reigns have been perhaps too free and audacious in their Panegyrical Strains at such Anniversary Entertainments as this when they thought it not amiss to draw both these Princes in the same Colours making them Rivals and Competitors for the same Heroic Perfections and Kingly Qualifications as if the latter not unlike the former had been a man and what is more a King too after God's own heart yet it will be pardonable I hope in me if I make not too forward a step in dawbing over the Characters of Princes But however this I will be bold to affirm That if we examine the Journals of their persecuted and broken Fortunes how very difficult and alike Providential the Circumstances of their Escape were from the deep-laid Treachery and Machinations of their Enemies and how after their being forc'd to retire to Achish the King of Gath for Protection they were wonderfully brought back again in Peace to their own Countrey and alike rewarded with the Donation of a Crown for their Travel If we consider these broken pieces of Story with regard had to the special Providence of their unexpected Promotion the Choice of these Words on the present Solemnity may admit of a very tolerable justification In discoursing therefore on the Words of my Text as I have accounted for them I shall in the first place observe how eminently the Providence of God is concern'd in the Revolution and Alteration of Government For thus the stone which the builders refused became the head stone of the corner and thus a Prince that had been formerly forced into Banishment was afterwards recalled and triumphantly brought back pursuant to the then general Vote and Desire of the English Nation to the Throne and Scepter of his Ancestors And this was the Lord's doing and was marvellous in our eyes 2dly I shall shew the Reasonableness of our present Joy and the Duty of this Day 's Thanksgiving This is the day which the Lord hath made we will rejoice and be glad in it I shall in the first place observe How eminently the Providence of God is concerned in the Revolution and Alteration of Government For thus the stone which the builders refused became the head stone of the corner and thus a Prince that had been formerly forced into banishment was afterwards recalled and triumphantly brought back pursuant to the then Genral Vote and Desire of the English Nation to the Throne and Scepter of his Ancestors And this was the Lord's doing and was marvellous in our eyes The Notion of a God and Providence are so reciprocally and so inseparably dependent upon each other that there is no possibility of arriving at a rational perception of the one without the necessary result and supposition of the other For the Belief of the real existence of the one does effectually establish the consequent Hypothesis of the universal Influence and Actuation of the other as on the contrary to deny either is to take away the common Belief and Assent which is due to both Because God and Providence are words of the same import and signification though with this only difference that one denotes the Person or Infinitely Powerful Being that made the World at first out of nothing and the other expresses that necessary and essential Attribute of the Deity his Infinite Wisdom by which he presides continually over us watching and ordering all things in it for the best so as to prevent what must otherwise unavoidably come to pass a general Ruin and Confusion amongst us For were it true which the Fools affirm in their hearts when they say that there is no God and had there been no first and infinite Being to have given life by his bare fiat to all the other beings that are now Existing in the World all things had for ever been locked up in the womb of an eternal and silent Chaos and they would have still remained in the same unactive and insensible State as they were once in before the Eternal Word gave
Being and Existence to them or put them into Motion And so in like manner were there at this time no such thing as a Superintending Providence to Direct and Order the Affairs of this World here below but that all things according to the Epicurean Conjecture were abandoned to blind Fate and an uncertain Chance the Disorders of the Universe would quickly become excessively great and intolerable In short were it not for the Direction of a Divine Providence Nature it self after such a long series of Time must needs decay and run from off its Hinges and Mankind would be soon destroyed from off the face of the Earth That God Almighty therefore does actually concern himself about the Administration of human Affairs and that his Providence is eminently exerted over mankind in the various Revolutions and Alterations of Government that do ordinarily happen will be abundantly evident from these following Considerations First From the Reason and Nature of Government it self which being purposely instituted for the sake of Order and a peaceable Harmony among sociable Creatures I mean for the Publick Good and Benefit of the governed rather than as some have fantastically imagined to gratify the Boundless Luxury of any particular Person or Persons that shall so happen to be set over the rest does therefore necessarily suppose the Care and continual Superintendency of an All-wise Being that first qualified mankind for Society and afterwards disposed them in so wonderful a manner as he has done for the Terms of Subjection and Obedience For seeing that all men are by nature equally ambitious of Power and Dominion and alike impatient of being controul'd and put upon by others it must be the Power and Will of God alone that should first incline men to forgo these their Natural Propensities of Tyrannizing and Domineering over one another and instead thereof to give up their Lives and Fortnnes so unanimously as they have done to the Stated Forms of Civil Policy For thus Saul himself tho higher by the head and shoulders than the rest of his Brethren had no Title by Nature or Birth or any pretence to the Crown of Israel till the foregoing Request of the People and God's subsequent Designation had first recommended him as fit to be their King Nor had any of those barbarous Nations in imitation of whose particular Forms of Government the foolish Israelites were willing to quit their Theocracy ever resign'd themselves up to the Power and Conduct of one man but that the Wise Disposer of things who is he that stilleth the raging of the Sea that represseth the Tumults of the People had first prepared them by suitable Instincts and previous Dispositions to be so directed and commanded Government then in general being an undoubted Ordinance of God Rom. 13.2 though the Specification of it to this or that Form does always depend upon the different Climats of Countreys and the various Complections and Humours of People according to that of St. Peter 1.2.13 who stiles all the Species of Government Monarchy it self not excepted the Ordinance or Creature of man for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the expression I say nevertheless Government in general being an undoubted Ordinance of God it must therefore be in all Times and Places of the World one of the Principal Concernments of his Directing and Superintending Providence For an infinite Wise Being such as the common Notion of Persection in the Godhead supposes him to be could never Ordain and Appoint any thing to be but that he must be thought likewise to be ever careful of it afterwards and to provide always for its Continuance and Preservation And therefore if he Instituted Government at first in the World for the Publick Good and Order of Human Society he must be suppos'd to be still concern'd in the Disposal and Administration of it and to be privy to all the Transactions and Revolutions relating to States and Kingdoms But Secondly The Consideration of his Attributes of infinite Perfection in Power Knowledge Goodness and Wisdom do justly bespeak him to be the Mighty King of kings and Lord of lords and the only ruler of princes His Omnipotence imports That he is the Supream Legislator and Governor of the whole Earth and that all things are ordered according to his Will or by his Permission and that no Government is set up or pull'd down but through the uncontroulable Superintendency of his Pleasure who has before decreed to have it so and has accordingly rais'd up fit and proper Instruments for the bringing it to pass He it is that whistles for the fly out of Egypt or the bee out of the land of Assyria Isa 7.18 That stirs up a Pharaoh to persecute or a Nebuchadnezzar to carry into Captivity his People In a word he it is that calls in Foreign Armies into a Nation to destroy it or else finds Enemies enough at home to effect his purposes when a Land is ripe for his Judgments and that the measure of its Iniquity is full In a word He it is that prefers and degrades for Reasons best known to himself that gives Merit and Success to some bold Undertakers and yet at the same time infatuates the Counsels and defeats the Purposes of others To use King David's words who found it experimentally true He it is that pulleth down one and setteth up another For promotion cometh neither from the East nor from the West nor from the South but God is the judge Psal 75. v. 6 7. His Omniscience and Omnipresence do justly entitle him to be the great Arbitrator and Umpire between several Kings and their Kingdoms and between Sovereign Princes and their People For there is no Plot or Conspiracy that can be hid from his Allseeing Eye He watches all our Actions he hears all our Words nay he understandeth the very secrets of the Heart and tryeth the Reins so that nothing can possibly escape his Knowledge He therefore may be well supposed to know what Designs are forming by one Prince against another what Treachery there is in their Treaties and what notorious falsifications there sometimes are in their most solemn Vows and Promises He is present also at all Cabals and Consultations and will either blast or ripen their politick Devices as shall best conduce to that great end which he proposes to himself in the Administration of his Government over us I mean his own Glory and our Good He can easily penetrate the thick disguise of fair pretences and is well acquainted with the inside of every man's heart He can fathom the bottom of all the deepest Intrigues of State that have been or shall ever happen to be carried on between a Prince and his People in the prosecution of a separate Interest And when differences are on foot between them as he is privy to the Designs so he is able to prevent the mischief of either side before the reciprocal Charges and Clamours which they make against each other shall have time to blow up
the coals of their Contention into a flame or improve their first misunderstandings into the bloody Acts of an open and implacable Hostility Thus for instance he can distinguish whether their Murmurings and whisper'd Discontentments have a true and just occasion yea or no If they are just and rational he will perhaps regard their Complaints and further all their Attempts whatsoever for the Redress of their Grievances and the Recovery of their just Rights and Liberties But if on the contrary they are peevish and unreasonable Exceptions only against the honest and well-meant Administration of their Governors he will then frustrate all their Seditious practices and by the Rod of the Civil Magistrate give them ample Chastisement for their folly Thus according to that of the Psalmist 37.17 God breaketh the arm of the wicked So on the other hand he is not so insensible as some Machiavillians may imagine when Princes design the Ruin and Destruction of their Subjects for the hearts of kings are in his rule and governance he knows what Designs are clandestinely formed and carried on by them and their Ministers for the subversion of a National Religion and other Legal Immunities of a People and if it so pleases him then Achitophel and Absalom-like they shall not prosper but be confounded He sees the difference between just and unjust and between right and wrong and can readily adjust all the many bloody Controversies that have been started and bandied to and fro about Liberty and Prerogative Because he knows the utmost Bounds of Princes Power and the Original or Fundamental Reason of their being so entrusted with it Thus for instance if Princes employ their Power and exercise their Authority for the common Weal of a Nation God will undoubtedly crown all their Undertakings with Success and then like Solomon their Wisdom improving with that of their Government they shall daily encrease both in Power and in Riches But if they begin to affect an unreasonable Jurisdiction and to Tyrannize over the People contrary to the implied Conditions of all Governments which are no longer justifiable than whilst the primary ends of their Institution shall be observed in the Protection and Preservation of a Peoples Just Rights and Liberties If Princes I say begin to affect such Abuses of Power as these then it may reasonably be presumed that he will cross and disappoint all their Measures and cut them off as he did Reboboam that early Affecter of Arbitrary Power by the Loss of Ten Tribes from his Government And thus as Job long since observeth does God pour out his contempt on some Princes Job 12.21 But further The Infinite Goodness and Wisdom of God is another special Qualification and Title in him to the Supreme Government of the Universe and a sufficient reason to evidence this great truth which I have asserted viz. That he does actually concern himself in the various Revolutions and Alterations that do occasionally happen throughout the several States and Kingdoms of the World His Goodness disposes him to commiserate the Miseries and Calamities of an Enslaved and Oppressed People and his Wisdom provides fit remedies against the times of their Distress preparing all things necessary the worthy Instruments and brave Undertakers as well as the ways and means of their Deliverance For his Goodness carries a very tender regard to the Peace and Welfare of Mankind and to the Preservation of their Lives and Liberties And his Wisdom can at his pleasure effectually secure them against any Attempts whatever in the enjoyment of all those many invaluable Blessings Thus for instance out of Sacred History we have Rehoboam who according to the Advice of his Flatterers the young Counsellors and unwary Politicians that were about him was fully resolved instead of redressing Grievances and gratifying the just Complaints of an Oppressed People to load the Israelites with other additional and more heavy Impositions and to make them feel as the Advice was given that his little singer should be more than all his father's loins But yet it so pleased God in mercy to that People to reserve a Jeroboam though one 't is true that afterwards made Israel sin for the prevention of such Evil and Tyrannical Purposes And so it came to pass by the Wisdom of the same good Providence of God that Ten Tribes unanimously revolting together as they did they bravely asserted their Liberty and by the bold refusal of having him for their King they preserved themselves a free and unenslaved Nation For Modern Examples of the like kind besides the late wonderful Revolution that occasions this present Solemnity 't is observable that when the great and very Potent King of Spain was immoveably fix'd upon the oppression of his Subjects in the Low Countries God's Providence was ready at hand to favour the Righteous Cause of the Oppressed and he accordingly raised up as horn of salvation for them in these Kingdoms our Renowned Virgin Queen of most blessed memory to remove the ground and occasion of their just Complaints and to establish their Freedom And for another Instance of this nature but later date it may suffice to remark the stupendious Proceedings of Providence which both disposed and enabled those very People to repay our kindness to them with the very same good Turn done unto us For when our Rights and Properties and what should be dearer to us our Religion were just a breathing out its last by reason of an upstart Popish Arbitrary Power that was then hurrying and hudling up all things together to compleat our Confusions and Destruction it pleased the Infinite Goodness of our Merciful God to put it into the hearts of these very People to furnish our King the glorious Champion of England's nay of Europe's Liberty with means sufficient at once to attempt and accomplish our Deliverance And this too as we have reason to say was marvellous in our eyes and was undoubtedly the Lord's doing In a word The Divine Goodness does principally aim at and intend throughout all his Administrations the particular advantage of every Nation and People and accordingly his Wisdom being wholly intent on the Common weal and general good of Societies is never deficient in its Operations towards that end and never fails by some Expedient or other of bringing his great Designs for the good and happiness of Mankind to pass Supposing therefore one Nation to be more refined and polite upon the account of its Arts and Manners than another or to be very flourishing in any useful part of Learning the method of God's Providence has been such as to suffer a Neighbouring and more Barbarous People to be overcome by and to be rendred tributary to such as were so civilized and improved And thus Learning and Arms heretofore did usually march under the same Banners and travel together out of one Country into another and thus by the alternate Succession of the four great Empires of the World a free circulation and communication of many
Religion and Men of approved moderation to heal the Sores of our Church and to cure those many Distempers of Irreligion which the several Factions and Heats of the late Enthusiastical Times have so notoriously fomented and bred amongst us In short according to Isaiah's Prophecy 49.23 We have now thanks be to God for them and God long preserve them to us a King and Queen that are truly and literally a nursing Father and a nursing Mother to the Church and People of England In a word two Princes of our own Choice and according to our own hearts desire And therefore if the greatest Temporal Blessing which the Infinite Benefactor can bestow on a Nation be a sufficient Reason for our present Joy and Thansgiving 't will then be our indispensable Duty to be heartily and sincerely thankful Which brings me to speak of the Duty of this Day 's Thanksgiving But having exercised your Patience too much already I shall therefore add a very few words on this Head First Ye are to consider That as it is not the Design of our Present Government in continuing the observation of this Day to try the Strength and Zeal of a Party as perhaps was the usual Practise and Abuse of it in the late times so ye are to conclude that the Business or Duty of this Day 's Thanksgiving does not consist in loud Acclamations of Joy and a vain Repetition of Huzzah's nor in Sumptuous Fireworks and Ringing of Bells or other such like popular entertainments which generally speaking do end in nothing that is good but are such expressions of Joy as serve only to promote Tumults and Disorders Drunkenness and Licentiousness amongst us and are therefore upon that account a very improper and unsuitable return to the Supream Governor and Great Benefactor of Mankind for the Blessed Revolutions which he has been the Principal Author and Contriver of in these Nations in order to our Peace and Happiness But Secondly to conclude all ye are rather to look up unto God only as the Fountain and Foundation of all these Blessings Ye are to address your Thanks to the Divine Majesty with the humblest sense imaginable of your unworthiness of these his manifold Benefits and having made your suitable acknowledgments and returns of Praise and Thanksgiving to the Great and Merciful God in the most Devout and Seraphick Strain that ye are able to reach to ye should still continue to admire his Goodness to adore his Wisdom and dread his Power In short for these good things which God hath blessed us with we ought to repay him with a Good and Religious Life and to walk before him in Holiness and Righteousness all our days Which that we may all do God of his Infinite Mercy grant us Grace Now to God the Father God the Son God the Holy Ghost be ascribed as is most due all Honour Praise Might Majesty Glory and Dominion both now and evermore Amen FINIS Books Sold by Richard Baldwin THE Bounds set to France by the Pyrenean Treaty and the Interest the Confederates not to accept of the Offers of Peace made at 〈◊〉 Time by the French King To which are added some short Reflection showing How far England is concern'd in the Restitution of that Trâ—â—â—â— Together with a List of the Towns and Countries that the French 〈◊〉 taken since that time A Dissuasive from Murmuring being a Sermon on 1 Cor. 10.10 Preacâ—â—â— by Sam. Carte M. A. There will very speedily be published the Third and last Volume of 〈◊〉 Works of Francis Rabelais M. D. containing the Fourth and Fifth Books the Heroick Deeds and Sayings of Gargantua and Pantagruel which 〈◊〉 Books are the whole Voyage to the Holy Bottle The Pantagruelian Prognostication Enciclopidic Questions Three Epistles in Verse Historical Letters written by the Doctor during his stay in Italy 〈◊〉 Volume which compleats all his Works was never before publishâ—â— English and this is also to contain a Key to the Voyage and large Explaâ—â—â—â—ons of the most difficult Passages never before published in any Languâ—â—â— A Poem on the Late Promotion of several Eminent Persons in Church State By N. Tate Servant to Their Majesties Bibliotheca Politica Or An Enquiry into the Ancient Constitution the English Government with respect both to the just Extent of Râ—â—â—â— Power and to the Rights and Liberties of the Subject Wherein all 〈◊〉 chief Arguments as well against as for the Late Revolution are Impartâ—â— represented and considered In XIII Dialogues Collected out of the 〈◊〉 Authors both Ancient and Modern To which is added An Alphabeâ— Index to the whole Work The Gentleman's Journal or the Monthly Miscellany In a Letter 〈◊〉 Gentleman in the Countrey Consisting of News History Philosoâ—â—â— Poetry Musick Translations c. April 1694. To be continued Moâ—â—â— Sold by R. Baldwin Where are to be had Compleat Sets for the two 〈◊〉 Years or single ones for every Month. A New Plain Short and Compleat French and English Grammar whâ—â—â— by the Learner may attain in few Months to speak and write French Correâ—â—â—â— as they do now in the Court of France And wherein all that is dark persâ—â—â—uous and deficient in other Grammars is plain short and methodiâ—â—â— supplied Also very useful to Strangers that are desirous to learn the â—â—â—lish Tongue for whose sake is added a short but very Exact English Gâ—â—â—mar The Third Edition with Additions By Peter Berault