A41644:187
God's call to England, for thankfulness after gracious deliverances
God's call to England, for thankfulness after gracious deliverances wherein is showed, that our deliverances, not answered with reformation, will be followed with sorest destruction / by Thomas Gouge.God's call to England, for thankfulness after gracious deliverances wherein is shewed, that our deliverances, not answered with reformation, will be followed with sorest destruction / by Thomas Gouge.
London: printed for John Hancock, 1680
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
2. May we not justly fear that our provoked God in justice will set the wicked over us, who have despised his righteous and blessed Government? August. says, God sets up wicked oppressors, cum judicat res humanas talibus dignas dominis; when he judges a people meriting such masters. When Religion is counted an intolerable yoke, under a Government that decrees the observance of it, we may with terror expect a yoke to be laid upon our necks that shall be so heavy, that we shall see our unspeakable folly in accounting the service of God a slavery to him. Have we not cause to fear that dreadful word? Deut. 28.47, 48. Because thou servedst not the Lord thy God with joyfulness and gladness of heart in the abundance of all things: Therefore shalt thou serve thine enemies which the Lord shall send against thee, in hunger, and thirst, and nakedness, and in want of al• things; and they shall put a yoke upon thy neck, until they have destroyed thee. Our wanton spirits under sometimes-a-prosperous Rule, may be humbled by the severities of either foreign Princes prevailing ⟨p. 147⟩or home-enemies reigning. God punishing the iniquity of a people, is said, Hos. 13.11. To give them a king in his wrath. When God sets the wicked over a people, 'tis a manifest indication of his anger. God often sets the worst of Governors over the worst of people. As a holy man pleading with God about one Phocas made an Emperor, Cur Domine Phocam Imperatorem constituisti? responsum datum accepit, Quia non inveni pejorem. Why Lord hast thou made Phocas an Emperor? he was answered, Because I could not find a worse.
2. May we not justly fear that our provoked God in justice will set the wicked over us, who have despised his righteous and blessed Government? August. says, God sets up wicked oppressors, cum judicat res humanas talibus dignas dominis; when he judges a people meriting such masters. When Religion is co•nted an intolerable yoak, under a Government that decrees the observance of it, we may with terrour expect a yoak to be laid upon our necks that shall be so heavy, that we shall see our unspeakable folly in accounting the service of God a slavery to him. Have we not cause to fear that dreadful word?