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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
word_n	david_n	king_n	saul_n	3,246	5	10.1257	5	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A63119	A sermon preached before the Right Honourable the Lord-Mayor, and Court of Aldermen, of the city of London, at St. Mary le Bow, on the 29th of May, 1694 by John Trenchard ...	Trenchard, John, 1662-1723.	1694 (1694)	Wing T2114; ESTC R23483	18,711	37

'T is undoubtedly one main instance of God's special Favours and Goodness to a Nation and such as ought to be a standing motive of their Repentance nay such Mercies being Probationary ones are to be look'd upon as design'd to make proof of our Gratitude and Obedience to that Infinite Goodness who does freely bestow them out of the Riches of his Mercy upon us So on the contrary when Evil and Tyrannical ones domineer and rule over us 't is an Argument of God's great Displeasure and Anger to a People For such as these and such have these Nations felt are indeed very heavy and deplorable Judgments and consequently are upon occasion the best Lectures that can be enlarged upon in order to correct the Popular Vices of the Age and to reform the Publick and Crying Sins of a Nation In a word 'T was God that in mercy to the Israelites rejected Saul and promoted David 'T was he that divided the Kingdom of the Jews into Israel and Judah That chose Jeroboam to be King over the Tribes that revolted and afterwards upon due provocation overthrew Ahab and Anointed Jehu to be King 'T was he that called in the Medes and Persians to afflict the Israelites for their Idolatry and other Abominations and who afterwards upon due humiliation removed the Yoke of that insupportable State of Bondage And 't was no less than God himself according to the Prediction of his Prophets that rais'd up the Medes and Persians against the Caldeans The Graecians against the Persians and lastly the Romans against all other Nations to work out and carry on the great Designs and Purposes of Infinite Power and Wisdom To conclude It was likewise God alone that facilitated the Attempts of Edward IV. and Henry VII for the recovery of these Kingdoms when they had been a long time banish'd from and dispossest of them and when they landed with the Foreign Assistance of 〈◊〉 above 2000 Soldiers and regain'd the Crown And 't was the same Good Providence of God which in mercy to a distracted divided and almost undone People effected this Day 's Restoration with little or no opposition I may say with less Blood In short 'T was this that brought us all back again to our true Constitution when the many notorious Male-Administrations and Violent Measures of the Late Reign had justly allarm'd our Fears and put us upon the necessity of a Natural State wandring Minds and Self-defence In a word 'T was this that when the Axe was laid to the Root of our Government prevented the deadly design'd Blow and prepared a way for the Resettlement of our Church and State as we now blessed be God do enjoy it This was marvellous in our eyes and was most certainly and undoubtedly the Lord's doing I come in the last place to shew the reasonableness of our present Joy and the Duty of this Day 's Thanksgiving I have been I must confess somewhat longer on the first part of this Discourse because I take it to be the most useful and edifying Enquiry of the two in these Sceptical and Atheistical Times wherein we now live which indeed are Times so desperately wicked as to require new Proofs and Establishment from us for the more effectual maintaining and asserting the very Fundamentals of our Religion 'T is an Age this which has Impudence and Prophaneness enough in store to explode and ridicule upon all occasions the True and Orthodox Notions of a Superintending Providence as if the God that made the World had nothing at all to do in the Appointment and Administration of the great Affairs in it Or as if he who created man at first was no ways concern'd either to govern us by his own Eternal Decrees of Providence or to see us governed by fit and proper Substitutes of his own designation But I am apt to think that the succession of such Mercies as have befallen these Kingdoms especially the happy Circumstances of our Present Establishment are so many standing and convincing Evidences of such a Providence which I have been so long a contending for To conclude therefore with the reasonableness of our present Joy and the Duty of this Day 's Thanksgiving in as few words as I can conveniently use on this Grand Occasion give me leave to observe That though God's Mercies to these Kingdoms have hapned to be liable to several Abuses as all Blessings are when bestowed on any Person or Persons who afterwards prove ungrateful and though they have been perverted perhaps to many evil and pernicious purposes viz. to the apparent hazard of this State and Kingdom and to the notorious scandal of our Church and Religion Yet this ought not in reason to abate the first obligations of our Gratitude nor in the least measure to impair that natural notion or grateful sense of God's Goodness which all Mankind either actually have or ought to have for Signal Benefactions and Providential Deliverances Nor would I be understood to contend altogether for particular days and periodical returns for Persons and Names or for mere forms nor for the sake of any Politick and State-compliance only but rather for a constant and Religious sence of our thankfulness to God upon the account of his publick Benefits and National Mercies as likewise for a substantial and devout expression of our Joy upon all solemn Occasions to him for the same I need not press home any Arguments for the particular duty of Gratitude as the occasion of this days Jubilee and Thanksgiving might otherwise require from me because I hope that in so refined an Age we are none of us grown such Apostates to good Manners and true Religion as to scruple the returning due Thanks and Acknowledgments for the Benefits which the extraordinary Providence of God has already vouchsafed to us and which we trust he will still continue to vouchsafe to these Nations The reasonableness therefore of our present Joy will be best evinc'd from these following Reflections In the First place The great and chiefest Blessing of our Restoration for I know of no other significant enough to be mentioned in this place was That it reduced our Confusions and composed our Disorders That from the mischiefs of Anarchy it improved our condition to the benefits of a certain and fixed Form of Government That from no King no Lords and no Commons I mean duly Assembled in Parliament it brought us to what was anciently what is now and what we hope will ever be Recognized as our true Constitution a Mixt or Limited Government made up of each of the Three particular Forms viz. a Monarchical Aristocratical and Democratical Power A Form of Government this if well Administred and justly Adhered to that affords all Conveniencies and Advantages imaginable that can be reap'd or enjoyed from under any of the Three distinct Species and yet secures us from all the Inconveniences and Disadvantages that through an Unlimited Jurisdiction can possibly result from either of them apart In short a

Being and Existence to them or put them into Motion And so in like manner were there at this time no such thing as a Superintending Providence to Direct and Order the Affairs of this World here below but that all things according to the Epicurean Conjecture were abandoned to blind Fate and an uncertain Chance the Disorders of the Universe would quickly become excessively great and intolerable In short were it not for the Direction of a Divine Providence Nature it self after such a long series of Time must needs decay and run from off its Hinges and Mankind would be soon destroyed from off the face of the Earth That God Almighty therefore does actually concern himself about the Administration of human Affairs and that his Providence is eminently exerted over mankind in the various Revolutions and Alterations of Government that do ordinarily happen will be abundantly evident from these following Considerations First From the Reason and Nature of Government it self which being purposely instituted for the sake of Order and a peaceable Harmony among sociable Creatures I mean for the Publick Good and Benefit of the governed rather than as some have fantastically imagined to gratify the Boundless Luxury of any particular Person or Persons that shall so happen to be set over the rest does therefore necessarily suppose the Care and continual Superintendency of an All-wise Being that first qualified mankind for Society and afterwards disposed them in so wonderful a manner as he has done for the Terms of Subjection and Obedience For seeing that all men are by nature equally ambitious of Power and Dominion and alike impatient of being controul'd and put upon by others it must be the Power and Will of God alone that should first incline men to forgo these their Natural Propensities of Tyrannizing and Domineering over one another and instead thereof to give up their Lives and Fortnnes so unanimously as they have done to the Stated Forms of Civil Policy For thus Saul himself tho higher by the head and shoulders than the rest of his Brethren had no Title by Nature or Birth or any pretence to the Crown of Israel till the foregoing Request of the People and God's subsequent Designation had first recommended him as fit to be their King Nor had any of those barbarous Nations in imitation of whose particular Forms of Government the foolish Israelites were willing to quit their Theocracy ever resign'd themselves up to the Power and Conduct of one man but that the Wise Disposer of things who is he that stilleth the raging of the Sea that represseth the Tumults of the People had first prepared them by suitable Instincts and previous Dispositions to be so directed and commanded Government then in general being an undoubted Ordinance of God Rom. 13.2 though the Specification of it to this or that Form does always depend upon the different Climats of Countreys and the various Complections and Humours of People according to that of St. Peter 1.2.13 who stiles all the Species of Government Monarchy it self not excepted the Ordinance or Creature of man for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the expression I say nevertheless Government in general being an undoubted Ordinance of God it must therefore be in all Times and Places of the World one of the Principal Concernments of his Directing and Superintending Providence For an infinite Wise Being such as the common Notion of Persection in the Godhead supposes him to be could never Ordain and Appoint any thing to be but that he must be thought likewise to be ever careful of it afterwards and to provide always for its Continuance and Preservation And therefore if he Instituted Government at first in the World for the Publick Good and Order of Human Society he must be suppos'd to be still concern'd in the Disposal and Administration of it and to be privy to all the Transactions and Revolutions relating to States and Kingdoms But Secondly The Consideration of his Attributes of infinite Perfection in Power Knowledge Goodness and Wisdom do justly bespeak him to be the Mighty King of kings and Lord of lords and the only ruler of princes His Omnipotence imports That he is the Supream Legislator and Governor of the whole Earth and that all things are ordered according to his Will or by his Permission and that no Government is set up or pull'd down but through the uncontroulable Superintendency of his Pleasure who has before decreed to have it so and has accordingly rais'd up fit and proper Instruments for the bringing it to pass He it is that whistles for the fly out of Egypt or the bee out of the land of Assyria Isa 7.18 That stirs up a Pharaoh to persecute or a Nebuchadnezzar to carry into Captivity his People In a word he it is that calls in Foreign Armies into a Nation to destroy it or else finds Enemies enough at home to effect his purposes when a Land is ripe for his Judgments and that the measure of its Iniquity is full In a word He it is that prefers and degrades for Reasons best known to himself that gives Merit and Success to some bold Undertakers and yet at the same time infatuates the Counsels and defeats the Purposes of others To use King David's words who found it experimentally true He it is that pulleth down one and setteth up another For promotion cometh neither from the East nor from the West nor from the South but God is the judge Psal 75. v. 6 7. His Omniscience and Omnipresence do justly entitle him to be the great Arbitrator and Umpire between several Kings and their Kingdoms and between Sovereign Princes and their People For there is no Plot or Conspiracy that can be hid from his Allseeing Eye He watches all our Actions he hears all our Words nay he understandeth the very secrets of the Heart and tryeth the Reins so that nothing can possibly escape his Knowledge He therefore may be well supposed to know what Designs are forming by one Prince against another what Treachery there is in their Treaties and what notorious falsifications there sometimes are in their most solemn Vows and Promises He is present also at all Cabals and Consultations and will either blast or ripen their politick Devices as shall best conduce to that great end which he proposes to himself in the Administration of his Government over us I mean his own Glory and our Good He can easily penetrate the thick disguise of fair pretences and is well acquainted with the inside of every man's heart He can fathom the bottom of all the deepest Intrigues of State that have been or shall ever happen to be carried on between a Prince and his People in the prosecution of a separate Interest And when differences are on foot between them as he is privy to the Designs so he is able to prevent the mischief of either side before the reciprocal Charges and Clamours which they make against each other shall have time to blow up