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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A33098	A sermon preached at Edinburgh, in the East-Church of St. Giles, upon the 30th of January, 1689 being the anniversary of the martyrdome of King Charles the first / by James Canaries ...	Canaries, James.	1689 (1689)	Wing C423; ESTC R20246	68,911	94

prove it Perchance it will here be said That it was the Body of the Nation that rose against that King And that since the Body of the Nation was the only competent Judge whether or not he had malverst and violated his original Contract with his People Therefore they having Judg'd him to suffer justly He must needs have done so But we all know against whom it was alledg'd We have a Law and by our Law he ought to die Joh. Chap. 19. Ver. 7 And this was the only one instance wherein these words could have been more unjustly applyed than they were against our Royal Martyr Neither will any ever pretend that the Body of any Nation is infallibly just when they oppose themselves to their Prince Otherwise all Rebellion were but a meer Chymera a thing absolutely impossible and contradictious Since no kind of men will ever be so infinitly gross as to act at that rate against their Prince without some Varnishing Colours to what they do At least nothing were Rebellion unless there were no more but such or such a proportion of the Subjects concerned in it And then adieu to all the Rights of Princes But if you 'll reflect upon what I said before you cannot but necessarily see That God sometimes permits a People to scourge themselves for their sins by scourging their Prince And that even then the injury they do him is palpable and manifest And indeed in the present case not only was the King acquitted from those aspersions that had been cast upon him and the Rebellion against him condemn'd as such by the unanimous Vote of the most solemn Representatives of both Nations after they had been first wearied with the misery and then remors'd for the guilt of their Error But also we may sufficiently remember by what steps and degrees that Rebellion came to its height and full pitch and that the Redress of a few imaginary Grievances began that work which the too great confidence the King plac'd in his Subjects on the one hand and their no less ungenerous insolencies which proportionably swell'd as the Kings good nature was express'd on the other brought to such an end as happened to it I must needs confess that his circumstances had look'd somewhat ill favoured had these Nations on the sudden broke out universally against him For then there had been so much of a Moral Evidence in the matter as presumably could not have fall'n out without some correspondent ground in the Object it self But that nothing such was then I referr to the Matter of Fact as it is to be canvass'd by their own Memories who were then and are yet living and by the Histories of that time by those who have only grown up to be men since Yet after all I am not to deny but that King was so much a Man and not an Angel as to have had his own infirmities and been of like Passions with us But still I 'll avow that he had only so much of our frail temper about him as was necessary for leaving something for Heaven to do on his account and that we must go there before we can find a greater Saint But when the King of Heaven has by his Providence so visibly interposed himself to justifie that as holy a King as ever swayed Scepter upon Earth against the malicious slanders of his enraged and treacherous Subjects that we must either make no Arguments from Providence at all or else be convinced by those which here are manifest and irrefragable When I say God has taken the vindication of that quarrel upon himself we must have as little Religion as Sense or Reason if we shall any more be to seek in this matter Now it is the observation of the Great Doctor Tillotson upon that Text Righteousness exalteth a Nation That National sins are only punisht in this World Because they must either be so or not at all Since in the World after this there will be no Nations or Bodies and Corporations of Men. It is also the Observation of all Divines That God does frequently accommodate and proportion his temporal Judgments to those Sins that provoked him to pour them out so that face uses not more to answer face in the water than the one does the other And thus Adonize besek had his great Thumbs and Toes cut off because he had dealt so with Seventy two Kings If therefore we have felt great and remarkable Judgments and if these have traced the very footsteps of those iniquities we were guilty of toward that Royal Martyr Must we not conclude that he who doth all things in number weight and measure has been displeased with us because of those very sins which then we committed and that our National Punishment reads to us a Lecture of our National Wickedness And that thus it has been with us not only much in Cromwells time tho I fear too many look upon that Usurpers Loins as lighter than the litle finger of the gentlest Monarch but even in these last days is but sadly palpable to all considering Men. And I shall only instance it in the first considerable assault we made upon the Majesty of Our Royal Martyr which was because of his endeavouring to set up that Worship in his Chappel-Royal here which from his Infancy he had been inured unto And for this that Church whereof he was so zealous a Member was branded as a Limb of Antichrist and he himself was clamour'd against as either down right Popish or else very much inclined to be so and to have lanched forth into a design of introducing that Religion into this and all his other Kingdoms But have we not had the most Pompous and Magnificent Preparations made for the Mass it self in that very place where we would not suffer the Ordinances of the Protestant Religion to be celebrated with a decent Solemnity as little Popish as the Fury that rose against it was the contrary Nay has not the Mass it self been as publick in spight of our Noses as Sermons even from this Pulpit have been Whereas never Man did more firmly or with greater Constancy and Christian Resolution adhere to the true Protestant Religion than Our Glorious Martyr did to his last breath And whereas too that Church to which he wish'd ours to be conformed has alwayes prov'd to be the Bulwark and just pride and glory of the whole Protestant Side Neither has ever any Protestant Church in the World been so much the Envy of the Church of Rome as that of England has been and will ever be if our repeated resolute Provocations do not at last overcome that Mercy which hitherto has preserv'd her in so much Purity and Splendor And even the most bigotted Enemies she was wont to have do now by the publick acknowledgements all Protestants owe to her Bishops that have born an eminent Testimony to the Protestant Cause and have been vouchaf'd upon these dreggs of time to preserve us from utter darkness

both here and hereafter confirm that there was never a Church less infected with Popery nor more genuinly Christian And who were the Men that these four years by gone have so demonstratively baffled all the Champions and Emissaries of Rome that as never was there any Truth more triumphant than in that time the Protestant has been over the Popish Religion so never was there greater advantage obtain'd over all the subtilties of those cunningest Sophisters than themselves were forc'd only not to confess Surely none other can lay the remotest claim to this but the Divines of the Church of England And all this we all know we have all magnified and extoll'd with raptures not altogether unproportionable to the Merites that extorted them from us God grant that we may never afterwards prove so unjust and ungratefull as to undervalue or despise that Church we have so lov'd so much admir'd for the benefits we have received from her when we shall come to think that we stand not so much in need of her assistance However let the occasion of this Day make us Remember Lots wife In the mean time has not God no less Particularly than Sufficiently revenged those injuries that Church has suffered from us and those our Royal Martyr did for her sake It is but too easie to draw a further Parallel And therefore let me ask you if you think God is an idle Spectator of all Humane Affairs Or that when such sins went before and such Judgements followed after there was no more but meer Chance in all this Or shall we fondly imagine that the Fates and Revolutions of Nations are matters so very triffling that he concerns not himself in them without whose special Providence a Sparrow is not sold at such or such a price in the Mercat We must then conclude that the Nation was horridly guilty in what they did toward this Royal Martyr were there no other thing to make us do so but such a comparison of what he suffered from us and what we have suffered by the permission of God since These things indeed are become now to be in the mouths of all Men. But alas they are as little considered as they ought to be as they are much talkt of And we rather seem to be itched with them because of their oddness than to make that Spiritual Improvement of them which as we are Christians we should and which God expects we will and for which we must one day be answerable before his Tribunal What! Is our conversation so little in heaven that the greatest of its Providences work no Heavenly Impression upon us Or are we so engrost with the interests of this World that we cannot spare one sober thought to reflect upon those of that to come Good God! Is it possible that rational men who believe they have immortal Souls within them can so squander away such excellent Beings in the drudgery of low and vulgar considerations as not to make the least suitable regard of thy most signal and extraordinary Dealings toward them But I leave this to the Consciences of all Men as they shall find themselves able to be accountable to that Vicegerent God has planted in their Bosoms Since therefore the Rebellion against King Charles the First has been condemn'd by the greatest Authority both in Heaven and in Earth let us now lay the Line to the Plummet and measure how hainous the Sin of it was in it self And this we cannot better do than by making a serious review of the foregoing Parts of this Discourse And first If Subjection to the Higher Powers be so directly commanded in the Scriptures then must not Rebellion be the most contradictory thing to them imaginable Secondly Did our Saviour lay the surest Foundations for Government upon the Principle of Conscience must not therefore the tearing up a Government by the roots in despight of him in the very face of Conscience be an iniquity not to be thought of without horrour and detestation Thirdly Has our Saviour been so very careful of the Rights of Subjects as to leave them entire without any the least encroachment made upon them Are not then the violences of Subjects against their Soveraign aggravated by all the black circumstances that can render Rebellion abominable Surely 't is a thousand times more intollerable for Subjects whose Rights are not invaded and who consequently enjoy all the advantages of Humane Life that the state of this World can allow I say it is infinitely more inexcusable for Subjects to run head-long upon such a Wickedness than it can be for Slaves to do it these having all the Temptation possible that Reasonable Creatures can have for prompting them to rise up against that Power by which they are depressed And Lastly Has our Saviour superadded the Obligation of Conscience to that of the Law of Nature in repressing Subjects from disturbing the Government under which they live upon the account of that innate Freedom which afterpretences would strive to Assert Is not therefore a Rebellion founded on imaginary Complaints about the Subjects Right by the Law of Nature equally against all the Natural and Reveal'd Religion in the World And has our Religion bound us up not to think it strange concerning the fiery tryal as though some strange thing happened but to rejoyce in as much as we are partakers of Christs sufferings 1 Pet. chap. 4. vers 12 13. And is not a superstitious rebelling for this or that Pin of the Tabernacle the most repugnant Sin to the nature and genius of Christianity that can be next to the shaking it self off for good and all nay in a manner worse by how much to act with the greatest contradiction possible to a fixed Principle is more impious than first to believe nothing and then to do every thing And does the Doctrine of Overturning States and Empires of Deposing Soveraign Princes c merely for the sake of Religion owe its original to the Popes and Church of Rome And can there be any more insufferable Scandal upon Protestants and the Protestant Religion than to out-do Popery in its livelyest Colours and when it acts most like it self and to play the Boute-feu and Incendiary more violently than ever the Consistory inspir'd its Votaries to be I know I need not tell you that the Rebellion against our Holy Martyr had all these malignant Ingredients in it to enhanse it unto as terrible a Crime as ever a Nation was guilty of But if our Sin has been great let our Repentance be no less We may flatter our selves with the vain imagination that now we are not concerned in what was done almost in our fore-fathers days and by a few leading Men that then had a privat Interest to promote But you have heard how God has made it a National Quarrel with us and has to this very day been resenting it as such It is remarkable that the Angel commanded St. John Rev. 3. v. 19. to tell the Church of Laodicea that as many as God loves he rebukes and chastens and therefore all should be zealous and repent We have been sadly rebuked God has given us great and manifest Warnings and has not only tryed what our Ingenuity but what our Fears can work upon us And that not only because we have not throughly enough laid to Heart how unworthy we shewed ourselves to be of so good a King and so great a Christian but also because our temper as to our Religion has been but Laodicean but luke-warm neither hot nor cold And indeed we have served our Designs much more with our Religion than our Religion with our Designs and it must be confess'd that either Pique or a certain mistaken Point of Honour or this or that Interest has been the great Springs upon which the Religion of the Nation as to the universality has chiefly mov'd ever since the late Troubles began I say God has sufficiently rebuked us for this But if now we shall not be truly zealous and repent we may expect the Chastening is yet to come and that God will not be mocked any longer with us but will either give us up to that reprobate mind we seem so much to court or else to pour out Plague upon Plague upon us till we shall be utterly destroyed and become a hissing to the whole Earth But now to conclude Let us learn from this Day to beware of rebelling against those lawful Princes whom God places over us We have a sad Example before our Eyes and sad Judgments too And if we love our Peace and Felicity our Religion and our Conscience and so our God and our Saviour let us never bring a Disgrace and Reproach upon our Holy Profession by doing those things whereof the Heathens are ashamed and which are the foulest sulliage and pollution upon Christianity that it can be prophaned with I mean let us always be subject not only for wrath but also for conscience sake Now unto the King of Kings and Lord of Lords unto him by whom Kings Reign and Princes decree Judgment be all Praise Honour and Glory from this time forth and for evermore Amen FINIS