A53699:51
The glory and interest of nations professing the Gospel preached at a private fast,…
The glory and interest of nations professing the Gospel preached at a private fast, to the Commons assembled in Parliament / published by their command, by J. Owen.
London: printed for Philemon Stephens, 1659
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.
1. Here lies the preservation of any nation from ruin. ⟨p. 12⟩Isai. 65. 8. 9. Thus saith the Lord, as the new wine is found in the cluster, and one saith, destroy it not, for a blessing is in it: so will I do for my servants sake, that I may not destroy them all. This is the blessing in the cluster, the hidden and secret blessing, for the sake whereof, the whole is not destroyed. The remnant left by the Lord of hosts Isa. 1. 9. that keeps the whole from being as Sodom or Gomorrah.
1. Here lies the preservation of any nation from ruine. ⟨p. 12⟩Isai. 65. 8. 9. Thus saith the Lord, as the new wine is found in the cluster, and one saith, destroy it not, for a blessing is in it: so will I do for my servants sake, that I may not destroy them all. This is the blessing in the cluster, the hidden and secret blessing, for the sake whereof, the whole is not destroyed. The remnant left by the Lord of hosts Isa. 1. 9. that keeps the whole from being as Sodom or Gomorrah.
If Elisha a servant of the Lord told the King of Israel in his distress, that if he had not regarded the presence of Jehoshaphat the King of Judah he would not so much as have spoken to him; how much more will the Lord himself let a people know in their distress, that were it not for the regard he hath to his secret ones, he would not take the least notice (as to relief) of them or their concernments. Sodom could not be destroyed until Lot was delivered. The whole world owes its preservation and being, to them, whom they make it their business to root out of it: they are as the foolish woman, that pulls down her own house with both her hands. It is not your counsels, you know how they have been divided, entangled, ensnared, it is not your Armies, as such; what have they been to oppose against the mighty floods that have risen up in this nation; and they also have been as a reed driven to and fro, with the wind, (Mankind is no better; John the Baptists says it of himself) but it is this presence of Christ in and with his, that hath been the preservation of England, in the middest of all the changes and revolutions that we have been exercised withal.