Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	church_n	true_a	unity_n	1,613	5	9.0929	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61180	A sermon preach'd before the right honourable Sir Henry Tulse, Lord Mayor, and the Court of Aldermen, and the citizens of the city of London, on May the 29th, 1684 being the anniversary-day of His Majesty's birth ... / by Thomas Sprat ...	Sprat, Thomas, 1635-1713.; Corporation of the Sons of the Clergy (London, England)	1684 (1684)	Wing S5060; ESTC R18474	15,600	44

convinc'd that no real arm of flesh which for a time they had no counterfeit assistance of the Heavenly Spirit which they pretended to can alwayes can long protect them against the true celestial arms of the unity order truth and charity of the Church of England the divine power of its piety the invincible spirit of its Loyalty This therefore also is the day which the Lord has made He made it by his allwise counsel by his outstretched arm by a way indeed of all others the most divine by his counsel more than by his Arm. By the admirable conduct of a brave General whose name shall ever flourish with this day Yet not so much by his undaunted valour or conquering hand as by his deep wisdom and peaceful arts We admir'd the Heroick courage of his undertaking the design But more we loved we blessed the calm prudence of its management the easie gentleness of its execution Scarce a sword all the while then drawn amidst so many armies yet all contending for so much more than for one single victory Scarce a drop of blood spilt till Justice came to draw its sword which too was sheath'd almost as soon as drawn So it was fit that a mild and peaceful Reign should be introduced only by the methods of mildness and peace We behold my dear Brethren how manifold was the mercy of God to us on this day If either the time or your patience or my voice would permit 't would be well worth our while to consider yet farther by how many marvellous degrees of multiplied preservations and unexpected protections of his Majesties Life and Crowns God has ever since taken care to guard and defend his own gracious gift on this day and now after four and twenty years has deliver'd down to us the mercy of it safe and secure and even augmented Amongst many other instances of this kind never to be forgotten if you would give me leave there is one signal and extraordinary Providence which being freshest in our memories methinks cannot at this time without injustice to God and man be wholly passed by in silence I mean the most astonishing deliverance of the King and Kingdom from the late horrid Conspiracy Heaven and Earth knows that the hellish design was spread into two most villainous enterprises One the subversion of the Kings Government by an open insurrection against him in his politick capacity The other the Murder of his sacred person which two the Rebellious principles of the late Wars taught Rebels to distinguish in order to the destruction of both Of the Rebellion design'd heats stirs as some have pleased to complement it But of that no honest English man can either speak or think without extream detestation if we either reflect on the plenty and tranquillity we enjoy and our Enemies would have overthrown that we were and are the happiest people in Europe did we but equally understand and value our own happiness or if we shall recollect not only what we had lost had the detestable Conspiracy succeeded but also from whom from what kind of Enemies we were deliver'd by its wonderful defeat Were they not either disciples of the very same ill parties and Sects of men or many of them the very same men who had once before ruin'd us by the same popular pretences and ill applied names of things they never meant of Liberty Property and Conscience For did we not all the while know the generality of the men themselves to be Atheists in Religion to whom nothing was sacred who made all things prophane Monsters in morality to whom nothing was unlawful all things common Republicans in opinion to whom the easiest Laws of their own Country seem'd oppression the mildest Monarchy in the world tyranny Men whose black designs required them to be close and hypocritical but their Lives proved them to be loose and debauch'd Men either of desperate fortunes or which is worse in plentiful fortunes of desperate principles Men fierce cruel Religiously cruel towards others boldly irreligious themselves Men whom Rebellion once prosperous had taught to be Rebellious but Rebellion often forgiven could never teach them either gratitude or quiet Such had been the blessed Reformers and Restorers of your Liberties and Laws Priviledges and Consciences by the desperate insurrection intended if God had not miraculously prevented it Of the other part of the diabolical Plot the cruel Assassination of his Majesties and his Royal Highnesses Persons at the Rye of that I know you cannot but on the oneside with the highest indignation on the other with an extasie of joy acknowledge that as all the most mysterious subtilties and masterly strokes of hells malice were joyn'd in its secret contrivance So the wisest and most gracious arts as I may call them of the divine favour were visibly practiced in its disappointment Of the place where this abominable Scene was laid as many of you as know it must confess that it was a spot of ground the fittest in the whole world for the attempting such an execrable parricide A retyr'd passage out of the publick road easie to be defended by those within hard to be approach'd from without A House solitary and ruinous a seat of melancholy and horror a fit Emblem of the furious intent of the wretched possessors mind There the anointed of the Lord had been taken in a snare I could not have utterd these words but that now I can say the snare is broken and we are escap't There however had the best of Kings the breath of our nostrils been excluded from the assistance of his few Guards whom the consciousness of his own innocence had made few there he passing by secure as he might well think himself secure in the settled peace of all his other Dominions secure in the company of a valiant and invincible Brother sitting by his side secure in the eminent Loyalty of that particular County but above all secure in his own unequal'd mercy to all his Enemies to whom he had done as much as King or man could do to make them his Friends However there had the King been on a sudden assaulted by unseen treacherous subjects armed Villains chosen Assassinates Veteranes in mischeif and slaughter Men kept alive only by his forgiveness Yet there exposed defenceless unarm'd unforewarn'd had the King I can say no more and God for ever be glorified our enemies can say no more For then God from on high interposed God had seen the whole preparation of the villany he saw all their closest Cabals and most daring resolutions He saw them and frown'd with disdain at the fury of their wrath Smiled with contempt at the folly of their malice God knew when it was time for him to appear when a Kings rescue would become a work worthy of Gods omnipotence He knew and he appear'd he appear'd in such a manner as to make the glory of his immediate presence unquestionable God wrought not then by the slow methods of

and the principal reason why it is with him this I have premised as briefly as I could in so weighty and copious an argument as a necessary introduction for th' applying my text to our selves and to this glorious day of mercy and forgiveness A day of which amongst its many other felicities this is none of the least that do what we our selves could not to deserve any more of these days do what our worst adversaries could that we should have no more of them yet neither our sins nor their malice have prevail'd But we are still met in the house of God in a Congregation of true and dutifull Sons of the Church of England in the midst of this His Majesty 's always best-beloved now I am sure I may say most deservedly beloved City here we are met once again to solemnize this day and to doe it as joyfully as we did at first nay more if possible Since now by the late defeat of the new Conspiracies of His Majesty's old and new Enemies though it is prodigious he should have any new ones however now by the blessed prospect of Peace maintain'd and Justice restored and Rebellion once more destroy'd by its own arts now by the renew'd affections and united acclamations of all good men from all quarters of the Land by the joint consent of Heaven and Earth by the voice of God and of the People which we have been told is the voice of God The voice not of the unruly tumult and giddy populace but of the good loyal and peaceably-devout People that is as the voice of God and by all these methinks I am incouraged to call this day a new resurrection as it were of that great Nine and twentieth of May and this year the very Restoration of the King's Restoration So perpetually fresh and triumphant ought to be and I may venture to presage will be in all ages to come the precious memory of this day whereof it may be justly affirm'd that except the general redemption of all Nations on a day of all others the most memorable that day which was the fountain of all the good things we obtain'd on this or any other day but except that on this day we had heap'd on us the greatest blessings that perhaps ever any Nation under Heaven receiv'd from it on any one day To God alone be the glory of all For what I beseech you can be said less of a day whose mercy was so diffusive that it extended to its Enemies as well as Friends Laid good and sure foundations if they and we had but built upon them to make us and them and all that come after us happy in all our great interests whether temporal or spiritual To you the ancient Friends and well-wishers of this day the old Loyal party I mean for I doubt not but to many such I speak you especially who endured the loss of your Countrey in hope of returning on this day you who so many years preferr'd an honourable Exile before the injoying such a Countrey without the King To you I will not say this was a day of mercy onely because you were restor'd to your estates and possessions by it Those you had sufficiently shewn you never esteem'd as your chief goods and therefore I will not reckon them as the principal blessings you reapt on this day But to you this was a mercy worthy of your perseverance in such a cause to behold the King and with the King his and your beloved Church of England restor'd The Church which was all the while your constant companion your chief delight and sometimes almost your onely comforter This Church you beheld on this day decently re-establish'd in its own Temples whose Tabernacle you had so long followed in the Wilderness Thus was it to you a mercy How much more was it so to those of us who by an unhappy fate were either born or bred up in those miserable times who had not the honour of such a Banishment abroad but had the necessity of an inglorious Confinement home how much on all accounts to us was this a day of mercy A day which in exchange of an unlawfull yoke of Tyranny and the worst of Tyrannies imposed on us by our fellow Subjects return'd to us the easie and blessed Government of our Lawfull Prince A day that secur'd to us a lasting safe and innocent peace not a false or slavish peace like that we had before worse than the very state of War A day which gave us to know what a true liberty of Conscience is instead of a Licentiousness A day which restor'd our King to his Rights and Prerogatives our Countrey to its Privileges and Laws for the false shews of which things it had so bitterly suffer'd But what need I prove that to you and to us this was a day of mercy when it was mercy and forgiveness to its implacable Enemies To some of them it was the first innocent day of their whole lives O! had it not been the last To them it was a forgiveness on Earth of all their past crimes and might have been so in Heaven too if once they would but have learn't to be less familiar with God and more to fear him However to them it was a mercy that it made them for a time quiet and harmless whether they would or no that without their own personal ruine it ruin'd their usurped Powers which had render'd them so guilty towards God so factious amongst themselves so hated of all good men and at last of all mankind But this one day most seasonably took from them the opportunities of destroying themselves as well as us by the numberless confusions and phrensies of Enthusiastick zeal This day gently deprived them of those wretched arms by which they had been so long successfull against truth and the true Religion which to be is really the greatest of miseries Wherefore to the whole English Name and Nation was this a day of mercy By this day our age has been inrich'd with all the blessings of the right hand and of the left By this we were taught Precepts and Examples sufficient to transmit those blessings entire to all posterity By this the true cause of God and of the Kingdom was for ever vindicated by divine Providence against the false cause By this divine Providence it self was vindicated clear'd from the twenty years mischiefs and desolations which their deluded Authours were wont most arrogantly to impute to the special favour and indulgence of divine Providence But on this day Sedition and Rebellion in the State found or should have found its fatal period Now it might have learn't that although it may be for a time perniciously victorious yet it can never be quietly setled in peace that although God may sometimes in wrath permit yet he never in kindness incourages prosperous wickedness In a word on this day Schism and Sacriledge in the Church were abundantly confounded and should once for all have been