Selected quad for the lemma: sin_n
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A61267
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A sermon preached at the Assizes at Hertford, March the 9th, 1682/3 by John Standish ...
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Standish, John, d. 1686.
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1683
(1683)
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Wing S5217; ESTC R13596
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14,535
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38
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not onely conquer the World by his Armes but made Idolatry stoop to the Christian Faith in all Nations And afterwards Euseb in Vita by suppressing Factious Assemblies and demolishing their mock Temples by his Imperial Edict he reduced a World of Sectaries to the Unity of the Church By this one maine reason of their Separation you may judge of the rest and observe upon what slight and trivial grounds they set up Altar against Altar they tear the seamless Coat of Christ in pieces and make nothing to renounce a whole Article of their Creed viz. The Communion of Saints and consequently that we ought to prefer and reverd the Churches wholesome Laws before any lawless Sacrifice of Fools Eccles 5.1 To sum them up together then for they are seldom found of 〈◊〉 1 Meadle not with any of those ungodly men that are given to Change Laws or Governmend in State Doctrine or Discipline in the Church The next verse to the Text gives us such a poynant reason why we must not Meddle with such as these that I shall supersede all other arguments to drive the Nail home with a short Paraphrase onely upon That The words are these For their Calamity shall rise suddainly ver 22. and who knoweth the ruine of them Both sudden Calamity and certain Ruine the most terrible and most effectual Topicks in all argumentation Who knoweth the Ruine of them Both That is both Church and State Rebels Or we may construe it actively as the LXXII do both GOD and the KING will make them Examples and pay them their wages in an untimely end of Life and a never ending Death All sins indeed of the common size against God or man are not presently punished here to assure us of an after reckoning Arrian Epict. a Judgment to come For as the admirable old Soick observes truly the generality of men are apt to murmur and Charge God as well as his Vicegerent foolishly to reckon their deadness of Trade Dearths and Plagues Fires and Wars and other publick Evils as saults of Government as want of Providence in the one and Prudence in the other GOD knows all this saith he nor is CAESAR altogether ignorant thereof but both consider that if they should cut off all Offenders at a blow they would want Subjects to Reign over But then some Crimes such as Murther Treason and Rebellion are of such a Crimson dye daring nature and Goliah-like bulk that they do as it were send a Challenge to speedy Vengeance for they are destructive of Humane Society and strike at the Root and Foundation of all Peace and Policy and therefore least wickedness should grow outragious and masterless their Calamity shall rise suddenly that is they seldom go unpunished even in this World Time would sail me to recompt the numerous Instances in prophane story to this purpose and I shall content my self with two remarkable ones out of the Sacred Volumes The first is that of Absâ—lom and his Twenty-thousand Conspiratours against his Father DAVID 2 Sam. 18. who fell all in one day by the edge of the Sword Himself was caught and hanged most strangely in the thick Boughs of an aged Oak where Joah found and slow him Nor was the band of Joab onely in all this doubtless it was the LORDS doing Psal 118.23 and may be so much the more marvellous in our eyes who have since known the same Tree become a sacred shelter to guard the LORDS Anointed our dread Soveraign from those Blood-hounds that hunted for his Life that once proved a Gallows or Gibbet to that usurping unnatural Traitour The other is of Ecclesiastick Rebels that of Corah Dathan and Abiram who offered strange Fire of their own heads resisting and invading the standing Priesthood of Aaron and labouring to destroy the Old and introduce a New Government into the Church And what was the end of these Men Numb 16.29 Why even as Moses had foretold saying If these men die the common death of all men then the LORD hath not sent me ver 30.32 For so it came to pass that the LORD made a new thing He made the Earth open her mouth and swallow them up both they and theirs went down quick into Hell I add no more from Scripture because he must be a great Stranger in our Jerusalem St. Luk. 24.18 who knoweth not what certain Ruine at last overtook those sometime prosperous Rebels who put these three Kingdoms all in a Flame to make the more solemn Sacrifice to their own Lusts who first swept the Church with the Besom of Destruction Isa 14.23 and then I even tremble to relate what they did not fear to Act murder'd their KING took possession of his Throne St. Mat. 21.38 and seized on His Inheritance for though they exalted themselves as the Eagle and made their nest among the Starrs the Peers and Princes yet thence did I bring them down Obad. v. 4. saith the LORD Maugre all their Rotas and Republican Projects all their Arts and Arms to perpetuate the Usurpation GOD at length brought the Wheel of Consusion over Them and wonderfully setled Us upon the old and lasting Foundation as if He meant to fulfil that Prophesie in our times also where he saith I will overturn overturn Ezek. 21.27 overturn till He shall come whose RIGHT it is Once more I would not judge of Persons or Things merely by the Event because that is oft a fallible Rule But I knew the Man and upon unquestionable evidence know his story to be true who being in quality of a Major under the late Grand Usurper and then about to march for Worcester was heard to boast and make great brags as he was fixing his Pistols that he was going to hunt and pull down a Buck of the first Head meaning our Gracious Soveraign whom God long preserve This Man was ever after troubled and perswaded in his mind as he had often complained to his own Wife and Children that albeit he had escaped many and great dangers in several pitched Battels and other adventures in the Warrs yet he must at length come to some untimely end And so it deed it happened about nine years since for having ordered some of his Servants with Firelocks to take several Posts in the same Hedge and charged them to fire if they spied any Quarry One of the Servants whom he had ever found trusty and now proved too fatally true to his commands mistaking his Master for a Buck in the duske of the night and firing at all adventures shot Him in the right Temple whereat he bowed and fell and not long after Judg. 5.27 fell down dead Now whether it was right-aiming Vengeance that found him out in the dark to pay him in his own Coyn for cursing the KING in more than a Thought Eccles 10.20 or whether all this was but an ordinary blind Mischance I determine not but leave to God and