them by the giddy preachments and undigested swelling and tedious prayers of their Lecturers who reduced all Religion unto lip-worship and canting Scriptures Hence came it to passe that contemning the old paths the truth of the reformation in the Protestant Religion they contended unto bloud to corrupt by their phanatick Alterations the pure Doctrine Evangelical discipline established in the Church of England to effect which with the more â—ase they adventure upon sacriledgâ— to carry on that they must pull down Episcopacy the fence of the Church and here the King as a nursing Father interposing they render Him unable by encroaching upon his Prerogatives quarrelling him seize upoÌ„ his Strenghs Arme fight against him imprison and then Murther Him which last Act of Rebellion though the greatest part of the first Engagers may be thought never to have intended yet they may see the first violation of their Obedience due unto His Majesty punished by a guilt thus farre of his Innocent bloud that that power which they raised spilt it So dangerous it is to vary from a Christian Principle or to do evil that good may come of it God onely having power to direct limit and determine any evill action so that look over the pedigree of Englands sins through the severall descents thereof and you will find it thus Peace begot wealth that plenty that pride that vanity that curiosity that contention that hate of the Clergy that Sacriledge that the downfall of Bishops that the contempt of the KING that War that imprisonment and that the murther of the King a murther the most horrid murther that ever the Sun saw for Subjects to take away their King's life without the prescription of a single example or a law nay even against all laws divine and humane to Try him after the form of a Judiciary proceeding this is to entitle God unto the greatest sin to establish iniquity by a Law and to make God such as themselves Thus the Jews dealt with our Saviour We have a Law and by that Law he ought to die because he made himself the Son of God although there was no such Law but a new-made Law a Juncto-law Straffords law Canterburies law the King's law consequent Laws Laws without names or cognizance made because he was KING Neither doth their power any more prove the equity of this Fact the great scandal of the Christian name and height of Anabaptistical fury than the Devils power which is from God doth justifie his malice which is from himself They have now indeed made King Charles a glorious King prov'd him glorious in his personal Vertues glorious in his divine Graces but most glorious in the Christian Constancy of his glorious Sufferings for Gods Cause the true Protestant Religion and the Laws and Liberties of the three Kingdomes thus hath God extorted a truth from them for this spake they not of themselves but God forceing their testimony they prophesied As we have seen His Majesties sufferings and their causes our sins so let us reflect upon their punishments as the Springs from which our sorrows should arise The exceeding avarice and hypocrisie two noted Court-sins with which the greatest Christian Prince Constantine was abused of the State-Grandees the deep pits wherein they laid the fatall snares into which pious King CHARLES fell will be visibly punished for God will not be mocked The pride vanity sacriledge rebellion and the cruel murther of His Majesty will have particular judgments levell'd against these sins every mans sin even of those who have fought for His Majesty who have yet fought against him by their sins hath given force unto this great stroke and wound given unto these Kingdoms in His Majesties death and therefore ought every man to proportion his sorrow unto his sins As King Josiah from Judah so the strong Baricado King Charles is taken away betwixt Gods judgments and this Kingdom the great and wide In-let of all misery is made by his death could our sorrows answer them like a Torrent it would overflow all the banks of Reason and grow too big to be carried away by the channels of our senses behold every spring of Jeremiah and Judahs sorrow open to send forth these flowing streams of affliction upon us and all arise from the same head The breath of our Nostrils the Anointed of the Lord was taken in their pits of whom we said Under his shadow we shall live among the Heathen Those heavy judgments which the Prophet Jeremiah foresaw impending and after came to pass by King Josiahs death are in a great part by King Charles his death already come upon us Gods House his beautiful house is laid waste the Heathen have entred into the Sanctuary they have made a noise in the House of the Lord as in the day of a solemn Feast So that they who in the beginning pretended God Religion the Church their Cause have dealt with us as that Faction among the Jews who called â—hemselves The Zealous in the war with Titus did under pretence of defending Religion and the Law they possessed themselves of the Temple yet were themselves the first who put fire with their own hands into the holy places How hath the avarice and carnall interests of the Teachers of these times corrupted the purity of our Religion as Judahs so Englands onely Prophets have seen vain and foolish things for her and they have not discovered her iniquity to turn away her captivity but have seen for her false burthens and causes of banishment they have shed the bloud of the just K. Charles in the midst of her Englands greatest Adversaries are chief and her Enemies prosper Servants do bear rule over us and there is none to deliver us out of their hand They that did feed delicately are desolate in the streets they that were brought up in scarlet embrace dunghils Princes are hanged by their hands and the faces of the Elders are not honoured War desolation and famine with their sad effects foretold in these Lamentations appear in our Horizon already like Elihu's little Cloud which will shortly overspread our whole English firmament and all these calamities have and will fall upon us because the Crown is fallen from our Head the British Josiah King Charles is taken from us and we have no comforter and how great and just causes of our sorrows are all these Calamities But let this sorrow have the full advantage in its fall to adde motion unto all the turning wheels of our afflicting griefs the fall from our great happiness in his Majesties Government Let London let England let Scotland let Ireland let every of them Remember as Jerusalem did in the dayes of her afflictions and her miseries all the pleasant things that she had in the dayes of old All the pleasant things they had in the blessed dayes of King Charles his blessed Reign the glory and truth of her Religion the just execution of
taking away a good King from a People is an evidence of his heavy displeasure and a certain Prognostique of the many miseries he will bring upon them That a violent death proves a temporall blessing unto a King when it takes from him the sight and sense of his Subjects sufferings That a violent death may justly be reputed a departing in peace compared with a continuance of the sence of troubles and durable calamity That all men are strictly and deeply engaged unto the most solemn sorrow for the calamity of their King as caused by their sins and ushering in their approaching miseries Let us see whether our Kingdomes may not truly calculate their griefs by the Ephimerides of Judah's sorrow we have had a British Josiah whose Graces and Prerogatives fully answered the proportion and size of their pattern Could Judah's sinnes snatch away their pious King JOSIAH from them and do not we conceive that our sins have hurried our Religious King CHARLES from us Was King Josiah's death the In-let of Judah's miseries and do not we suppose that King Charles his life may be the period of our temporall happiness and his death the first act of that tragicall Woe which is to be presented upon the Theatre of this Kingdome likely to continue longer than the now-living Spectators We have had as great an Ebbe of Felicity in the loss of our King Charles as Judah had in her Josiah's should not the Tyde then of our sorrows run as high as theirs Surely the parallel considerations of the Vertues and Prerogatives of both these pious Kings of the causes of their Calamities and the sad consequences attending them will command an equality of ours with Judah's sorrow we will a little invert the method Begin with King Charls his divine and regal Prerogatives next shew his personall Vertues and Graces then his Sufferings point at their Causes and conclude with our own constrained Sorrows England in her best and loudest language the Law hath largely declared the sacred soveraignty of her Kings spoke them Gods Vicars assigned unto them the fulness of Regall power laid forth their jurisdiction by as large bounds as the Scripture doth King Josiah's or any other Kings of Israel or Judah Are not these legall registred and publick acknowledgments That every man is under the King and he under God onely That he is not inferiour unto his Subjects even collectively considered That he is a mixt person and capable of Spirituall Jurisdiction through holy Unction That he is the fountain of Honour hath the sole power to pardon and punish Offenders to leavy War to make Peace to constitute Officers That he can do no wrong Do not these expressions amount unto The breath of our Nostrils the Anointed of the Lord c. And these are the Regall peculiars of the Kings of England inseparably annexed unto their Crown and Dignity which he that runneth may read being written in those large and known characters of the Law Certainly these significant delineations of the sacred and regall power of the Kings of England were copied out of the holy Scriptures which those that now wrest them and make that fair Face of the Holy Ghost a vizard alterable unto the disguise of their personated piety and hypocritical practice seeing will not see Doubtless the Crown of England was held from the Lord paramount of Dominion God by as free noble and regall a tenure as any under Heaven And from him by a lineall and unquestionable right of succession had King Charles the investure thereof and grant of all these royall acknowledged Prerogatives untill without any divine or humane warrant He was violently disseized of them and taken in their pits These were his sacred and regall Prerogatives Let us now look into that spacious field of His personall Vertues a fragrant tract having the sweet smell of A field which the Lord hath blessed and since time wil not permit the perusal of every pleasant walk of grace and the delightful Ambits of his vertues let us as Moses from Mount Nâ—bo take a general and distant survey of this blessed circuit flowing with milk and honey King Charles his Celestial gifts and graces A Jove principium His religious piety renders iâ— self glorious in his great love fear and honour of God His zeal and devout frequency in prayer receiving the Sacraments and reading the holy Scriptures his reverence in Gods House his attention unto Godâ— word preached the esteem he had of Gods Messengers his hatred of Heresie and the zealous care he had as it was consistent with charity to propagate the true worship of God the Protestant Religion this in the purity thereof he established by his Laws enlarged with his Regall Authority cleansed from that Rust it had contracted through the Atheism and ignorance of the Times by the contemptibleness of the outward worship adorned with Decency and Order in the publique service and with cost upon the places dedicate unto that service but chiefly he beautified it with the glorious example of his holy life and encouragement of the Officers thereof whom he rewarded with the rewards of Honour and Maintenance His Royall Palace as Theodosius Juniors was a constant Receipt for learned and pious Prelats whom he entertained and cherished as the Servants of the great God and Dispensers of the mysteries and means of Grace which as it was an especiall and infallible mark of the sincerity of his humble piety so through the supercilious irreligion of the times did that which should have most endeared him unto Christians draw neglect and contempt upon him from them and those Great ones too who love nothing of Christianity but the naked name he knew that Church-maintenance was the best Nurse of Religion and therefore no weight of difficulties could so press upon him to alien Gods portion the Patrimony of the Church to preserve which from the sacrilegious invasion of the first movers of these Troubles who thought the best way to shake off Government was to destroy Religion and the most effectuall and quick course to destroy Religion to take away Church-maintenance He tendred the sale of so much Crown-land as would amount unto the value of the Church-land That great and strict care he took to keep the Throne and Kingdom of God in his Soul His Conscience inviolable shews that although he made his abode among Men yet his Conversation was in Heaven The continuall acknowledged remorse he was seized with for consenting against the dictate of his Conscience unto the Earl of Strafford's death speaks him another David and A Man after Gods own heart such were the tender impressions that Act ever left in him as David when he cut off the skirt of Sauls garment his heart smote him and indeed his Majesty found that fate which the Rabbins assigne unto David's fact that he found no heat in his cloaths afterwards So His Majesty found not that comforting warmth in the advices of others which he
her Laws her peace her riches her plenty her liberty at home and her protection and honour abroad England was the perfection of beauty and the joy of the whole earth The Kings of the earth and all the inhabitants of the world would not have believed that the Adversary and Enemy should have entred into the Gates of our Jerusalem London that Churches should be turned into stables Gods Houses made Courts of Guards the Royall Palaces made Garrisons the Tythes the portion of Gods Ministers made the Souldiers salary that the Law should be turned into wormwood our Religion and Liberty measured out unto us by the Pikes length the decisions of the Sword become the Principles of Faith and that which is the cause of all this mechanick persons Trades-men who will certainly marr never can mend so great concernments they never before handled or were acquainted with the sole Moderators of Publick affairs and the chief Princes and Potentates of our Kingdom But now The glory is departed from our Israel the Arke of God is taken and how is England become a Widow made a prey unto cruel people and skilful to destroy who daily force and prostitute her unto their wicked purposes for these things let England and every true-hearted Englishman say I weep mine eye mine eye runneth down with waâ—er because the Comforter King CHARLES that should relieve my soul is far from me The breath of our Nestrils the Anointed of the Lord c. The life of our Religion of our Laws of our Liberties is taken from us the Image of Gods power in supreme Authority Indemnity Inviolability is taken from us our Physition our nursing Father our Comforter our Protectour is taken from us for our sins was taken in their pits so that now we want the wings of his protection among these Heathen among whom we live we are now made very Slaves unto the worst of Heathen a people without God without Faith without Law without Rule without Reason without Humanity without all these and whose unruly will onely iâ— unto them all these These calamities are all fallen upon us because The breath of our Nostrils c. pious King Charles is taken from us like Elias in a â—iery Charriot or as Constantine the Great after his death was impressed on a Coyn pluck'd up by a divine hand into Heaven that his eyes might not see nor his righteous soul be afflicted with all the evil which is come upon us to consume us wo unto us for we have sinned These are but the contracted heads of those miseries which we shall all read over in the vast Volumes of our approching woes and justly besâ—eaks such sorrows as might transform us into Niobes make our heads Rivers of sorrows and our eyes Fountains for continual tears The Lord in mercy look upon us and wipe away these tears from our eyes and their causes our sins from our souls and since the bloud of the Martyrs is the seed of the Church in mercy unto his Church restore the seed of his Martyr King Charles the First unto the Government of these Kingdoms that Religion Peace and Liberty may be restored unto us I conclude these ours as the Prophet doth his Lamentations Turn thou unto us O Lord and we shall be turned renew our dayes as of old if thou hast not utterly dejected us Hear our prayers O Lord for thy Sons sake unto whom with the Holy Ghost be ascribed c. FINIS 2 Chrâ— 35.25 Calvin 2 King 23.25 27. Lam. 2â— Gen. ◠〈◊〉 13.3 â—ab â— 16. â—am 14. â—am 21. â—hro 27. â— Ecc. â— 1. Euseb. supra Civ D. â— l. 17. c. â— â— Vet. â—cil â—â—eum â—num â—uid â—ficat â—ibus 〈◊〉 huâ—â—bus â—remiâ— Aug. â—â—rb D. â— 23. â—e 8.4 â—t 2. Socraâ— proae l. 5. Euseb. vit Coâ— m. l. 4â— 24. Rom. â— 4. Pâ—al 47 Cont. Faust. â— Maniâ— 2â— c. 7 â—m 10. â—ngs 4. â—ngs 5. â—ngs â— â—hron â— 9. 2 Samâ— 4. 1 Kinâ— 27. Esth. â— 1 Kinâ—â— Acts â— 10.1 Euseb. Hist. l. â— c. 14. Psal. 5. â—on â—â—bat 〈◊〉 saâ—menti â—ctitaâ— quid â—o veâ—abatur â—vid â—g Cont. â—et l. 2. â— â—am 24. David Sauleâ— proptâ— sacroâ—â—ctam â—â—ctioneâ— honorâ— vivumâ— viâ—diâ— occisuâ— Aug. â— lit oâ—t c. 48. In Apâ— Ep. l. 2. Ep. 13â— Dig. vâ— l. 1. tit H. leg 3â— Tho. Aâ— Ia. IIâ— 96. a. 5â— III m. 〈◊〉 Carâ— Ep. â— 1 Saâ— 14. â—m 26. ◠〈◊〉 non â—â—ebat â—â—ocenâ—◠〈◊〉 haâ—â—at sanâ—â—tem 〈◊〉 vitae â—â—sed saâ—â—menti 〈◊〉 quod â—alis â—â—inibus â—tum â—ubi 〈◊〉 Amb. 〈◊〉 l. 2. Ep. â— Eusâ— Hiâ— Ecc. l. 3â— c. 27. Theod. l 3. f. 19. 〈◊〉 deâ—m non â—dideâ—â— in 〈◊〉 Chriâ—â—ni non 〈◊〉 terreâ—regibus â—equi â—g Con â—in â—l 118. Ps. 114. â—â—om â— 7 cap. â—â— 14. Psal. 133.2 Lev. 19.15 Luk. 10 34. Isa. 3.7 Rom. 13 4. Psal. 104 15. Cyril Cat. 3. Job 32.18 â—â—nt 〈…〉 l. 12.11 â—od 19. â— 2 Châ— 13. 〈…〉 c. 14 〈◊〉 â—3 24 Jer. â— 2 Saâ— 3. 1 Sam 17. 2 Châ—â— 24. â— Job â— 2 〈◊〉 34.17 Isa. 57. â—hron 19. â—hron 24. ch 11.1 â—â—rius â—estis â—egno 〈◊〉 Anâ—rit p. 5 â— Vicaâ— summi â—is Leg. Reg. c. Lamb. â—ud â— Lex 〈◊〉 Socra c. 22. â—â—ngs Euseb. Const. l. 4. c. 1 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈…〉 l. â— 1. 〈…〉 16. Isa. 14 18 19 20. Acts 13 10. â— 2.10 〈◊〉 12. â—â—eod l. c. 9. Eph. 2.2 〈◊〉 16. â— 19.7 Vit. Coâ— l. 4. c. 2 Lam. â— 2 7â— Jos. 〈◊〉 Jud. l. â— c. 12. 〈◊〉 2.14 â— 13 â— 5 â— 8 â— 5 â— 12 5.1 1.9 1.7 â— 15 1.1 1.1 â—onst â— 73. â— 21