A Sermon Preach'd upon the Occasion of the Anniversary Thanksgiving of the Fifth of November, 1706 / at the Church of Kensington

by Nathaniel Hough

Printed by W. B. for Alexander Bosvile at the Dial and Bible over against St. Dunstan’s Church in Fleet Street. 1707.

TO THE
GENTLEMEN
AND
PARISHIONERS
OF
KENSINGTON.

This is the second Instance of my Service made publick upon an Occasion of this Nature. As none can be more pleased with the double Blessing of the Day, than your selves, being the best Subjects to Her Majesty, as well as the nearest Neighbours to Her Court: So I have this farther Accession to the general Joy, viz. As I have a small Opportunity of shewing, at your own Request, how much I am,

Your most obliged Servant,

Nath. Hough.

Psalm cxxiv. v. 2. and part of the 3^d.

If it had not been the Lord who was on our side, when Men rose up against Us; Then They had swallowed Us up quick.

Whoever compares this Psalm and this Solemnity together, will find the main Lines of the one, and the chief Circumstances of the other exactly agreeable. Had We Who live since the Deliverance of this Day was wrought, been endued with the Divine Author’s Inspiration, we could scarce have pitch’d upon more apposite Words to express the surprizing Manner of it. Swallowing up quick, the Kindling of our Enemies Wrath, the Torrents being like to go over our Soul, our Escaping like a Bird out of the Fowler’s Snare: All these are Expressions so pat for the present Season, that whilst We sing an Hymn, we seem likewise to read a Prophecy. Our Enemies have took effectual Care that the ill Character in this Psalm should not pass unfulfill’d: And I hope we, for our parts, shall not be wanting to make good the pious Acknowledgments of it, saying, Blessed be the Lord who hath not given us as a Prey to their Teeth.

But perhaps We are got so deep into a Vein of Thanksgiving for Modern Mercies: Our Streets are so full of Triumph, and our Churches of Praise for the Victories of the past Year, that either no Place is left for the Recollection of any former Blessings, or at least little or no Taste. The present Solemnity finds our Gratitude to such a degree exhausted, that tho’ at the utmost ’tis but an insufficient Return, yet at this Juncture it must needs be more so, considering how our late Successes have already drain’d our very best Acknowledgments. Thus the Blessings of one Age do a seeming Injury to Those of the foregoing; And immediate Deliverances bear down so strongly, as to make distant ones shrink out of Notice.

Happy We, who have such an agreeable Excuse for being imperfectly thankful: I mean, when Modern Favours are so great, as necessarily to impair the Memory of the Antient. Tho’ upon second Thoughts this Excuse cannot hold, since the Favours lately received, and Those at this Time recollected, are so much of a Piece, that unless we break the Chain of Providence, we cannot well pretend to acknowledge the one, and yet wholly to overlook the other.

’Tis the same Cause, the same Interest this Year so gloriously promoted, which upon this Occasion we congratulate, as twice wonderfully preserved. The Reign of our gracious Sovereign directly perpetuates the double Blessing which this Day boasts of; And (God be praised) We obey a good Queen, who nobly maintains the Reform’d Religion, which Heaven so signally rescued under Her first Royal Ancestor.