TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE BASILL Earl of DENBIGH VVILLIAM Lord MAYNARD THOMAS Lord Viscount WENMAN William Pierpoint Denzill Hollis and Bulstrode Whitlock Esquires Commissioners of the Lords and Commons in the Parliament of ENGLAND Assembled at Westminster AND JOHN Lord MAITLAND Sir Charles Erskyne and M. Robert Barcklay Commissioners of the Parliament of Scotland Sent with the Propositions to His MAJESTY at Oxford Right Honourable Lords and Gentlemen I Speake my experience that if a Souldier succeed well upon his first Charge he is not to be withheld from a second Adventure You favoured this Sermon so much when Preached that I am confident you will not reject it Printed nor this my Dedicatory although I begin not after the common stamp of Dedication with some hoary or gray-headed Apophthegme or some strained sentence out of Tully I professe my selfe a Souldier during this Cause as well as a Schollar and therefore must crave leave to speake in such language as affectionate duty can best expresse it self by the tongue I confesse when I meditate the height of your noble Spirits and withall the flatnesse of my poore abilities as I present this in love so with much feare lest my endeavours convert into a vapour ere they can reach the height of your merit sloope but so low as to cherish them and it shall ever adde to your Honour The antient and moderne custome of Dedication of Bookes to the hands of Emminency was and is either to have them powerfully protected or in affection as devoted or to appeare gratefull for benefits received all these moved me to hover under your wings being confident that you that under God protected me out of the jawes of the Lyons and Beares will also protect me from the greatest Philistims And therefore have I presumed to prefix your names it being none of the smallest hazards I have run to oppose this Sermon to the worlds view whereby I expect to be charged againe and againe and it would conclude me guilty of Poultranisme to feare the Sciopii and Pacientii heere when not the Zosimi at Oxford I well know carping curiosity will have its lash at me too Aelian reports when Diogenes saw certaine Rodian Gallants gorgeously attyred he laughed saying Hic nihil est praeter Fastum And after seeing certaine Laconians in sordid apparell Et hic alius Fastus est said he These poore-clad lines I feare will not passe without envy and without the censure of pride and ambition how ever whilst you keep the Front I fear no charge neither Oxfords sword nor any other two-edged sword of the tongue and the lesse because I perceive opinions and censures are as various as the Arguments on which they discourse Calumny and squint-ey'd detraction violently charging against Christian charity and judgment in these times And to save them a labour I care not to let them know although that many a storm and tempest hath beat against me yet God hath not suffered me to be cast down And whatever they shall say with Apollonius I resolve they may trouble themselves but I will not be troubled at whatsoever the one shall say or the other do I have long before this time Dedicated my life in this Cause to God in the Parliaments Service any thing lesse then the losse of it I can easily endure It must be a long feast to find a dish for every appetite and many in these times will find faults that will not mend one I never indeed intended the publishing this Sermon before the preaching of it nor could ever gain time to refine it since only importunity of some friends and the mis-report that I heard it had to his Majesty made me presume with your Favour to show the world the Truth and implore your Honours to be Judges of it My first thoughts when I meditated this subject were onely to breath into your unfurled sayles such a blast as might give you the advantage to make a saving voyage to your selves if not a more prosperous voyage for the whole Church of God importunate prayer being the fairest wind can blow in the heavens to carry the Church of God to her safe Port. And as David rescuing his wives and recovering his goods from the Enemy was never a whit the lesse honour to him because a young man made way for the discovery so it being your happinesse to be imploy'd in this service so becoming nobility or any of the sonnes of men to seeke peace for the Church of God in which Gods blessing Mat. 5. attends you is it any diminution to your honour that I the meanest of my brethren pointed you the way to prosper It being the constant prayer of my soule daily that you may reape the fruits of those so brave and gallantly mannaged labours yea I hourely expect and look out for a return of those adventures from heaven even when God shall speake by His Majesty to his three Kingdomes Peace which is the hearty prayer as also for all your honours that you may still do worthily in Ephrata and be famous in Bethlehem of him who is Yours devoted even by word and deed to the losse of his utmost drop of bloud To serve you for JESUS CHRIST Samuel Kem. The MESSENGERS Preparation For an Addresse to THE KING For a Well-grounded PEACE Delivered in a SERMON at Oxford UPON ESTHER Chap. 4. Vers 16. Goe gather together all the Jewes that are present in Shushan and fast ye for me and neither eat nor drink three dayes night or day I also and my maydens will fast likewise and so I will go in unto the King which is not according to the Law and if I perish I perish OUr new practices against the Church proceed from old Principles and what an Ocean of Saints bloud hath streamed out from the fountaine of Cains malice as if there were a new project to deluge that with bloud which GOD preserved from water his righteous family the Scriptures plentifully demonstrate but with this observable hint of refreshing that this Red Sea hath in the end ever devoured the devourers and although by division shrunk up it selfe into straits to spare a passage to the Church of God for it's deliverance So that the Church of God is not now to learne to be content to be let blood it may in probability prove good for it to be so afflicted this is not the first plot intended against it for utter extirpation nor you the first messengers called forth by Providence to speake unto Majesty for it's preservation cherish then and augment that courage that I seeme to see seated in your aspects most noble Patriots although invisoned with Enemies invellopt with difficulties to sense no probability to escape revilings nor possibility to return prevailing You have a sufficient call you have a good and all-sufficient God a just Cause unjust Enemies many potent prayers all impotent curses a promise of a blessing a President of good suceesse in this Booke Put on
for his own children lie dangerously weak under sad divisions yea so that the whole body is out of joynt and then what strength we might have prevailed for the Kings heart it being in Gods hand before this day For why might not we if rightly quallified obtaine a heart out of our hands and in the Lords hand for the good of a Nation nay three bleeding Nations as well as he for himselfe and his family Gen. 33.4 you have an incouraging president where killing is come to kissing sheding of blood to sheding of teares They both wept The charging each other is the imbracing each other It will be an argument against us of Nationall weakenesse and wickednesse that one shall doe more then so many with God And if this be Truth we have none more no cry out of then our selves for the continuation of our sorrow may not the Lord say as sometimes to Israel Perditin tua ex te we may thank our selves his hand is not shortned that it cannot save nor his care heavie that it cannot heare but our prayers are weake because our hearts are wicked that cannot hold out a wrestle with God Indeed we act dutie but not proportionable for the Churches necessity or as cordially sensible of its misery and speedy calamity not as if we see no way but one for it or beheld it sentenced to death under a dooree no we look most of us as Eliahs servant upon the first command 1 King 18.4 when misery was on Germany Ireland and Scotland being often perswaded by the Eliahs of those times to look out what we could see the return of our hearts was that we saw nothing Indeed we laid it not to heart as any thing Nay when at this day comanded to look out those within Lines of Communication and fenced Garrisons can see but a little cloud out of the Sea like a mans hand we esteeme all the Protestant blood nay the Saints blood that hath been shed as nothing do all the Cruelties Murders Woundings Imprisonings Fireings Plunderings Deformings Reproachings of the Saints as yet appear as nothing How many sighing groaning lamentable complaining sad-hearted good Christians may you see in many parts of this distracted Kingdome seeking for bread and glad to part with their former pleasant things to relieve their families pressing necessities How doth many a gallant family sit solitary How many beautifull houses forlorne Yea how many are aggrevating their misery by viewing over the records of their former injoyments How in many places doth the Enemy magnifie himself against God and his people having possessed and dispossessed our Congregations and destroyed the place of the Assembly How doth the blood of the Church spring forth as wine out of the wine-presse and lyes spilt on the ground abroad the Sword consuming at home lofty and sad divisions even the wills of men like wilde horses renting limbe from limbe the poore Church of God the Enemy hearing of this trouble and being glad Nay in a word The cause of God in three Kingdomes crying with them in the 1 Lament Vers 12. Is it nothing to you O all ye that passe by Is there any sorrow like to my sorrow and yet who with Mordeoaâ— although it be past beyond a decree and come to the Haman-like acting of cruelty against the Church before your faces even at the doores and gates of your Cities in heart yet saith Is it any thing Nay let me add somthing more Although God be so angry as to license his enemies to pull out his own eyes for his Church is as deare to him as the apple of his eye and he must be incensed highly when he will permit this yet who layes this to heart as any thing Nay even now although God hearken and hear who speaketh aright at all or if but for a day and then every man with the day casts off the duty and returneth with the dog to his vomit and with the wrinsed sow to wallow in the mire Had Mordecai lookt thus a squint on the condition of the Jewes he had never laid it to heart and if never laid to heart it had not been communicated to every one that in probability might conveigh it to Esthers eares and had she slightly entertained it as newes onely it had never come to the hazzarding of her life in the Churches cause or prescribing an order for so serious preparation for the Churches preservation Will you license me to advise you I know you wil you called me to that purpose to this duty this day Why then as the Prophet 1 King 10. Prepare your chariots so you and I wish the whole Church of God their hearts and improve you all your interests noble Patriots of the Cause of God and let them improve theirs by proportionable and importunate duty for successe this day suitable to the Churches necessity and misery Esa 22.4 you have the story of the invading the land of Jewrie by the Persians by reason whereof the Church of God and the Kingdome were like to be brought into a sad condition it was like to be a day of trouble and treading downe and of perplexity by the Lord breaking down walls and breaches seen in the city of David mark in the 4. Vers what the Prophet puts immediately in practice to divert it Therefore said I look away from me mind me not of any thing else I have nothing else comparatively to look after this is the businesse of the time what I will weep bitterly or as the Originall hath it I will be bitter in weeping Labour not to comfort me because of the spoiling of the daughter of my people Jer. 8.21 22. For the hurt of the daughter of my people am I hurt I am blacke astonishment hath taken hold on me c. i. grief to an extasie hath seized on me that I am not my selfe the hurt of the Church is his hurt I then he seekes propoationably a remedy Moses when God is angry with the people he fals sensibly to the work and being to wrastle out reconciliation and a diversion of Gods expresse resolution against them he is at it 40. dayes and nights together So againe upon another provocation Numb 14.11 How long will this people provoke me Vers 12. I will smite them with the pestilence and disinherit them and now God if Moses had any selfe-ends or aimes proposeth somthing to take him off and stop his mouth for he promiseth to make him a multiplying nation Indeed selfe-aiming men that shall look to their own ends will never stand the Church in a strait in any stead No he saw the people threatned to ruine See how Moses argues and wrastles with God Vers 13 14 15 16. and then closeth and gaines upon God by prayer giving as it were the other hug in this wrastle in the 17 18 19. Verses Pardon I beseech thee the iniquity of the people See Vers 20. And the Lord said I have pardoned according to thy Word See
leave behinde you The Lord never forgets a cup of cold water given to quench the Saints thirst in their necessity how much sooner will it be ingraven upon his heart the providing of cordiall precious portions for his languishing people yea God will provide a compensation for you and yours in all your afflictions Nay you shall treasure up praises for your selves and prayers for your surviving families in the ages that are to come and know this also that God hath riches enough in his Cabinet to make you amends for all you can do or suffer in this way Indeed I have beheld you with such alacrity noble courage expediting your motion endeavouring by all meanes night and day to find out him whom your soules love and long after for the Churches good that the quaere of the Church in the third of the Canticles and the third was to any whom it might concerne your first salute Can you tell us of His Majesty Yea I have seene so much of your unalterable and prepared patience digesting the vulgar curses and affronts as your diet and content with any thing that you might do the Church service that I shall ever blesse God that he yet accommodates the Church with such Friends and the King and Kingdoms with such Worthies who will venture through an host of enemies if possible to fetch water to refresh the Church of God therfore I will spare my self the labour by any more Motives to put you in mind to go on who are ready to run for the Churches and Kingdomes peace All therefore that now remaines is but to hold out to your view some other Observations that I had thought to have handled to complete your preparation for this dayes great Action but in regard you have Summons for the action and but a small parcell of time before you attend His Majesty that I may no way be prejudiciall to your private practice of this preparation or any other becoming so great a work I will briefly shew you the jewells they are ready command me to place them inyour ears at your pleasure and my obedience shall eccho to your order You have heard 1 That Nationall and Personall preparation is necessary for the undertaking any great action for the Church Gather all the Jewes in Shushan I also c. 2 That Representative persons interposing for the Church in a strait deserve representative prayer Fast pray for me 3 Extraordinary and great duty is necessary for the Church in great misery Fast pray night and day eat nor drink c. The fourth you should have heard and I handled is this 4 That messengers of such prayers are ever messengers of praise they are thriving prospering messengers 5 That all selfe must be denied that the Church may be saved We must not thinke of our selves and the Church at one time if we do we shall never go thorough stitch with the work If I perish I perish let me assure you this if you save the Church you cannot lose your selves and if the Church perish juggle and Hocus Pocus it as nearely as you can your sleights will be found out and you cannot save your selves It is no time to feather our nests and build to lay our young when so many stroakes have beene given at the root of the tree seek we great things for our selves for shame no more of it what do we painting our cabines when so many leakes in the ship first stop the leakes get out the water there is a time to trim this cabine afterward Lastly The meanes must be used although our ends are not obtained If we perish we perish For although God can deliver his Church without us yet his usuall method hath been to make choice of some Moses some Ioshuahs Gideons Davids c. for the preservation of his Church nay of Jesus Christ for the salvation of it And now give me leave to wind up all with the practice of that duty for you which I have in this Sermon commended to you Go and the Lord be with you yea the God of heaven blesse you and cause the Kings face to shine upon you and make you glad that he speak nothing but good unto you this day the Lord avert all whispering flattering Doegs this day and returne you with a Message of hope at least if not of present help for these three bleeding Kingdomes yea the Lord make your interposing for the Church as prosperous as Abigails and let the Kings answer be as Davids 1 Sam. 25.31 33 34. Blessed be the Lord God of Israel which sent you this day to meet me and blessed be your advice and blessed be ye which have kept me this day from going on to shed any more of my Subjects innocent blood and from avenging my selfe with my own hand and that he may receive at your hands what you have brought him and say unto you Go up in peace to both my Houses of Parliament see I have karkened to your voyces and accepted your persons give me but favour to add one word in prayer after the Apostles directory 2. Thes 3.16 Now the Lord of peace himselfe give you peace alwaies by all meanes yea now peace and let it be the Lords peace and the Lords free gift of peace let it be peace with him peace with your consciences peace one with another such a peace as all things may prosper with you yea that publike tranquillity and quiet in the Church may follow that it bee not troubled with Schismes and Heresies within or without by persecuting Tyrants ruinating all by slaughters and cruell bloody warres O let every good heart pray for this peace for our Hierusalem that there may be tranquillity in the state and free from forraigne and civill uncivill warres that in the peace thereof we may have peace that these distracted Kingdomes may be in security and void of dangers free from the noise of terrifying alarums and other dangers Yea the Lord give us such a peace that there may be an everlasting Covenant betwixt God and the King betwixt God the King and his people and let us and the whole Church of God heartily cry Amen Amen So be it And so the Lord be with you all to blesse you in the great worke of this day and all other your great imployments for his glory and his Churches good To whom with all our hearts be rendred and ascribed all Honour Glory Power and Praise now and evermore Amen FINIS
resolution and use importunate prayer as a Preparation so go into the King if ye perish ye perish May it please you now as an Introduction to my Text to premise with me these particulars 1. The utter extirpation of the Church of God plotted and if you observe it this plot had it's rise from self-ends Esther 3. Vers 5. 6. When Haman saw Mordecai bowed not nor did him reverence then was he full of wrath hee thought scorne to lay hands on Mordecai wherfore Haman sought to destroy all the Jews that were throughout the whole Kingdome 2. The Kings humour observed a decree for the execution demanded and an advance of moneys promised verse 8. 9. And Haman said to the King there is a certaine people scattered abroad and dispersed among thy people in all the provinces of thy Kingdome and their Laws are divers from all people neither keepe they the Kings Law therefore it is not for the Kings profit to suffer them If it please the King let it be written that they be destroyed and I will pay ten thousand talents of Silver to the hands of those that have the charge of the businesse to bring it into the Kings Treasuries 3 The request obtained Regina pecunia quid non and the mannaging of the businesse solely to Haman committed Vers 11 12 13. And the King said to Haman the silver is given to thee and the people also to do with them as seemeth good to thee c. Then were the Kings sons called and there was written according to all that Haman had commanded unto the Kings Lievtenants and to the Governours that were over every Province and to the Rulers of every People of every Province according to the writing thereof and to every people after their language in the name of the King was it written and sealed with the Kings Ring and the letters were sent by Poasts into all the Kings Provinces to destroy and to kill and to cause to perish all the Iews both young and old little children and women in one day 4 The activity of the Churches Enemies for the speedy execution of this plot observed Vers 15. The Post went out being hastned by the Kings Commandement 5 A double effect of this plot decreed the Court and Enemies of the Church are merry and their spirits elevated They sit down to drink The Church of God is perplexed Vers 16. The City Shushan was perplexed 6 Mordecai's Personall sence of this misery he is more eminently affected Chap. 4. Vers 1. Perceiving what was done he rent his clothes and put on sackcloth and ashes and went out into the City and cried with a loud and bitter cry c. 7 The Nationall sence of this calamity Vers 3. And in every Province where the decree came there was great mourning and fasting and weeping and wailing and many lay in sackcloth and ashes 8. The plot to Esther discovered by her maids Vers 4. and by Mordecai confirmed Vers 7. 9. Some difficulties by sense proposed Vers 10 11. and by Mordecai answered Vers 13 14. and by her faith mastered she puts on an heroick resolution and returnes Mordecai my Text for a concluding answer Goe gather together all the Jewes in Shushan and fast ye for me c. In the words you have The Messengers order for preparation Nationall and Personall for her good successe in undertaking that great action Goe gather together In which preparation you have two particulars 1. The suitablenesse of the duty to the Churches difficulty or her prescribing them suitable duty to so great a difficulty The Church is in a great strait decreed to death a decree also that none shall dare to approach the Kings presence uncalled much lesse to be a Petitioner for life to reverse a decree Vers 11. 2. Proportionable duty Fast pray nay fast all pray one and all nay do this exactly strictly neither eat nor drink nay do it importunately ply the work ply it night and day The Action these two particulars 1 The Messengers sensiblenesse of the Churches misery and her own difficulty I also and my maidens will fast likewise She doth not put upon others what she will not practise her selfe nor trust to others duties alone as a meanes for her security no I also if the Church be in misery she will as a member put her selfe on exact duty 2 The Messengers subsequent independing heroick selfe-denying resolution So will I go in to the King If I perish I perish The words are without difficulty onely thus farre permit me that I may condescend to every mans capacity 1. The Jewes were then the people of Gods love his heritage his eare friends against these is the decree sealed for death for these the pit is digged the net spread the sword sharpened these thus designed for death must fast and pray heartily for the Messengers acceptance as the onely probable meanes for their deliverance 2. In Shushan that was indeed the winter-Palace of the Kings of Persia but to it was adjoyned a City which was denominated so from it Why the Jewes at the Court may thinke to escape as Mordecai intimates Verse 11. by the Kings favour they in the City to be secure as within Lines of Communication No all must to the worke for the Churches deliverance 3. Fast ye for me Some read it Orate prome The Originall hath it Jejunate supra me Arm me with your prayers and Fasting against the strength of malice and power of a decree Jejunium pro suffragio apud summum Deum petit 4. So will I go in to the King Magna fidncia Reginae in jejunio monstratur magnaque charitas in vitam populi 5. If I perish I perish She submits to God imbracing her own death rather then daring to neglect the use of the meanes for the Churches safety as undervaluing trampling on and contemning that life that may out-live the prosperity of the Church of God There are streaming from these fountaines many eminent truths time and your weighty occasions prohibit me to adventure upon all I shall therefore at this present onely summon some of them to appeare and passe them by with observation one I shall insist on for your present preparation unto the great work of this day First from the first branch of the order Go gather together all the Iewes you may observe That unity in duty is a sweet preparation to obtaine mercy for the Church of God in difficulty Indeed it is the strength of duty and that which adapts us for mercy Psal 134. Vers 1 2 3. Behold how good for brethren to dwell together so to fast to pray together I there the Lord commands his blessing even life for evermore Act. 2.1 They were all with one accord in one place and in the fourth Verse Then they were all filled with the Holy Ghost Indeed there is nothing doth so unfit us for mercy as our divisions it is the Basis of the Churches ruines that we