wherein he shewes that they were Innovators for saith he Mat. 19.8 What ye now teach and professe was not from the beginning but ye by forsaking the old good way prescribed and by following the traditions and expositions taken up from your latter Rabbins you Mat. 15.3 6. have made the commandement of God of none effect and thereby v. 9. you teach for doctrines the commandements of men John 7.19 Moses did give you the auncient good Law which you would wrest and force against me yet none of you keepeth the Law A second generall pretended charge upon which they proceed to his condemnation is exprest John 11.48 If we let him alone all men will believe on him and adhere to him against us and so we may lose our place and Nation where we see plainly that salus Populi the safety and liberty of the People is their maine pretended cause which cause hath no other ground or bottome but that which themselves created for their owne wicked ends to wit some feares and jealousies that if we let Him alone the Nation will be destroyed and hereupon from this charge grounded upon their own disguised and counterfeit fears the whole Councell gives sentence it is expedient that he the one Man die for the People v. 50. To which I may reply as M. W. Sedgwicke one of the Armies Prophets in his Justice upon the Army p. 5. O ye Jewes ye miserably abuse this Maxime and the People too like a company of Deceivers and Mountebanks who talke of curing saving delivering while that they doe but waste spoyle and destroy the People and therefore all your swelling words are but as the attire of an Harlot whereby as you make your selves more vendible so you make your selves more abominable A third generall pretended charge against him we find Mark 15.2 He calls himselfe King and he that is so can be no friend to Caesar that is to the Conquerour and we John 19. are resolved and professe that we will have no other King hereafter but the Conquerour Caesar Will you now that I summe up the whole charge of these Jews against Ch the King Why the first part is That he is a Tyrant in that he hath endeavoured to change and destroy our Lawes thereby robbing us of our liberty which he traversed and denied Mat. 5.19 The second charge is He is a Traytour and an Enemy to the State for Luke the 23.2 he perverteth the Nation and that two waies 1. By forbidding tribute and power of Governing to the Conquerour 2. By calling himselfe their King The third charge is that his course tends to the destruction murder of the People which is implied in those words Joh. 11. We must not let him live but kill him lest the Nation perish Pardon I pray this one short digression while I become a Rehearser of what the Armies Remembrancer hath borrowed from Master Sedgwicke whom he calls the Armies justice These men are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Devils exquisite Accusers and such wicked Spirits are now abroad like those Ezek. 21.32 brutish men skilfull to destroy Brutish not sparing the holiest nor honourablest things Kings Lords Ministers Scripture Ordinances Oathes they lay all wast and yet in the greatest bruitishnesse And yet though there be the most sensuall and beastly confusion yet they will doe it artificially skilfully saying all is for God justice Religion and that they doe it by the power of Christ and the power of God in Religion And see saith he how old studied Professours of Religion when once their consciences are defiled and they begin to trade in the world with a pretence that it is for God they are so cunning that no bonds of honesty or faith can hold them and there can be no such compleat and very Knaves as a Jesuite and a Pharisee and how close these words come home to these Layers of this charge judge ye for they who are the onely Breakers of the Law accuse Him for destroying the Law and thereupon his charge is to be a Tyrant they have perverted the Nation and slaughtered the People whereby they incurre the name and guilt of Traytours and Murderers Matth. 22. Luke 7.52 and yet they charge him to be the Traytour Enemy to the State and Murderer but let this be remembred what there falls from them John 11.50 He must die for the People that is for our Laws and Liberties and so is become by his death your Martyr your Sacrifice and your Saviour Hitherto you have heard the Jewes feigned false unjust charge against Ch the King with a short vindication of him and a recrimination to them which that it may more plainly appeare be content I pray with a little more pleasing patience to be rightly informed what the reall true causes were which moved these accursed Jewes to so horrid an act as to kill Ch the King And the generall leading cause is in one word that they are Hypocrites a Generation of Vipers Sonnes of Belial Children indeed of the Devil for so Ch told them John 8.44 Ye are of your Father the Devill he was a Murderer from the beginning and the lusts and the works of your Father ye will doe and therefore from such a viperous generation and Devilish brood what can be expected lesse then murder And from this source see another cause bubling as it were for when they perceived and found that he spake as never man did John 7.46 2ly That he did all things well Marke 7.37 yea wonderfully well John 11.45 and that by these meanes the People loved believed and adhered to him John 11.48 which they by no means would have had the People perceived or done these rare endowments and virtues like the glorious rayes of the Sunne upon putrified matter worke and beget the poysonous Brats of envie hatred and malice and thereupon and therefore as it is Mat. 27.18 Marke 15.10 for envie they delivered or betrayed him to death A third reall cause that although they knew by experience that Ch the King in his life was so tender and meek that he studied the saving of all that would not wilfully perish and so patient and mercifull at his death that he forgave and prayed even for his Murderers yet the guilt of their hate malice and murder against him was of so deep a staine that they could not that they would not believe either and therefore as their elder Brother Cain they crying out Our sins are greater than he can forgive us can find no other way to save or secure themselves but by his death and this is a reall maine cause why these bloudy Jewes did kill Ch the King A fourth reall cause may be conceived that he was their King not by their election and free will but by the Title of an Heire for so Mat. 21. before they resolved to kill him they premised this is the Heire so that though his other graces and virtues might have preserved him as a Man yet
to dale not suffering him to rest and not leaving him a safe hold wherein to lay his head for so Ch the King complaines that they had cast him into a condition worse then that of Birds or four footed Beasts when he saith Matth. 8.20 The Foxes have holes and the Birds of the aire have nests but the Sonne of man hath not where to lay his head 3. And was it not a spightfull usage of a King to be led into the common judgment Hall by a Band of rude Soldiers who not long before had been attended by the Best crying as he went Hosanna blessed be or God save the King 4. And was it not a spightfull usage of a King when he was in this common Hall to countenance set on and to hire the scumme of the People or rascallity of the Soldiers to call out for Justice and Execution when they cried Crucifie crucifie him Luke 23.31 5. Was it not a spightfull usage of a King when as he the King speaks to them in mild and civill language as to Judas Mat. 26.50 Friend or Sir but they to him as Mat. 26.61 this Fellow the Prisoner 6. Was it not a spightfull usage of a King to carry him out to Golgotha there to suffer in an open place which was more fit for the baiting of Beasts than the decolling of a King 7. Lastly was it not a spightfull usage of a King not to afford him a Sepulcher or place of Buriall but he must be beholding even for this to another man and yet thus spightfully was Ch the King used My heart bleeds to thinke of their mockings and spightfull usage of their most blessed King and will leave them to be inlarged by our owne Meditations and for a brief close of this scene shall onely say that as a King may so this King was killed by these Jewes before he was slain or put to death and K. David shewes how when be saith Psal 55.21 Psal 59.7 their tongues are swords Psal 140.3 they are poyson of Serpents Killers all these so that calumny slander if it be not the first degree it is a step I am sure to kill a King and here with these weapons they first set upon Ch the King calling him Samaritan John 4. Perverter of the Lawes Deceiver c. And spit on A man may be said figuratively to be spit on when by Declarations Remonstrances Pamphlets or scurrilous terms he is reproachfully and uncivilly entertained and so Ch the King was shamefully most unjustly spit upon when they proclaimed him a Deceiver of a trust John 19.29 a Traytour by perverting the People and drawing them to destruction and in this sense they might truly be said to spit upon Ch the King But not onely this they did which was too much and more dangerous then what was after done by the Soldiers who did vomit out their excrementitious froth upon him of whom I may repeat a passionate expostulation or holy indignation once used by a Preacher on this occasion What rheumatick Raskals said he were these Soldiers for had they or could they find no place to disgorge the scumme of their ulcerous lungs but on the Anointed of the Lord All that I can say for these is they were not onely Soldiers but barbarous Heathens that did this and yet if report be true there hath not wanted even among such as professe themselves Christians such a Soldier who hath done the like to his King and if any such were let him repent in time lest God in justice spew him out of his mouth as it is said Apoc. 3.16 or that he spit not poure out to the dregs the full vialls of his wrath and indignation upon him and all such as have mocked spightfully entreated and spit on Ch the King In the 20 of S. John v. 5. we read that when Pilat a Stranger an Heathen and an Idolater had seen and presented the King thus spightfully entreated he said to the bloud-thirsty-miscreant Jewes Behold the Man as if he had said See how disgracefully and wickedly you have used him already and therefore if you have any sparke of manhood left in you for humanity sake proceed no further but behold him as an object of all pity a deserted afflicted scorned spitefully-used man but the sight of this man which would have melted the eyes of a savage Tiger into water hardens them as rocks and prompts them on to the increase of his misery and their owne vilany for seeing him even then and so miserable then they say as Mat. 21. Come let us without delay not granting time or reprieve let us kill him for so it followes in the story in the Text for they shall kill him But before we enter upon this bloudy act it will be proper and pertinent to the whole to set downe the severall grounds and causes moving these Traytours thereunto which we shall clearly collect and expresse as we find them storied in the Gospels And these were either pretended such as themselves fained and held forth as causes or such as were really and truly the motives and causes of this their killing Ch the King Now the causes pretended we find to be First that which is generally used in raising the People into a Rebellion the Innovation Alteration or Destruction of Religion and with this the Jewes closely charged him Mat. 5.17 where Christ himself by way of Answer saith Thinke or say not that I am come to destroy the Law or the Prophets I am not come to destroy but to fulfill and in that Chap. he instanceth and proves that they by their owne Expositions and Traditions were the Innovators and himself the keeper of the Law of Moses and of the Prophets And after this when they thought him too strict in the point of reverence in the Temple in that he drove out the Prophaners thereof Mat. 21.12 which they conceived was lawfull for them to doe No saith he for God himselfe saith of this materiall Temple or Church My house shall be called an house of prayer but You you have made it a den of Thieves or a Stable and place for theft and prophanation 2. They charge him often and with loud out-cries that in the matter of Sabbath-keeping he is too loose and a Prophaner thereof to which he Answers that themselves are in this Jewishly superititious and not he the Prophaner for saith he Marke 2.27 The Sabbath is made for man that is for the preservation of man by necessary actions and recreations conducing to his life and health on that day 3. They closely charge him with abridging them the liberty of Divorces upon any cause which they said was granted them by Moses Mat. 5. Mat. 19. No saith he it is not I but you that alter the Law in this for Mat. 5.32 Whosoever shall put away his Wife saving for the cause of Fornication causeth her to cōmit Adultery but to this whole charge he gives one general answer
this alone shall destroy him for being their naturall rightfull born King for such Jewes will never serve and obey any but either a Conquerour who holds them to it by dint of Sword or some tame Creature who will serve their turnes and obey their wills But the fifth cause comes nearer home to the root of all and that is exprest John 11.48 If we let him alone suffer him to live and not kill him some Forreigners Romans will come and take away our place we have now a toleration for our Religion any Sect is free in Gods service and worship to chuse and professe what he will be he Pharisee Sadducee or other and we have yet an Anarchy no Government but that of the Conquerour who so long as we honour humour and feed him and his leaves us to wallow in all sinnes as we lust whereas if this Ch the Anointed live and get the power be we Scribe Pharisee Presbyter yea the whole Councell he will not suffer or endure this but will take away our places our usurpt power and authorities and therefore in the next vers 49. Ye know nothing at all and ver 50. nor doe ye consider that it is expedient he the one man idie their feare of losse is the first immediate reall cause of their killing Ch the King The second last immediate fundamental cause of his death is their desire and hope to get and hold all the Power Authority which is the Kings and so we find it Mat. 21.8 This is the Heire let us kill him and let us seize on his inheritance Saint Luke hath it that the inheritance fiat may become ours which S. Marke expresseth by erit and then certainly it shall and will be ours none when he is dead can keep us from it so long as we hold in which we will alwaies doe with Caesar the Conquerour and now believe this to be as true as Gospel it selfe is that pretend the Jewes change of Religion destruction of Lawes losse of Liberty or what else to be the cause of killing the King all are but forged feigned and held out to deceive the people and blind the world for this habebimus is the cause when all is done We will kill Ch the King and so seize on his inheritance For this habebimus we will have is the largest Commander and the greatest Sinner in the world the intention plot and action of every mans ends in having his pleasure his profit and his will is the Devils first seed-plot and is the commotion or confusion of all for what is the Rulers study but to have his power enlarged what the Inferiours plea but to hold or encrease his liberty whereas could any Generall Councell determine and make it durable what every man should have all would soone be at peace whereas so long as this one Verbe we will have raignes in the Superiour and rageth in the Inferiour say what we will we can expect no better then Kill kill that we may have And as by inheritance in this Gospel Mat. 21. was primarily and principally meant the inheritance of the Vineyard which Vineyard Isa 5. Cant. 2. is expounded to be the Church so having the Church inheritance first brought the doctrine of killing into the Church quid vultis dare is the Jewes question in this case omnia haec is the Devils answer and such a dialogue betwixt the Devil and a Jew for the Church inheritance is enough to bring Ch the King to his death that the Jew by the Devils help may have the inheritance of the Church which rather then Ch the King would surrender up unto them it being his rightfull inheritance and committed to his trust by God himself he would rather suffer this ignominious death and for this he deserves to be everlastingly Chronicled as the Churches nursing Father Patron Protector and Martyr in that he was killed in defence of the Church But these Jewes and Conquerours betwixt them even while they speake this let us kill that we may have have that inheritance in their power and possession already what need they then kill the King that they may have what they have but having oftentimes as here now begets more then a bare having and therefore the Greek word in S. Matth. c. 21. is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is that we may hold it as we have got it by force the Sword and bloud for sinne and this sinne especially of forcible entrance will not easily be led out of its old track the Whore in the Apoc. c. 17. having tasted and delighted her self with bloud will not cease from swilling more till she be drunke with the bloud and that bloud not of the coursest or most common but the purest the holiest the bloud the Saints in the Church unjust Purchasers be it of Christs inheritance never think of restitution but retention how to hold it as they got it by the sword by bloud yea by the bloud of the rightfull Heire Ch the King So much the word in the originall will easily beare without much force and I conceiue somewhat more that is Let us kill him that we may have and hold more then what we yet have or more then ever he had let us never leave killing till we have all as much as our eyes can see or our hearts desire for ambition and usurpation are violent and greedy which like the Daughters of the Horse-leech are still gaping and crying Give give and more more yea of bloud and never think themselves full till they breake with fulnesse of bloud I shall end this point with this one short observation Ch the King like a Monarch whose institution was from Heaven heavenly held his inheritance Church and all in one single Person but these Husbandmen the Jewes liked not this though they thrived best under it but they will have it among themselves no more Monarchy by a King and Princes of the People but a pure Democracy though that the worst and the basest of all Governments it is like the Acephali which have faces of men in their brests but without an head such a Monster it is and yet this for the present pleaseth us and therefore we wil kill him the onely true Heire and rightfull King that we the people may have the inheritance but I must and cannot but tell these men that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is more antient then these Jewes and the Scepter in the hand of one is more steady and upright then in the hands of many and as we find one soule to governe one body and when it leaves to be one the body is dissolved so we may observe that the greatest Empires that ever were grew great by Monarchy which soone crumbled away when shared among the many in Gods name let all that love peace and unity crie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 let us have one King and away with habebimus we the many will have the inheritance and governe for
ejected and cast him forth by their Law their sin had been the lesse but first to kill him and that upon his owne ground his own Vineyard and then after that to cast him out and declare against him and his title for ever thereby to take and hold the inheritance to themselves is but to lay the foundation of their Babel in the bloud of Gods Anointed their lawfull rightfull King and so to strengthen one sin by another worse which Gods justice will not suffer long to prosper lest the wicked should thinke God altogether such an one as themselves Psal 50.21 and therefore the Prophet in the same Psalme subjoynes but I will reprove thee and in the forementioned Gospel after that they had killed and cast him forth it presently followes in the next words v. 9. God the Lord of the Vineyard will come and destroy the unjust bloudy Actors and will give the Vineyard to others And should not this move a Iew to tremble and repent it had this operation by the mercy of God on many of them as it appeares Acts 2.37 for they hearing Saint Peter to open their sin they were pricked in their hearts and said what shall we doe that is to be saved to which the Apostle applies a double counsell the first v. 38. repent and the second v. 40. save your selves from and no longer be seduced and deluded by this untoward Generation which Christ Mat. 23.33 calls a Generation of Vipers which will eat out the bowels of those who give them their life And the execution ended let me put you in mind how the people were affected therwith which is exprest Luk. 23.48 where it is said and all the people beholding the things that were done smote their breasts and now oh ye people having in this sad discourse or short history beheld what hath been done to the Anointed of the Lord Ch the King the least that ye can doe and to this I must exhort you is to smite your brests and yet as Ch himselfe taught Luke 23.28 Weep not for me but weep for your selves so beat not your brests for me but beat them and repent you of your sinnes committed against Heaven and me which were the cause of my death and will be your destruction if in time you repent not And weep not beat not your brests for me for it is come to passe as in the words following the Text it was prophesied He shall rise againe 2. He shall ascend and for an earthly ignominious Crowne he shall receive an Heavenly glorions one 3. And throughout the world where the Gospel is preached and further this shall be spread which hath been done by the Jewes to Ch the King And thus the Tragicall Acts being ended on the Sufferers side the Actors there are now to be made Sufferers in another Tragedy for the Tragedy ends not in the bloud of Him in the Text Ch the King but calls for bloud more bloud the bloud of these Jews for if the bloud of Abel which living and animated could not speake yet being wickedly shed receives a voice to be heard as high as Heaven then much more this bloud of Ch the King the Text speaks it Mat. 21.41 God will miserably destroy them and will let out his Vineyard to others In this Tragedy there are but two Acts 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is set down Mat. 21.40 but in them a destruction threatned he will destroy 1. Personally them 2. Nationally their Vineyard or Church 3. Both totally not by letting the Vineyard or People out for a time but by alienating or giving utterly away them and it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to others that is Aliens or Strangers Neither was this long in acting for Judas the Arch-Traytor either before or soone after the death of his Master whom he had betrayed hanged himself and so payed himselfe his owne wages and that without all pity or regard of those Jewes for whose sake he betrayed his Lord for they said what is that to us Mat. 7.4 or what care we Go and be hang'd 2. Pilat the Judge not long after the execution of Christ whom he sentenced was put out of his place was exiled his Country and killed himselfe 3. Caiphas and Herod died through misery or violence 4. Many of the Jewes who were alive at that time of Christs suffering lived to see the great City Jerusalem destroyed 1100000. at least of their Country men slaughtered and all the rest of them either to be captivated by their Enemies or to be scattered over the face of the earth and to this day to live as Vagabonds odious to all and pitied of none And lastly so it came to passe that as severall Factions conspired together to kill Ch the King so it pleased God to blind these Jewes at the time of the Roman Siege that the one part of them were zealous for the Temple the Church another part who cared not much for the Church yet were willing to have a good peace on reasonable termes but the third part who were all for robbing spoiling killing and therefore regarding neither Church nor State put all in such a confusion and combustion that the Romans became Conquerours more by the Jewes divisions than by their owne Armes And lastly whereas these Jewes pretended three speciall causes why they would put Ch the King to death 1. Lest by his life the Romans should invade and change their Lawes 2. Lest their Nation should perish 3. Lest the People should believe and follow him All these pretended feares as leading causes to his death are by Gods righteous judgment soone after brought upon them for the conquering Romans did invade and change their Lawes 2. Did destroy City and Country 3. And the People farre and neare both of Jewes and Gentils have believed on and followed this Christ the crucified King And thus oft-times God crosseth mans policy turning the edge and point of his owne weapons upon himselfe we have found it so done to the Brethren of Joseph to Pharoh to Achitophel to Jeroboam and thousands more and here saith the Jew It is expedient that our King die lest the Nation perish and God saith the Nation shall perish because ye have wickedly murdered your King And thus we see God to be an upright Judge in the execution of his owne antient Law-given Gen. 9.6 Who so sheddeth mans bloud by man shall his bloud be shed 2. A strict Defender of his inherent prerogative as it is written vengeance is mine 3. A faithfull Performer of his covenanted promise I will revenge saith the Lord Rom. 12.19 we read Acts 5.11 that upon the judgement executed on Ananias and Saphira the Text saith and great feare came upon all the Church and upon as many as heard these things and I pray God the like feare may touch our hearts and worke in them a timely and hearty repentance that God in his mercy may avert all judgments which deservedly are threatned to fall upon us and this Land and this let us humbly beseech God to grant for the passion and mediation of his onely Son and our alone Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus FINIS