Commonwealth and surely he is no good and dutiful childe that will not mourn for his fathers death especially if he see him slain and murthered by bloody hands in such a case not to shed tears were a sign of a graceless and godless son and certainly they are no good children no loyal or dutiful subjects that mourn not for the horrid slaughter and barbarous assassination of their civil father 3. A good King is the light of our eyes and breath of our nostrils yea the very life of our lives a principal means under God of our temporal weal and being under whose shadow and protection we enjoy our selves and all in safety life goods and estate He is the Minister of God to thee for good Rom. 13.4 And is it not a sad thing to have such a pillar broken down such a one taken away by cruel hands What can be expected to follow but ruine rapine confusion and misery oppression and calamity as we have felt by woful experience and will not all that have any goodness that delight not to live by devouring others lament for the loss of such a one 4. A good King is under God a principal cause of our well-being in relation to spiritual things for our souls benefit it is under him and by his power and Law that we are preserved to live a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty 1 Tim. 2.2 therefore the loss of him must needs be deplorable as opening a wide gap to all prophaneness and dissolute living It was a sad time with Israel when there was no King in Israel every man did what was good in his own eyes Iudg. 17.6 and to what exorbitances and villanies will not the corrupt nature of man left to its own liberty and actuated by satanical fury break out in such an Anarchy will not this make a good heart mourn 5. A good King is a nursing Father of the Church so called in Scripture phrase it is by his care and providence by his good example and diligence in the service of God and in the holy duties of his worship that Religion is upheld and the practise of it furthered and the Church maintained in a flourishing condition Regis ad exemplum to tus componitur orbis people are much inclined to follow the example of the Prince And can good people that wish well to Sion and are well affected to Religion to the service and worship of God see such a one snatch'd from them by violent death to the great decay of Religion abolishing of the solemn worship of God and the bringing in a Babel-like confusion of hearts and Tongues as we have seen to our reproach to the breaking of our hearts to the joy and derision of our enemies and not be filled with extreme grief and betake themselves to great and bitter mourning 6. A good King is the Bridegroom of the Commonwealth the Husband of his people and hence it hath been an ancient custome at the Inauguration or Coronation of Kings to deliver them a Ring as a pledge or token of wedding them to their people and will not the children of the Bride-chamber mourn when the Bridgeroom is taken away from them Christ himself in the Gospel assures us that they will and shall mourn in that day And here I pray take notice that they are no children of the Bridechamber that mourn not for such a loss what then are they that rejoyce Can the Bride a loving Spouse endure to see her dear Husband assassinated murthered by cruel Butchers and that in the Bridechamber in his own house or at his own gates Can she endure for ever to have him separated from her or to have his head separated from his body before her eyes without shrieking out and wringing hands without bitter tears and doleful lamentations surely no And how then can good people good Christians good Subjects call to mind the murdering of a good King at the door of his own Royal Palace by some of his own people of his own subjects and servants without bleeding hearts weeping eyes and mournful spirits These may stand as so many grounds or arguments to confirm the point in hand that the death especially the violent death of a good King is a ground of great mourning to all good people To all these I might add the confusion that follows such a black deed The barbarous murder of a good King is commonly attended with a deplorable Chaos of confusion both in Church and State The plotters and actors in such a foul work are none of the best yea they are the very worst and vilest of men men of hard hearts and seared consciences of wild large and loose principles who having swallowed Royal blood do easily glut themselves with the blood of Nobles and other of their fellow subjects and like ravening Wolves having slain the Shepherd sport themselves in tearing and worrying the sheep and to conclude make no bones of the greatest evil so it may promote their wicked designs And must not this needs bring on a rueful confusion 1. There follows a Chaos of confusion in the Church when a good King is murdered if the murderers escape they new-model Religion and fit it to their own Standard and make it a meer Machiavillian politick Engine to prop and boulster up their usurped power When Ieroboam wrested the ten Tribes from the house of David with his new Kingdome he set up a new Religion for fear least if the people kept to their old Religion they would return to their old King 1 King 12.26 27 28. Ieroboam said in his heart Now shall the Kingdome return to the house of David if this people go up to do sacrifice in the House of the Lord at Ierusalem then shall the heart of this people burn again unto their Lord even to Rehoboam King of Iudah and they shall kill me Whereupon he took counsel and made two calves and set the one in Bethel and the other in Dan and pretended all to be done for the good and ease of the people it is too much for you to go up to Ierusalem whereas it was for his own base ends and according to his new Religion he made a new sort of Priests not of the sons of Aaron according to Gods Ordination but whosoever would might be a Priest for that State-Religion and served well enough to serve calves He made of the lowest and meanest of the people Priests of the high places whosoever would he consecrated him and he became one of the Priests of the high places and this thing became a sin unto the house of Ieroboam even to cut it off and to destroy it from off the face of the earth 1 King 13.33 34. I need not tell you how exactly the late Tyrants our Masters followed his steps the sad thought of it is too fresh in our memories Our old true and established Religion must be thrown down and turned out both for government discipline
and for our National sins we have all contributed to that stock of sin which brought that stroak of divine vengeance upon the Land Let us weep in the bitterness of out souls for the great and crying sins of the Land our mourning repining unthankfulness for former mercies our barrenness and unfruitfulness under the means of grace our swearing and blasphemy our excess and drunkenness our hatred and uncharitableness our irreligiousness and prophaneness and all other our heinous sins which so highly provoked the Lords anger to deliver up both us and our King into the hands of such merciless and blood-thirsty men let us I say mourn for them in the bitterness our souls and beseech the Father of heaven to pardon them all for the merits sake of his dear Son And as we mourn for our provoking sins so let us turn from them subdue and mortifie them that so we turning from our evil wayes and ceasing from sinning the Lord may cease from punishing and turn from his wrathful indignation and restore to us his wonted blessings and favors as praised be his name he hath in great mercy begun Our sins our sins have been the cause of this judgment and of all the judgments following it O let us stir up our hearts with indignation against our sins as the Jews took hold of Paul crying men of Israel help this is the man that teacheth every where against the people so should we lay hold on our sins which are the greatest disturbers and cry to the Lord for help against them as we read of Marcus Antonius when Iulius Caesar was murdered in the Senate house and some sought to pacifie the business he brought forth Caesars coat all bloody rent and cut and spread it before the people Look here sayes he you have your Emperours coat thus bloody and torn whereupon the people were presently in an uproar and cryed out to slay the murderers Thus looking upon this horrid bloody fact and the other judgements crowding in upon us of late years and considering that our sins have been the murderers and authors of all these mischiefs our hearts should be raised to fly upon our sins with indignation and not be satisfied without the destruction of them which have wrought so much distraction among us Vse 2. If the violent death of a good King be a ground of great mourning to all good people see here what good people they are who mourn not nor ever did mourn upon this account what good people they are who plotted contrived abetted assisted and acted in that black and bloody work the horrid murder of our dear Soveraign what good people they were who gloried in it rejoyced in it and justified it being done as I my self heard one say that the taking off of the head of that blessed King was the greatest and worthiest piece of Justice that ever was We know who they were and of what principles they were whose hands were dipt in that blood and whose fingers were defiled with the iniquity The Sectarian party Anabaptists Quakers Independents fifth Monarchists of a new stamp were the sticklers in that detestable black business and the approvers applauders of it Judge wha they are They have indeed of late usurped to themselves the name of Saints good people the well affected of the Nation pious precious men the holy the godly men the holy the godly party as if all other were reprobates to them Whether they be such or no let their workes speak and let the world judge and the Lord himself shall judge If murder aeason homicide parricide regicide hypocrisie perjury immrnity cruelty be piety then let them be Saints Solomon saith That the mercies not of the Saints but of the wicked are cruel from such Saints and from their mercies good Lord deliver us Vse 3. See what cause we have to bless God for the late blessed and healing Parliament which hath endeavoured to avert Gods wrath and to acquit the Land of that innocent blood by disavowing the deed and by Justice upon the Traytors and murderers and to vindicate our Nation and Religion from that shame and reproach which the adversaries cast upon both though unjustly for that horrid fact whereas neither our Nation nor Religion liked or allowed it but loathed abhorred and detested it it was devised hatched and perpetrated by a Sectarian Anabaptistical fanatick party who as the Act saith were as far from being true Protestants as from being true subjects all true Protestants did abominate it and in bitterness of soul mourned in secret for it And blessed also may they be for enacting this Law and Ordinance in our Israel for an anniversary fasting and humiliation in relation to it a thing my soul desired that so we may have liberty and opportunity to express our detestation of it and lamentation for it in publick Vse 4. See what cause we have to pour forth our humble prayers and most hearty supplications to the most high for his mercifull and powerful protection and preservation of our most gracious Soveraign that now is such a son of such a father that this land may never have the like cause of mourning that he may be a second Josiah only any such tragick act or end excepted which the good Lord avert for the glory of God and for the joy and comfort of this Church and Nation That as he hath even miraculously kept him from the peril of the sword and rescued him from the midst of his furious enemies brought him back to his people and restored him with little less then a miracle to his just rights and placed him on his Fathers Throne so he will vouchsafe to be his defence and strong Tower to hide him under the shadow of his wings until uniquity be overpast That his sacred person may never come under the power or be at the mercy of such Saints or rather Satanists whom nothing could suffice but the blood of a righteous King the Lords anointed and as we have just cause to fear who being levened with such sowre principles thirst no less after his Lord therefore disappoint their plots and confound them in their wicked devices Let all that rise up against him be like Sisera and Iabin who perished at Endor and became as the dung of the earth make them and their Princes like Oreb and Zeb yea make all their leaders like as Zeba and Salmunah O our God make them like a wheel and as the stubble before the wind persecute them even so with thy tempest and make them afraid with thy storms make their faces ashamed let them cover themselves with their own confusion as with a cloak let their mischief come upon their own heads and their cruelty fall on their own pates so shall the King rejoyce in thy strength exceeding glad shall he be of thy salvation for why the King putteth his trust in the Lord and in thy mercy O thou most high let him not miscarry so we thy people and sheep of thy pasture shall give thee thanks for ever and will be shewing forth thy praise from one generation to another so shall thy name be glorified thy son magnified thy truth defended thy Gospel propagated our breaches repaired thy poor Church comforted which we humbly beseech thee to grant O Father of mercies for his sake who is the Son of thy love and our only Saviour Jesus Christ the righteous to whom with thee and the blessed Spirit of Grace and Truth one Almighty and ever-living God be all honour praise and glory adoration and obedience now and for ever Amen FINIS
sufferings Iosiah a King as good as great yet slain in battell The Lord seeth good sometimes to have it so to humble the best and greatest that none may presume or trust to any worldly priviledge or dignity and to prepare his servants for a suffering condition 2. Let us be instructed to beware of rash Iudgmen not to be censorious of all that suffer either sharp affliction or some bitter death if they die penitently c in true faith of Christ or in a good cause it doth not diminish ought from their future happinesse but rather promote them in the way to glory But let none of you suffer as a murtherer saith St Peter or as a thief or as an evill doer or as a busie bodie in other mans matters yet if any man suffer as a Christian let him not be ashamed but let him glorifie God on this behalfe 1 Pet. 4.15 16. Christ hath taught us not to deem them the greatest sinners who are the greatest sufferers Eo nomine for that very reason because sufferers by the example of those Galilaans who sacrificing were sacrificed Pilate mingling their own blood with the blood of the beasts which they offered and of the other who were mangled and quashed to death by the sudden fall of a Tower Suppose ye that these Galilaeans were sinners above all the Galilaeans because they suffered such things I tell you nay but except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish Or those eighteen upon whom the Tower in Siloe fell and flew them think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwell at Ierusalem I tell you nay But except you repent you shal likewise perish Lu. 13.2 3 4. And though our late dear Iosiah underwent a bloody death made as it were a sacrifice for the Church and his people by the rage malice and immane cruelty of mercilesse and perfidious men or rather monsters Horrendum factum dictu Horrendum Yet God forbid any of us should have the least doubt of his souls felicity Although his hard hearted and implacable enemies denyed him that which is freely granted to the vilest and most notorious condemned malefactors the help and comforts of his Chaplaines for his souls refreshment in the time of his hard imprisonment and therein as he complaines in his Soliloquies might seem as they sought to deprive him of all things else so to be afraid he should save his soul other sence charity it selfe can hardly pick out of these repulses I received saith he Yet we have good ground to conclude and ful assurance to perswade us that the better part of him is safe they which killed the body had no power to hurt the soul That bitter cup conduced much to his souls happinesse calix mortis calix salutis the cup of death and Martyrdom was to him a cup of Salvation His meek submitting to the will of God his patient bearing taunts reproaches and injuries evento shameful spitting on his meek yeelding to an unjust and bloody stroak his hearty praying for his enemies and murtherers according to that glorious pattern of his blessed Master his commending his soul to God trusting to his mercies in Jesus Christ our only Saviour for an eternal crown all being fruits of a sanctified soule are comfortable evidences of a saved soule Though his death was bloody and violent yet being sweetned with Christs death and his being washed and bathed in the blood of the Lamb we have firmperswasion and good assurance that he lived and dyed the dear child of God and is now a Saint in Heaven praising God among the noble army of Martyrs an heire of salvation and of that immarcescible Crown of glory which the Lord hath promised to them that love him Vse 3. Let it prepare and arm us against the fear and terrour of violent death if such should befal any of us we know not but it may it is sometimes the lot of Gods dearest children Let us not then overmuch disquiet our selves with the fear of violent death by theeves robbers murtherers or by the rebellious rout of Fanaticks The Sectaries talk high and hope yet to have a day their hearts are bloody and their hands would be at work these times they say will not hold we shall have a change though we have now a time of rejoycing yet we shall ere long have a time of howling and crying our harp shall be turned into mourning and our mirth into the voyce of them that weep but we hope their hornes will be clipt and their nailes pared a book be put into their nostrils and a bridle in their lips to hold them back from rebellion and mischief If they should break out in murther as they did begin and if any of us should fall by their knives swords or guns let not the fear or thought of this too much affright us Let us arme and prepare our selves with the shield of Faith and be alwaies ready and if we die in the Faith and favour of our God in Christ it shall not hinder us at all to our way to heaven but bring us the sooner to our Fathers House the place of true rest and happiness I proceed to the second Observation That it hath been an ancient custom among the people of God to mourn for the dead and in a moderate manner to mourn for our departed friends is not unlawful but rather Christian and commendable The custome hath been very ancient Solomon speakes of it as a thing commonly used in his time Eccl. 12.5 And we find it more ancient Abraham the Father of the faithfull bewailed his dead wife Sarah Gen. 23.2 Sarah dyed in Kirjath-arba the same is Hebron in the Land of Canaan and Abraham came to mourn for Sarah and to weep for her Joseph mourned many dayes for his Father Jacob. They mourned with a very great and sore lamentation and with grievous mourning Gen. 50.10.11 All the people mourned thirty dayes for Moses Deut. 34. David mourned for Ammon and for Absolom and for Abner yea he was the chiefe mourner there King David himselfe followed the biere and the King lift up his voyce and wept at the grave of Abner and all the people wept yea all the people wept again for Abner 2 Sam. 3.31 32. And as in the Old Testament so we find it used in the New The devout widows wept for the death of Tabitha Act. 6.39 Christ wept at the grave of Lazarus Joh. 12. And the good woman mourned and wept when he dyed And devout men carryed Steven to his buriall and made great lamentation over him Act. 8.2 And here all Judah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah and Jeremiah lamented for Josiah c. From all which examples we see the the antiquity of this custom and hence Use May learn That moderate mourning for the dead is not unlawful but rather commendable Christians are not to be like Stoicks or rather Stocks void of all naturall affection But to this I shall not need to exhort
down apace as also are many other Churches within the Land That O shame to Christianity by our great reformers for many years made not only a den of theeves but a stable for horses As the barbarous Turks dealt with that renouned Temple of St. Sophia in Constantinople when they had conquered that imperial City 3. Josiah was a great friend to the Clergy to the Prophets and Ministers of God the Priests the Levites and gave them encouragement in their Service 2 Cron. 35.2 So was our Iosiah a great lover and respecter of Godly and learned men of able and Orthodox Divines a great benefactor to the Universities and Schools of learning the greatest countenancer cherisher and encourager of the Clergy and Ministers of England of any King before him A tender nurse a most propitious Father of the Church Hear his own words in the foresaid heavenly booke Pag. 208. I am so much a friend to all Church-men that have any thing in them beseeming that sacred function that I have hazarded mine own interest chiefly upon conscience and constancy to maintain their rights whom the more I looked upon as Orphans and under the sacrilegious eyes of many cruell and rapacious reformers So I thought it my duty the more to appear as a Father and Patron of them and the Church And again speaking of the harsh deniall of his Chaplains attendance during his imprisoment But my Agony must not be relieved with the presence of one good Angel for such I account a learned godly and discreet Divine and such I would have all mine to be And again As I owe to the Clergy the protection of a Christian King I desire from them the benefit of their gifts and prayers which I look upon as more prevalent then my own or other mens by how much they flow from minds more enlightned and affections lesse distracted then those which are encumbred with secular affaires besides I think a greater blessing and acceptableness attends these duties which are performed as proper to and within the limits of the calling to which God and the Church have specially designed and consecrated some men And lastly Pag. 214 I must confess I bear with more griefe and impatience the want of my Chaplaines then of any other my Servants and next if not beyond in somethings to the being sequestred from my wife and children since from these indeed more of earthly and temporary affections but from those more of heavenly and eternal improvements may be expected What more cordiall expressions could come from a pious soul of love and affection to that calling 4. Iosiah was a great promoter and furtherer of Gods publike and solemn worship that it might be decently and reverently performed as appears by that most famous and solemn Passeover which he kept in this Chapter which was done by his command and to which he contributed upon his own charge super abundantly thirty thousand Lambs and Kids and three thousand great cattell 2 Chron. 35.7 So our Iosiah was a zealous furtherer of the publike and solemn worship of God that it might be performed with all holy devotion decency and reverence not negligently irreverently rudly and slovenly And which is to be pitied and with a fountain of tears to be lamented this his pious zeal for Gods house and worship and Ministers for the true Protestant Religion for the Church and its Patrimony and for the ancient and orderly Government and Discipline therof was the great crime that provoked the Sectaries to hasten his destruction 5. Iosiah was a King unblameable in regard of any notorious personal crime we find him not noted for any remarkeable personal evill as most of the former Kings had been fome are said to be good and some bad but the best of them had their naevus their spots and blemishes we read of Davids Adultery and of Solomons Idolatry but none was stamped upon Iosiah The greatest blemish I can possible discover in him was a little too much wilfulnesse his rash and unadvised rushing into that fattall battell at Megiddon for which the good man paid dear So our Iosiah was of unblameable life more entire and free from any notorious personal crime as searing drunkennesse whoredom or the like then most of the Kings before him no such like as these could be charged upon him even his most bitterest enemies could not taxe him had they espied any blemish no doubt we should have heard it again and again 6. Josiah was a Prince of a soft heart and a tender conscience Thine heart was tender and thou hast humbled thy self before me saith the Lord 2 King 22.19 So our Iosiah was of a soft heart and very tender conscience how did his conscience check and trouble him when by restless importunity he had yeelded compliance for plenary consent it was not as he said to the Act for the Earle of Straffords death which in his Iudgement and conscience he could not be satisfied was just by any clear Law he confesseth he did never bear any touch of conscience with greater regret How did he mourn like a Dove and complain of itin the bitterness of his soul How meekly did he mention it with griefe as the main thing troubling him at the time of his Martyrdom acknowledging that the giving way to an unjust sentence might besome cause that the Lord permitted such an unjust sentence to be executed upon him What is it that made him so firm and constant to uphold the Church in her just and ancient Rights Government and Patrimony but his tender Conscience which as also his Oath perswaded him that Epistcopacy with some smal regulations was most Ancient Universall Divine and Apostolical and therefore could not yeeld to the extirpation of that Government and to the alienation of the Church-revenues without wounding his conscience with some stain of perjury sacraledge and impiety This tendernesse of conscience and the immeasurable and unmercifull pressing him against it struck him to the heart and stuck nearer to him then any thing else as we find it at large in his wofull complaints uttered between God and his own soul in his Soliloquies This his tenderness of conscience was a clear evidence of a godly gracious and sanctified soul wicked and ungenerate men feel no such cheeks of conscience at sin Though sin be an unspeakable burden like a talent of lead yet the weight of it doth not trouble them so as to seek ease from the Lord. They complain not with David My sin is ever before me and mine iniquities are gone over my head and are like asore burden too heavy for me to bear The Philosophers observe that no Element is heavy in its own place in the Sea let a man be in the bottom of it although he hath the whole Sea on his back yet he feeles not the weight of it but let him take but a bucket full out of the Sea out of its place and then he shall feel how heavy it is So unregenerate