to see a plentiful Country turned into a barren Wilderness a free People that had many valuable rights made Slaves and dependants upon the Arbitrary Will of a Tyrannical Conquerour a pure Religion extirpated and Idolatry and Superstition set up in the room of it This must have been the miserable condition in which we should all have been involved If any think they should have fared better than their Neighbours upon the account of their own great Merits on the fair promises they may have had from abroad they have very wrong notions of Popish Gratitude and French Trust Alas Papists have engross'd all merit there is no such thing in Protestants and Promises made to the prejudice of the great Monarch or Holy Church are not to be kept All they could have hoped for is that if they would have gone some few steps further and turn'd their Religion they might possibly have been treated as the new Converts are in France but otherwise all the mercy to have been expected would have been this to have been eaten last though it has not always been so instances are not wanting where those Protestants that have been most zealous and forward in setting up a Popish Prince have been the first that had cause to repent of it In short whatever is dear to us as men English Men and Protestants must have been wrested from us 't is not to be supposed that being driven on by Rage and Revenge as well as Avarice and Ambition they should have used softer methods here than they do in their other Conquests where they tinge the Rivers with Blood where Sword and Fire devour all before them and if they would but totally extirpate the rational Inhabitants of the Country and leave none but the four footed ones of the Field and Forest the Beasts of burthen the Beasts of prey they would make very proper Subjects for such a Government But though God suffered them to go so far as they did in their Hellish Enterprize that the proof of it might be clear beyond denial or doubt yet was he pleas'd so seasonably to discover and defeat it that the mischief falls only on their heads that devised it and we may say with Israel he has not given us as a prey to their teeth our Soul is escaped as a Bird out of the Snare of the Fowler the Snare is broken and we are escaped with them let us also join in making such grateful returns to the Divine Goodness as the great Mercy calls for 1. Let us look up to God as the Author of it I do acknowledge it is not always safe or easy to determine what events are to be ascribed to God's special efficacious Providence and as the Lords doing and what are not yet in some there are such visible marks of Discrimination that a Man must be willfully blind if he does not distinguish them I may not at present enter upon this Argument and shall only say that in occurrances which are brought about unexpectedly but seasonably for the deliverance or good of a Church or Nation professing God's true Religion without their privity or assistance by invisible or incompetent means or by the Ministry or Instrumentality of such things as are only or immediately under the direction and government of God in such cases not to trace the out-goings of the Almighty where his footsteps are so plain is to be more stupid or Atheistical than the very Heathens Ps 126.2 Exod. 14.25 In our deliverance I will remark but two things which must lead us to God as the Author of it The design against the King's Life was prevented only by the discovery voluntarily made by some of those who were to be concern'd in the execution of it and the Invasion or Descent upon us was hindred by our Fleets being in such a readiness to guard our own Coasts and block up our Enemies in their Harbours But to what shall we ascribe all this was it through our Policy or Conduct that we had such a Fleet at home Were they not to have been gone long before to the Streights and stopt only by a contrary strange Wind which has hardly been known at that Season of the Year to sit so long in that quarter And to whom shall we attribute this but to him whom the Wind and Seas obey who brings the Winds out of his Treasures and makes them blow under Heaven whither he lists And what was it that made the discoverers confess the designed Assassination when 't was so near being Executed were they not Papists who are not generally over tender of the Blood and lives of Hereticks when their destruction may promote the good of Holy Church were they not engaged and encouraged in it by some of their Priests and no doubt assured if they lost their lives in the attempt of Eternal Life in Exchange and how came the Christian the Gentleman the Man to be too hard for the Papists Conscience Honour or Pity to be too strong for their Religion what or who touch'd their hearts and melted them into remorse and Confession Who but he who only knows and alone can change the heart take away the heart of stone and give one of flesh Him therefore let us acknowledge to be our Saviour and Deliverer and say if the Lord himself had not been on our side when men rose up against us they had swallowed us up quick when they were so wrathfully displeased at us 2. To him let us in the second place pay the tribute of praise and thanks for it this is what he expects call upon me in the day of trouble and I will hear thee and thou shalt praise me And very reasonable certainly for any benefit bestowed brings the person that receives it into debt to his Benefactor and thanks is the least part of payment if God has rescued us from the very Jaws of Death how ought we to glorify him both in Soul and Body which he has redeemed How should we excite all the powers of our Soul and Members of our Bodies to join in his praise Praise the Lord O my Soul and all that is within me bless his holy name who saveth thy life from destruction and crowneth thee with mercy and loving kindness Awake also my Glory my tongue shall speak of thy righteousness O Lord and my Lips shall praise thee Has he preserved to us our Churches where we may have liberty to worship him in Purity and the beauty of Holiness has he secured to us those swept and garnisht Houses from the return of the evil spirit and shall not the Tribes go up thither to worship to give thanks to his holy name Has he continued to us a service in our own Language and shall we not join in it when we may sing with the Spirit and with the understanding also and can say Amen at the giving of thanks Have we still access to him through the Mediation and Intercession of our great High Priest only
of the Vngodly and let the oppressed Captive go free Great Reason therefore had Israel for such a miraculous Escape to make these Acknowledgments and Returns to the Author of it which we here see they did namely 1. To ascribe their Deliverance wholly to God as the doing of that right hand only which bringeth mighty things to pass If the Lord himself had not been on our side we had been swallowed up quick and the Stream had gone over our Souls 2. To give him the Praise due unto his Name for it Blessed be the Lord who has not given us over as a Prey to their Teeth 3. And Lastly to declare their Confidence in him and intire reliance upon his Power and Goodness for the time to come Our Help standeth in the Name of the Lord who hath made Heaven and Earth That God who manifested his Power and Goodness by Creating the World out of Nothing by a Word of his Mouth and giving Being to all the Creatures in it has as evidently shewn forth those glorious Attributes in our strange Preservation and Rescue out of the Hands of our formidable and implacable Enemies there will we therefore place our Confidence not fearing what Man can do unto us On God we will depend He only is our Rock and Salvation our Defence and Refuge through him we shall do valiantly and he shall tread down our Enemies This is that short Account of this Psalm of Israel's imminent Danger their wonderful Deliverance from it and grateful Behaviour thereupon I proceed now to take a View of our own Case It will not I suppose be expected that I should go about to prove the Plot That there has been a most Horrid and Hellish Design on-foot against the Life of our King and the Laws and Religion of this Kingdom After the voluntary Depositions of several that were to be concerned in it and these confirm'd from abroad by the visible Preparations that were made on the French Coasts for a Descent upon us a great number of their Forces drawn down thither and Vessels ready to bring them over when the Signal an Account of the Dreadful Blow should be given them the mighty boast of their great Design and Confidence of Success which were express'd in Letters from some of the first Quality in that Kingdom and the Harangues of their Ministers at other Courts This confirm'd also at home by the Confessions of those who have been Convicted and Executed here who have all own'd the shares they were to have had in it upon their Deaths and some gloried in it While a Papist at his Execution looks back with regret upon the part he was to have acted in the bloody Tragedy as a Crime he was led into by his own Rashness and Passion as a Wickedness which he repents of and for the punishment of which particularly he acknowledges he was brought to suffer Death by the just Hand of God our Protestant Conspirators to the reproach I hope not of our Holy Religion which I am sure is far enough from countenancing such things but of their wretched Guides boast of the Villainy take Pride and Comforts at their Deaths in it so far were they from repenting or expressing the least Sorrow for it and yet had Absolution publickly after a very unusual manner which plainly shews what Thoughts their Confessors had of that Matter for which they died Blessed God! how amazing is it that any that had ever heard of thee or thy Nature or Properties especially that had ever look'd into those Revelations thou hast made thereof in thy Written Word should call the Assassinating the best of Princes and involving his Subjects in Blood Destruction of the best Church and the over-turning the best constituted Government in the World the Murdering their King in cold Blood and which must have been a consequence the Butchering of many Thousands of their innocent Fellow-Subjects the making all that surviv'd Slaves to France and Rome subjecting both their Bodies and Minds to the worst of Tyrannies How amazing I say is it that any should call these the Causes of God Religion and the Laws as if the Blood of Kings shed by their own Subjects was an acceptable Offering to God as if Religion were promoted by forcing us into the Communion of such a Church as will lock up the Scripture from us teach us to believe without Reason to Pray without Understanding and give the Worship of God to his Creatures as if our Laws would be safe in the hands of such a Guardian who Tyrannizes Arbitrarily over his own Subjects and would have had the pretence of Conquest to use us worse if possible If these are the Cause of God and Religion I know no such thing as the Works of the Devil and what we renounc'd as such in our Baptism was a meer Chimera This shews how much the Interest of a Party when a Man 's throughly embark'd can blind his Reason as well as harden his Conscience how dangerous it is to engage at all in a Faction since a Man knows not where he shall stop when he is once in how by steps he is lead to call Evil Good and Good Evil and practice accordingly and to make the measures of both the serviceableness or diserviceableness of any Action to the Party and how careful every one that has any regard for his Soul should be when he choosest out for the directors of his Conscience and intrusts with the Conduct of it But to return after all this I say 't would be but to abuse your Time and Patience to offer at any other proof of the truth and reality of the wicked Design whoever can call for further Conviction does the least need it 't is no breach of Charity to believe that none can pretend to doubt of it but such as know it too well Let us then briefly see what the Design was and as to that examine the same Particulars which we did in Israel's case who were engaged in it what they intended against us how near they were to effect it and how strangely we escap'd it Our Enemies like theirs were such whose Wrath was kindled against us Nothing under God has or does so much obstruct the aspiring and wicked Designs of our Neighbour on the other side of the Water as this Nation and Church nothing can satisfie the Pride and Ambition of that Prince less than an universal Monarchy and no Methods does he stick at how base and ungrateful how fraudulent and treacherous how violent and cruel soever that may promote his great end no ties of Honour and Conscience no Obligations of Justice or Mercy no Treaties or Leagues neither Word nor Oath can hold him but he breaks through them with as much ease as Sampson did the Wit hs that bound him which were as a Thread of Tow when it toucheth the Fire But while he makes War and disturbance every where that he may have quiet within that if at any time
we are loose and lawless in our Lives the advantage of our Constitution will be so far from availing us that contrariwise it will make a considerable Article in the charge against us it will both hasten our account and make it the more heavy We have a Prince to go in and out before us to Rule us at home and Fight for us abroad who does at least come up to the Character of any that have sate upon this or any other Throne before him but if we do not approve our selves good Subjects of the King of Heaven our Princes Virtues will not secure us though our wickedness may injure him The Spirit of God has told us that for the Sins of a Nation many are the Princes thereof God may as well take away a good one as give a bad King in his wrath and we know he once threatned a People that if they did wickedly they should be destroyed both they and their King We have a pure Religion a Church reformed from the corruptions of that of Rome but if our Conversations are impure and we are unreform'd in our manners will our Church or our Faith save us God will indeed have a Church to the end of the World and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against her but sure he is not tied to this or that particular Place or Country the Gospel may be taken from one Kingdom and yet not out of the World but transplanted to another and our Saviour has plainly enough told us upon what terms he will give or take it away from a People in those words to the Jews the Kingdom of Heaven shall be taken from you and given to a Nation that shall bring forth the Fruits thereof Would we therefore that God should go on to preserve and secure these blessings to us and that we may raise to our selves a ground and considence in him that he will we see how we must qualify our selves for them we must not be barren and unfruitful under all the Cultivations and Husbandry all the gracious methods which he uses to improve us but must bring forth Fruits meet for repentance the blessed Fruits of the Spirit love joy peace long-suffering gentleness goodness faith meekness temperance Being thus disposed we may reasonably hope for God's Blessing upon our endeavours 't is true our endeavours without the divine assistance will turn to little account and 't is certain God can if he pleases save us without our contributing any thing towards it but yet though God may and does sometimes for weighty reasons act either immediately at least without the ministry of them for whose sake he acts and after a very extraordinary manner yet where there is no special promise 't is not to be expected that God should go out of his ordinary methods of his Providence which is to act by the instrumentality of second causes to cooperate with the honest endeavours of Men when there is room for them and make that successful for their support or preservation And therefore as no success is to be expected from our endeavours without the divine assistance so that assistance cannot reasonably be expected without the use of our endeavours The Husbandman would be thought very wild and extravagant in his expectation that should think to reap a plentiful Crop without manuring and tilling his ground preparing it for and committing the seed to it in due manner and season and yet 't is certain 't is God only that can give the increase The Watchman undoubtedly waketh but in vain unless the Lord keep the City but yet if a Town beleagur'd by an Enemy should neglect to Man their Forts and guard their Avenues and instead of unanimously joining together to defend themselves and oppose the Foe should quarrel among themselves and fall a tearing and devouring one another it would not be hard to guess what would be the fate of it I say our endeavours must not be wanting towards our own safety though 't is only God's Blessing upon them that can make them successful for that end That therefore we may expect and receive that blessing let us do our parts pursue those methods that tend most plainly to the securing them and trust God with the event Nothing under Heaven but Union and Resolution can secure us if we are broken into Factions and pursuing the interest of Parties or private Revenge while the Enemy is watching for the ruine of the whole We may learn from our Saviour what is like to become of us a Kingdom divided against it self cannot stand If now the Adversary has shew'd himself so openly and daringly we shall be Cowardly or to put it into other words cautious and reserved we invite and encourage his attempts upon us This is no time to dissemble we must declare plainly one way or other either resolve upon a brave Defence or to yield our Necks to the Yoke My Brethren we want no Engagements or Encouragements to unite and to be bold The cause we are to unite in is the Cause of our King and Country and indeed of all Europe 't is the Cause of our Church and the whole Protestant Religion We are not left alone to grapple with our Enemies we have most of the Princes and States of Christendom join'd with us and which is most encouraging of all hitherto God has appeared for us Let us then join as one Man both Heart and Hand in defence of our selves our little ones and all our Substance as Ezra expresses it in defence of our Liberties our Laws and Religion and for the sake of these in defence of our King and Government upon whom under God all these depend We have all the strictest Obligations to him that can be laid upon us of Gratitude of Duty of Interest Shall we not unite in the defence of him that has once rescued us out of the very Jaws of Destruction and is still guarding us with the utmost hazards and fatigue in defence of that Precious Life which has been so often exposed for the security of ours Have we not sworn many of us to bear Faith and true Allegiance to him and do we not all every day beg of God in our publick Prayers to strengthen him that he may Vanquish and Overcome all his Enemies and ought we not to convince the World that we have not in our Oaths prevaricated with God as well as imposed upon Man that in our Prayers our Hearts do not give the Lye to our Tongues by our readiness to make good our Oaths upon such an occasion and to second our Prayers by our hearty endeavours Are we not Embarkt in one Cause have we not the same common concern with him both Civil and Religious So that to join in his Defence is indeed to join in our own why then should we not resolve to stand by him and one another with the same Courage with which he Fights for us all To conclude Let us first seek and engage the Divine Favour and Blessing and then add our joint Endeavours as our Places and Capacities give us opportunity for our common Security and being reconciled to God by Repentance and newness of Life and united to one another by all the Bonds which our common Relation and Interests as to Nature Country and Religion obliges us and resolve to act in good earnest for the benefit and safety of the whole we may confidently rely upon God that he will prosper and give success to our Endeavours that he will guard us at home and go forth with our Fleets and Armies and fight our Battles abroad that he will preserve the breath of our Nostrils bless him in his going out and coming in give his Angels charge over him and cover his head in the day of Battel that he will be a Sun and a Shield to enlighten and protect him to keep him from the Arrow that flyeth by day and the evil that walketh in darkness that he will bring him back with Honour and Victory and Crown at last all his Labours and our Wishes with a happy and durable Peace and that our Enemies being scatter'd who delighted in blood we being delivered from their hands may serve him without fear in holyness and righteousness before him all the days of our Life FINIS