his Distress Which was plainly seen when at one Time her Return from Holland was welcom'd by a Bullet shot from the mouth of a Cannon And at another time putting to Sea She had a Chase Peece sent after Her for a farewel All which Hazards then and Afflictions since when exiled from Her Own she suffer'd like that Undaunted Queen Zenobia with so much Magnanimity and such high Resolution as became the Daughter of Her Great Father Henry the fourth And I heartily wish Her Story may be particularly transmitted to Posterity that the Example of so Peerless a Wife and the Barbarous usage she underwent may never be forgot Where give we leave to say Though the Rifling this Cabbinet prov'd one of the highest Honours as well to the Owner as to Her yet was it by Those whose Valour was always less than their Spight intended a Brand of Eternal Defamation Nor ever can the Actors acquite Themselves from the baseness of the Action whereof a Noble Enemy Would never have been Guilty When there was hot war betwixt Philip King of Macedon and the Thebanes whose Scouts had intercepted some Letters which pass'd betwixt the King and his Queen Olympia Mother to Alexander the Great without Violating the seals They sent them back holding it an unmanly insolence to pry into the written passages betwixt Man and VVife But why do I mention the demeanour of a Noble Enemy compar'd to those who in all their Actings I say in all declar'd that They never understood the Rules either of humanity or Honour And as they us'd the Cabbinet so did they that Incomparable Jewel found in it too Our Blessed Kings Portraiture Which those infamous Raylours whom the Proud Faction kept in pay went about to persuade the world was none of His. Did not the Papers all writ by his own hand refute that Libel Look upon the Matter and you may Conclude None but the Heart of a King Enlarg'd by God could Indite It And if you consider the Style Loquela prodit No Pen I ever knew either then or since but His own could write it One of them and indeed the most Malicious in the Pack who calls himself Iconoclastes so shamelessly rails That as St. Paul said to Simon Magnus so might I to him Thou art in the Gall of Bitterness And as the Apostle charged Elymas the Sorcerer for Mischief and perverting the Truth so it is very memorable This Wretch had the fate of Elymas Strook with Blindness to his Death There is mention'd in the Prophet Scriptura Ezekiae The writing of Hezekiah What this was I will not dispute But sure I am Our Hezekiah hath left the written Account of His Solitude and Sufferings upon so firm a Record that the Incomparable Author needs no Monument but his Book That is in Nazianzen's Phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Living column Nor needs he any sheet of Lead to enwrap Him His own pretious Sheets will preserve Him And cause admiring Posterity to look upon Him as a Second Ecclesiastes sadly preaching to the world the Misery of Mankind and the vanity of all humane Glories verify'd in the Greatest of Men and in the Best of Princes If the Loss of so Excellent a Person as this may justly raise our Lamentation The Manner and Circumstance which brought Him to His End must needs encrease it To parallel which unhappy Passages I never found any History Divine or Humane excepting only the History of His Great Masters sufferings under the Jews In his Meditations upon Death at Carisbrook He tells the world As he had leisure enough so cause more than enough to Meditate and prepare for Death knowing there were but few steps between the Prisons and Graves of Princes And els-where He professeth it his Greatest Comfort That he had the Honour to imitate his Saviours Example in suffering for Righteousness though obscured by the fowlest charges of Tyronny and Injustice How did he Rejoice and bless God on that very day which was to Him his last on Earth when from that worthy Praelate◠who had leave then to attend him he understood that Chapter of Mathew the Seven and Twentieth which is the History of our Saviours passion was not chosen by him to suit his purpose but was the proper Lesson appointed by the Rubriok and order of the Church for the Morning Service I say how did he rejoyce That his own sufferings held such Conformity with his Saviours unto whom in very few hours he was ready to resign Himself Indeed whil'st I recount the steps and passages which carri'd Him to His Grave There is scarcely any Circumstance of our Blessed Saviours Passion with Humility and Duty be it spoken unto which his carry'd not some resemblance The Clamour of the Jews upon the First Away with him and the Tumultuous Exclamations of an enraged People upon the Last Caiaphas Prophecy upon the First That One must dye for the People And Cromwells Profession heard to fall from him at Childerly near Cambridge when he was in the Armies Power against the Last It was not fit that Man should live The Tampering with Judas to Betray him I draw not into the Parallel I must not say he was Betray'd but Parted with He was And yet the High Price set upon him carries this Excuse perhaps as those who expose Land to Sale ina very high demand unto which they believe the purchaser would not rise do in effect deny the Sale so I hope this Price which they could not expect might be easily laid down shewed a desire to Keep Him still Themselvs Yet when this was done and His implacable Enemies had his Person in their power Though they wanted not Will to Destroy him They wanted a colour for their Murtherous Purpose When Christ was brought to Pilate by the Jews and He plainly told them he found no fault in him They reply'd they had a Law and by That Law he was to Die But in this case Our Jews had no Law The Law was yet to make and the Heads of the proud Faction laid together resolv'd to erect a-new One of Cassius his Tribunals and write the Law thereby enacted like Dracoes in Blood I mean their High Court of Justice Whose Character the Psalmist gives you They imagine mischief as a Law They gather them together against the Soul of the Righteous and condemn the Innocent Blood But this brought not their design to effect Quomodo te torques O Malitia O Malice how dost thou torture thy brain Now they have invented a Law They cannot find a Judge to Execute It. The Office is tendered to all the Robe here left behind Amongst whom I speak it to their Reputation and the Counterballance of many errours which might be imputed during the distempers not one was found to accept the Office All of them leaving it to the Law-makers themselves and saying in effect as Pilate to the Jews Take ye him and
A SERMON Preached the 30th of January at White-Hall 1664. Being the Anniversary Commemoration of K. Charls the I Martyr'd on that Day By Henry King Lord Bishop of CHICHESTER Printed by His MAJESTIES Command LONDON Printed for Henry Herringman and are to be Sold at his Shop in the Lower walk of the New-Exchange 1665. A SERMON Preached the 30 th of January at White-Hall 1664. 2 Chron. 35. Vers. 24 25. And all Judah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah And Jeremiah lamented for Josiah and all the Singing-men and the Singing-women spake of Josiah in their Lamentations to this Day and made them an Ordinance in Israel and behold they are written in the Lamentations WE are met in the House of Mourning and I wish that Text of the Preacher It is better to enter into it than the House of Mirth may prove as acceptable to you as it is proper to the occasion In compliance wherewith my Text in every part of it from Top to Bottom is hung about with Blacks to suit the just and solemn Mourning of this Day A Day wherein the Lord hath called for Weeping and Mourning and Girding with Sackcloth Yet not long since This very Day recorded in bloody Letters was reckoned the first Day in our unhappy Kalendar A Day of Liberty and Restauration to the whole Kingdom Behold Joy and Gladness as it follows in the Prophet slaying Oxen and killing Sheep eating Flesh and drinking Wine in their large Thanksgiving Dinners and Solemn Feasts What Liberty no Man could tell unless a Liberty to the Sword to Rapine and to Plunder A liberty to profess all Religions except the Right and exercise any Law but That which was Prescribed May I not too truly apply to This Day the words of Hezekiah This is a Day of Trouble of Rebuke and of Blasphemy Trouble to the whole Nation Eternal Rebuke to the Actors Blasphemy and Reproach to the Protestant Religion so stained by the Fact wrought on it that all the Waters which environ our Island can never wash it out For where was it ever known that such a King was Murthered by the Sword of Justice and Pretence of Religion gave aim to the Assasinates Blow when Those who by their Office were to Preach Peace became the Trumpets of Rebellion when every Pulpit was made a Sconse from whence no Platform shot more frequent Fire than their Tongues did bitter Words against the Church and against Him who was the Nursing Father of It. For this Cause so much of our Sorrow as can be spared from our greater Obsequies may be allowed to lament this Scandal to the best Reformed Church of England when we find those Men acting by their sharp Principles who desir'd to be accounted most opposite to Them Both assuming the Title of Sacerdotes Reformati Reformed and Reforming Priests Yet need we not much wonder since in all Ages no Rebellion brake out which had not the stamp of Religion to make it currant Florus tells us the Civil Disturbances of Rome borrowed from hence their Colour and had their Flamens who were their Priests to blow them up In our own Kingdome Wat Tyler and Jack Straw had one Ball a Priest to plead for their Rising in the Pulpit And Littestar the Dyar of Norwich who took upon Him the Title of King of Commons Supprest and Hang'd by Spenser the noble Bishop there had his Chaplains too The French History tells us the furious Crys of Boucher Guarren Fruardent with others Thirteen in number All Chaplains to the Duke of Guise in all their Pulpits tearmed Charls the Ninth their King a Tyrant and Favourer of Hereticks Insomuch that the seduced Parisians changed their wonted Acclamations of God save the King to God save the Guise Head of the Catholick League and Patron of Religion The Tragical issue whereof was the Massacre of so many Protestants and shortly after the Death of the King A sad Glass to shew the Rise of our late Distempers here where praying for the King was prohibited by Order And I speak upon knowledge in some places none admitted to the Communion but those who fought against Him Not to trouble you further John Knox and others were Chaplains in the Scottish Rebellion in which the Archbishop was murther'd the Churches demolished and the Queen forced to fly And if any doubt who were the Chaplains to make our People stumble in their Duties to sollicit our own and the Churches troubles If nothing appears under Smictymnus his Mask Archer and Lemuel Tuke who acted open faced without their Vizors may sufficiently declare The one whereof Preach'd it lawful to resist the King The other to kill Him These and many more like these were the Prologue to that cruel Tragedy on this Day acted And Chaplains to that general Mischief which the whole Kingdome then groaned under And I dare boldly affirm upon what Clod of Earth in what Field soever the sharp Battels were fought the Sparring Blows were made in the Pulpit If this Repetition be unpleasing I beg pardon it so little pleases me That from my Soul I wish there never had been cause to give it mention or make it any part in the luckless Subject of our History Yet since our Saviour excus'd the Ointment expended on Him by the Woman and would not have it forgot as being done to bury Him I hope I may have leave to reflect a little upon those Dead flies whose onely aim was to corrupt the sweet Ointment of our Josiah's Name which is like Ointment poured out perfuming all places with the Example and Memory of his Virtues For what the Woman did to Christ in Piety they did in Malice to bury Him too at least to Antidate his Funeral by burying His precious Fame his good Name before the fatal Stroak which brought his Body to the Grave Our Text's Subject is Josiah's Funeneral They mourned for Josiah Where you have the general Train of Mourners All Judah and Jerusalem Then the Particular The Prophet Jeremiah lamented for Josiah The Singing-men and Singing-women spake of Josiah in their Lamentations to this Day The perpetuation of this solemn Mourning And made them an Ordinance in Israel The Record kept of Them Behold they are written in the Lamentations When we mention Josiah we mention the best Prince that ever sate upon the Throne of Judah One who did right in the sight of the Lord and walked in all the ways of David his Father One not less zealous for the House of the Lord than for the Service in it For he caused the Temple to be Repaired and the Law of God diligently to be Read in it Yea so great was His desire to restore the Temple to its former Lustre That he took down all those Houses joyning to the House of God which either Defiled or Defamed it by their Neighbourhood But that Josiah is not my scope My Scene must here change from Judaea
to Great Brittain from Judah's King to our Own who fell under worse hands than Pharaoh Necho He fairly warned Josiah and persuaded him to decline the Fight wherein God's Ordinance which sent him against Euphrates made his Arm too strong to be resisted But our Pharaoh Necho and his Complices did all they could by false Oaths and Flatteries to bring their Master within the Reach of their Blow and take the Anointed of the Lord in their Pits A Fact so horrid that it is easier to bewail in Tears than utter in Words Indeed the grateful Duty to a Dead Master and the Allegeance to such a King make all expressions I can use too narrow for the Argument upbraiding my Inabilities with that practical truth Nihil difficilius quam magno dolori paria verba invenire Nothing is more difficult than to match so great a Sorrow with Language equal to it So that with Nazianzen upon an occasion somewhat like this I might wish another Jeremy in my stead 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who onely was able to frame a Lamentation proportionable to the cause and invent a Threne worthy of his excellent Pen and of the Subject The Piety of our Josiah being not Inferiour to that Elder Josiah and his Moral virtues every way equal So great and meritorious a Person as Josiah is not to be narrowed by the common Expressions of a bewailing Tongue nor will any Rhetorick suffice unless assisted and supplied where Words fall short by the number of the Mourners as here it was All Judah Jerusalem c. Nothing is so Natural as to Lament the Dead Man goeth to his long home and the Mourners go about the Streets Moesta phalanx Teucrique sequuntur The Stoicks indeed by their rigid precepts labour'd to seal up the fountains of our Eyes pronouncing it unmanly for our Sex to melt in Tears Ennius was of the same humour Nemo me lachymis decoret nec funera faxit He would have no weeping at his Grave nor Funeral solemnity Nay Ludovicus Cortusius Patavinus by his last Will forbad Mourning for him and because he would have no shew of a Funeral he ordered that the Black Monks habited like Mourners should not be invited to his Burial But Solon wiser than all three thought his Memory disparaged if he deserv'd so little of Lacedaemon that none were found to bewail his Loss His words were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He did expect some Tears dropt over his Hearse and some Train of Mourners to attend him to his Funeral Pile They are miserable Men who go out of the World as it were in the Dark neither miss'd nor bewail'd by any Josiah you see had many All Judah and Jerusalem A less proportion of Mourners would not suit his Funeral When Masters of private Families Dye those in the Houshold are Mourners by Custom But when the Pater Patriae the common Father of the Kingdom the Lord Paramont and Master of us all Dyes the whole Confluence of the People by an universal Summons are call'd together as sharers in the Solemnity When our Saviour was Born there was a general Tax went from Augustus to be levied through the World VVhich Tax was but a concurrent shadow of the universal Homage due to the New Born King whose Empire extended not over Judaea onely but the whole VVorld as King of Kings and Lord of Lords And sure when soever his great Vicegerents leave the VVorld it is fit that their Death which is as one calls it Fatalis Nativitas a Fatal Birth should be Solemnized by a Tribute of Tears levied upon the whole Kingdom If that Tyrant John Basiliwick D. of Muscovy exacted Phialas sudore plenas a Tribute of Sweat wip'd from his Subjects brows and kept in Glasses and Bottles for him to see sure a good Prince dying may expect a Subsidy of Tears Bottl'd up and Sorrow kept in store to weep bitterly for such a Loss It is held an usual Duty at the King's Coronation to bring Contributary wood to make a Bonfire 'T is then Ratione Contrariorum an equal Duty when He is un-crowned by Death to bring some Contributary water falling from our eyes to Quench that fire again Nicephorus Gregoras writes that in their Naemia those mournful Exequies for the Emperour the People wished the whole River of Nilus drawn up into their Eyes that so they might raise a Mourning proportionable to the Loss And at the Burial of Titus the Mourning was so general That omnes tanquam in propriâ doluerunt orbitate as Eutropius expresseth it All sorts of men thought themselves concern'd in that Pretious Loss Lamenting as disconsolate Orphans deprived of their Father Nay Barbarians themselves who had been conquer'd by the Sword of Germanicus did bear their share in the sorrow for his Death I know Buchanan whose study was to diminish Princes and contract their Grandeur tells us that a King though he be better and greater than any particular Subject yet He is less than the whole Aggregate and Multitude of His Subjects But a Text more authentick than his tells us in the Person of King David Thou art better than ten Thousands of us which you must not take for a confin'd number of so many but Indefinite nay Infinite the Originall is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So here you see the King set in skale with the whole Kingdom for All Judah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah Which transcendent Lamentation grew into a Proverb Like the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the vally of Megiddo Where give me leave to tell you Though Abulensis thought this Hadadrimmon a person then King of Syria in whose assistance Josiah engag'd against Pharaoh Necho who therefore in gratitude bewailed his death so excessively that it became Proverbiall Yet Baronius will have Hadadrimmon to be only the place where Josiah fell This Rite of mourning had Josiah And though our own Josiah deserved no less then He and had it from all that understood His value yet at the time of his cutting off it was reputed so great a crime to express any shew of sorrow for Him that a mourning suit was look'd on as the Livery of a Malignant and an affront to the State may Libell upon the Murtherers My selfe knew some assaulted meerly for their Habit and hardly escaping with life By which you see the misery of Judaea under his Captivity translated to England where Ne fletus quidem gratuitus It was dangerous to mourn and men were forc'd to fine for their sorrow expressed at the murder of our unparalleled Josiah The Large and numerous Train which attend the Funeral shew the Greatness of the Person but the Quality of the Mourners speak his Vertue and Merit It did so here when the Prophet Jeremiah lamented for Josiah The better the Persons are that attend the greater is the honour done to the Dead When Christ