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A90992
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Gods working and Brittains wonder. A sermon congratulating the most happy establishment of His sacred Majesty Charls the II. on His throne. Presented to the Kings most Excellent Majtie [sic]. By a person of honor. By Wil. Price B.D. late preacher of Covent-Garden, now to the Reformed English Church in Amsterdam.
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Price, William, d. 1666.
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1660
(1660)
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Wing P3400; Thomason E1034_5; ESTC R209032
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11,539
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26
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Psal 86.17 Things above beliefe Act. 13.41 4. When against the stream of humane and devilish designes and endevours that is effected that they studiously avoided the will of God being fulfilled by the fierce opposers of it Thus Josephs unnatural brethren intending to lay him low as the dust Gen. 50.20 1 Cor. 15.56 Heb. 2.14 1 Joh. 3.8 unwittingly raised him to the highest pitch of honour Satan by hurrying Christ to death paved a path to deaths death and to his own greater confusion This is and can be no other then the Lords doing These and many more are Magnalia Dei the great things of God wherein he is pleased to make bare his arm that is sometime covered from our eyes by the interposition of outward means Such works wherein God may be even seen and felt Rom. 1.20 that extort confessions from very enemies Acts 17.27 Psal 64.9.72.18.109.27 that the Lord alone hath done them they being advanced above the sphere and reach of nature or reason Observe That 2. The Lords hand appears in nothing more then in his providential disposal of Kings and Kingdoms The book of Samuel Dan. 4.32 the Kings and Chronicles besides other historical monuments extant of the miraculous turns and changes in States is a large commentary on and an undeniable proof of this great truth It were too long to trace this Labyrinth or maze Dan. 6.26 7.24 25 26 c. in the Jewish Assyrian Median Persian Graecian Roman Brittish Monarchies God is the King of Kings His Son is a King Kings are his Vicegerents on earth Prov. 8.23 By him Kings reign Them he is pleased to make master-wheel in religion and policy and to order that his mercy or justice should signally appear towards nations through them Observe 3. That God is much seen in righting the opprest and raising the deprest He sets refused stones at the head of the building That is indeed his proper work his master-piece to step in cúm dignus vindice nodus when a knot is worth untying Because of the opprest now will I rise saith the Lord. Man's extremity is his opportunity Psal 12.5 Out of the mouths even of Babes and Sucklings will he create strength because of the enemy Psal 8.2 and avenger He is a refuge for the opprest Psal 9. v. 9.12.13.18 When he makes inquisition for blood he forgets not the cry of the humble He lifts us from the gates of death He is known by his judgements The poor sufferer shall not always be forgotten Psa 10.14 18. Thou beholdest mischief and spite to requite it Thou judgest the fatherless and the opprest that the man of the earth may no more oppress The Psalms are full of such passages Holy Scripture and all Story largely exemplifies this comfortable truth Observe 4. The lower just men are brought by men the higher God exalts them As a Ball Percusse surgo the harder cast to the earth the higher it rebounds David was cast aside as unfit for any place in the building and God mounts him to the highest place The lower the foundation the higher the fabrick ever God brought Joseph from the bottome of a pit to be second man in Egypt Psal 105.17 18 21. Phil. 2.7 8 9. 1 Sam. 2.8 9. Haud facile emergunt Because Jesus Christ was debased to the lowest therefore God exalted him to the highest giving him a name above every name It is God-like to do thus for man uses to tread down the hedge where it is lowest to add misery to affliction to wound the wounded to push at the declining Observe 5. Though all Gods works are remarkable yet some are more stupendiously miraculous then others He is seen and with wonder in the Ant and Fly but with amazement in the Behemoth and Leviathan Job 40.15 41.1 2. There are miranda and miracula wonders and miracles Satan and his slaves though he seem sometimes to be commanded by them the more to infatuate them may work wonders through Gods permission but those are but Legerdemain 1 Thes 2.9 juggling tricks compared with miracles called by S. Paul lying wonders The Devil is Gods Ape and Pharaohs Magicians Moses his Apes in some strange things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nazian but they were but juglers and confined and out-done by Moses in the miracle of lice Exod. 8.18 Every wretch can refuse a stone but to make it the head of the corner is the Lords doing Observe 6. True Davids men after Gods own heart curiously observe gratefully own and duly admire Gods doings and adore him in them They cry as if they would have heaven and earth eccho them this is the Lords doing The works of the Lord are great sought out by all them who have pleasure in them Psal 111.2 Psal 118.1 to 5.14 15.21 c. 27 28 29. Read Psal 18. 104. 105. 106. 136. 143. He that with an observing eye peruseth this golden book of Psalms may find now studiously and exactly the Psalmist surveys Gods great and gracious dispensations towards him and others how he varies his style how he with orient colours celebrates them to the height He summons all ranks of creatures to make the Musick full He cites nature and art to assist Sometimes he sits down by this banckless and bottomless sea and admires As Psal 139.17 18. O how great and numberless are thy thoughts to me-ward Psal 116.12 they nonplus Arithmetick What shall I render to the Lord The like temper we find in other Saints as Moses Hannah Asaph Simeon Zachary and the blessed Virgin in their heavenly compositions in their songs memoriz'd in Holy Scripture But I detain my self and others too long from the Application Application 1. Let us hence see the vast difference between a good God and evil men They refuse he rayses They trample on those as the refuse and off-scouring of the world as S. Paul speaks those whom God exalts They count those Heb. 11.38 as not worthy to live in the world of whom the world is not worthy 2. It followes by the rule of contraries that if it be a divine work to right the wrong'd and to set up a King it is a devilish work to do wrong and to reject and destroy a King It is true that God being provoked not oftner by Kings sins then by the Peoples if rheumes destill from the head it is commonly because the Stomack vapour'd them upward God 2 Sam. 24.1 I say distresses Kings yet this is his strange work but to restore them is his genuine work Isai 11.4 Suum alienum wherein he delights and glories Misericors de suo savus de nostro saith Tertullian His mercy is innate issuing out of himself naturally but severity he borrows of us as the Bee makes hony naturally and stings onely when provoked I have found saith God exulting as if he had found a treasure
happiness and that without effusion of blood A bone is soon broken but not soon set again One Erostratus could fire and destroy the Temple of Ephesus that many ages could not rebuild But we who have made made a hard shift to undo our selves in many years are miraculously restored in the twinckling of an eye Momento turbinis Par. What story can parallel ours All Rhetorick is at a stand that would describe it The tongue of men and Angels will find it a task to characterize it No forreign aid invited or accepted by his Majesty to imbroil us in a new war God will not seem to be beholding to Kings or States and which adds to the wonder when they that do wrong never forget he who hath suffered it is ready to forgive and forget all Let his Majesty and his Dominions excuse this expression I think it is an exaltation of his and our joy and happiness that we have some years suffered an eclipse Never was King so passionately desired or so welcome as showers to the mowen grass or chapped ground After a dead low ebb follow the highest spring tides Spring is doubly welcome after a long hard winter In northern climates some worship the returning Sun That rain that makes flowers droop and hang their heads when Sunbeams come increases their vernancy colour and sent Yet let not our admiration stupifie us but raise us to the highest pitch of love to our God of faith in him for the future experience breeds hope Psal 116.1 2 Cor. 1 10. Rom. 5.4 of cordial oral real gratitude to him who hath done for us above what we could ask or think marvellous mercy should beget marvellous returns Our zeal now for God and his truth our loyalty toward our dear and dread Soveraign our confidence in our gracious never failing God our piety our charity our studiousness of publick and christ an unity and peace our love of right and equity should be now more then ordinary that they that admire at our state may be also amazed at our admirable reformation and glorifie God for us Ezra 9.13 14. After thou hast crown'd us O Lord with such a deliverance as this should we again return to our old Sins To our images or imaginations to hypocrisie to formality to lukewarmness to carnal security to bestial excess to brutish lusts to self-confidence Englands sins to neglect or despising of Gods ordinances and his ministers to profanation of his name and his day to discords and heart-burning to intestine mutinies to â—eedless uncharitable jealousies and censures to turning justice into wormwood by illegal judgments and proceedings or into vineger by unnecessary delays God forbid If a bone be broken it may be so set â—hat it may prove stronger then it was Rom. 12.1 but beware a second breaking I beseech my Countrymen by â—he mercies of God that we may henceforth offer our selves a living sacrifice holy and acceptable in a â—easonable service of him And it is but reason O â—et us not turn grace into wantonness Let us not fight against God with his own weapons peace and plenty We owe our selves to God afore by many obligations he lays now a new tie upon us To repay evil with evil is carnal to repay good with good is humane to repay evil with good is divine to repay good with evil is devilish Happy we if we improve this day of grace but the most unhappy nation under the sun if we neglect or abuse so great salvation Let us now onely contend to outgo each other in a holy thankfulness and a religious conversation Psal 145.1.2 3 4 7. Let us extol our God and bless his name for ever Let us dayly praise him and declare his mighty acts from generation to generation Psal 147.2 Psal 48.14 let us abundantly utter the memory of his goodness and sing of his righteousness It is pleasant and comely to praise him Ephes 20.21 who builds up Jerusalem and gathers together the the outcoasts of Israel Let us praise him in the heights who exalts the horn of his people Now unto him who is able to do and hath done exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think to him be glory in the Church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages world without end Amen Le cose di cielâ— sol colui vede Chi serra gl' occhi e crede The works of heaven he best descries Who doth believe and shuts his eyes FINIS