Distressed Sion Relieved Or, The Garment of Praise for the Spirit of Heaviness. Wherein are Discovered the Grand Causes of the Churches Trouble and Misery under the late Dismal Dispensation. With a Compleat History of, and Lamentation for those Renowned Worthies that fell in England by Popish Rage and Cruelty, from the Year 1680 to 1688. Together with an Account of the late Admirable and Stupendious Providence which hath wrought such a sudden and Wonderful Deliverance for this Nation, and Gods Sion therein. Humbly Dedicated to their Present Majesties. By Benjamin Keach |
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A Complaint against Atheism.
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 | Distressed Sion Relieved |  |
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A Complaint against Atheism.
But O amazing Master-piece of wonder!
That's like to rend my very Heart asunder,
When I consider that an Age of Light
Produces Monsters blacker than the Night:
A cursed Tribe of wretched Atheists dare
Without all dread and reverential fear,
Strike at the Essence of the Great Jehove,
And all the Glories that reside Above,
As if meer fancies of a cloudy Brain,
And all Religion an Intrigue of Man:
That dare pronounce all Evangelick Law.
A trick of State to keep the World in awe,
Creating Idols in their Brains; that even
Make mocks of Hell, and a meer scorn of Heaven.
That's like to rend my very Heart asunder,
When I consider that an Age of Light
Produces Monsters blacker than the Night:
A cursed Tribe of wretched Atheists dare
Without all dread and reverential fear,
Strike at the Essence of the Great Jehove,
And all the Glories that reside Above,
As if meer fancies of a cloudy Brain,
And all Religion an Intrigue of Man:
That dare pronounce all Evangelick Law.
A trick of State to keep the World in awe,
Creating Idols in their Brains; that even
Make mocks of Hell, and a meer scorn of Heaven.
But can such fancies challenge an abode
Within your Heart to dis-believe a God?
On th' Universal Fabrick cast an Eye,
The Sea, the Earth, and the expanded Sky:
Can so sublime illustrious an Effect
Be form'd without a Glorious Architect?
If Reason be your Rule, true Logicks Laws
Pronounce Effects resulting from a Cause,
Whose order leads us to Infinity,
Sure Arguments of a Divinity.
Created things must a Creator have;
And that Begetter who first Being gave
Unto all Essences can't be Begot;
He's therefore God, and other else is not.
This causa prima, without time or date,
We do believe could not himself Create,
And therefore hence we do conclude that he
Must have his Essence from Eternity.
Within your Heart to dis-believe a God?
On th' Universal Fabrick cast an Eye,
The Sea, the Earth, and the expanded Sky:
Can so sublime illustrious an Effect
Be form'd without a Glorious Architect?
If Reason be your Rule, true Logicks Laws
Pronounce Effects resulting from a Cause,
Whose order leads us to Infinity,
Sure Arguments of a Divinity.
Created things must a Creator have;
And that Begetter who first Being gave
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He's therefore God, and other else is not.
This causa prima, without time or date,
We do believe could not himself Create,
And therefore hence we do conclude that he
Must have his Essence from Eternity.
Who can make Phœbus his swift course reverse?
Or Ballance in his Palm the Universe?
Who can the Ocean in a Sieve confine?
If none can do't then none can God define.
First Principles are beyond definition;
No Logick reaches at so high a Vision:
'Tis unreveal'd to Reason, for no strain
Of lofty Metaphysicks can contain
Those Mysteries; true Wisdom therefore hath
Commanded Reason to give room to Faith.
If what we see had not a first Creator,
Then 'tis its own immediate Operator;
If so, it Acts before it had a Being:
But such conclusions are too dis-agreeing
With Reasons Maxims: For all things that be,
May say they are their own Divinity,
If each can make it self, and that which can
Create it self, can so it self sustain
In infinitum, and will ne're dissolve
It self; for Natures principal Resolve
Is, that no Essence will forbear to be,
If it can keep up its own Entity.
This strain of Atheistick Sophistry
Makes all of equal Independancy
Without Subordination: 'Tis a Theme,
Without inferior, making all Supreme.
First CAUSE supposes time, and time supposes
Some second Acts which after-time discloses.
So view their Series, you may trace them all
(As links in Chains) to their Original
The Great JEHOVAH; whose unfathom'd Glory
Is Emblem'd in the Universe before ye.
Or Ballance in his Palm the Universe?
Who can the Ocean in a Sieve confine?
If none can do't then none can God define.
First Principles are beyond definition;
No Logick reaches at so high a Vision:
'Tis unreveal'd to Reason, for no strain
Of lofty Metaphysicks can contain
Those Mysteries; true Wisdom therefore hath
Commanded Reason to give room to Faith.
If what we see had not a first Creator,
Then 'tis its own immediate Operator;
If so, it Acts before it had a Being:
But such conclusions are too dis-agreeing
With Reasons Maxims: For all things that be,
May say they are their own Divinity,
If each can make it self, and that which can
Create it self, can so it self sustain
In infinitum, and will ne're dissolve
It self; for Natures principal Resolve
Is, that no Essence will forbear to be,
If it can keep up its own Entity.
This strain of Atheistick Sophistry
Makes all of equal Independancy
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Without inferior, making all Supreme.
First CAUSE supposes time, and time supposes
Some second Acts which after-time discloses.
So view their Series, you may trace them all
(As links in Chains) to their Original
The Great JEHOVAH; whose unfathom'd Glory
Is Emblem'd in the Universe before ye.
There is a thing in Man call'd CONSCIENCE,
Which of his Actions gives clear Evidence,
Whether he likes or not that's ready still
To check the course of his disorder'd will:
It is Eccentrick to his sensual part,
Arraigns his words, his deeds, his very heart;
And if it finds they be irregular,
It does pursue them with continual War.
What can this just, this inward witness be,
But some bright Beam of a Divinity?
Which of his Actions gives clear Evidence,
Whether he likes or not that's ready still
To check the course of his disorder'd will:
It is Eccentrick to his sensual part,
Arraigns his words, his deeds, his very heart;
And if it finds they be irregular,
It does pursue them with continual War.
What can this just, this inward witness be,
But some bright Beam of a Divinity?
In former times was not Jehovah known
By Miracles which visibly were shown?
Can Reason brag that Causes natural
Could raise the dead? or that a Word can call
An Intomb'd Carcase to behold the Light?
Make sound a Cripple? give the Blind their sight?
If not, then surely it will follow hence,
That 'tis an Act of some Omnipotence:
That such were done we have the common Vote
Of Pagans, Jews, and all the Men of Note,
Whose Works are Extant, whom we may believe,
Because they had no int'rest to deceive.
Whence come those Judgments which you daily hear,
Of wrath and vengeance darted every where
Against Prophaners of that Sacred Name?
Whence come those Arrows, that consuming Flame
Which terrifies the World? and whence the Breath
That strikes Blasphemers with a sudden Death?
Which of these rare Philosophers can show
What makes the spacious deep to Ebb and Flow?
Let them produce their Maxims, if they can,
How scatter'd Atoms can compose a Man?
VVho brandishes those blazing Signs of wonder?
VVho frights the Earth with rapid peals of Thunder?
VVho did defeat the fatal Enterprize
VVhich Rome by Devils Council did devise?
VVho sets the Comets in the angry Sky,
Those dismal Harbingers of misery?
God does himself by many ways make known,
Fore-warning men of what's a coming on:
Yet senseless Mortals faulter more and more,
Though hovering vengeance threaten at the door,
Deceit, Soul-killing-Errors, Perjury,
Injustice, Murder, Theft, Hypocrisie,
Do so abound through our enlightned Isle,
That Sodom hardly e're appear'd more vile.
By Miracles which visibly were shown?
Can Reason brag that Causes natural
Could raise the dead? or that a Word can call
An Intomb'd Carcase to behold the Light?
Make sound a Cripple? give the Blind their sight?
If not, then surely it will follow hence,
That 'tis an Act of some Omnipotence:
That such were done we have the common Vote
Of Pagans, Jews, and all the Men of Note,
Whose Works are Extant, whom we may believe,
Because they had no int'rest to deceive.
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Of wrath and vengeance darted every where
Against Prophaners of that Sacred Name?
Whence come those Arrows, that consuming Flame
Which terrifies the World? and whence the Breath
That strikes Blasphemers with a sudden Death?
Which of these rare Philosophers can show
What makes the spacious deep to Ebb and Flow?
Let them produce their Maxims, if they can,
How scatter'd Atoms can compose a Man?
VVho brandishes those blazing Signs of wonder?
VVho frights the Earth with rapid peals of Thunder?
VVho did defeat the fatal Enterprize
VVhich Rome by Devils Council did devise?
VVho sets the Comets in the angry Sky,
Those dismal Harbingers of misery?
God does himself by many ways make known,
Fore-warning men of what's a coming on:
Yet senseless Mortals faulter more and more,
Though hovering vengeance threaten at the door,
Deceit, Soul-killing-Errors, Perjury,
Injustice, Murder, Theft, Hypocrisie,
Do so abound through our enlightned Isle,
That Sodom hardly e're appear'd more vile.
| Distressed Sion Relieved | |