Throne to him that sits on the dunghill all are concerned to mourn for one Josiah The Prophet Jeremy having a deeper insight into this wound of the Nation than the generallity lamented not only himself but taught all the people to lament also as the following Verse sheweth All the singing men and singing women spake of Josiah in their lamentations and made them an Ordinance in Israel and behold they are written in the Lamentations Jeremiah an eminent Prophet was most sensible of the loss of Josiah an excellent King De arte nemo nisi artifex An Artist best judgeth of art and good men of good men The Book of Lamentations was composed by the Prophet In perpetuam rei memoriam Jeremy and his holy contemporaries made Josiah's death a matter of mourning unto all generations by a Law and Ordinance to teach even us that we ought to be humbled for and retain the memory of the untimely death of godly Kings It was an ominous presage that Judah was commanded to mourn by an Ordinance and mark the sequell About two and twenty years and six moneths after Josiah's death the Caldeans came and ruined Prince Nobles Priests and people carring the poor remnant into captivity where they continued threescore and ten years After more than fourscore years had they greater cause to mourn that pious Prince's fall than the first day The child whose father was unborn when Josiah was slain had cause to curse those swarth Egyptians So long liv'd are those sorrows which have their birth at the Prince's death A nation is soon wounded but the wound is not so soon healed And now having seen Judah's and Jerusalem's case we come to make it our own and to act the second part of Jeremy's lamentation But how or where well to begin or end our lamentation alas I know not None but Apelles his Pencill was thought sit to draw Great Alexander's picture and it would require another Jeremiah to speak to purpose of our Josiah To declare our Late King of ever blessed memory his life and vertues his miseries and death and in all these our own sin and shame who is sufficient for these things Yet nevertheless as the Jeremiah's of the times may compose Books so the poor Levites may come in to bear a part in the sorrowfull song The mean person may have as true a sense of this misery though not so full a one as the great ones And since it hath pleased God to bring me to the task of this sad day I desire you to assist me herein that what is wanting in elocution may be made up in godly sorrow and contrition concerning the sad story of our Josiah As Hezekiah said 2 King 19.3 so may I This day is a day of trouble and of rebuke and of blasphemy A day of trouble for it caused the Nation many dayes and years of trouble and how many more it may God knows who in his just judgement hath smitten man and beast with manifold plagues and punishments And for all this his wrath is not turned away but his hand is stretched out still A day of rebuke it is from all them that are round about us The Papists retort upon us all those crimes wherewith we charged the Jesuites as equivocation perjury sedition rebellion treason and murthering of Kings And a day of blasphemy it is for Jews Turks Pagans and Infidels scoff at Christian Religion and say Lo these are Christs Disciples who have cast aside their Masters precepts neither give God nor Caesar his due neither fear God nor regard man Yea it is to be feared that by this bloody dayes work the Devil hath gotten many an Atheist Many persons seeing so righteous a Prince fall by so wicked hands in so horrid a manner were apt to conclude it was in vain to serve God any longer For this every faithfull person may cry out with the Prophet Jeremy chap 9.1 Oh that my head were waters and mine eyes a fountain of tears c. A true Josiah our Late Soveraign was indeed a bright and shining Lord conspicuous in his high affection for Gods glory and the welfare of his people To this end was he born to bear witness to the truth and horresco referens for this was he murthered Full well might he say Psal 69.9 with David in his meditations to the Lord The zeal of thy house hath even consumed me His name Charles signifieth magnanimous valiant a name famous long since for Charles Martell and Charles the Great Kings of France but now more famous for Charles Martyr Charles the good King of Charles the too good King for England He was even his enemies being Judges worthy of the Kingdome had he not been owner of it but because owner of it held unworthy of life Such paradoxes are held in Satan's Schools A King he was whom all Nations admired but his own in this also like his Saviour Mat 13.57 who had no honour in his own Countrey A Prince he was who was the glory of Europe and the shame of his own degenerate people born in Scotland and but that he was born there I should have said of it Joh. 1.46 as Nathanael of Nazareth Can there any good thing come out thence I would be loth to say that he rob'd the Nationall stock but saving to each truly worthy person his respective dignity this I may safely say as was said of Josiah Before him arose no such King God knows what may be after him in our Judah and Jerusalem The greater cause have we all to mourn for our Josiah He was a King who had made an absolute conquest over himself having his passions in better obedience than any Prince hath his Subjects He was pious and discreet heroick yet withall patient in his prosperity sober and moderate in his adversity magnanimous and constant in his judgement profound yet not despising counsell in his determinations deliberate and in defence of the truth invincible The coal which the Seraphim laid upon Esay's lips Isa 6.7 was bestowed upon his Pen whereby he drew out his own Picture in those excellent Pieces which he left behind him for the world to look upon with wonder and reverence There may weread his zeal truly ballanc'd with profound knowledge piety and modesty his grief for the ruines of Gods Church and his people his care for his friends his charity for this enemies his commiseration of others and courage in his own afflictions and in all so even a temper that never any came nearer him who at his Cross did say Luk. 23.34 Father forgive them for they know not what they do Thus God takes the most spotless Lambs for sacrifice For his piety and acute inspection into sacred mysteries he was as much a Priest as a King and for his divine foreknowledge as much a Prophet a Trismegistus thrice great in this age unparaleld A real Defender of the Faith whose Quill wounded to the death with invincible
Arguments both Hereticks and Schismaticks A true Beauclerk and best deserving that Title as much a Scholar as a Prince as much a Christian as either and as much all in one as ever was any mortall one In brief he was and he is not only to this Nation but to all Christendome a mirrour to think how he lived a grief to think how he died Then let all our Judah and Jerusalem mourn for our Josiah And if all Judah and Jersalem mourned much more cause have we They were not immediately guilty of the death of their King nor any otherwise than by the provocation of their sins They contrived not Josiah's murther they did not confederate with the cursed Egyptians they fell not from obedience they took not up Arms against him they did not buy and sell him they did not pretend a Law erect a Scaffold to butcher him nor make his Royall Palace his slaughter-house they did not triumph over the dead Kings Corps and justifie the fact oh no but what an Egyptian did they bewail and lament bathing the bloody Corps with tears and embalming his precious memory with a set form of lamentation And all Judah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah Thus was the case of our Josiah far beyond theirs and most near to that of our blessed Saviour Inter malitiam avaritiam Between the malice of some and the avarice and ambition of others as Christ between the thieves was he crucified Some corrupt and stinking Elders some bloody hypocriticall Priests and some pharisaicall Zelots pretend to do God service by violating his holy Commandements Here a Judas comes with his Quantum dabitis What will ye give me and I will betray him There a temporizing Courtier who eat bread at his Table lift up his heel against him Such practices Heathens have abhorred Am I a Jew said Pilate to Christ thine own Nation and the chief Priests have delivered thee unto me His own Nation even those who by all Laws of God and man were obliged to defend him This was a heavy aggravation of Christs sufferings and so it was of our gracious Soveraigns The base Scots sold him as base English bought him the receiver and the thief are both in one predicament and the Nation may say to either party as Simon Peter said to Simon Magus Pecunia tua tibi sit in perditionem Act. 8.20 They money perish with thee How hath this wounded and stained our Church and Nation And we whither have we caused our shampe to go If the guilt of a brothers blood cryed to Heaven for vengeance as God told Cain Gen. 4.10 then how much more the blood of a father the common father of three Christian Kingdomes If Saul's death were deplorable yet he a wicked person and the Philistines none of his Subjects then how much more this case 2 Sam 4.11 where wicked Subjects like Baanah and Rhecab have murther'd a righteous man and their most gracious King at his own house in his Royall Jerusalem How ought this to afflict us Know ye not that there is a Prince and a great man fallen this day in our Israel He is fallen and with him fell Judah and Jerusalem Judah the Nobility and Gentry Laws and Justice Jerusalem Church and Religion doctrine and discipline piety and morality The Civil State was forthwith corupted in practice the Ecclesiasticall in judgement and worship Thus all Judah and Jerusalem have cause to mourn for our Josiah And all all indeed have cause to mourn The Princes Nobility and Gentry have cause to mourn to think what a breach the Lord hath made upon them by the prophanation of the Scepter and dishonour of the Diadem For whose honour of life can be safe where Kings shields are thus vilely cast away The Bishops and Pastors of the Church have cause to mourn for since the death of that Defender of the Faith prophaneness heresies and schismes have revived and flourished saving truths and orthodox Ministers have languished they that sold the truth have with the wages of iniquity bought preferment Et probit as laudatur alget and honesty is only praised and starved The common people have cause to mourn the cheat of the publick Faith hath weaken'd their private credits taxes have exhausted their purses others have eaten up their labours and the evil spirits I mean the miseries which were quickly raised are not like soon to be conjured down Well may the whole Land mourn for the misemployed wealth wherewith they purchased the death of their most gracious King and without Gods wonderfull mercy upon their hearty repentance misery and vengeance on themselves and their posterities The greatest of the Kings enemies have greatest cause to mourn both upon a sacred and a civil account Upon a facred because their souls lye at stake for that bloody sacrifice and upon a civil because they now see the axe laid to them in justice which they brought upon others unjustly For having Agag's cruelty 1 Sam. 15.33 they suffer Agag's doom which was this As thy sword hath made women childless so shall thy mother be childless among women And it comes upon them as upon him when they said Surely the bitterness of death is past And God grant that they all may be true mourners that their scarlet sins may be made white by the blood of Christ Jesus It is not our part to rejoyce at any mans misery and far is it I thank God from my thoughts to do so But I should be cruell if in this business I should not be strict in laying open the atrocity of the crime My hearts desire for all those that hear me this day and for all those that do not is that they may be saved And I hope no man will count me an enemy because I tell him the truth It is sorrow unto repentance that bringeth salvation 2 Cor. 7.10 The work of this day calls for mourning for more than an ordinary mourning And the blessing of Christ is pronounced to mourners Mat. 5.4 My prayer is that God would first give every man true sorrow of heart for all his sins and more especially for this great sin and then that he would give him the comfort of his holy Spirit as he did to David in the time of his great need that he may not be swallowed up of overmuch grief I shall say no more to set forth the ugliness of this monster this black deed for I am charitably perswaded that every one here present doth more abhor it in his heart than I am able to conceive or express And therefore let no man misunderstand me and think because I have as I ought throughout this Discourse and upon all other occasions eternally condemned the fact that therefore I have everlastingly damned all persons concerned in it God forbid There was hope and place of repentance yea and infallible means of salvation for them that had their hands stained with the blood of Christ Jesus When St Peter had laid the crime home most severly to them and they were pricked in their hearts and said Men and brethren what shall we do Act. 2.37 he did not bid them lye down and perish but repent and save themselves from that untoward generation And upon this there were converted that day three thousand souls And God grant that this dayes preaching may be proportionably as effectuall throughout this Nation Brethren we are all guilty of this dayes crime though after sundry manners well then let us not be angry one with another any longer but let every man be angry with himself for his sinfull wayes Let us condemn our selves and God will not condemn us If we confess our sins God is faithfull and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness Let there be no more discord let us henceforth fear God and the King and love one another as he hath commanded us Give me leave to use that phrase of speech which hath been long abused let us associate against the common enemy The common enemy is the Devil his dominion is sin and his Kingdome is enlarged by our divisions Let us strive to beat down sin in our selves and to advance the Kingdome of Christ which consists in righteousness peace and joy in the holy Ghost Rom. 14.17 This Text I have chosen for the day calls to us unanimously for mourning the occasion I have shewed you to be a very sad one As for our Josiah our Late gracious King our sorrow reacheth not to him Injuriam facit Martyri qui orat pro Martyre He injures the Martyr that prays for him Let our mourning then be for our selves and for our sins which helped forward his death and our own misery Methinks I hear his glorious soul saying to us as our Saviour did to the Daughters of Jerusalem Luk. 23.28 Weep not for me but for your selves and for your children Ye know what followeth in the next words and we know not how nearly they may concern us Judah and Jerusalem rued Josiah's death full many a year after indeed they never did outgrow it And we the people of this Land for ought we know may every year more and more have cause to mourn for our Josiah The Lord give us all a true insight into our selves and our own dangers The Lord be mercifull unto us and restore the voice of joy and health into our dwellings Deliver us from blood-guiltiness Oh God thou that art the God of our strength and our tongues shall sing of thy righteousness Grant this O Lord for Jesus Christs sake our Saviour and Redeemer Amen Laus Doe FINIS
A SERMON PREACHED At East Dearham in Norf. Jan. 30. 1661. BEING The day of the most horrid MURTHER of that most PIOUS and INCOMPARABLE PRINCE King CHARLES the First of England c. By John Winter Curate Ibid. Oh that my head were waters and mine eyes a fountaine of teares Jerem. 9.1 Illa tantum demonstrare est destruere Tertul. Expletur lachrymis egeriturque dolor Ovid. Tris LONDON Printed in the Year 1662. 2 Chron. 35.24 And all Judah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah AND who can blame their mourning or who can forbear to mourn in such a case Judah was Gods people Jerusalem his holy City Josiah the best of the Kings of Judah and taken away by an untimely death Hìnc illae lachrimae hence these salt waves and sable weeds And all Judah c. Kings be the best of the best people under God the glory and safety of Churches and Nations whose felicity holds in capite Gen. 3.15 Even the Kingdom of Christ had long since been overthrown could the old Serpent have wounded the head as well as he can bruise the heel Howbeit his implacable spight declares whereat he doth aim who seeing his sting too short to reach Christ in Person persecutes him in effigie He cannot simite the annointed Lord of life and therefore strikes at the life of the Lords annointed He most labours to deface the glory of them who most eminently bear Gods Image and because the Lord hath done Princes the honour to call them Gods he envyes them the happiness to dye like men Psal 82. He knows right-well that the fall alone of the Royal Oake and Princely Cedar will break down the undergrowing Plants and expose the poor Shrubs to all disasters And this was the cause of Gods Lebanon Judah and Jerusalem of which when it was too late the people became sensible Whilst Josiah lived perhaps like other Nations since they thought his Office and Dignity unnecessary troublesome and burthensome But by the waters of Babylon they best understood the worth of their late King under whose gracious Reign they saw peace and truth in Sion And then all Judah and Jerusalem c. In which words are the Person mourned for and the Persons mourning Or here is Josiahs death and His peoples grief The person here lamented is Josiah who is considerable in three respects 1. As a good man 2. As a good King And 3. As being both an excellent man and an admirable King cut off in the midst of his years by a bloudy death And by that time it will be no wonder that all Judah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah And first Josiah was a good man His name promised no less and he performed no less than his name promimised that is to be a burning and shining Lord. God frequently gives significant names to his most eminent servants Jacob for wrestling with God is named Israel Gen. 32.28 The famous Prophet who was true to his God in sacred things and yet faithfull to his idolatrous Prince in civil matters Mark 3.17 had to his name Daniel that is the judgment of God The two brethren Apostles who were to be a terrour to sinners and a light to the Church are named by Christ Boanerges the Sons of thunder And this Josiah designed by God for an eternal monument of piety had his name given long before his being 1 Kings 13.2 being in this respect like unto the King of Kings whose name was given before he was conceived in the womb Luke 2.21 Of this Josiah may we say what Christ said of John the Baptist John 5.35 He was a burning and a shining light burning in faith shining in charity burning in zeal towards God shining in goodness among men And pity it were might God think so that such a man should dye the world having so small a number and so great a need of them When Sauls blind zeal for his rash oath brought Jonathans life in hazard the whole Army interposed for his rescue Shall Jonathan dye said they who hath wrought this great salvation God forbid 1 Sam. 14.45 pity that Jonathan one that doth good in Israel should dye at all more pity it is that he should dye by the Sword of the wicked One good mans death is every good mans wound So that for a goad man as the Apostle saith somke would even dare to dye Rom. 5.7 And therefore when the righteous perish and no man lays it to heart it is a most certain sign of greater evil to come Isal 57.1 So soon as righteous Lot was secured in Zoar fire and brimstone from Heaven fell upon Sodom Gen. 19.24 Joash and his people had no sooner murthered holy Zechariah but God delivered them into the hands of the host of Syria Good men are as tutelary Angels in their several stations the wicked world which cannot endure them cannot indure without them Such was Josiah unto Judah and Jerusalem A good man so the story of his life recordeth To him Jobs character aptly squareth Job 1. Persect and upright one that feared God and eschewed evil So that had he been a private person his vertues must have made him publick his goodness made him beloved and therefore his loss the more to be lamented And all Judah c. But secondly Look upon Josiah King of Judah and King in Jerusalem and then common reason will teach nature to pay more than an ordinary tribute of sighs and tears at his last obsequies Publick persons Herses may justly challenge the distilliation of private persons eyes All rivulets and little torrents empty themselves into the main Ocean Can any man forbid or fault this holy water Dethroned and enthralled Princes have had this paid them by their enslaved Subjects Cum nil nisì flere relictum when they were able to do no more and could do no less The Church of God in all ages hath bewailed the loss of eminent Persons though drop'd away with age and gathered to their fathers with the Long Rake of silent time The death of old father Jacob was bewailed by his sons seven dayes with a great and very sore lamentation Gen. last 10. And the Canaanites called it a grievous mourning vers 11. It made an impression even in the Aliens and Insidels Thus when Moses the faithfull Prince and Ruler was dead all Israel mourned for him thirty dayes in the plains of Moab Deut. last vers 8. So great a loss hath a whole Nation in one Moses that they may prosecute his assumptions as Elisha did Elijah saying My father my father the chariots of Israel and the horsemen thereof 2 King 2.12 Chariots are both for War and Peace and in both good Princes are Israels chariots Without them Nations may have Jehu-drivers for a time who Phaeton-like may set the world on fire and with the Aegyptians drown all in a red Sea of bloud violence and destruction so by wofull experience teaching all Judah and Jerusalem to mourn for one Josiah All