Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n
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A53924
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Jericho's downfal, in a sermon preached upon Jan. 31, 1688/89 being a day of publick thanksgiving to God for our deliverance from popery and arbitrary power / by Samuel Peck, Minister of Popler.
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Peck, Samuel.
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1689
(1689)
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Wing P1035; ESTC R1038
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9,368
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32
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them in the grounds of Divinity and Principles of Christian Religion The Seduction of many in this Nation to Popery hath risen from hence their not being well seasoned with the grounds of true Religion 4. Encourage Learning what you can For Popery is a Kingdom of darkness and ignorance nothing Ruines it like knowledge It first fell in this Nation with the beginning of good learning and the continuance and encrease of this will keep it down and therefore amongst the rest of the Contrivances of Jericho's builders this was one of the chief to poyson our Colledges to propagate Popery in our most famous Schools of Learning and by a Malicious and Illegal Prosecution to have extinguished the brightest Luminaries of the English Church to the end that the benighted people might the more easily have been misled into the pitfalls of Superstition and Slavery 5. And because they Love to fish in troubled Waters and gain ground by divisions therefore let us labour to promote Peace and Union amongst our selves let us not differ and quarrel tear and devour one another for small matters but unite be of one heart of one mind and love one another leading Holy and Religious Conversations as becomes our Profession Popery ever thrives best in a Land of prophaneness debauchery always did and always will help forward Popery 6. Lastly one special means to prevent the rise of Jericho is that which this day occasions thankfulness to God for the downfal of it or a thankful remembrance of the great things God hath done for us When we call to mind their attempts against us and how God hath crossed and cursed them it will make us love our own Religion which God hath witnessed by so many deliverances the better and to hate theirs the more Therefore let our Souls and all that is within us this day praise the Psal 10. 3. Lord for all his mercies of this kind vouchsafed to us and in an especial manner for the glorious deliverance we this day commemorate It is his doings and it is marvellous in our Eyes Not unto us therefore not unto us but to him be all the glory of it But if we shall be unthankful for this and the like gracious preservations if the wonders of Gods Love do not melt our hearts and work in them a sincere gratitude to God an hearty Love to Religion and an universal holiness in our Conversations if all the favours of our God towards us do not win us to a most constant and Chearful Obedience to his holy commands it will be just with God that those adversaries should still prove goads in our Sides and thorns in our Eyes Just with God to lay us open again to their enraged Malice and Hatred and when we stand in need of deliverance to say to us as he did to Israel in distress I will deliver you no Judg. 10. 13. more Stir up your Souls therefore to thankfulness and testify your gratitude not only by words but deeds not only by the fruits of holiness but also by works of Charity and Mercy Your labour shall not be lost your cost not cast away for God will reward you Thus honour him and he will honour you thus bless him and he will bless you give him his praises due on Earth and he will give you immortal renown in Heaven 3. And in the last place to our praises for Jericho's fall let us add our prayers that it may rise no more in our days or in the days of our posterity In order to this let us pray 1. That God would more and more discover and make known the abominations of Romish Jericho both in respect of their Religion and practice That he would give all men amongst us a more clear understanding of the errors of their Religion of the Falsity Idolatry and Superstition of it which consists of unwritten Traditions diabolical Revelations and Illusions In fruitless Penances and Pilgrimages in antiscriptural merits praying to Saints and worshiping of Images in unlawful Vows Masses indulgences and Dispensations that seeing the Errors of their Religion we may abhor it and Shun the Society of those that profess it and seek the Propagation of it 2. Pray that God would lay open to the view and observance of all men their ungodly practices their promoting Discord and Division in all Places and Societies their imposing new Articles of Faith as necessary to Salvation their absolving some from lawful Oaths and Vows and obliging others to themselves and their cause by Vows and Oaths unlawful That the all-seeing Eye which beholds men in their most secret acts would detect their barbarous Homicides and private Murders and hear the cries of that innocent Blood which hath been shed both formerly and lately to enlarge the borders of their Jericho a discovery of which would do the cause of God this Service to take off the hearts of many from them and to lessen their strength and number amongst us And let us conclude our prayers as our Church hath taught us That God would scatter our Enemies that delight in blood infatuate and defeat their Counsels asswage their malice and confound their devices and strengthen the hands of all that are in Authority with Judgment and Justice to cut off all such workers of iniquity as turn Religion into Rebellion and Faith into Faction that they may never prevail against us or triumph in the Ruines of his Church amongst us That Babylon may never tread down Zion nor Jericho boast her self a Conqueror over Jerusalem but that we being preserved in the true Religion may all our days serve him and give him thanks in his holy Congregation through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen FINIS
David Psal 109. 17 18. As he loved cursing so let it come unto him let it come into his Bowels like water and like Oyl into his Bones As the Bird taking her flight from her Nest fetcheth a Circuit and then returns thither again so Curses come in where they went out and at last return upon our own heads as Dust cast in the Air against the Wind. This therefore is not the use we are to make of such Examples as this in my Text. But where we meet with Curses in the Writings of the Prophets and holy men of God who had the Spirit of Prophecy we are to apply them to the Enemies of Gods Church who seek the Ruine of the true Religion and profess an open enmity to the Gospel and Faith of Christ We may ever with safety take Gods part our Saviours side and curse all those that are Enemies to him saying with Deborah and Barak So let all thine Enemies perish O Lord But for Judg. 5. 31. our Enemies that have done us any personal or private wrong to curse them is as I said before unwarrantable uncharitable and ungodly So much of the first particular the denunciation of the curse Cursed be the man. 2. The next is the reality and certainty of the curse contained in these words before the Lord cursed be the man before the Lord. Which words are not added in vain therefore not to be passed by without some notice The meaning is let him be or he is cursed indeed for what is done before the Lord is truly and solemnly done And therefore the sense is this That man that shall build this City Jericho is cursed of God the Lord Ratifies and Confirms the curse and it shall certainly light upon him There are many curses which in this sense are not before the Lord Such are the Popes Bulls and Excommunications against Kings and Princes and all Hereticks that refuse Subjection to the Papal Power Obedience to the See of Rome But the persons thus cursed with Bell Book and Candle are not cursed before the Lord the Lord hath not Ratified and Confirmed the curse nay a curse unjustly denounced and by one who hath no power to denounce it is not a curse but a blessing As the Prophet speaks of Balaam's cursing Israel Neh. 13. 2. The Lord turned the curse into a blessing So where Rome curseth the Lord shall bless Therefore we need no more to fear or care for the Popes Curses than a man in Armor needs to fear an headless Arrow or a Childs Pot-gun for an unjust or an undeserved curse hurts not But when a man is cursed by a qualified person commissionated of God and that for a just cause this is dreadful indeed for such a one may be said as in the Text to be cursed before the Lord. And this leads us to consider the third particular viz. 3. The Subject of this curse or the person cursed The man that shall rise up and build this City Jericho Qu. And why is there a Curse denounced against him that shall build this City or why would not Joshua have Jericho built again Ans For these Reasons 1. In obedience to Gods command who had revealed unto Joshua that he would curse the man that built it and therefore he denounced him accursed besides you read Deut. 13. 15 16. That when any City was destroyed for its Idolatry and other sins committed in it God Commands it should be an heap for ever and not be built again therefore in Obedience to Gods Command which Joshua could not be ignorant of he would have Jericho as a ruinous heap for ever and curseth the man that should raise it out of its Ruines out of its Ashes in which he had laid it by Gods Commission 2. That it might be a remembrance both of Gods Mercy and Justice In mercy to the Israelites God takes this City by a Miracle Now that this miraculous work of God might never be forgotten Joshua would have it remain desolate that so when People in after ages beholding the Ruines of it should enquire the cause of its destruction and the reason why it so remained this might give occasion to speak of the mercy of God towards his people And also of his Justice against the Idolatrous Inhabitants of that City whose sins and abominations had rendred them ripe for Vengeance 3. Joshua would or God rather would have it remain a ruinous heap for terror to the rest of the Inhabitants of the Land. As great Conquerors usually set up some terrible monuments and signal examples of Justice to terrifie others so this being one of the first or chief Cities after their passage over Jordan God to strike terror into others will have it destroyed with the sentence of a curse upon any that should build it again for ever By which we may take notice what a curse sin brings upon most famous Cities and Places Jericho was a goodly place a City of Palm-trees a fenced City whose Walls reached up to Heaven yet being a sinful an Idolatrous City what a woful curse fell upon it to be utterly destroyed and demolished and never to be built again We have the like instances in Sodom Gomorrah and the adjacent Cities upon which the fire of Gods wrath broke forth and consumed them in a miraculous manner Thus you have heard the words run over in a literal sense Now be pleased to hear them in the Mystical and then you will see how well they suit the present occasion 1. First then by way of Analogy and Proportion there be many that venture upon this curse by endeavouring to build up Jericho Popery is a Spiritual or Mystical Jericho and how many are there that in this sense have put to their hearts heads and hands to build Jericho Whereby they stop or hinder the Church and People of God from entring into the heavenly Canaan as antient Jericho did the People of Israel from entring into the earthly What Strange and Crafty Means what Subtil and Wicked Methods have they used and still do use to raise up this building As by shutting out the Light of Gods Truth in those places where Popery prevails and is established By falsifying and corrupting antient Authors that there might be none to witness against them By labouring to make divisions between Kings and their Subjects where their Religion hath not obtained that they may bring it in and have it uppermost By barbarous Homicides and secret Murders to remove those out of the way that are opposers of their designs and by endeavouring to root those out of all places in Church and State that would not promise and engage to promote the work It was Julians Policy to provide that no Christian should be a General a Captain or bear any Office in his Armies And were not the Jesuits and Papists Promoting and practising the same Policy amongst us when men of Worth and Honour both in Church and State were displaced only because they