Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n
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A53968
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A sermon preached upon September the 9th, 1683 being a Thanksgiving Day for a late deliverance from a fanatick-conspiracy / by Edward Pelling ... ; printed in his own defence.
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Pelling, Edward, d. 1718.
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1683
(1683)
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Wing P1094; ESTC R38188
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15,408
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38
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and the Destruction of Princes to be no more but a Perfecting the History of the Reformation But Blessed be God that the Counsels of Achitophel and the Designs of Sheba and the Persidiousness of a Judas are all hitherto Ineffectual Though we have been Troubled and Afflicted and in extremity of Dangers on every side yet he hath not suffered us to be tempted above what we are able but with the temptation hath now made a way for us to escape and in a great measure hath delivered the Righteous out of their distress For to speak now particularly of this Deliverance he hath first delivered a Righteous Church Righteous in her Cause Righteous in her Principles and Righteous in her Ways When the Villanous Practices of some Romanists were Detected and set the whole Nation in such a Rage we had reason to expect that every English-man professing the Protestant Religion would have lent an helping Hand to preserve that Church which the common Enemy did thrust at with so much Malice and Fury A Church which hath rolled in Blood for her Faith and Loyalty A Church which hath sent into Heaven such Colonies of Confessors and Martyrs for the Truth A Church which hath constantly maintain'd her own Cause and the common cause of all Reformed Churches A Church which hath stock'd all Christendom with Learning and hath obliged even Foreigners to be her Advocates A Church which hath laid the Holy Scriptures so open and hath instructed her Children so in all Literature Divine and Humane that every the meanest Idiot may be able to give a good account of his Faith and Hope In a word a Church which in all her Conflicts hath been so Victorious and successful that 't is generally acknowleg'd by us that she is the only Substantial Bulwark against Popery I say we did justly expect that when this Church was so Beset by Enemies from abroad she might be sure to find none but Friends at home And how did the matter go at last Why instead of Preserving her these Apollyons marked her out for Destruction Every Law which was made for her Support was to be Repealed Every Kennel was to be opened and every Ravenous and Bloud-thirsty Sect was to be let loose against her The whole Body of her Honest and True-hearted Clergy were to be Routed or Sacrific'd Her Government was to be pulled down her Discipline was to be taken away her way of Worship was to be abolished and God alone knoweth whether any Form of Worship at all was to be set up in its room Her Church-doors were to be set wider open tolet in Godly Traytors Sanctified Hypocrites Religious Atheists and Protestant Turks Her Lands were to be Escheated to our Soveraign Lords the People to pay all the Charges of the Plot to reward every Mercenary and Forsworn Sycophant and to mend the Fortunes of every Beggarly Dependant upon the Plot-Office All her Dutiful Children were branded for Papists and by a strange kind of Comprehension were to Communicate in the same Fate with the Papists and if it were once given out that the King was killed by the Papists though Protestants did it All of us without Discrimination were to be Assassinated in our Houses or in the Streets because we were all concluded Papists They would in all haste have Revenged the Kings Death upon us all not so much because the King was killed as because he Lived so long and We would not help to Kill him Thus the poor Church of England was to be rewarded at last for all her Faith for all her Integrity for all her Merits and Care of Souls and even for her daily Prayers for her Enemies and Persecutors Cursed be their Anger for it was fierce and their Wrath for it was cruel and except the Lord himself had been on our side when they rose up against us they had swallowed us up quick when their Wrath was so kindled against us But Blessed be the Lord who hath not given us over as a prey unto their Teeth Our Soul is escaped as a Bird out of the snare of the Fowler the snare is broken and we are as yet delivered 2. Together with this Deliverance wrought for our Righteous Church God hath wrought a Deliverance for our Righteous Prince too We little dreamt that this King was to be Murder'd also and that too when the Bloud of Charles the First cryed yet for Vengeance and within a few years after Charles the Second was Restored to us by a Miracle being risen as it were from the Dead and received by us with all Publick and Triumphant Hosanna's and Acclamations Who could imagine that after so many Frotestations and Professions of Sorrow for former Miscarriages after so many Vows of Loyalty and Hearty Obedience for the future after so many Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy repeated over the whole Nation after such Acts of Indemnity granted even to Monsters of Rebels after such Profuseness of Royal Bounty whereby Villains were enriched and grew fat after so many Expressions of Goodness Tenderness and Clemency enough to soften any Devils but Fanaticks after such pretended Fears lest his Majesty should be destroyed by the Papists after so many Professions of the most sollicitous care for the Preservation of his Sacred Life after so many Specious Addresses said to be presented by his most Dutiful and Loyal Subjects and after so many formal Petitions to the King that he would be careful of his own Person I say who could imagine that after all this any such Men should be found among us as would time after time Conspire to Murder his Majesty in his Coach and as if all his Favours had been Injuries to make Reprisals upon his Life But I remember what a Character Josephus gives of the Pharisees those great Pretenders to Religion of old that they were a Bold and Arrogant Sect that would not Antiq. l. 17. cap. 3. Swear Allegiance unto Caesar but were inveterate Enemies to Kings and would not stick upon occasion to make Attempts upon Kings and do them Mischief And may not this be the Character of the Sectaries among us Truly it may be question'd whether there be any difference between them in their Morals but this That the Pharisees in that Nation were Jewish Fanaticks and the Fanaticks in this Nation are Christian Jews Did not the Pharisees continually way-lay the Son of God to Stone him Why even so did some of these Conspire to way-lay the Anointed of God to Assassinate him as if in every Age the Good Old Cause so called must be Consecrated by shedding a Princes Blood Azorius the Jesuite endeavouring to prove the Lawfulness of Deposing Kings urgeth several Presidents for it and among other Examples which he mentioneth he saith That it was a common Practice in Scotland The very same Argument is used by Buchanan the Scotch Presbyterian I could reckon up saith he Twelve of our Kings or more who have been either thrust into Prison or forced into
us that are his Subjects make it the business of our Life truly to Fear and Obey God and the thing is certainly and soon done But 't is dangerous for men to dally with the Divine Patience and still to be trying Conclusions whether God will preserve them on still notwithstanding their great and high Provocations and it was the very thing which made him at last utterly weary of his ancient People the Jews Though he had not dealt so with any Nation and though he had born them all along from the Belly as the Prophets Expression is Isa 46. 3. yet in the end he threw them out of his Arms because they sinned yet still and hardned their Hearts notwithstanding so many Deliverances all along That this may not be our sad case let every one who professeth himself a Loyal and Good Subject apply himself heartily to the necessary business of Repentance and turn from the Evil of his ways especially that Evil way which he is most addicted to and then we need not fear the most malicious and wicked Practices of those who have basely gone off from the Kings side if ever they were really on it and have gone off too with all sorts of Debauchery and Immorality along with them Read and consider well that Declaration of God himself Jer. 18. 7 8. At what instant I shall speak concerning a Nation and concerning a Kingdom to pluck up and to pull down and to destroy it if that Nation against whom I have pronounced turn from their Evil I will repent of the Evil that I thought to do unto them 3. And 't is necessary too which is the Third Vse to be made of this Deliverance that men Repent of their Follies that they have been so credulous and easie in taking the Words and trusting to the Principles and abetting though inadvertently the Practices of these Conspirators and to beware of the like Follies for the Future Those Principles which have been sent so thick abroad of late that the King holdeth not his Crown Jure Divino but is the Common-wealths Trustee and Delegate that he is accountable to his People that all his Rights are founded upon Humane Laws that he is a Co-ordinate State and that the Supream or Soveraign Power is lodged in the People whither did these Doctrines tend but to the Deposition and Destruction of his Majesty You may observe they were the Principles which Bradshaw went upon at the King's Tryal The manifest obstructing the course of Justice notwithstanding full and pregnant Evidence the protecting of the basest Fellows and the greatest Criminals who had nothing to recommend them but this that they were factious and dishonest the taking of Oaths not in the sense of the Law but according to every mans Private Construction the justifying of the most InfamousVillains and the zealous indeavours which have been used both to Rescue Traytors from the Law and to cleanse their Reputation after they were condemned for the foulest Malefactors whither did all this tend but to embolden Conspirators and to encourage them with Securities from all manner of Penalty if they had but the Character of True-Protestants The subborning of Wretches to say and unsay to speak by roat and to Tell every thing but Truth the supporting of Perjury as a Trade far more profitable than any Old English Manufacture and the stitching up of every Hole which any Common Idiot could see in an improbable Story what did this tend to but to keep a great stock of Oaths in bank to swear the King himself out of his Honour and his Life The Charge and Sweat which thousands have wasted to put the most dis-affected Persons into Places and Offices of great Trust and Power what did this tend to but to make Resistance and Rebellion look fair with the Face of Authority The Aspersing of the Government the Calumniating of his Majesty and all Subordinate Magistrates and Loyal Ministers of State the frightning of men with such a noise of Popery when so many had exchanged all Religion for Atheism the Out-cries against Tyranny when the Licentiousness of those very men argued that common Justice could not be done no not for the King himself What did all this tend to but to subvert the Fundamental Constitutions both in Church and State The Dispersing of Libels the countenancing of the most Seditious Pamphlets that came from the rudest and filthiest hands the scaring of men if it had been possible from speaking Reason Justice or Truth and the practising of every thing that served for the diminution of all that is Good Great and Noble what did all this tend to but to help Evil-minded men by Degrees and Inches to get to the Kings Throne that they might Assassinate his Person with a full thrust and then leave it to the prejudiced and ill-affected World to make their Apology One would have thought it impossible that Discerning men should not be able to look to the end of these things nor so much as to guess at the Conclusion by the Premises without putting an Honest and Experienced Observator to the pains of drawing out the whole Scheme of the Villany But so it was that great Multitudes of men some of whom I am perswaded were not guilty of Black Intentions were led away with the common Error and upon false presumptions that nothing was at the bottom but a true Design for the Interest and Stability of Religion the stale pretence that turn'd the Nation into an Aceldama once before 'T is high time therefore for such to be sorry to see how greatly they were befool'd and to consider with themselves how far they may have Contributed though unwittingly to the carrying oâ— a Design so Horrid and Barbarous without a Parallel and by their just Indignation for what is past and highest Zeal for the future to indeavour if it be possible to make the King and the Church Reparation for those Intolerable Mischiefs which Blood-thirsty Trayters would perhaps never have Attempted upon the Confidence of a meer Fanatick Interest 4. Once more and I have done The Singular and Abundant Goodness of God to us in this Instance of his Providence teacheth us to cast all our Care upon the same Providence still and to commit our selves to him in well-doing In the very height of These Times it was our Hope that God would open a way which we did not foresee or so much as think of and lead us out of our dangers and difficulties if we did but study to act like true Christians and that his Providence would not leave nor forsake us And now we see that our Hopes are made good to us for God hath saved us after a Miraculous manner by two strange and sudden and astonishing acts of his Providence First By his Providence at New-Market For when the King was there and some of the Traytors were now preparing their Forces and Instruments of Death and they thought themselves Cock sure they dreamt as little as we that a dreadful Fire would happen there to force Gods Anointed home in all haste and but a few hours before his Bloody Enemies were to be gathered and planted in Ambuscade This was Gods doing and it is marvellous in our Eyes And then some considerable time after his Majesties return he himself not mistrusting what narrow dangers he had escaped the Conspiracy going on still vigorously to destroy him in some other place when the Devilish Design was fixt the Providence of God was seen the second time by forcing a Discovery of the Plot and by touching with his Finger the Conscience of one of the Accomplices to the very quick As he hath honestly and ingenuously Confest it was nothing but a restless Conscience that brought him to it and that through the dangers of Death too I was troubled in my Mind saith he I had See the Tryal of Walcâ—t no Peace no Satisfaction no Content I did not mind my Business nor could I take Rest and that was the moving cause that I discovered the Conspiracy and no other This was manifestly the work of God for the deliverance of Prince and People to make a mans Sin his cruel Lictor and intollerable Plague and as he had already prevented the greatest Evil so to draw Good and we hope a perpetual Good out of it at the last I have no more to add but that we give all diligence Religiously and Honestly to perform our duty to God to his Anointed and to all Mankind and in so doing to look up to the hills from whence all our help cometh and to trust in God for our deliverance from those dangers which are yet before us casting all our care on him who thus continually careth for us and who hath hitherto delivered us and if we do not offend him by wicked and ungrateful Courses will deliver us yet still Though the Troubles of the righteous be many yet the Lord delivereth him out of all To that Merciful Watchful and Ever-blessed God be all Honour Glory and Thanksgiving for evermore Amen FINIS