The Peoples Happinesse A SERMON PREACHED IN St. MARIES IN CAMBRIDGE Upon Sunday the 27 of March being the day of His MAJESTIES happy Inauguration By RI. HOLDSVVORTH D. D. Master of Emanuel Colledge in Cambridge Vicechancellour of the Universitie and one of His MAJESTIES Chaplains Printed by Roger Daniel Printer to the Vniversity of Cambridge Anno Dom. 1642. TO THE KINGS MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTIE CHARLES By the Grace of God King of England Scotland France and Ireland c. Most Gracious Sovereign I Had not adventured to bring these unpolished meditations into the publick light much lesse to have set them before the Sunne but that Your Majestie was pleased to becken them to Your self and to draw them as by Your own beams so under Your own shade into Your Royall Presence that being first animated with the gentlenesse of Your beams they might not be dazled with the splendour Neither is this the least of Your Princely excellencies that You please as Christ in the Gospel to come down from the Mount Matth. 8.1 for the more free accesse of Your people and know with Moses to put the vail of Goodnesse over the shinings of Majestie so that the meanest of Your subjects may be refresht with the light of Your countenance notwithstanding the lustre and draw livelihood from the splendour through the serenitie finding the medium of their happinesse as well as the object to be under God in Your Self It is not to be expected at this present that the irradiations of this light should be so vigorous in a cloudy Region we now see to our grief what a misery it is to have the Royall influence intercepted as of late it hath been and still is by those disastrous obstructions which at first had onely the appearance of Elia's cloud 1. Kings 18.44 like the hand of a man but are since grown to that vastnesse as they threaten to the whole Kingdome such ruine as our sinnes call for Yet in the midst of these sad distractions it is Your Majesties comfort that as their occasions are from below so their disposall is from above both for the exercise of Your Princely clemency and patience and for the triall of the sincerest loyaltie of Your subjects yea and religious hearts through all these clouds can discern and do with thankfulnesse acknowledge the saying of Solomon to be most true Prov. 16.15 In the light of the Kings countenance there is life the life of the whole State that it may happily rise to the former glory wherein it so long flourished the life of the Church that it may recover out of this sad languishing condition into which it is brought the life of the Universities that they may fruitfully spread forth their numerous branches to all parts of the Land Lastly the life of this small inconsiderable Tractate in as many degrees as Nature hath bestowed it upon man in that Your Majestie vouchsafed first to require a copie in writing then to command it to the Presse then to afford it Your Patronage whilest it presenteth to the world some little portion of that great happinesse which this eighteen years we have enjoyed under your blessed government I wish the Argument had had a better workman but what is defective in the Sermon shall be supplied by my prayers That the happinesse hereafter spoken of howsoever it be now eclips'd may again shine forth in full strength through Your Majesties great prudence whose Royall beams as they are powerfull for the fostering of piety so I hope they shall be powerfull also for the dispelling of all foggie vapours that may hazard either to prejudice the welfare of Your people or to pervert their allegiance Which as it hath been hitherto untainted to the envie of other Nations and honour of our own So that it may be alwayes inviolably preserved is the daily prayer of Your MAjESTIES humblest subject and servant Ri. Holdsworth A Prayer O Lord hear our prayer and let our cry come unto thee We are here met together to call upon thy holy name and to be made partakers of thy holy word revealed in Jesus Christ In whose name we are bold to begin these our weak prayers and supplications In our own names we are unworthy by reason of our sins that are so in-bred in our natures so strengthened by impenitency and so multiplied by custome that as we dare not conceal them from thee so now when we would confesse them we are not able to number them O Lord if thou shouldest plead with us there is nothing that we can say for our selves but that which would make more against us we are a sinfull Generation and even now when in thy Courts where we should bring holy affections we are above measure sinfull Our originall is wholly sinfull and our lives have answered and exceeded our originall and besides that we are born in sinne we confesse we have so lived O Lord as if we had been born to no other end but to sinne against thee and to grieve thy holy spirit Our first misery is that sinne hath conceived us our second that we have conceived it and brought it forth and made it our daily work and fulfilled it with greedinesse Our whole lives are nothing else but a course of sin we have run through sins of all sorts sins of Ignorance and of knowledge sinnes of infirmitie and of wilfulnesse sinnes of a hard heart and of a stiffneck we have committed them after a most presumptuous manner and continued in them after an impenitent manner against heaven and against earth and before thee therefore against them because against thee Against thy righteous law which pointeth out unto us a better way of piety against thy manifold mercies which should be pledges and engagements of better obedience against the glory of thy name the motions of thy spirit the couenant of grace the promises of salvation the hope of heaven the light and peace of our own consciences against our many solemne vows and protestations of reformation That now if thou shouldest enter into judgement with us and call us to a strict account for all or any of these in the least of them thy severity might find sufficient cause to deprive us of thy mercies to overwhelme us with thy judgements to leave us to our selves in this life and after this life to give us our portion with hypocrites in that lake which burneth with fire and brimstone where is nothing but weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth But we know that thou art a mercifull God that thou mayest be called upon in a time accepted and thy mercie is a sweet and a safe Sanctuary it is thy self as well as thy justice therefore in the confidence of thy mercy we are imboldened to appeal from thee to thee from the barr of thy justice to the bowels of thy tender compassions beseeching thee that thou wilt be pleased not to look upon us as we are in our selves but to behold
sea for water and for tendernesse softer not onely then water but then oyl To lay down as it were his own royall neck under the sword of the Angell when he saw it hanging over him by a lesse thrid then that of Damocles To open his own religious breast to receive the blow that he might ward it from the people To value the peoples safety so farre aboue his own as to interpose himself betwixt the sword and the slaughter O how farre doth he here renounce himself and recede not onely from royalty but from life it self It is much which is mentioned in the text that he should name the people first to the happinesse more that he should offer himself first to the punishment very much that he should put the people betwixt himself and the blessing farre more that he should place himself betwixt the people and the curse He made himself in this SPECULUM PRINCIPUM the mirrour of Princes a mirrour into which as we may well presume our Gracious Sovereigne King CHARLES hath made frequent and usefull inspections for it is manifest by many passages of his reign and happy government that the tendernesse of his love towards his people if it doth not fully reach yet it comes close up to the recessions of David It is the more remarkable for that he hath this virtue as it were in proper and by himself he is almost the sole possessour of it The most of ordinary men as living more by will then reason are all for holding so stiffe and inflexible so tenacious and unyielding even in matters of small moment that they will not stirre a hair-breadth Entreat them persuade them convince them still they keep to this principle and 't is none of the best Obtein all Yield nothing It is a nobler spirit that resides in the breast of our Sovereign as appears by his manifold yieldings and recessions Of such recessions we have many instances in the course of his Majesties government I might go as farre back as his first coming to the Crown when he receded from his own profit in taking upon him the payment of his Fathers debts which were great and but small supplies to be expected from an empty Exchequer yet the love of justice and his peoples emolument overswayed him and armed him with Epaminondas his resolution Totius orbis divitias despicere prae patriae charitate Having but glanced at that I might draw a little nearer to the third of his reign when in that Parliament of Tertio he was pleased to signe the so much desired Petition of Right a Title which I confesse takes me much both because it speaks the dâ—â—ifulnesse of the subject in petitioning although for right and the great goodnesse of a Gracious Prince who knows how to recede from power and in some case even from prerogative when besought by prayers and rejoyceth not to sell his favours but to give them For I have heard some wise men say That that single grant was equivalent to twenty subsidies But the time will not give me leave to dwell as I should upon particulars therefore I will call you nearer to the transient remembrance and but the transient for it is no pleasure to revive it of the commotions in the North. The eyes of the whole world were upon that action and they all are witnesses what pains and travell were taken what clemencie and indulgence was used what yieldings and condescentions both in point of hononr and power to purchase as it were by a price paid out of himself the peace and tranquillity of both kingdomes Whereby he made all men understand how much more pleasing it was to his Princely disposition with Cyrus in Xenophon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and to conquer not by might but by clemency By clemency I say the word which I named before and I cannot name it too often It is the virtue God most delights in to exercise himself and 't is the copie also which he sets us to write after It is the virtue which draws both eyes and hearts unto it in that it maketh Royalty it self which is so farre above to become beneficiall and sovereign It corrects the brightnesse of Majestie calmes the strictnesse of Justice lightens the weight of Power attemperates whatsoever might cause terrour to our mind and liking If we never had known it before yet the onely time of this Parliament would teach us sufficiently how much we ow to the King's clemencie The laws and statutes which have been made this last year are lasting and speaking monuments of these royall recessions as well to posteritie as to our selves Surely if the true picture and resemblance of a Prince be in his laws it cannot be denied that in the acts for trienniall Parliaments for the continuation of the Parliament now being for the regulating of impositions pressing of souldiers courts of Judicature and others not a few of the like nature are the lineaments and expressions to the life of the perfect pourtraiture of a Benigne and Gracious Prince who seems resolved of a new way and hitherto unheard of by wholesome laws to enlarge his subjects and to confine himself Yet it may be said It is not his onely hand which is in these laws the proposall of them is from others although the ratification be in him Be it so But the ratification is ten-fold to the proposall nay it is the life and essence of a law So we ow the laws themselves to his goodnesse Nay and if it be granted that the proposall of such laws comes from others let us then look to the many gracious messages which occasionally have been sent at severall times to that great Assemblie In these he speaks onely by himself and in so gracious a manner that to read some passages would ravish a loyall heart as well as endear it In some of them we may see how he puts the happinesse of his people into the same proximitie with his own in others how he neglects his own for our accommodation In that of January the 20 you have these golden words That he will rather lay by any particular respect of his Own dignity then lose time for the Publick good That out of his Fatherly care of his people he will be ready both to equall and to exceed the greatest examples of the most Indulgent Princes in their Acts of Grace and Favour to their people Again in that of the 28 of January there is yet more tendernesse He calls God to witnesse and with him the attestation of that sacred name is very religious that the preservation of the publick peace the law and the libertie of the subject is and shall alwayes be as much his care and industrie as the safety of his own life or the lives of his dearest children Lastly in the other of the 15 of March there is more then yieldings and concessions a gracious prevention of our desires for he is pleased to excite and call upon that Great
that feareth the LORD c Psal 40.4 Blessed is that man that maketh the Lord his trust and the d Psal 65.4 84.5 128.1 like Here otherwise seeing he speaks of the happinesse of a people he might use more libertie to take in these outwardaccomplishments as having a nearer relation to the happinesse of a Nation or Kingdome then abstractively of a Christian Howsoever Aristotle affirms in the 7th of his Politicks that there is the same happinesse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of a single man and of awhole citie Yet there is a great deal of difference which he being not instructed in Christianity could not observe Look as on the one side the being of a State or Nation as a collective bodie is not so ordered to immortalitie nor by consequence to happinesse as the being of a man so on the other the concurrence of temporall good things is in no wise so essentiall or requisite to the happinesse of a man as to the being and well-being and so to the happinesse of a State or people Experience tells us that a man may be happy without children a State cannot be so without people a private man may keep his hold of happinesse though poore and afflicted in the world a State is onely then happy when 't is flourishing and prosperous abounding with peace plentie people and other civill accessions Men are the walls for strength women the nurseries for encrease children the pledges of perpetuity money as the vitall breath peace as the naturall heat plentie as the radicall moisture religious and just government as the form or soul of a bodie politick Upon this ground the Psalmist well knowing how conducing these outward things are to popular happinesse he casts them all into the definition his present argument being the happinesse of a people In the second place admit he had spake here of the happinesse of a man or a Christian yet he mentions not these temporalls either as the all or the onely or the chief of happinesse but as the concomitants and accessories They have not an essentiall influx or ingredience into it but a secondarie and accidentall respect they have in these two considerations First they are ornamenta as garnishings which give a glosse and lustre to virtue and make it more splendid The Moralists say well that they are as shadows to a picture or garments to a comely personage Now as in these the shadowing makes not the colour of a picture truly better but onely seem better and appear more fresh and orient and as garments do indeed adorn the body now in the state of corruption whereas if man had stood in his integritie they had been uselesse for ornament as well as for necessity So likewise these outward things although in themselves they have nothing of true happinesse yet because they render it more beauteous and gracefull as the state of vertue now stands in respect of our converse with men we may well reckon them without prejudice to vertue inter ornamenta Then secondly they are adminicula also helps and adjuments as hand-maids to pietie without which vertue is impotent Were a man all soul vertue alone were sufficient it is enough by it self for the happinesse of the mind but being partly bodie and enjoying corporall societie with others he stands in need of things corporall to keep vertue in exercise Want clippes the wings of vertue that a man cannot feed the hungry or cloth the naked or enlarge himself to the good of others on the other side this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Philosophers term it sets vertue at libertie and gives it scope to be operative As fire the more aire fewell you give it the more it diffuseth it self so the more health peace plentie friends or authoritie we have the more power freedome and advantage we have to do vertuously Put now all these together the reason is evident vvhy the Prophet David here placeth this happinesse in the things vvhich are vvorse because they are serviceable to the things vvhich are better Hovvsoever he reserves the mention of the better till aftervvard Yet he vvould give us to understand that even these inferiour things are the good blenssigs of God and such blessings as being put together make up one part of the happinesse of a people It is true of popular happinesse as well as personall It is not one single good but the aggregation or affluence of many In the twenty eighth of Deuteronomie where Moses describes the blessednesse promised to the Israelites he reckons up all sorts of outward blessings and agreeable to those is the conflux of these in this Psalme The blessing of the house and of the citie That there be no leading into captivitie and no complaining in the streets The blessings of the basket and of the store That the garners may be filled with plentie The blessings of the fruit of the bodie That the children may be as young plants The blessings of the field That the sheep may bring forth thousands and the oxen be strong to labour The blessings of going ou◠and coming in That they may be delivered from the hand of strange children and saved out of great waters Here is briefly the compound of the many simples which make up this case or condition of a peoples happinesse And surely if by these particulars it be defined we may boldly say The condition is our own and men may pronounce of us as truly as of any Nation that we have been for a long time a happy people Our deliverances from strange children have been great and miraculous and our land it hath been a Goshen a lightsome land whereas the darknesse of discomfort hath rested upon other Nations The blessings of the citie and field of the basket and of the store have grown upon us in such abundance that many men have surfetted of plentie Our land hath been as an Eden and garden of the Lord for fruitfulnesse as a Salem for peace whereas other kingdomes do yet grone under the pressures of sword and famine Besides these if there be any blessing which the Scripture mentions in other places Peace in the walls Plentie in the palaces Traffick in the ports or Salvation in the gates if any part of happinesse which it speaks of in this Psalme for plantings or buildings or reapings or storings or peoplings we have had them all in as much fulnesse as any part of the world and in more then most onely there is one particular may be questioned or rather can not be denied That amidst the very throng of all these blessings there are some murmurings and complainings in our streets But it need not seem strange to us because it is not new in the world In the stories of all ages we meet with it That men used to complain of their times to be evil when indeed themselves made them so I may be bold to say There was cause in respect of sinne then as well
as now especially with godly men who are so good themselves that it is no marvell if they thought times a little evil to be extremely bad as alwayes sinne swells to the eye of grace But if we speak of outward pressures and calamities I am certain there is not cause now as then for the riches of the Kingdome were never so great the peace of the Kingdome never so constant the state of it for all things never so prosperous Onely we must give leave to the world to be like it self As long as ambition or covetousnesse are in the world men of such spirits will cry out The times are bad even when they are best because they in their own bad sense still desire to be better As nothing is enough so nothing is pleasing to a restlesse mind An insatiable appetite is alwayes impatient and because impatient querulous Yet this is not the sole reason for besides this humour of appetite the very corruption of our nature leads us hereunto To be weary of the present It is the joynt observation both of Divines and Moralists as of Salvian Quintilian Tacitus and others who agree as near almost in words as in opinion Quòdusitatum est mentis humanae vitium illamagìs semper velle quae desunt vetera quidem in laude praesentia in fastidio ponere Our own experience will tell us as much if we will take pains to observe it How through the pravity of our own dispositions whatsoever is present proves burdensome whether it be good or bad Salvian in his third De Gubernatione sets forth this humour to the life That men of all times were displeased with all times Si aestus est saith he de ariditate causamur si fluvia de inundatione conquerimur si infoecundior annus est accusamus sterilitatem si foecundior vilitatem So winter and summer are both alike distastfull to impatient men In scarcity things are too dear in plentie too cheap povertie pincheth and abundance nauseates If there be a little too much drought they cry out of a famine if a showre or two extraordinary they are affraid of a deluge You shall heare in good times Quid nobis cum Davide and in bad Antigonum effodio as we reade of the Israelites That even when God himself was pleased to order their civill affairs they were not contented but still repined as well when they had manna as when they wanted it The reason is as the Greek Historian notes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But I hope we Christians are of a better temper It beseems not us of all others to be so injurious to God who hath singled us out to be a happy people It beseems us not to be so unthankfull to our Sovereigne under whom we enjoy these blessings Howsoever it ought to be in the first place acknowledged that the originall of all our happinesse is from heaven yet it must be confest withall that the chrystall pipe through which blessings are conveyed unto us is his government Our peace is from his wisdomâ— our plentie from our peace our prosperitie from our plenty our safetie our very life our whatsoever good of this nature it is by Gods providence wrapt up in his welfare whose precious life as the Oratour speaks is Vita quaedam publica the very breath of our nostrils perfumed with multitude of comforts Lâ—…a 4.20 What then remains but that our thankfulnesse should result from all to make our happinesse complete that so both receiving what we desire and retributing what we ow we may give cause unto all Kingdomes to lengthen this acclamation and to say Happy both Prince and people which are in such a case So I have done with the first generall part of the text the path of Prosperitie answerable to the civill respect of the day I now proceed to the second the path of Pietie answerable to the Religious respect Yea happy It 's the best wine to the last though all men be not of this opinion You shall hardly bring a worldly man to think so The world is willing enough to misconster the order of the words and to give the prioritie to Civill happinesse as if it were first in dignitie because 't is first named they like it better to hear of the Cui sic then the Cui Dominus To prevent this follie the Psalmist interposeth a caution in this corrective particle Yea Happy It hath the force of a revocation whereby he seems to retract what went before not simply and absolutely but in a certain degree lest worldly men should wrest it to a misinterpretation It is not an absolute revocation but a comparative it doth not simply deny that there is some part of popular happinesse in these outward things but it preferres the spiritualls before them Yea that is Yea more or Yea rather like that of Christ in the Gospel When one in the companie blessed the wombe that bare him Luk. 11.28 he presently replies Yea rather blessed are they that hear the word of God and keep it In like manner the Prophet David having first premised the inferiour part and outside of an happy condition fearing lest any should of purpose mistake his meaning and hearing the first proposition should either there set up their rest and not at all take in the second or if take it in yet do it preposterously and give it the precedence before the second according to the worlds order virtus post nummos In this respect he puts in the clause of revocation whereby he shews that these outward things though named first yet they are not to be reputed first The particle Yea removes them to the second place it tacitly transposeth the order and the path of piety which was locally after it placeth virtually before 'T is as if he had said Did I call them happy who are in such a case Nay miserable are they if they be onely in such a case The temporall part cannot make them so without the spirituall Admit the windows of the visible heaven were opened and all outward blessings powred down upon us admit we did perfectly enjoy whatsoever the vastnesse of the earth contains in it tell me What will it profit to gain all and to lose God If the earth be bestowed upon us and not heaven or the materiall heaven be opened and not the beatificall or the whole world made ours and God not ours we do not arrive at happinesse All that is in the first proposition is nothing unlesse this be added Yea happy are the people which have the LORD for their God You see in this part there is aliquid quod eminet something which is transcendent Therefore I will enquire into two particulars see both what it is that transcends and what is the manner of propounding of it The manner of propounding it is as I said corrective or by way of revocation the summe whereof is thus much That temporalls without spiritualls in what aboundance soever