properly given to that Duty which is owing unto Parents by the best Classical Writers and the Honouring of a Prince I have read in a Learned and Reverend Author called an Elicit Act of Religion meaning I suppose such a Worship of God as the Image-worship of the Romanists would be were there no Divine Precept in bar against them rendring their Practice unwarrantable and superstitious But we need not strain a Point to that nicety If Loyalty be a Duty indispensible and an important Act of Christian Religion we have a considerable Advantage against our Adversaries on both hands when we dare joyn Issue with them upon the Observation of one of the Chief of Gods Moral Laws as to which our Papist Adversaries and Dissenters also are notoriously defective It 's Honour enough that our Reformed Church of England hath been here acknowledged the sure Conservatrix of the Principles of Loyalty and was never wanting in the Practice of them in the worst of Times and this is it that makes her the Butt of all the Factions at which they shoot their bitter Arrows This draws upon her those Loads of Calumnies and Contempts which the Subtile Underminers of the State stir up and unwary Persons are loud and clamorous in they know not why Otherwise what reason is there imaginable why some that pretend an Agreement in all Doctrinals with her and would go further should yet labour her Ruine and would rejoyce to see her laid waste and desolate but only because she is known to be an impregnable Defence to the Monarchy and lawful Government of the Nation and cannot as others do give a Dispensation for Resistance We may see it by experience among our selves how the Honour of God is promoted and carried on in the same Company and by the same Proportions with that to the King Who are they that frequent the Places where his Honour dwells and that set forth the Glory of God and declare his Majesty and Mercy by Acknowledgments Praises and Confessions made unto him with due Solemnity and Reverence and make a Conscience of these things of offering these Sacrifices to his Honour as of old they offered their Goods and Cattel Are they not such generally as pay a dutiful Respect unto his Representative on Earth such as are polish'd and refin'd by Education and know the Laws of Observance and Regard And it 's agreeable to the Genius of a Gentleman if not byassed by some Fanatick Interest to assert the Publick Rites of Worship whereas the Lower Part of Men especially where they have received any Factious Impressions are not sensible of any the least touch of Conscience for these Matters neither for Gods Honour nor the Kings I shall add but few Words more What remains shall be according to my proposed Method to shew the Obligation to this Duty from the Argument contained in the last Clause of my Text which is the Promise of a very desirable Blessing but it implies a severe Threatning in case of Disobedience no less than an utter Abscission and Cutting off from the Land of Promise And this must needs have a mighty Influence upon that People especially and all others in general The force of the Inference lies chiefly in the Threatning Thus God elsewhere invites them with a gracious Promise Isa 1.19 If ye be willing and obedient ye shall eat the good of the Land but he drives and compels in the next Words with a terrible Threat But if ye refuse and rebel ye shall be devour'd with the Sword The Curse of God hanging over the Head of a contumacious and rebellious People is enough to reduce them if there be any fear of God in the Place This is the proper Season for God himself the King of Kings to appear and interpose when his Vicegerents here on Earth shall be set at nought Here is dignus vindice modus a proper Care for the All-ruling Providence and a Recompence worthy of a Divine Revenge and it hath seldom failed upon such Exigencies although it hath been sometimes slow I shall leave but one Example with you but it is such an one as I think we may challenge all History Sacred and Humane to match it it is in the 16th of Numbers in this very People of the Jews and not far from the time when this Law was given them At the beginning of the Chapter Corah and his Company rise up against Moses and Aaron the Chief Magistrate and Chief Priest As Religion and Loyalty are still found in Conjunction so the King and Priest have the same Common Enemies And what was the Cause that stirred up these Men to mutiny It was plainly the Levellers Grievance the Imparity of Gods People the hated Eminence of a Superior and the heavy Yoke of Government For thus they vent their Discontents against Moses and Aaron ver 3. Ye take too much upon you seeing all the Congregation are holy every one of them wherefore then lift ye up your selves above the Congregation of the Lord Here 's now the Masque of Sedition with all its Paint and Varnish on It is the Lords Cause it is for freeing the Congregation of the Lord from the Slavery which Moses held them under for asserting the Liberties of an Holy People And as if the meer joyning with the Faction had been Holiness it self it is alledged they were all holy every one of them Moses looks upon this Face of Affairs as of a dangerous presage and makes his Appeal to God the Ordainer of Powers and the Revenger of Kings he joyns Issue with the Mutineers upon the Point and is content the Divine Right of Government should be tried by the Success which God should give to the Sacrilegious Enterprise of these Men. And what was the Event Why the Question under debate received a dreadful Decision by the Overthrow and Destruction of the Rebels and the Righteous God describ'd as it were the Nature of their Sin by some Lines of the Punishment as appears by the Sequel of the Story Here is now an Example of Gods appearing for his own Institution and let any one of them who have used to talk so loud for Gods owning their Cause and Outgoings with their Arms match it if they can It 's confess'd in common Proceedings and the ordinary Course of Providence an Argument from Success is very fallacious but in the Case as it was here when the very Point under Trial was the Divine Right of Superiority and Rule and this put upon the Issue to be maintained by God by Miracle or else to fall and when God shall answer to the Appeal in such an extraordinary manner here I take it in such a Case as this Gods Works are as instructive and infallible as his Word and in all such Events we may say as Pharaoh's Magicians did This is the Finger of God a Finger by which he writes his Will unto us as plain and legible as ever he did upon the Tables of Stone to Moses as legible as is the Precept it self for whose sake I have alledged this Example Now therefore knowing the terrors of the Lord let us all my Brethren be persuaded and exhorted to have a care that we never provoke Almighty God by our crying Sins to send forth his Judgments any more upon this People and Kingdom Let us who value our selves in being thought the Loyal and obedient Subjects endeavour by a godly and upright Conversation to redeem the Profession of Loyalty from the evil Slanders of such as seek occasion to reproach it Let us serve and honour our King with the greatest Zeal and Duty that we owe but our God infinitely more Let us endeavour to live as far as is possible without the suspicion of Vice as well as free from its contagiou that so we may break and discredit that most false ill-natur'd and uncharitable Distinction which the Pharisees and Hypocrites of the Times have taken up when they set the Kings Loyal Subjects on one Hand and the Sober Godly Party of the Nation on the other And let them who have been defective in this kind shew forth the Fruits of Repentance having enjoy'd a Pardon and Indempnity for their Crimes past let them learn at length to be ingenuous and if it be possible to convert their Rancour into Duty let them but begin now to love honour and obey the King much because much hath been forgiven them Let them never cast a Thought back upon Aegypt or its Flesh-pots nor chew the Cud upon those luscious Morsels of Rapine and Sacrilege which for the ease and health of their Consciences they have been forced to disgorge And above all let them ever mind it not to relapse into their old Folly of turning Faith into Faction and Religion into Rebellion From which and all the Plagues and Punishments attending it Good Lord deliver us by the Merits of thy dear Son To whom with thee and the Holy Ghost be all Honour ascribed the Kingdom Power and Glory for ever and ever Amen FINIS
A SERMON PREACHED AT THE ASSIZES HELD AT LEICESTER For that COUNTY On the Twenty third day of March 1681 2. BY NATHANIEL ALSOP B. D. Rector of Church-Langton in the County of Leicester LONDON Printed for S. Carr at the Kings Head near the West-end of St. Paul's 1682. To the Right Worshipful RICHARD ROBERTS Esq High-Sheriff of the County of Leicester SIR WHen you pleased to lay this piece of Service upon me of Preaching at the Assizes I bethought my self how to discourse seasonably and profitably under the present State of Affairs and at such a general Assembly of the Country and soon came to a Resolution That to oppose something what my poor Talent could furnish out against the spreading of an Epidemical Evil too visible upon us could not be an improper Vndertaking And certainly he is but an ill Member of the Publick who at the time when a dangerous Fire appears breaking out will not bring his Bucket to the quenching of it If any shall except against my medling with Political Matters in the Pulpit they ought to reflect how our People are of late made all Statesmen and that to treat them as such at some times is become necessary to their Edification In the Publick Places of Conversation you shall have the Men of Trade arrogate as much Knowledge of Politicks now as heretofore their Representatives could arrive unto So that what is here touched upon as to these Matters is no ways meant ad Magistratum I presume not to instruct them therein but ad Populum still And to rectifie some Notions in them which might have a mischievous Influence upon Christian Practice I trust will not be thought forreign to the Business of a Divine The Sermon hapned to find a favourable Reception with its Audience and I never intended it should have gone further but some whose Judgments I ought to subscribe unto thought it might be more serviceable if made more publick and others whose Authority I shall never disobey were with some Importunities desirous to have it so And these are the true Causes of this Publication whereof I need not inform you Sir who your self are my best Voucher to the World for the Reality of this whole Matter And now Sir it begs leave to come forth under the shelter of your Name not only for the common Reason of such Dedications but chiefly because the subject Matter and Design of this Discourse requires the Protection of one like your self whose clear and disinteressed Zeal for the Publick is so exemplary among us And then the many Favours which I have received from you bind me to all Opportunities of Gratitude and to own it to the World how much I am SIR Your most faithful and obedient Servant Nathaniel Alsop EXOD. XX. 12. Honour thy Father and thy Mother that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee THE Law of the Decalogue recorded in this Chapter hath one pre-eminence above other parts of the Scripture if they were dictated by the Spirit of God this was also written by his Finger which may serve as a nota bene a Hand in the Margin to direct and engage our Observation That part of it which I have read is also recommended unto us by its singular Circumstances St. Paul observes it is the first Commandment with promise Ephes 6.2 And among the Moderns Grotius notes how fitly it stands in the front of the second Table agreeably to the method of the Roman Laws which in the first place secur'd the Sanctity of the Government so this here containing the Nerves and Force of those special Laws which are the preservatives of Humane Society deservedly takes precedence of the rest As to the sense and meaning of the words the Jewish Interpreters and Christians do generally consent that the duty of Subjects to their respective Civil Governours is more than by Consequence and Reduction here intended Imperium sancitur praecipitur obedientia saith Melancthon upon the place And Calvin goes about to assign the Reason why a name of Nature is here given to a Political Relation It is saith he to soften the savage disposition of Man who is naturally impatient of Subjection to bring the stiff-neck and Iron Sinnew of corrupt Nature to the yoke of Obedience The Truth is what Zophar replies to Job Man is born like the wild Asses Colt all restraint is against the Grain every one naturally goes big with Caesar and cannot brook a Superior or else it may be the tang of our first Parents aspiring still ferments in the Blood to be tanquam dii equal to them that are called Gods It was therefore upon necessary considerations that St. Paul lays his Apostolical Injunction upon Titus the Man of God chap. 3. v. 5. to put them in mind to be subject to Principalities and Powers and to obey Magistrates It is not enough this be taught and known but for the great moment of its practice it ought to be pressed and inculcated put them in mind If the Doctrine of Subjection which is as demonstrable as any Theorem in Euclid's Geometry was also as much abstracted from the Interests and Passions of Men as they are then might it expect as free and easie a passage but when this Nail must be driven against the inward resistance of Pride and Ambition of Envy Avarice and Revenge and such like impenetrable Opposites no wonder if a greater Force and better Skill be required and repeated strokes and it were to be wished that some one a Master of Assemblies had undertaken the fastening of it at this time in which vacancy the forementioned Causes have wrought with me also the meanest of my Brethren to attempt this part of my Office and Duty especially being stirred up with the great and crying Sin of the Times which is plainly a wantonness under the gentle Yoke a surfeiting upon the blessings of Government and I fear there is but too much cause to complain that it is fairly drawing on to an Open Contempt of Authority and who then is so hardy as not to dread the Event If such provocations as these should awaken the Vengeance of Heaven and move God by his immediate Arm to assert the Honour of his own Institution the Image of our distempered State any one may behold in the Glass of the Israelites It was at the time when their Supream Governour was one of the meekest and most merciful Men upon the Earth it was not long after their deliverance from the Aegyptian Bondage where they had smarted by the Impositions of the most cruel Taskmasters that ever an ingenuous People groaned under and yet upon every little Discontent if all things went not according to their own Hearts wish immediately they grow sick of the Government and quis est iste Moses Why doth this Moses and the Priest his Brother take so much upon them They grew weary of Manna and nauseated the Bread of Heaven because it was constant and
shall find a multitude of petty Kingdoms and the Power of Governing descending for many Generations and no other account but that it ever hath been thus by a Succession whose beginning they know not which seems fairly to point up to the Original of Civil Government and to give us Cause from the Premises to Conclude that the Paternal and Regal Authority are the same in Nature not differing in Kind but in Extent only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Philo expresseth the same thing But I design no more than the opening and explaining the Notions it hath been sufficiently strengthened and guarded against all the feeble Encounters made in opposition to it by a Learned Writer of our own Sir R. Filmer in his Observations touching Forms of Government only because the best illustration of a thing is by setting to its Contraries I shall therefore beg leave to glance upon some things which are offered by those persons who are pleased not to admit of this Account of the Original of Government which in it self is so easie to be apprehended so agreeable to the nature of Things and Scripture History so honourable to God and his Providence and so conducive to the Ends of all Authority and Rule And here first I cannot but observe how patient and complying our Republicans many times are that the Epicurean Hypothesis should take place Whether Promotion comes from the East or the West or yet from the South they are content whatsoever Wind blows it so that the Lord be not in that Wind as wholly unconcerned how things go as the God of Epicurus himself as Tully jeers them of old And all is only to keep out the suspicion of a Divine Institution in the matter And indeed it seems fully as consentaneous to Reason that the Fabrick of the World should arise from the fortuitous Hit of Attoms as that Philosopher taught as that Order and Government the Strength and Beauty of the Universe should proceed from any thing but the Disposition of a most Wise Creator Can these Men believe themselves who are wont to call upon the People to follow Providence according to their serviceable Doctrine of Ownings and Outgoings when time was Or indeed do they believe any thing of Providence at all who can tell us now That God is no more a Favourer of one Family than another no more than he is a Respecter of Persons Nevertheless we trust that he is a Respecter of Causes and if the just and righteous Claim of any Family or Person shall engage his Favour at all times then how much more in the greatest and most weighty Affairs of Mankind Our Saviour hath taught us That the very Hairs of our Heads are in the Accounts of Heaven and shall the Crowns of Monarchs be neglected and forgotten If there be no Affliction upon a Person or People that may be said to rise out of the Dust then sure an unjust and cruel Ruler which is one of Gods severest Scourges is not set up by Chance or Fortune and if not an usurping Tyrant who is a common Plague then certainly no just and lawful Prince who is a publick Blessing without the Appointment of God If it be left to Men to constitute Governours it 's to be feared that Fraud or Violence will have the greatest stroke and that 's another way whereby they would have it believed that Empire and Dominion might take its rise But this sure is a very improper Ground whereon to found a just and rightful Power unless it should be industriously so contrived to leave an Original Flaw in the Conveyance to the end that Subjection shall be always precarious and when occasion serves renounced with a Justification Force or Fraud the beginning of Empires It seems so jealous are the Party we have here to deal with lest God should be thought to have any hand in the matter that they chuse rather intirely to ascribe it to the Devil for he is the original Liar and Murderer too And if the way to a Throne be to wade through Blood and make the slaughter'd Carcases of all Opposers so many Steps of Ascent to mount them unto Greatness I see not but why every such exalted Head may call him Father whose Name in the Greek Tongue is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Destroyer Rev. 9.7 And then what a hopeful Exercise of Power must attend such a Beginning The Sword must needs maintain its own Title and if the Coronation Robes be dyed in Blood any one may foretell what Complexion Justice thenceforth is like to appear in An Usurper brings along with him a necessity of renouncing all Humanity and Religion too He must hate all those whom he hath injured and must punish whatsoever his own guilty Fears present as if they were manifest Crimes he must tolerate all manner of Disorder and Confusion in the Worship of Heaven for the sake of those which himself hath brought upon the Affairs of Earth he must give up the Word of God to mercenary Tongues and unhallowed Hands to be Tentered and set upon the Rack till with the Heathen Oracles of old it can 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cant something in the favour of his Pretensions And who can be so vain as even to dream of Property or Liberty under such a State Who can hope for the enjoyment of a rightful Possession whilst the Government it self is but a splendid Robbery I shall pass over this Particular with that Observation of the wise Historian Tacitus Imperium flagitio acquisitum nemo unquam bonis artibus exercuit which may bear this Construction The worse the Title the more intolerable must the Tyrant be But because the Deduction of Government from its true Original makes so fair for the Natural and Divine Right of Monarchy above all other Forms or Models whatever hence the implacable Enemies thereof have another Reserve in which indeed they place their greatest Strength and Confidence and that is by a kind of aukward Courtship to the Multitude by a most fulsom Flattery of the People to insinuate into them an Opinion That all Sovereignty and Power all Honour and Authority as to the first Ownership is theirs and where they are pleased to lodge it A most pernicious Insinuation enough to prompt any People to seditious Attempts which in stead of Obedience which is the farthest thing in their thoughts only sets their Heads on work how to recover the Governing Power which they are told to be withheld violently from them Now how disagreeing this is both to the tenor of Gods Word and of his Works also we shall briefly consider 1. To the Word of God As we find mention but of One sort of Government there so we find Obedience always pressed a quite contrary way than is here supposed viz. as to an Ordinance of Heaven not a Contract on Earth as descending from above so Christ tells Pilate not arising from below the Royal Unction being in this respect like that of the