most vehement persuasions or dissuasions of Conscience none the greatest pretences to new Light or Divine Inspirations can justifie any Member of a Christian State or Church nor any whole Church to violate the establish'd Laws of their Country by resisting Nay there can be no surer proof of an erroneous Conscience of a Spirit that is not of God than this if it shall provoke Men possess'd with it under any colour of the Cause of God to Arm against and by open force to oppose the Powers that undoubtedly are of God 'T is true of old under the Jewish dispensation God himself thought fit sometimes by an immediate call different from that of the Civil Government to excite private Men to draw the Sword and to perform acts of Supreme Justice Yet then he made them cease to be private Men any longer first placed them in his own stead shew'd certain signs of his presence with them and often gave them the power of Miracles to confirm what they did So that no man now ought to imitate such extraordinary Examples without being able to produce the like extraordinary Commission And that is not now God's method any longer His reveal'd Law being now completely discover'd God himself has seldom or never now recourse to such instances of his absolute Prerogative And therefore certainly no man ought to usurp them at his pleasure To the Law and to the Testimony to his written Word he now refers us and as that commands to Kings and all that are in Authority to whom alone he has committed the executive part of his common Power as to the Vicegerents upon Earth of his Justice and Mercy Thirdly therefore on a public Call only and only in a public Cause can just public Arms be taken up and so they may be even by Christians for the Cause of God and the King which though in words they seem divided yet in reality they are one and the same and inseparable as the same Sword of old was call'd the Sword of the Lord and of Gideon the Supreme Magistrate This my Brethren is not only the best but the only true Cause of God in this World for which all Subjects are bound in Conscience to fight the Cause of their lawful Soveraign that which he Authorizes either by his Person or his Commission or his Allowance This I say is the only true Cause even of God which can justly call for your Swords Besides this we know God has another Cause in the World that of his own Church and the true Religion which whenever it is united with the Soveraign Authority as Blessed be God it is in our Nation then that is of all others unquestionably a Cause the most sacred the nearest and dearest to God himself But wherever the Cause of the true Religion and that of the Supreme Power are at variance then God himself is pleas'd to take his own Religion into his peculiar care to maintain and advance it in a way that of all others is the most Divine a way that is more esteem'd of God himself let me say it than even your way of triumphant Arms and Conquest For such is the way of gentle teaching and innocent living and patient suffering and meek obedience By this Method only God chose to begin the Gospel and first rais'd the Christian Church whilest the Empire was Heathen and the World idolatrous and by no other Methods but such as conform to this most surely not by forcible resistance or open violence does God still allow the Gospel to be carried on by Subjects wherever the Soveraign Power is addicted to Superstition or Idolatry But what say they must we not arm against the lawful Prince for the Cause of God and his Truth How then shall we exercise our Zeal for the true Religion What then will become of the true Religion it self No not for the Cause of God For then at best you will oppose one Cause of God against another and as you order it the false Cause of God against the true and thus for the seeming interest of Christianity you infringe the fundamental Percepts of it Not you My Brethren I speak this for the sake of some without Doors if they would but hear us But alas they make it a part of their Religion not to hear us However I must say that Zeal may be irregular and wicked though in the Cause of the true Religion Zeal is not only to be justfy'd by the cause which raises it but as much by the authority on which it acts As for the right and well-order'd Zeal whenever it has not the count'nance or concurrence of the Magistrate it ought only to be employ'd in peaceable Actions in their Wishes and Studies and Prayers in their Counsels and Advises when call'd to it but chiefly in amending their own lives and turning the edge of their Zeal on their own Sins by that innocent but effectual way too to do their parts to preserve and spread the true Faith Wherefore let them no longer intitle the true Religion to their own Discontents or Ambitions What Religion can there be in Mens persuing violent paths on a pretence of the Glory of God but contrary to his express commands Let them practice its duties and God will assert its interest Religion desires none to be its Champions except they first become its Disciples and such are not they who will do evil that good may come Can such men think to give us better examples for the propagating Religion than the first great Masters and Founders of Christianity did or can they hope for better Success in it than they had and what way did they judge best what by Experience did they find best to promote it Prodigious indeed was the Gospels first increase But far more admirable the means of it which were chiefly their Enemies Persecutions their own Submission and the power of Miracles By the wonders they wrought they exercised a violence over Nature but none over Laws or civil Governments to change or to subvert them By a lowly yielding to the Heathen Empire they first soften'd its fury then converted it they piously render'd to their Caesars the things that were Caesars they cheerfully pay'd them Tribute readily took up Arms at their Summons most willingly perform'd all their Laws except such as that of adoring them Though they could not be induced by fear or favour to rank their Princes equal with their God yet they preserved them in the next place though they would never worship them as Gods upon Earth yet they religiously obey'd them as God's Deputies and Representatives they judg'd those who rebell'd against them worthy of Death as if they had actually rebell'd against God himself What else means St. Paul when in so many words he declares That whosoever resisteth the Power resisteth the Ordinance of God and they that resist shall receive to themselves Damnation Out of all doubt he there speaks of the Temporal Power and of Eternal
Damnation to ensue upon resisting it than which what more grievous Punishment could have bin inflicted had they immediately resisted God himself And recollect I intreat you the time when this was so positively pronounc'd by St. Paul It must have bin written under the reign of Claudius or Nero. So that it is evident all that resisted them were without repentance in a damnable state Can there be then any colour so specious any cause so just in which instead of Damnation a Christian subject may justly expect to receive to himself Salvation on the account of resisting Was it then forbidden on the penalty of everlasting Death to rebel against those Emperors most cruel Tyrants most fierce Enemies to the Christian Name Monsters of Men either of no Religion or a false one and yet a disgrace to Heathenism it self if however on the most solemn obligation of Conscience they were not to be oppos'd much less destroy'd by any Christians what can be said greater or more august than this what stronger what more sacred Confirmation can be given to our conscientious ob 〈…〉 nother manner of Authority By how many more tyes Temporal and Eternal are we bound to yield a faithful subjection to a Christian King Under whose gentle Protection his Subjects prosper though some almost against their wills a King whose Power is only shewn by moderate Laws which to his mildness owe their Moderation in a word a King who is the best nursing Father of the best Church in the Christian World Against this Doctrine I know the Enemies of our Peace will be ready with their old and obsolete Objection That this is Court Flattery and a Divinity only sit for Camps and standing Armies I must tell them it had bin well for our Country if we had never heard of worse Camp-Divinity than this we had then never felt the real tyranny of a standing Army And if they would consult Scripture for other uses than to pervert it they would soon be convinc'd that this is good Evangelical Divinity Nay this Assembly gives me confidence to inform them what they will be more loath to hear that now God be prais'd this is not only good Camp but good City-Divinity too But when we teach the great Doctrine of Obedience if we must be said to flatter our comfort is we flatter in no worse company than that of the Apostles St. Peter and St. Paul and wellnigh of all the divinely-inspired Penmen of the Bible However when they accuse the Church of England of this kind of Flattery that is of unshaken fealty to the Crown let them consider which of the two is the more excusable Flattery to humour the uncertain populace and the unstable vulgar which to serve is the lowest Slavery or to Preach a due Submission to the Lawful establish'd Government which to obey is the safest Liberty You see My Dear Brethren the course of my Argument has brought us to such a Cause as is worthy of your Swords if need shall require Though the Ardour of your Loyal Valour must give me leave to say I hope and I verily believe there will be no such need I am persuaded and I think I may presage that this present alacrity and vigor to which you and His Majestie 's other Loyal Subjects have bin of late awaken'd this cheerful posture and prepared readiness of your Swords to be drawn will be an abundant Safety to our King and Country without once drawing them Such will be the Innocence as well as Justice of your Arms such the desperate condition of your Adversaries that whenever they draw their Swords against their Prince they must throw away the Scabbard whilest yours by God's Providence being manag'd with an ordinary watchfulness and sobriety will be sufficient to defend him without ever unsheathing them But if which God in his Infinite Mercy aâ—â—ert if ever the same tumultuous spirit on the same groundless insinuations shall once more infatuate the corrupt part of the Nation to their own Destruction to their own certainly it will be at last if they do not again meet with the like mercy But if God in his unsearchable Judgments shall suffer our Country in the same Age to be scourg'd again the same calamitous way then what can be a more Noble or more Pious Cause wherein to employ your Arms than this of the King and his Family A Cause in which you will scarce meet with an Enemy but he or his Relations have bin already forgiven And so they will carry about with them the black guilt not only of Rebellion but of an ungrateful Rebellion after Pardon receiv'd a Sin which the Devil is not capable of committing whil'st you will have a Cause in which all your several Interests that are elsewhere scatter'd of personal Preservation of political Duty of conscientious Obedience are united In this one Cause all your Countries Blessings all your Churches Rights all your own Securities are involved in defending his Life his Throne who is the breath of our Nostrils the anointed of the Lord who has not only this common to him with other Kings that he is the Image of the Divine Power but has this peculiar to himself or communicated to him with a very few that he is the Image of the Divine Mercy of whose Abhorrence of all Illegal Oppressions or Arbitrary Proceedings if the grace of all his former Oblivions and Indemnities has not yet convinc'd a stubborn Generation of Men after they have so long injoy'd the benefits of them what need they any other new Argument than this here before me that when he has such a Nobility and Gentry such a Militia of the whole Kingdom especially yours entirely at his Service yet he is pleas'd to use your Arms no otherwise than now in the peaceful Exercises of War For such a King whilest his Goodness and Benignity gives you no occasions to fight for him what can all his Subjects do less than to love and revere him in Peace to yield him an active Obedience the more cheerfully since he has taken care we shall have no opportunities of giving him a passive Obedience not only not to hinder but to perform his just Commands to think our selves only capable of being a great People by making him greater Every Soul to be Subject to him So if we believe St. Paul there is a necessity we should be The Phrase in the Original is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies the necessity not only of a cold and forc'd and meerly just Subjection but of a regular well-disposed Submission not only to live quietly but in a quiet order nay more to live as it were in Military Order under him For the word belongs to your Profession The Rules of the warlike Art are properly call'd Tacticks and such should be our Obedience to our Soveraign so exact as that which you practice in Armies so as strictly to observe his Orders so as to be careful not to transgress his Laws for love of him more than for fear of Punishment so as to be silent from Murmurings loud only in Applauses and Thanks to Almighty God for the felicities of his Reign Happy all his Subjects if all were but sensible of their Happiness and would do their parts to perpetuate it Happy if all would remember what he has forgot and remember it not to upbraid others but to beware and grow wiser themselves for the future Happy if all were such as you So willing to obey the King in quiet times so skilful to serve him in the Administrations of his Justice so ready and able to guard him against all Confusions Such an Academy of Arts as well as Arms such a Company of Citizens such a Nursery of Commanders cannot under God but afford him a sure defence in his Wars as you do already supply him with the Riches and Ornaments of Peace Happy is the People that is in such a case Happy is the People whose God is the Lord The Lord of Hoasts who giveth Salvation to Kings who delivereth his Servant David from the hurtful Sword and arms him with the Sword of Justice which he manages by a law of Kindness and which I beseech Almighty God may flourish in his hand for many many years in his House for all Generations to come Amen FINIS 2 Cor. 10.4 Joh. 18.36 Acts 8.32 Mat. 26.53 Luke 2.14 Mat. 26.52 Calvin Grotius Dr. Hammond c. Contra Manich lib 22. Luke 6.29 Cicero Pro Milone James 4.1 Eph. 6.11 Rom. 3.8 Rom. 13.2 Rom. 13.1 Rom. 13.4 Ps. 144.
First St. Peters case was this he with an unseasonable passion proceeding from his own intemperate zeal without any call from his Superiours had wounded the High Priests Servant whilst he was performing 't is true a most unjust action but was commissioned to do it by publick authority Him therefore his Master censures for striking with the Sword without a sufficient warrant That he blames as an illegal attempt of a private man against a publick Officer Put up thy Sword says he O Peter Submit with patience Oppose not Authority Do not thou break the Laws of thy Country though for kindness and love of me Put up thy Sword He that uses the Sword unlawfully though on a pretence never so pious shall perish by the Sword shall either be destroyed by it here or punish'd hereafter by God himself for having so used it Wherefore we are not to conclude that our blessed Lord by this check given to St. Peter did absolutely prohibit all manner of using the Sword among Christians but only that he taught us the great duty of Christian submission For if St. Peter was then certainly all other Christian Subjects are forbidden to unsheath the Sword against their lawful Soveraign or his Ministers as they are commissioned by him though they do it on a pretext so spiritual as the cause of Christ himself And of all that call themselves Christians methinks the pretended Successors of St. Peter might hence have been warned not to grasp at an universal power of the Sword or to usurp a Temporal Soveraignty over the world on any shadow of right derived from St. Peter since he was so far from having any such power so unsuitable to his Apostleship that of all the Apostles St. Peter only was left to himself to give an opportunity by his publick reproof for confirming the quite contrary Doctrine Now in my Text our blessed Lord prepares his Disciples with extraordinary courage to overcome those dangers they had hitherto been freed from but after he should leave them they were presently to encounter In the verse foregoing he appeals to them whether they had wanted any thing in his service though formerly he had sent them forth without Purses or Scrips or Shoes without having taken any common care before-hand for their subsistence and they acknowledging they had lacked nothing He proceeds here to advise them that for the future whoever had Purses or Scrips they should not neglect them whoever had not Swords they should provide them Erasmus in a just indignation that the Grammatical sense of these words should be so wrested by some Interpreters as to justifie the groundless Quarrels and cruel Wars between the Christian Princes of his time will allow my Text to have only a mystical meaning and interprets it thus He that has no Sword of the Gospel or of the Word of God let him by all means procure it But the general voice of the best Interpreters agree that our Lord by putting his followers in mind of furnishing themselves with Purses Scrips and Swords does as by so many Symbols and Signs represent to them that now shortly far worse times of perils and persecutions attended them that therefore they ought to be more cautious and watchful more careful to be supplied with all inward and outward just assistances as all men are wont to make a greater provision of Purses Scrips and Swords when they perceive some great and imminent dangers approaching My Text therefore being apparently a figurative expression whereby our Lord commands all his followers to arm their minds against the Spiritual Conflicts and Temporal Afflictions they were to meet with I beg the liberty only to use the figure no farther than St. Austin does who cites this very place against those Heretics that condemned all use of secular Arms as unlawful So I crave leave from this Symbol of buying Swords to infer thus much that although spiritual Arms are a Christians proper weapons in times of danger yet even the natural means of just defence are allowed to Christians as well as to other men A Doctrine which the severest of our blessed Lords Precepts do not in the least overthrow For although it is certain that by such Commands as that Unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other we are positively required to bear all tolerable injuries with mildness and self-denial yet no Casuist is so severe in expounding that and the like Scriptures but they universally grant that when private mens lives are in jeopardy and much more when the public life of the State is in danger the free use of all the honest means of Personal or Political safety was never prohibited by our blessed Saviour Now then from this figure of a Sword I take occasion to propose this great truth to be the subject of my present Discourse That notwithstanding the most Evangelical Precepts of meekness patience forgiving blessing and praying for Enemies still the warlike furniture and use of just Arms is in all Ages of Christianity lawful is in some seasons some exigencies of times a Duty more incumbent than the very Arts of Peace that Christians as well as other men may furnish themselves with Swords not to act the least private injury but to defend themselves as much as may be against all and especially may use their Swords when lawfully called against public injury in assisting the Civil State of which they are members in fighting the Lords Battels and then they fight the Lords Battels when they fight for the cause of their temporal Princes Of this Doctrine when I shall have briefly dispatched the general Theory I will then God willing if your attention shall hold out try to reduce it to the particular practice and magnanimous design of this great Assembly by representing to you that if ever there was any Time or Country or Society of men to which our pure and peaceable Religion it self has more than ordinarily recommended the pious use of the Sword or the due preparations for using it this is the Time this the Country this the Society you having such Laws and Liberties to defend not against your Prince to whom or to his Progenitors you owe them but against the same parties of your Fellow-Subjects who once already usurped them you having such a Church and Faith to contend for against forein Usurpations Domestic Separations and Combinations of Separation you having such a Faiths-Defender to serve with your Purses your Scrips your Swords your Lives As to the first thing propounded I shall not spend time in proving this universal truth That all defensive or offensive means means of safety which amongst all men are righteous are equally so to Christians as to any other part of Mankind It will be enough in this matter to say That all the Instruments of a just defence or offence are by the Christian Law as much allowed to be used as by the Natural Law they are taught to be provided
all his Quarrels and the consciousness of that innocence cannot but render his mind more calm serene and even invincible in all their Events Whence come Wars and Fightings among you says the Apostle Come they not from your Lusts It is true Rapine and unjust Wars come from thence and that Religion which most subdues your Lusts will most remove the occasions of such Wars But at the same time and by the very same way it will more secure the Success more increase the Renown and more brighten the Luster of all your just Arms. Wherefore so far is Christianity it self so far those Doctrines it most tenderly cherishes as its own genuine product the Doctrines I mean of Humility Patience Kindness to the Afflicted and Pardon of Offenders so far is any of these from being opposite to the Principles of true Honour and Valour your Art professes that whoever would conceive in his mind the perfect Character of an excellent Warrior so he ought to form his Image to furnish him with all kinds but especially to adorn him with this kind of easie mild and gentle Virtues And if the very Heathens thought their Poetic Heroes could not be complete except they first received their Arms from their Gods How much more ought a Christian Hero to fetch his from Heaven How devoutly ought he to put on the whole Armour of God as St. Paul calls all the Graces of a Christian life how careful should he be not only to abstain from the common sins which Religion condemns but to aspire to the highest Duties it commands not only not to be given to Luxury and Debauchery not only not to owe his valor to his vices but amidst so many more temptations to keep his Eyes and Thoughts from being defiled as well as his hands from being rapacious Not only not to blaspheme Heaven and defy his Maker with horrid Oaths and Curses but more humbly to Reverence more dutifully to depend on that God to whom he more peculiarly appeals to keep your natural Lives more than ordinarily innocent which are exposed to so many more than natural Deaths to have your Minds free from all sordid Passions or Desires far above the mean appetites of Avarice or Cruelty to have true Glory only for your End to use no inglorious means in acquiring it to have your Courages strengthen'd with Truth Faith Righteousness sweeten'd and graced with Brotherly Love Pity Compassion not to be Enemies to your very Enemies but only to their Oppressions and Injustice to be Friends Lovers Imitators of their virtues not only to be unconcern'd in Dangers but patient in bad mild in good Success merciful in Victory These my Brethren Religion tells us are the chief Excellencies of a Christian. These you know are the principal Accomplishments of a Soldier Of these your Profession acknowledges the Necessity and labors for what the School of Christ only teaches the Perfection The use and honor of just Arms appearing thus consistent with the sincerity with the very meekness of Christianity Be pleas'd that we now go on to contemplate in what special Opportunities what conjunctures of times they may be most justly and with truest praise employ'd First without question always justly the Sword may be drawn by private Men to defend their Lives against private Assaults but not alwayes nor at any time for their private revenge Your personal Preservation from Injury God has in some sort committed to your selves and to your own Swords as well as to the Magistrates care but in no sort distinct from the Magistrate has God intrusted to your selves the avenging of any personal Injuries What a bold invasion then on Authority what a rude violation of Public Justice is the too common ill custom of Mens striving to right themselves by private Duels what is it indeed but another kind of Rebellion against the Government that every man's hand should be ready to be lift up against every man on every imaginary affront that the Shadows and Punctilio's of Honor should be so much more regarded than the solid Substance of it that those weapons which nothing ought to command but the Sacred Cause of your God and your King men should oftner draw for every trifle on every rash word against their Countreymen their Neighbors their best Friends sometimes against their King in his Subjects against their God in his Laws A mistaken way of mens gaining to themselves a contemptible Reputation when either Passion or Intemperance makes them not themselves A way of Honor which the most victorious Nations of the Ancient World seldom or never practis'd and which that very Nation of the Modern World that either first introduc'd or most cherish'd it is grown quite asham'd of I beseech you let not the English think that to be the greatest bravery which was never esteem'd brave by the old Romans whos 's National greatness of Mind in other things you so much resemble Let not the English any longer allow that to be praise-worthy which your next Neighbors on the Continent your old Competitors in Arms have quite forsaken as dishonorable and since they have done so have remarkably flourish'd in the Field You cannot but know that it has not bin by particular Quarrels or single Combats against the Will of the Prince that the Profession of the Sword has bin made so famous I must say had there bin no other use of it it had soon bin most infamous A Skill fitter for divided Barbarians than for Nations civilized The virtue the loveliness of your Art consists in the joint force of it that it can make whole Troops and Armies to have at once the strength of a great Multitude and the firm Union and well combined motion as it were of one Man There never was nor ever will be any Country or Government that got a lasting fame or Empire by the unruly Passions and unlawful Attempts of private Men. Most surely many States have bin destroy'd by them whilest those Kingdoms have bin alwayes most prosperous and renown'd where an orderly well-disciplin'd Valor has bin most incourag'd and single Outrages most severely punish'd where no force has bin thought honorable but what is justify'd by Authority and that force honorable in the judgment of the Gospel it self Wherefore Secondly as by private Men for private Safety though not for private Revenge the Sword may be justly drawn so much more by all in a Public Cause And then not only for Safety but also for Revenge for Revenge too since vengeance belongs only to God and to none besides himself but to the Public Sword has God reserved the repaying of vengeance For just defence then I say and for just offence too the Sword ought to be used in a Public Cause But let us remember nothing can make it to be a Public Cause but a lawful Authority It can never be made so by every or by any private Spirit It is most true Divinity as well as Politics that none the