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A60610 A sermon preached in the Cathedral Church of Norwich on the ninth of September, 1683 being the day of public thanksgiving for His Majesty's late deliverance / by William Smith ... Smith, William, b. 1615 or 16. 1683 (1683) Wing S4281; ESTC R10063 16,140 41

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Surprize and Amazement Why don't you cry to the Heavens and the Earth to be astonish'd that it should ever enter into the heart of any of the Christian Name to attempt an Act that should not only have justified the Savageries of the most brutish Barbarians but even made Hell it self comparatively innocent in its worst Consults An Act that would have inverted the Order of the mischievous Regions and plac'd the Bottomless Pit and the Abaddon above-ground and would have so out-done Devils at their own Art that they should for ever after have been tormented with Envy as with a new kind of Hell that there should be among Mankind in a certain Island greater Devils than themselves Marvel not that I discourse in this Rapturous manner the Case requires it and it is a Defect not so to express it But O joyful Day that gives us the Glad Tidings that Almighty God took care of his Dear Anointed and would not suffer his Signet to be ravished from his own right Hand And that by a wonderful Providence he did not only disappoint the near approaching Attempt but marvellously detected and blasted the Long-train'd Conspiracy which by several steps of Disloyalty and Seditious Counsels had so dangerously led on unto this last design'd Bloody Period O then let every Loyal Heart if the Mercy reached no further than the preserving the Life of his Dear Lord and King think it enough to solicit the whole World to Praise God for his Goodness and to declare the Wonders he doth for the Children of Men. 2. The next Calamitous Effect of the Conspiracy had it succeeded had been the universal ruine of this Establish'd Church the Glory and main Pillar of the Reformation and which only in all Points can solve the Reasonableness of it A Church which at this day only claims the honour of being the lively portraicture of the Apostolic Age and the resurrection of the Primitive Doctrine and Polity before any fatal defection had sullyed its Purity A Church that dares be Disputed without Evasions or trifling Quarrels and that can defend it self upon a conjunct Tryal of Scripture first-Antiquity and Reason altogether and that scorns to fly to a circling Infallibility an expurgatory Index or a stubborn private Spirit to perplex or violate those Authorities for her own defence This such a Church had this factious Conspiracy confounded The Evil Spirit had once again as in the last Rebellion put a Lye into the Prophets mouths to intoxicate the Peoples Minds The precious Sons of our Zion Lam. 4.2 had once more been made a contemptible as earthen Pitchers while the Sea-Monsters had drawn out the breasts to the Young ones The Devil as General with his Lieutenants in Sheeps clothing under the Flag of a Through Reformation had once again rallyed the whole Protestancy as it s called that is all the Heresies that ever infested the Catholic Church in all Ages especially the Reformado's of the Knipperdollian and Knoxian Regiments to bear down before them all that 's Regular and Loyal Learned and Pious Or you may judge what measures of Profaneness we must have met with by calling to mind what was acted in the late Confusions in this very Cathedral when at the Morning-Service the then Reverend Bishop was detruded into an obscure Corner of an inferiour Gallery while two Famoso Villains of the Rebellion Cromwel and Ireton sat together the Sermon time in his Throne And at the Evening-Prayer of the same day an unhallow'd Crew of Souldiers at the end of every Collect confounded the Amen with a rude and loud Hallo at the Altar where they were tumultuously gathered together After that a Company of the new Saints took all the rich Vestments Books of Service and a famous Musical Ingine and having torn them in pieces carried them all into the public Market-place with a Villain in an Ecclesiastic Habit who thereupon presently languished to his death going before a prophane Rout singing the Litany in derision and then committed them all to the Flames some of them as I am inform'd repenting afterwards that they did not return back and set Fire to the Sanctuary it self till in that stately Monument of Ancient Piety they had not left one Stone upon another to bespeak the hopes of any future Restauration Such resembling Outrages as these might easily be presumed to have been acted in every Sacred Place and all other the prophane Practices of the Churches common devastation would certainly have followed this Conspiracies success But O happy Day that represents the News that such desperate Designs are disappointed and while the Factions are pining in their Shame and weltring in their unsuccessful Malice let every Son and Lover of our Constitution take occasion to publish the Wonders of Gods Love and Care of his precious Zion with a Voice loud enough to reach those Heavens whence their help and deliverance came 3. The third Calamitous Effect of this horrid Conspiracy if Success had compleated it would have been that the Three Nations had immediately ran into Blood and Rapine Revenge and Villany We had once more become an Aceldama and a Vally of Hinnon evey Zealot would have been preparing a Tophet and setting up his Moloch to be worshipped with the Bloody Sacrifices of the Loyal And as it was foretold by the Prophet of the Jews impending Ruine Isai. 3.5 The People would have been oppress'd every one by another and every one by his Neighbour And the Gospel-state of Mankind as it s represented by the same Prophet Isai. 2.4 had been inverted the enrag'd Vulgar would presently have turn'd their Plow-shares into Swords and their Pruning-hooks into Spears to execute what their bloody Leaders long-fermented Malice had before contriv'd Every Village had been a Seat of War all united Neighbourhoods turn'd into distinct Hostilities and every single Person had been listed into one Side or other to carry on the work of a through Destruction Muster'd Armies had fill'd their Streets and emptied their Houses by reciprocal Plunders and the Popular Rage would soon have been such that a Prison would not have been so much a Restraint as a Castle to secure the Persons as they stil'd Imprisonment in the late Confusions of the truly Loyal from the Routs of such Religious Barbarians whose Zeal had been newly inflam'd by a raging Pulpiteer for the Cause of God as they call'd it In a word to discourse in another strain We had faln into the Hands of such as would have been Instruments of God's severe Vengeance upon us and whereby the Judgment of God had overtaken us to the utmost Execution of his Displeasure The reason of David's Choice would have been improv'd beyond what he could possibly account for at that time when his election was 2 Sam. 25. that he might fall into the hands of the Lord for his Mercies are great and not into the hands of Men I am sure not into the hands of such Monsters as would have been profligate from