this still is our Duty to do on this auspicious Day We have offered up the Calves of our Lips the Sacrifices of Praises and Thanksgivings unto God with our Mouths and I hope our Hearts are Unisons with our Tongues We have sung unto the Lord as the Psalmist saith and heartily rejoiced in the strength of our Salvation we have sung Psalms and Anthems unto him because he hath done marvellous things and I hope in this solemnity our very Souls have magnified the Lord and our Spirits have rejoyced in God our Saviour and even hto te last moment of it let every Loyal Person say bless the Lord O my Soul Ps 103.1 and all that is within me bless his Holy Name Certainly it is our duty on this happy day to extol God and exult in the Salvation which he hath wrought for us and to acknowledge that this is the day which the Lord hath made the day of our going out of Egypt the day of our return from Captivity the day of the Dedication of our Temple and Altar nay the day of the Brittish Purim in which we ought to rejoyce as being the day wherein we rested from our Enemies and the month which was turned to us from Sorrow to Joy and from mourning into a good day that we should make it a day of Feasting and Joy Esth 9.22 and of sending Portions and guifts to the Poor For it is to the Mercy of this day that we owe our Lives our Religions our Liberties and Estates that every one of us can sit securely under his own Vine and call what he hath his own and therefore certainly we that ejoy so great a Deliverance by this day and such mighty Blessings consequent upon it as no other People in the World enjoy besides our selves if our hearts be not at discord with our Mouths in our present Devotions we cannot forbear to let the offerings of our Charity accompany our Sacrifices of Praise and do something considerable to exhilarate the Spirits of our poor brethren and make them partakers of our joy This day the sorrowful sighing of the Poor and of the Prisoners ought to come before us and more especially if we know any such who wereruined by the late Successful Rebellion them we ought to relieve They more especially ought to be the Objects of your Charity upon this Solemnity and therefore in the first place let us do good and distribute to those or the Poor Relations of those who were sufferers for their Loyalty and bore the greatest and bitterest part of that Captivity from which the Lord brought back his People upon this day I suppose there are such to be found among you the Monuments of your former Loyalty in the bloody Worcester-fight and I hope you will consider them as Martyrs and Confessors for our English Liberties and open your hand liberally towards them who yet bear in their Bodies or in their Distressed Families the Marks of their Loyalty for the King and of their Sufferings for the Church We cannot offer up unto God any Sacrifice more acceptable than the supplies which in gratitude to him for our Deliverance we shall give to them this day and if our Charity be such as becomes our present Devotion we need not fear but that God will accept our Alms and Oblations and that our Prayers and our Alms will go up for a Memorial before him who hath done so great things for us and by his Almighty Power and Allwise Providence turned our Captivity as the Rivers in the South These are the duties proper to this day but then we must further understand that if our Joy be pure and genuine and such as really proceeds from a grateful and Religious Sense of Gods Goodness it will shew itself in the Fruits of true Piety towards God and of True and conscientious Allegiance to the King whom God so miraculously restored unto us all the Days of our Life He that pretends Religion towards God and yet makes use of it as a Cloak of Maliciousness to Cover his Disaffection and Disloyalty to the King that Mans Religion let him shew never so much Zeal for preserving the Protestant Religion is Pharisaical and vain and utterly unacceptable in the sight of him who will have every Soul to be Subject to the Higher Powers And on the other hand he who pretends Loyalty to the King and expresses it in such a manner as must needs be offensive to God and sober Men that mans Loyalty subverts the Kings Throne and provokes God to let the Enemies of the Crown multiply and prosper to punish the Wickedness of such profane Royalists who in that Bacchanal manner by which they Testify their affection to the King disgrace his Majesty and dishonour God He that truly Fears God will Honour the King and not meddle with those that are given to Change and he that truly Honours the King in the Christian notion of a King as the Image and Lieutenant of God will be sure to Honour him by whom Kings Reign and express his Zeal for him and his Joy for his Restauration in such Ways and Measures as shall not pollute any Festival Solemnity or turn our indulgence into Riot or Excess God forbid that Loyalty more than any other Christian Virtue should be made a pretense for such unworthy Greek Practises and God forbid that any of the English Melchites or Loyal Subjects of the Church of England should find no other ways of declaring their Zeal and Affection for their Soveraign than such as will render them the Scorn and Reproach of theirs and the Kings Enemies and a Scandal to the Royal Cause Let us in God's Name rejoyce in the Kings Salvation but in such a manner as will consist with the strict Rules of Christian Sobriety Let the Fear of God temper our Mirth for the Deliverance of the King let us wish him Health and say with Daniel O King live for Ever but at the same time let us remember him who hath Cloathed him with Majesty and in whose Rule and Governance the Hearts of Kings and Princes are God indeed hath given Wine to chear the Heart of Man but then we must in our Mirth remember what he hath told us that Wine is a Mocker and that strong drink is rageing Prov. 20 1. and whosoever is deceived thereby is not Wise God indeed hath given us leave to Eat and Drink to kill Beasts to mingle our Wines and furnish our Tables upon Festivall Occasions but then as Christians it becomes us to remember at our Feasts that whether we eat or drink 1 Cor. 10.31 or whatsoever we doe we must do it to the Praise and glory of God who on this day brought back the Captivity of his People and therefore doth expect that Jacob should Rejoice and Israel should be Glad for the wonderful deliverance which by his Special Providence and Assistance he hath brought about Now to God our Mighty Deliverer and Saviour who giveth Victory unto Kings the God to whom alone our Gracious Soveraign is Subject and next under whom he is Supream within these Realms unto the Allwise and Almighty God of whose institution Kings and Kingdoms are unto the Allwise Almighty God and Creator King of Kings and Lord of Lords be ascribed as is most due Eternal Praise Honour Majesty and Glory by us and by the whole Church Militant and Triumphant now and Evermore FINIS Page 17 line penult for 60 read 70. Sermons written by the same Authour and Printed for Walter Kettilby at the Bishops-head in St. Pauls-Church-yard 1. A Discourse to prove the strongest Temptations are conquerable by Christians A Sermon Preached before the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor of London and Court of Aldermen Jan. 14th 1676 7 2. The Spirit of Enthusiasm Exorcised In a Sermon Preached before the Vniversity of Oxford On Act-Sunday 1680. 3. Peculium Dei A Sermon Preached before the Honourable the Aldermen and Citizens of London on February 6th 1688 8 0 1 4. The true Notion of Persecution in a Sermon preached at the time of the late Contribution for the French Protestants 5. A Sermon Preached before the Lord Mayor Aldermen and Citizens of London on Jan. 30th 1681 2 6. The Moral Shechinah or a Discourse of Gods Glory In a Sermon Preached at the York-shire Feast In Bow-Church June 11 1682. 7. A Sermon Preached at the Church of St. Bridget on Easter-Tuesday being the first of April 1684 before the Right Honourable Sir Henry Tulse Lord Mayor of London and the Honourable Court of Aldermen together with he Governours of the Hospitals upon the Subject of Almsgiving
delivered us out of the hand of the Philistines and now he is fled out of the Land for Absalom and Absalom whom we rebelliously anointed over us is dead in Battel now therefore why speak ye not a word of bringing back the King These Considerations of the great Blessings they enjoyed under David would weigh nothing with them before but after they felt the Calamities of War and the smart of Arbitrary Government under a prevailing Traitor after they had run into that under Absalom which they had but feared under David then they saw their Errour and the men of Israel were angry with the men of Judah for not letting them join with them in bringing back the King And what happened unto the People of Israel and Judah under the prevailing Rebellion of Absalom hath happened I believe upon all the successful Rebellions in the World Did ever People rebell with success and mend their condition by it Nay did ever People succeed in Rebellion and not afterwards groan under the Arbitrary Dominion of the Victorious Rebels Or were Grievances and Oppressions ever sewer under Usurpers than under the lawful Head It is as I have shewn inconsistent with the Nature of that Arbitrary and Military Power with which Conquest doth invest every prosperous Rebel and though it be easie to reply that it is possible for one that rises up against his lawful Soveraign to be free from self-interest and ambition and purely to design the Ease and Liberty of his Fellow-Subjects yet in all the Instances and Examples of successful Rebellion very few or none such are to be found You see what Impostors Absalom and Achitophel were and how they falsified all their Pretensions to the credulous People and would the time permit and the Solemnity of the day allow of it I could verifie the truth of my first Observation in many such Popular Cheats But I will wave all Foreign and confine my self to Domestick Examples to prove that a state of prosperous Rebellion is a state of Slavery and Captivity as King David in my Text and our late Blessed Soveraign who was wont to bewail the sad condition of his People in the late prevailing Rebellion frequently observed I need not tell you what fair Promises and gilded Pretences the Ring-leaders of it made unto the deceivable People They first possessed their Heads with imaginary Fears and Grievances and then promised to secure them against all the Dangers which they feared At first they exhorted and invited the Common Citizens and People and then Commanded them first they begg'd and borrowed Supplies of them and took their Money by way of Contribution and Loan but afterwards when they had got the Power into their own hands they levied it as fast by their own Authority and demanded it by way of Tax I shall say nothing of the illegality of their Rebellion against their Prince no Law being better known to the People than that which declares it to be High Treason to Levy War against the King but I design to set forth their oppression of their Fellow-Subjects and shew in a few Instances how they inverted all the Fundamental Laws of the English Liberties and how their little Finger was much heavier then their Lawful Princes Loins It is a Fundamental Law of the English Government and the first Article of Magna Charta Quod Ecclesia Anglicans libera sit habeat omnia sua Jura integra libertates illaesas That the Church of England shall be free and have all her Rights kept intire and her Liberties inviolable and yet to make Way for their Wicked and ungodly Ends they voted the Bishops out of the House of Peers where as Mr. Pryn afterwards told them they had sat in their Predecessors as long as the Lords Temporal had sat in their Progenitors and longer than the Representatives of the Commons of England had sat in the House of Commons The Lords at first refused to consent to such a fundamental alteration perceiving very well what might be the consequence theoreof upon which the People were brought down in Multitudes to the Parliament Doors to Cry against the Bishops several days successively till the Terrors of those Tumults did force them to Consent After this was done to the Bishops they did what they pleased to the Loyal Clergy and the Universities Imprisoning and turning them out of their Free-Holds in a most Arbitrary and Tyrannical manner as may be seen in a little Book called the IIth Persecution and many other Narratives of the late Times to which I refer you for the particulars that you may see how little regard these Patriots of England falsly so called had to the first Article of the great Charter which concerns the Rights and Liberties of the Church But 2ly It is a fundamental Law of the English Liberty That no Free Man shall be taken or imprisoned without Cause shewn or be detained without being brought unto his Answer in due form of Law This is part of the 29th Article of Magna Charta and the whole Subject matter of the 28th of Edw. 3. and of the Petition of Right which these very same Patriots to endear themselves unto the People would not let the King rest till he had passed again and again Yet after they had got the Sword into their own Hands they Imprisoned whom they would thousands of Innocent Men and good Subjects of all Ranks without assigning any Reason but the general Reason of Malignancy and without bringing them to answer for themselves as the Law requires 3ly It is a fundamental Law of the English Government That no Man shall be disseized of his Free-hold or Liberties but by the known Laws of the Land This likewise is contained in the 29th Article of the great Charter and the 28th of Edw. 3. And it is that which makes England a Paradise and the English the most happy People in the World Yet these very Men from the moment they got the Power into their hands against all form of Law disseized sequestred decimated and forced Multitudes of Free-born Gentlemen of England to compound for their own Hereditary Estates 4ly It is a fundamental Law of the Liberties of England That no man shall be Condemned or put to Death but by lawful Judgment of his Peers or by the Law of the Land in an ordinary way of a Legal Tryal But these great Patriots and Patrons of the Peoples Liberties condemned one of the Kings greatest Subjects by an Arbitrary Ordinance made by the remaining Parts of both Houses united into one which made him say upon the Scaffold that he was not only the first Arch-bishop but the first English-man that dyed by an Ordinance of Parliament if the two Houses sitting without the King and in open Hostility against him much less if a part of the two Houses so sitting ought to be called by that happy and Honourable Name Lastly It is a fundamental Law of the English Government That if any other case than what
to destroy their Gates and Portcullis's As soon as he had done this he bravely turned them out of Doors and re-admits the Secluded Members who seeing how the Kingdom was enslaved and bent upon the King's return presently issued out Writs for a free Parliament which brought back his Majesty upon this Auspicious Day From this Enumeration of the Usurping Powers you may perceive to what a degree this poor Nation was enslaved under so many Tyrannical Successions It is impossible to tell how many Souls Lives and Noble Families were destroyed by them and how many Millions spent but from this short review which I have now given you you may perceive that first I undertook to prove That a People in a state of Prosperous and Successful Rebellion are in a state of Slavery and Captivity but especially a free People who of Subjects to a limited Soveraign under the Regulation of wholesom Laws become Slaves to the Arbitrary Power of their own Fellow Subjects who Govern by the Sword And so I pass to my Second Proposition to prove That a People cannot be delivered out of such a state of Slavery and Confusion without the special Providence and Assistance of God as it is written When the Lord bringeth back the Captivity in his People This David who was so great a King and so great a Polititian acknowledgeth also to Zadock the High-Priest 2 Sam. 15.25 The King said unto Zadok the Priest carry back the Ark of God into the City if I shall find favour in the eyes of the Lord he will bring me back again and shew me both it and his habitation Now this Religious way of speaking in David proceeded not from Fear or Superstition which is the Daughter of Fear for as Hushai told Absalom he was a Valliant and Mighty Man but from the rational and experimental knowledge he had of the Being and Providence of God He knew God as a Philosopher and he knew him as a Prophet Reason and Revelation had both taught him how God cannot but be concerned in the most minute Contigencies that happen to single Persons much more in the Revolutions of States and Kingdoms according to what he elsewhere saith The Lord is King for ever and ever he is a great King over all the Earth Ps 47.2 None but the Epicureans that over acknowledged the Being denied the Providence of God and their Opinion is more unreasonable than pure Atheism it self and all that ever acknowledged the Providence of God did believe that he imployed it in a most special manner over Human Societies and that the greater any Human Societies were they were the more special Objects of his Fatherly Care Indeed all Wise Men both among Jews Christians and Heathens have thought it very difficult and ordinarily presurnptuous to determine precisely what things happen by Gods special Providence and Assistance and what do not because his secret Influences upon the Understandings and Wills of Men cannot be distinguished from their own Judgment and free Choice but yet the Power and Wisdom and Justice and Goodness of God are so very discernable in some Events that we may without Presumption impute them to him as Judicious Criticks do Beoks to such and such Authors and from something that is Divine in the contrivance of them pronounce at first sight as a Limner did upon what was done in his absence on a Picture which he was drawing that the hand of Apelles had been there If you ask me what that is which makes a Man discern the special hand of God in any Event I might answer without any prejudice to the Cause of Religion that I cannot tell because the Characters of things though clearly understood are many times hard to be expressed As in the appearance of a good or bad Angel that is inexplicable which makes me discern at first sight that what I see is not an ordinary Man But lest this should look like shisting as all lawful advantages will be called in the cause of God I shall give you the Marks and Characters which the Sense of Mankind and the Common Divinity of all Nations hath set down as Rules whereby to know when any Humane Event is the Lords special doing and in so doing I shall apply the Wonderful Revolution from our Slavery and Captivity this Day as a pat Example to every one of those Rules 1. The first Character then whereby we may know when any Event is the Lords special doing or an Effect of his Special Providence is When it is brought about by Invisible Means or if by Visible yet by unlikely Means which are Inadequate Vnsuitable or Repugnant to the Effect For this Reason the Romans imputed that strange Revolution of their good Fortune after the Battel at Cannae to a special Over-ruling Providence and acknowleged that Hannibal was Defeated by the Gods Moventi a tertio lapide Hannibali Deos iterum Deos inquam necfateri pudebit restitisse faith the Historian which in allusion to the Psalmist may be rendered thus If it had not been for the Gods now may Rome say if it had not been for the Gods when the Carthaginians under Hannibal rose up against us they had swallowed us up quick so wrathfully were they displeased at us Thus likewise the Jews were so amazed at the wonderful Manner of their Deliverance out of Captivity in which they had Lived 60 Years that they were like Men in a Dream and could scarce Believe the Truth for the Strangeness of the thing The Power and Wisdom and Goodness of God was so Visible in that unlikely revolution that they could not hold from crying out among the Heathen The Lord hath done great things for us the Lord hath done great things for us whereof we are glad They esteemed their Return from Captivity as great a Miracle as turning back the Streams of Nile and the Course of the Rivers in the South and though there was nothing so surprizing in it as in our Deliverance this Day yet God represented it to the Prophet Ezekiel by the Resurrection of Dry Bones to shew it was his special Work Son of Man faith he to him in the Visionary Valley full of Dry Bones Prophesie upon these Dry Bones Fzâ—k XXXVII and say unto them O ye Dry Bones hear the Voice of the Lord Thus saith the Lord to these Bones I will breathe upon you and you shall live and know that I am the Lord. So I Prophesied saith he as I was Commanded and there was a great Noise and behold a great shaking and the Bones came together Bone to his Bone And I beheld and lo the Sinews and Flesh came upon them and the Skin covered them above but there was no Breath in them Then saith he unto me Prophesie unto the Wind and say unto the Wind Come and Breathe upon these Slain and I Prophesied as he commanded me and the Breath came into them and they lived and stood upon their Feet an exceeding great Army Whereupon