Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	great_a	king_n	kingdom_n	4,596	5	5.5955	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A94101	The subjects sorrow: or, Lamentations upon the death of Britains Josiah, King Charles most unjustly and cruelly put to death by His own people, before His Royal Palace White-Hall, Jan. the 30. 1648. Expressed in a sermon upon Lam. 4. 20. Wherein the divine and royal prerogatives, personall vertues, and theologicall graces of His late Majesty are briefly delivered: and that His Majesty was taken away in Gods mercy unto Himselfe, and for the certain punishment of these Kingdoms, from the parallel is clearly proved.	Brown, Robert, fl. 1668, attributed name.; Juxon, William, 1582-1663, attributed name.	1649 (1649)	Wing S6106B; ESTC R206110	26,786	95

which never was theirs to deny God which God gave them him to acknowledge and worship him These must needs be sorrowes and sufferings as beyond expression so above our conception most terrible tests and trials of all his virtues certainly no man had ever more and more strict examinations of Gods graces in him all which he fully answered with a learned and invincible piety for in all these who ever heard him murmure repine or charge God foolishly who ever heard him accuse raile at or threaten his most confirmed Foes with Job Job 16.20 his eyes still powred out tears unto God whose justice in their greatest injustice he acknowledged and although he vindicated his owne Innocency having wherwith to justisie homselfe before man from theirs yet not before God he cleared the equity of his judgement upon him for acting against his Conscience in the Earle of Straffords death But it was the great and crying guilt of these Nations sinnes Englands principally which made this righteous man fall into the pits of his Adversaries to ripen Gods judgment upon this Nation by that great addition of guilt the shedding of his innocent bloud who had so many characters of Gods supreme power and spirituall graces upon him as must needs make this Crime committed against God draw his speedy and unavoidable vengeance upon them for it God usually punisheth one sinne by suffering Sinners to fall into others and those customary sinnes accompanied with senslessnesse and impenitency which fills up the measure of sin brim-full for judgment to take it off so that this pious Prince fell in the very corruption of Christianity which is of farre more maligne aspect and hath a more malicious influence of impiety upon the actions of men then Atheisme it selfe for then men professe that they know God yet in their works they deny him using the name of God and Religion as Conjurers in their Incantations to perpetrate those things are most contrary unto God and destructive unto Religion for as the Devill never doth more hurt then when he appeares in the likenesse of an Angel of light so are men never so mischievous as when they drive on wicked designes under the shew of Godlinesse Englands former sins which caused this Gods just dereliction the abandoning them up unto greater were their exceeding luxury in turning the grace of God temporal favours into wantonnes the long continuance of their peace the increase of their Trade riches and plenty begot in them a generall insolency and pride so that whē they waxed fat like Jesurun they kicked against God in the Authority and regard due unto his principall Officers the Prince and the Priest Hence the people of England in their generality became self-willed heady high-minded and incorrigible they slandered the footsteps of Gods Anointed smote him with the tongue contended with Gods Priests and usurped that sacred Jurisdiction which God had delegated unto them as those Conspirators did Ye take too much upon you ye Sonnes of Levi since all the people of the Lord are holy under pretence of the Ambition of the Clergy and being like Elihu's new bottels ready to burst with that liquor of flatuous and superficiall knowledge instilled into 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 ease they adventure upon sacriledge 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 upō 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 Joh. 19.7 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 Vit. Const l. 4. c. 29. 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 Lam. 1.10 2.7 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 Jos Bell. Jud. l. 2. C●● 2. who called themselves 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 Lam. 2.14 4.13 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 1.5 and her Enemies prosper 5.8 Servants do bear rule over us and there is none to deliver us out of their hand 4.5 They that did feed delicately are desolate in the streets they that were brought up in scarlet embrace dunghils 5.12 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 5.16 King Charles is taken from us 1.9 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 1.7 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 her Laws her peace her riches her plenty her liberty at home and her protection and honour abroad 2.15 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 1.1 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 1.16 mine eye mine eye runneth down with wa●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 is 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 fiery Charriot Vi. Const l. 4. c. 73. 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 afficted 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 bespeaks 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 Lam. 5.21 22. 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

in Psal 118. In Ps 114. they never denyed them any duty of Subjection Saint Austustine witnesseth that this was the behaviour of the Christian Souldiers even under Julian the Apostata an Idolater When Maximus entred Italy with a great Army under pretence of restoring the Orthodox ejected by Valentinian who patronized the Arrians he was held by the Orthodox but for a Tyrant and was so far from receiving assistance from them that they overthrew him Sozom. lib. 7. cap. 13 14. and established Valentinian And as Unction is the divine seal of supreme power Indempnity Inviolability unto Kings so doth it likewise suggest unto them the duty of the Regall Administration towards their Subjects That as Oyle is of a spreading diffusive quality Psal 133.2 Lev. 19.15 So in the Prince is required Impartiality and Justice equally distributive unto all Luk. 10 34. Isa 3.7 As Oyle likewise hath in it a lenitive and healing vertue So should the Supreme Magistrate be an Healer and binder up of the wounds and sores of his Subjects Oyle hath in it also an especiall vertue to comfort and strengthen the parts unto which it is applyed So is a King the Minister of good unto his Subjects for good he is to cherish vertue to esteem honest and commendable Action in which sense are Kings stiled by our Saviour Rom. 13.4 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Benefactors Luke 22.25 Adde hereunto that Oyle is of a nourishing and cheering quality Psal 104.15 and taken as sustenance is of easie fine distribution causing a good and wholsome nutriment therefore it is reckoned among the principall blessings of a land so is the Grace and Countenance of a King of a nourishing and improving operation The Kings favour is like the dew upon the grasse Prov. 19.12 in which respect God promiseth unto the Christian Church that Kings should be nursing Fathers and Queens the nursing Mothers thereof Isa 49.23 Thus we see the many sacred Impressions of Divine Jurisdiction imposed by God himself on Kings through holy Unction whereby his Dominion over Mankind is delegated unto Kings the Lords Anointed God by this Symbole and outward signe agreeable and connaturall unto man consigning the ordinary exercise of his Government over Mankind unto them so that the holy Oyle thus employed is no longer bare and common Oyle Cyril Cat. 3. but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the gift of Grace which however vilified by Enthusiastiques and Solifidians betokens the Grace of Christ unto Kings and prescribes necessary submission and duty unto their Subjects We are not whatever phantastique men may presume so spirituall in this life but that we stand in need of outward representations to carry on our faith and hope unto things spirituall the greatest favours unto lapsed mankind are the Sacraments where the visible and corporeall Elements are the meanes to convey by faith spirituall graces and the whole benefit of Christs sufferings unto us the sublimated and metaphysicall Professours of our times endeavour too irreverent a close with Almighty God they will have no King but Christ no Unction but that of the Spirit which is not that sober peaceable Spirit that leadeth into all truth but the Spirit of giddinesse Job 32.18 Elihu's spirit the spirit of their belly which leadeth into all errour Carnal interests constraining them to shake off Gods Government in Princes to effect which the most compendious way is to throw all Ceremony which is unto Religion as the Scaberd unto the Sword to preserve it from the rust of contempt Cont. Faust Ma● l. 12. c. 11. as Saint Augustine speaks The sacred regards of Unction of King of Priest of Prophet of Churches of Tythes stand betwixt them and their sacrilegious ends they must be removed no railes or bounds must be set unto them they will up into the Mount and run the hazard if not of temporall flames Exod. 19.23 yet certainly without hearty repentance of the Everlasting burnings These men who will be solely swayed by the guidance of their own spirit which being as various as the severall tempers of the Continents it inhabits will make Religion full of uncertainties meerly imaginary and wholly depending upon the doubtfull Insufficiencies of mens weak Conceptions so that hereby the essentiall truths of Religion must needs daily decay the substance thereof be reduced into the smoake of every mans unbounded Fancy and the Christian faith will die by degrees But Unction puts Gods Dominion into the Kings hands that must not be resisted for it is the resisting of God himselfe It is the very language of the Holy Ghost unto the ten revolted Tribes 2 Chron. 13.8 Antiq. l. 9 c. 14. that they resisted the Kingdome of God in the hands of the Sonnes of David and Josephus assignes this the Cause of the subversion of them no memory of them being left The sedition saith he that they moved against Rehoboam establishing his Servant for their King was the originall of their mischiefs Ammon was a most wicked and idolatrous Prince yet God punished the Treason of his Servants against him 2 Kings 21.23 24. because he was Gods Anointed Many sacred regards are by Unction conveyed from God unto Princes great cause then had the Prophet and people of Judah to lament the death of their good King Josiah The Anointed of the Lord That he was fallen into their pits 3. Of whom we said Vnder the shadow of his wings we shall live among the Heathen King Josiah his regall prerogatives and personall vertues were a protection unto his people he was the fountaine of their liberty and safety The happinesse of Subjects depends upon the wel being of their Kings and the preservation of the Regall dignity is a sure pledge of Gods goodnesse the continuance of his favour unto a people for this cause is it that when the Apostle had exhorted that prayers should be made for all men 1 Tim. 2.1 as though this precept were too universall he reduceth it v. 2. unto Kings and adds the reason that ye may lead a quiet and peaceable life and for the same cause did the Prophet command the Israelites to pray for the King of Babylon Jer. 29. Nebuchadnezzar This consideration also made Davids Subjects apprice his life at so high a rate is not now thy life worth ten thousand of ours 2 Sam. 18.3 1 Sam. 15.17 The King is the Head of the people there is a sacred and neare relation betwixt them a disease or paine in the Head causeth a discrasie in the whole body an indisposition throughout all the members So the calamity and sufferings of the King affecteth every conscientious man in his Kingdome this honest zeale and pious sympathy between the Head the Members the King and the people made our Prophet and the men of Judah so passionately bewaile the losse of their good King Josiah they promised unto themselves a lasting security in this life Of whom we

them they lament and mourn with a great and grievous mourning 2 Chron. 35.24 All Judah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah a mourning wherein the whole Kingdom wore the blacks of sorrow a mourning renowned for the universal and sad solemnity thereof a mourning made the highest prescription of mourning the utmost bounds and confines of sorrow as the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the Zech. 11.1 valley of Megiddo where every family of the whole Kingdome distinguisht themselves by the variety and solitariness of their sorrow every family mourning apart the Princes of the bloud apart the Priests apart the People by their several Families apart and all their Wives apart every part of every Family having a several share in this general sorrow and a particular part in this common sadness and Lamentation for Josiah the Priest and Prophet Jeremiah he is the chief Mourner composeth Josiah's Funeral Elegies this Book of the Lamentations gives them unto the skilful Quire to chaunt forth he begins the first sad Note the Singing-men and Singing-women consort with him in the doleful plaints and all Judah and Jerusalem make up the sad Chorus in this general sorrow Just cause had every man in Judah and Jerusalem to mourn for Josiah's death since every mans sin had made way by a severall wound to take away Josiah's life and so must needs bear a share in the crying guilt of his bloud which nothing but a floud of penitent tears could wash away This makes every mans particular sorrow as several lines meet in the centre of the Text the common cause of their teeming grief The breath of our Nostails the Anointed of the Lord was taken in their pits of whom we said Vnder his shadow we shall live among the Heathen From these sacred Truths naturally flow these divinely informing Conclusions That a good Prince is the life of Religion Law and civill Conversation That Kings by holy Unction as by Gods visible deed and conveyance are invested with the supreme Authority Inviolability and Indempnity and therefore to think reverently of them consecrated with so many mysterious regards and relations the characters of Gods supreme jurisdiction over man That Vnction suggests unto Kings that duty they stand obliged in unto their Subjects in the impartial distribution of justice to heal them to comfort them to nourish them That a good King is designed by God a Protector of his Subjects and the Conservator of their Liberty Safety and Peace That the best King may be punished with the greatest temporall punishment for the sins of his Subjects That the Errors of Kings take their rise from their Subjects sins That God first taketh away a good King before he will bring judgments upon his Subjects That Gods violent 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 Vicarius Dei estis in regno vestro Antiq brit p. 5 Rex Vicarius summi Regis Leg. Ed. Reg. c. 17. Lamb. 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 See Jud. Jenk Lex Terrae 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 of 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 Nebo take a

THE SUBJECTS SORROW OR LAMENTATIONS Upon the Death of Britains JOSIAH KING CHARLES Most unjustly and cruelly put to Death by His own People before his Royal Palace White-Hall Jan. 30. 1648. Expressed in a SERMON upon Lam. 4.20 Therein the Divine and Royal Prerogatives Personal Vertues and Theological Graces of His late Majesty are briefly delivered AND ●●at His Majesty was taken away in Gods mercy unto Himself and for the certain punishment of these Kingdoms from the Parallel is clearly proved 2 Chron. 35.24 ●●d all Judah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah Isaiah 57.1 ●●e righteous perisheth and no man layeth it to heart 〈◊〉 merciful men are taken away none considering 〈◊〉 the righteous is taken away from the evil to come Euseb Pamph. vit Const m. l. 4. c. 57. ●resanè hunc Honorem adeptus est ut Dei Volunta●●te quod eo morte sepultum est tamen apud homines regnaret London Printed in the Year 1649. LAMENT 4.20 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 PUblick Calamities charge every man with a rate of sorrow proportionable unto the tenure of his Understanding put him upon a serious enquiry of the Causes and Consequences of them and exact from him a diligent provision of means to stop or divert them Calamity like the floud is now lifted up above our Earth and hath almost covered the highest Hills of our temporal felicity could our sorrow swell as high as that the sense of our present and impending miseries would drown us if we search into the causes of them we shall find those in our selves our sins their sad consequences are by so much the superabounding matter of our just fear by how much they go beyond our knowledge nay even conjecture and all our power to prevent them such is the inundation of miseries now prevailing over the three Kingdoms Would you see the head of these overflowing Cataracts this Text will make the discovery unto you 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 The Words are the ground-work and foundation on which the Prophet Jeremiah raised the whole sorrowfull structure of his Lamentations composed on the mournful Obsequies of the best of the Kings of Judah Josiah 2 Chron. 35.25 hurried away by a violent and unto all but himself untimely death made a mourning Ordinance for Israel Calvin and enjoyned as the signal expression of their grief and deep sense of the future numerous and unavoidable Calamities would by his death befall them Judah's sins having provoked God unto so speedy execution of those Judgements formerly denounc'd against them that they might not longer plead the priviledges of their Princes piety to reprieve their punishments 2 Kings 23.25 26 27. God removes this remora unto his justice their good King from them Lam. 2.6 that he might bring upon them the fierceness of his great wrath he plucks down their hedg and fence their devout Prince from them that he might rush in upon them by unexpected judgments to destroy them there lies not among all the files of sacred Records an evidence of so exemplary and princely Piety as King Josiah Like unto him there was no King before him that turned to the Lord with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his might according to all the Law of Moses neither after him arose there any like him yet the sins of his People drew upon him a violent death acknowledged worthy of a longer life the peoples sins put the religious and deserving Prince into the toyles of his persecuters they hunt after his precious life and he falls into their pits He who stood in the Gap to hinder the way of the Destroyer that bulwark that stood betwixt them and the furious batteries of Gods wrath was now torne down just cause then had the Prophet to fear the sharp assaults of Gods judgements ready to storm the Kingdome of Judah and to break out into this dolorous Lamentation as pointing at the spring and source of their sorrows and calamities The breath of our Nostrils c. How is the happiness of a Kingdom twisted with the welfare of a religious King how close doth the ruine of a people follow the loss of a pious Prince A good King is a Rampire and security unto his Kingdom that being slighted the destruction thereof is an easie undertaking yet who so apt to sap and undermine these their own fortifications as the people themselves foelices nimium bona si sua norint Sufficiently happy if they knew the things which belonged unto their welfare Sufficiently happy if they were not so industrious to make themselves unhappy Josiah was the best of Princes yet by the sinnes of his people pushed into the fatall pits of his Adversaries and his fall proves the utter destruction and downfall of the people themselves this Consideration makes them mourn for their deceased King weep Elegies and lament thus The breath of our Nostrils c. A spreading and thick Cloud whenee lasting showres of tears might continually descend That the breath c. The words not to torture them offer unto us two things First Gods Letters patents of the royall prerogatives and beneficiall priviledges granted unto King Josiah and that in these 3 eminent and significant expressions 1. He was the breath of their Nostrils 2. The Anointed of the Lord. 3. Of whom they said Under the shadow of his wings they should live among the Heathen Secondly there is the Nulling of these letters patents of Josiah He was taken in their pits God by a violent death reversed them The Prophet and people of Judah well knew the sacred and royal prerogatives of their deceased King yet acknowledge these glorious priviledges taken away by his death for their punishment The breath of our nostrils an high and emphatique expression borrowed from the chiefe and choicest work of the Creation Man Gen. 2.7 whom when God formed out of the dust of the earth he breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and he became a living Soul thus contriving within this trunk of dust and clay the inimitable hability of his own deity from him is this significant and effective operation in an inferior and remiss degree attributed unto his Vicegerent King Josiah that as in the natural body Life and all the animal faculties and principles of action owe their Original unto the infusion of Gods breath the Soul So a man a Subject considered in a politick respect hath the life of his Civil Constitution from the King and as the rational faculties planted in the Understanding Memory and Will are from the Soul so the religious actions of men refer their growth unto the Prince Rom. 13.3 in which respects is it that the King is termed 〈◊〉