and Protection I shall farther observe Thirdly That God watches over some Cities with a peculiar and distinguishing care We begin with the First I. That the care of the Watchman is not alone sufficient to keep the City which is very evident 1. Because the Watchmans care is not sufficient to keep himself except the Lord keep him he stands in a very unsafe place and is likely to make but ill work of it Had Man continued in a state of Innocence there would have been but little need of government For where love and universal Benevolence had been the general practice of the World and the only prevailing ambition who should be most kind most beneficial There would have been no need of the Magistrate to decide the quarrels of Love no use of the Sword to punish where there were no faults or injuries Apparent therefore it is that sin brought into the World the use of an armed Magistrate When mens appetites grew irregular and boundless and reason was not sufficient to restrain then something more sharp and terrifying was requisite to check the outrages and villany of fools and madmen But herein lay then the infelicity of Mankind had God left them to themselves that very sinfulenss of nature which made Government necessary render'd man unfit to govern For impossible it is that he should govern others well who has not first obtain'd the government of himself the dominion over his own passions For if a Prince take his lusts with Him into the Throne what mischief then will naturally insue the history of those Nations will inform us where out of judgement to the people God has left such a Prince to the wildness of his own spirit Little are most men aware how much corruption lies lurking in their natures and what great enormities they might be guilty of did God but place them in suitable temptations and leave them to the conduct of their own foolish hearts It is a common observation how much the sentiments of men usually change with the alteration of their condition Tu si hic sis aliter sentias Then was then and now is now Many mens vertues hold out pretty well in a private life where they meet with few or but vulgar temptations which would miserably fail them were they more exposed to stronger assaults This admonishes us therefore not to be over-confident of our own integrity and present resolutions and to cast a mantle over the miscarriages of those above us who stand at difficult posts and in slippery places perhaps where they trip we should have fallen When the Prophet had by divine inspiration acquainted Hazael 2 Kin. 8.12.13 what a villain he would prove He astonish'd at the ugly character of himself rejected it with abhorrency but the Prophet to make good his charge only told him Thou shalt be King over Syria such an alteration of condition if by God not duly qualified for the high Office was enough to make him do he knew not what what He could not at present believe true of himself The necessary Royalties of a Crown do carry a violent temptation with them That high Honour that Sovereign Authority and Power and those large Revenues which are requisite for the ends of government to be invested in the person that manages it are not themselves to be duly managed but by a mind extraordinarily fitted by the Father of Gifts and Graces Small men have many restraints upon them to keep them within due bounds The lash of the Law the frown and rebuke of their Superiours the fear of blasting their reputation and hopes of preferment The narrowness of their Fortunes may be a check to many not well perhaps affording the necessary expences of vice for many vices are costly at least if enjoy'd to the best advantage But to a Prince vice comes ready drest set off with all the witchcraft that cursed art and wealth can furnish it withall Nature is rack'd to treat him with the most luscious and exalted pleasures He is continually courted with gaudy temptations improved to the utmost by the Devils care and industry for it is his master-piece to debauch a King the greatest interest of his Kingdom so many are the ill consequences of it Add to this that He is free from most of the common restraints of other men the many hellish instruments also that He has about him to provoke and inflame his appetites none to check or curb them So that if He be not caught in the snares it is a sign He has a good keeper To what insufferable pride would his high Honour inflame the minds of meaner men To see all the World to stoop and bow before Him and caress him with awful solemnity would be a strange poison to a common soul it would infect it with giddiness and a most absurd vanity It requires a mind rarely well pois'd fortified with sovereign antidotes to preserve it self untainted from the most subtle penetrating charms of praise and flattery But above all his temptations methinks his necessary power is a most dangerous weapon nothing seems harder for man than to use great power well Never to oppress the Innocent or justifie a bad cause by might argues a generous mind a Soul free from corrupt prejudice or partial affection Great power is only fit for God or for those that are like Him that have Wisdom and Goodness to govern it Power and ill nature are the essential qualities of a Devil It is not in man Necessary it is therefore that the Watchman be taught of God to use his sword aright That the Vicegerent bear the Image of his God as well in his gracious qualities as in his Authority 2d. The care of the Watchman is not alone sufficient to keep the City because his best care cannot be commensurate to his work It is too great it exceeds his abilities it transcends the natural power and reach of his Faculties So various are the affairs of a Kingdom as that they even overwhelm an humane understanding It must be always upon the rack distracted with perpetual cares and thoughtfulness how to remedy this evil prevent that threatning danger His own understanding as humane is subject to infirmities and mistakes and of what boundless ill consequence may a mistake prove in matters of such high importance where the interfering interests of so many thousands are wrapt up His own eye was it infallible cannot be every were He must for the most part see with other mens eyes and they may deceive Him In his circumstances it is hard not to be deceiv'd Some men out of their own ignorance or mistake deceive Him others out of designe As his eye so neither can his hand be every where to execute his purposes Instruments therefore He must have but honesty is not always ingraven in the lines of the face It is therefore a difficult matter for a Prince to know his Friend and who is fit to be trusted Let him be never so wise
over us especially in stormy times when the Kingdoms of the Earth are under such violent concussions But how shall we do to insure our God to us We have heard of some who have chain'd their gods to their Pedestals that they might not depart from them A conceit suitable enough for Idol gods what ever need there was of it But ours is an Almighty God no material chains can hold Him But yet by our devotions and obedience the Almighty himself may be secured So powerful was Moses in this kind that God is pleas'd to express Himself as struggling to get loose from those fetters that holy Mans prayers had cast upon Him Let me alone saith God that my wrath may wax hot against this people Exod 32.10 2. If God be King it will concern us to own Him in his Authority to honour his Name observe his Laws and punish those that transgress them For if sinners are suffer'd to go unpunish'd sin then becomes National The Magistrate himself shares in the guilt and the whole body stands obnoxious to the Divine vengeance When vice is grown impudent it is then fit only for the Magistrates rebuke and the great King will severely require it at their hands if they be not faithful to their trusts Those that are ashamed of Him and his Cause of such He has declared that He will be ashamed before his Father and the holy Angels Luk. 12.9 The Laws of God are the Laws of the Kingdom let Magistrates look to the Crown and Scepter from whence they receive their Commission they will find the Cross there advanced the Badge of Him who is our Kings King and from whom all Authority is deriv'd 3. We have seen that if God has a more particular regard for any Nation it is for the sake of his Church and true Religion amongst them The Church is the Palladium the safeguard of the State the best way therefore to secure the State is to preserve the Church in its purity and so conformable to the primitive pattern as God may know it to be his own Church and not be provoked to remove his Candlestick from us Tho' the Spiritual curse thereof would not perhaps be much regarded by harden'd sinners yet let such know that the Temporal Guard and Fence of the Nation goes along with the Candlestick and God leaves such a Nation to its own confusions or the ravage of its Enemies History and experience abundantly confirm this When the Jews forsook God God forsook them The Angel of the presence departed out of the Temple with a loud voice saying Let us be gone hence Jos de Bel. Jud. L. 7. c. 12. as their own Historian informs us And then presently follow'd that fearful destruction such remarkable vengeance as never was the like from the foundation of the world nor shall be till the day of Judgement We might call in for witness all those Countries where Christianity once flourish'd places which were once famous in History and renown'd but since their degeneracy and falling off from the faith they have continued for many years in obscurity and slavery and their Countries in great measure desolated are become an habitation for Thieves and Robbers for Owls and Jackals To be sure the more we have been Gods favourites the worse will our condition be when he comes to cast us off Nothing provokes more than despised favours You only have I known of all the families of the earth therefore will I punish you for all your iniquities punish you with an emphasis Amos 3.2 What the measure of a Nations iniquities is I know not He only can tell who knows how far He will be pleas'd to extend his own mercies Most certainly where the light of the Gospel shines brightest the date of Mercy will soonest there be out if not complied with If so I am afraid we may read our own destiny and I almost tremble to enquire into it Tho' my self an unworthy Member of the Order I must do my brethren that right as to own that the Gospel of Christ was never since the Apostolick age more substantially and usefully preach'd than in this our age and Nation and the Press too did never more abound with pious and discreet practical discourses And yet to our horrid shame never did wickedness more abound and this not common wickedness for it is not enough now to be wicked except it be in a way of triumph over Religion Vice insults amongst us it is the part of virtue to blush and sneak The Devil seems to be here trying his master-piece and shewing to what heighth he can possibly advance his Kingdom of darkness in the midst of the greatest Gospel light as tho' it were his ambition to nose God in his own Kingdom where Christ appears most of all to reign and to bid defiance to Him so impudently do's vice rage in our streets Scarce do's a good Man now dare to venture into a mix'd company for fear of having some horrid oath or some hellish curse belch'd into his face it is great odds but he hears the name of God presently blasphem'd or some lewd dull jest upon a sacred text of Scripture or some such filthy discourse as Sodom would have blush't at And as tho' Comorrha and all that cursed Sisterhood were sprung again out of their ashes and transplanted into England we may see bargains for lusts driven in our streets and the family-whore as publickly own'd perhaps jointur'd as the wife And do not these things call aloud for some speedy remedy For the Cities sake for God the keeper of the Cities sake we begg it And yet this is not all tho' a wicked life be the worst of Heresies yet to carry on all the despite that Hell can possibly manage against God our Age and Nation grows now also infamous for the greatest Heresies The conceited grinning Atheist laughs at the belief of a God and scornfully pities the Psalmist for taking him for a fool For great is the power of a jest in some heads neither good sense or reason can stand against it The malice of others is particularly bent against the Son of God for attempting to save them from eternal perdition some under the title of Theists deny his being and deny his Gospel as a Fable others make Cabals against His Godhead and upon one pretence or other the whole blessed Trinity is scoffed at as a Monster And all this besides a swarm of innumerable croaking Sects amongst us who have some of them destroy'd all difference between good and evil and have weeded the most frantick opinions and wildest dreams into their Religion And dare we still plead our priviledge with God as His Church and claim the right of being his favourites All our hope then is That there are still some righteous left in Sodom some who stand in the gap who by their prayers and tears in secret do screen the Nation from vengeance do wrestle with God and prevail not to cast us yet out of His protection To conclude Lastly If God keep the City with what confidence may a good people triumph in their keeper Let them but take care to continue His favour to them what can in reason affright or dismay them Fear of any thing besides God seems inconsistent with the Christian faith even in the midst of the most pressing eminent dangers Peter was sharply rebuked as one of little faith Matt. 14.31 for fearing when just sinking almost swallowed up by the Sea Their case cannot be desperate or without remedy who have a God engaged to rescue and defend them Nothing but sin can be the ruine of such a people as Achior wisely told Holofernes It is in vain to assault them Judith 5.20 21. if their God be not first angry with them it is kicking against the pricks Happy are the people that are in such a condition blessed are the people who have the Lord for their God In perpetual triumphs they securely live rejoycing in the Lord always Nothing to cloud the serenity of their minds nothing to disturb the cheerfulness the gaiety of their humours nothing to damp the briskness of their delights their full satisfaction in their God and Patron Let them but pray and Kings with their Armies fly and they divide the spoil They only stand still and see the Salvation of their God in the confusion of their Enemies They as upon a safe shore sit viewing those storms with which the world is toss'd spectators of the destruction and calamities of sinners and approving of Gods righteous Judgments but the name of their God is to them a strong Tower They run to it and are safe Under their Vines and Fig-trees they entertain themselves with songs of praise and thanksgiving telling their pleasant stories of all Gods wonderful works and mighty deliverances Rejoycing always in His Salvation and in the name of their God setting up their Banners Thus is it with the City which God keeps so shall it be with the people which the King of Kings delights to honour Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost As it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be world without end Amen FINIS
A SERMON CONCERNING National Providence Preach'd at the ASSIZES Held at AILESBURY IN BUCKINGHAMSHIRE March 13. 1693 4. By AB CAMPION D. D. Rector of Monks Risborough Bucks Printed for Anthony Piesley Bookseller in OXFORD An. Dom. 1694. TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE Sir JOHN HOLT LORD CHIEF JUSTICE OF ENGLAND AND One of their Majesties most Honorable Privy Council MY LORD WIthout leave I presume to prefix Your Lordship's Name to this Discourse That it was Preach'd I my self stand accountable but that it was Printed It has Nothing to justify it but Your Lordship's Command whom nothing can or do's resist For the greatest Obscurities of the Law It s most sullen difficulties scatter before Your Lordship's Eye as the Clouds before the Sun The most intricate knotty Cases You untye with that Ease and Dexterity as that they seem of themselves to open It is not in You to cut or force It consists not with that sweetness of Temper by which You so charm all You have to deal with as that You seem most deservedly to inherit that Glorious Title of the Great Vespasian of being the Darling of Mankind For the very Curse of the Law You manage with that Tenderness and Indulgent Affection as even that the Condemn'd go away satisfied if not pleas'd That I might not therefore appear the only stubborn Thing in Nature I submit and subscribe my Self My Lord Your Honors most humble and obedient Servant AB CAMPION A SERMON Preach'd at the Assizes c. 127. PSALM I. Except the Lord keep the City the Watchman waketh but in vain A GREAT and pregnant truth that deserves to be fix'd as a Motto to every Charter It holds good in what ever sense we take the word City It is true of all sorts of Societies greater or less families or Empires From the little dirty Prince of a Cottage to the proudest Monarch that stiles himself King of Kings and Lord of the whole Earth of Him especially most true so disproportionate are his abilities to the weight of his burthen that except the Lord uphold Him He is undone It may perhaps be thought an unnecessary undertaking to prove or vindicate an overruling Providence The world has generally appear'd in some measure sensible of it but yet it must be said that it seems to have had but a disturb'd Possession in the minds of Men sometimes confess'd sometimes doubted of or disputed against but almost always practiced against The Epicurean was loth to put his God to the trouble of looking after the World thinking all happiness to consist in a slothful ease and having nothing to do like some Men of Quality and Fortune conceiving all business a profess'd enemy to enjoyment and a mark of Honour to be useless The Stoick made his God a servant to something or rather nothing He knew not what but call'd it Fate But to put the best interpretation his Fate seems capable of He represented his God so tying up his own hands by his own positive peremptory Decrees as that he thereby destroy'd if not all Providence yet all Religion i. e. all such Providence as is the true foundation of Religion For if it were true that God took such an original care of all his Creatures as from the beginning to appoint every one his portion by an irreversible Decree what ever thanks may be due from such who have a prosperous beneficial lot in this World yet as the Roman Orator well argued it seems in vain to pray to or implore the aid and assistance of their God in times of danger or distress if all things were from the first sullenly fix'd so as not to have left to Himself liberty to succour the oppressed reward the good or punish the wicked To which the Apostle assents as a thing fundamentally requisite to all Religion Heb. 11.6 That whosoever would come unto God must believe that He is a Rewarder of such as diligently seek him Some there are who under the Name of Fortune have fallen very foul upon Providence For this they must mean if any thing If Fortune be not a meer name a fancy a word without sense an Invisible overruling Power must be understood thereby which is the Providence we contend for But yet how infamously do's she stand branded for her blindness her levity and inconstancy her rashness madness and what not So do fools under this feign'd Name curse their God and reproach his Wisdom Because they are kept strangers to the Councels of the Most High and discern not therefore the true reason of events the affairs of the World appear to such short-sighted Creatures as a meer jumble of action and heap of uncertainties This tempted the wise Philosopher to exclude the Providence of God from things done under the Moon and had the things above the Moon been contrived according to his foolish scheme he might much more justly have excluded Him thence too But among Christians it is hoped there is little need of vindicating the Providence of God Truly if such I may call all those who have been baptized into the Faith in no Age has the Being and Providence of God been more derided and scoffed at than in this For God governs the World now in a spiritual manner not by visible appearances of Angels or messages of Prophets His foot-steps are only to be discern'd by the eye of Reason and Faith He works by second causes and under them lies conceal'd from careless or perverse minds that will not see His Finger is only to be discried by their admirable concurrence and wonderful effects beyond the power of any visible cause Such is the Art of God or stupid blindness of Man that He that do's All things is by vulgar eye seen to do Nothing But even among the better sort of Christians we may observe the sense of God's Providence to be very weak and faint For were it heartily believ'd what mean the bleatings of the sheep whence those impatient complaints in times of Calamity or Affliction Why so dejected because the Clouds gather blackness Why do's the heart ake the Countenance wax pale at every evil tiding if they are verily perswaded that they are in the hands of God a good God their best Friend and that nothing can befall them but what He ordains or permits what He knows and observes and that no danger can be so great but that He has Power and Wisdom sufficient and Goodness too to extricate them out of the difficulty This Doctrine heartily believ'd would work its wonders Let us proceed therefore to view it and its influence from the words I have read Except the Lord keep the City the Watchman waketh but in vain Which words do naturally afford these Heads for the subject of our discourse First That the care of the Watchman is not alone sufficient to keep the City Secondly That therefore it is to the Lord that the City ows its safety And to excite us to render our selves fitter Objects of Gods care
this immediate care yet reason will drive us to Him at last But what ever are the conceits of vain Philosophy or the more vain Philosopher who idlely dreams of building a World without a God yet Scripture the infallible Philosophy assures us that the great God do's not disdain to take care of the least of his Creatures and thinks it no incumbrance to his Infinite wisdom to observe and govern all their concerns Psalm 145.9 The Lord is good to all saith the Psalmist his mercy is over all his works He looks to the ends of the earth and sees under the whole heavens Job 28.24 In him all things live and move and have their being tho' originally the saying of a Poet yet is by the Apostle consecrated into a divine Oracle All things are but sparks or streams of being Acts 17.28 from Him the fountain of all Being and depend continually on Him as the raies of light on the Sun if his face or influence be for a moment eclips'd they vanish He maketh the grass to grow Psalm 104.13 and clothes some of it more gloriously than Solomon in all his gaiety There falls not a sparrow to the ground without his knowledge Mat. 6.29.10.29 His eye runs to and fro upon his Creatures giving them their meat in due season Ps 145.14 15. They as by instinct seem instructed in their duty and priviledge Ps 147.9 Ps 104.21 For the eyes of all wait upon him The young ravens cry to him and he feeds them The young lions seek their meat from God In a word the whole family of Heaven and Earth He every day provides for Ps 105.16 Acts 14.17 filling every thing living with plenteousness refreshing their hearts with food and gladness But of all his Creatures Man is cherish'd as the darling of the family at first fearfully and wonderfully made by a consult as some imagine of the blessed Trinity curiously wrought in the lower parts of the earth Every part of Him form'd with such exact superlative care of the Deity Ps 139.13 c. Matt. 10.30 Ps 22.9 as that God is by the Psalmist represented as writing all his members in his book by our Saviour as numbring all his hairs It is he that takes him safely out of the womb and makes him hope upon his mothers breasts conducts him through the paths of life upholds him when feeble and gray-headed Ps 27.10 when his father and mother forsake him His soul is a most precious jewel of divine extract It is a stream of Divinity the Breath the Image of God If God take this care of the natural and single state of Man we have less reason to doubt of his care to his political state the Community of Mankind if our Saviours way of arguing be good For if the Providence of God being extended to the grass of the field or to sparrows argues the care of God to be greater on the behalf of Man so say I again if God vouchsafe to take such care of Man in his natural and individual state much more do's he charge his Providence with whole Societies of Men Nations and Kingdoms are his peculiar care in which the dearest interests the Lives and Fortunes of many Millions are involv'd Tho' Man be a Creature of most wonderful composure yet it is very observable that by the same Infinite Wisdom it is contrived that of all the Creatures of God none so helpless as Man so uneasie or unfit to be alone being so full of wants standing in need of so much care such long attendance Which infirmities do early instruct him in the duties of mutual love and kindness and shew him the abfolute necessity of imbodying into fraternities and civil Societies for mutual defence and safety That this is the will of his Maker he by good consequence concludes his natural state and condition making it very necessary so wisely has God by means of his infirmities consulted the greater safety of Man thereby constituting every Man his keeper From all which it follows that Cities or publick Societies are of Gods making or designing tho' the model of them may be in great measure left to humane contrivance and for this reason therefore do they intitle themselves to his protection as being his Creatures his Leviathans in the government of which he appears most of all as God For by setting bounds to mighty Empires by some slight means scattering and confounding the most dreadful Armies turning about Kingdoms as little things as tho' they were but the sport of Providence He shews the transcendency of his own Almighty Power He holds the world as in the hollow of his hand and all its prodigious massie Globes with all their Myriads of Inhabitants to us inconceivable either for their magnitude or number are to him but as the drop of a bucket or the small dust of the balance As a farther demonstration give me leave to observe that all those duties which are essential to the well-being of a Society are by God enjoin'd under the most weighty sanctions of Religion they are the second Table the one half of Religion So that he that is peccant against any such rules of duty do's not only incurr the wrath of the Magistrate but of God himself Than which can there be a higher instance of Gods care in keeping the City than by enforcing civil duties with eternal punishments One would think obedience to Magistrates well secured when the offender stands not only exposed to the sword of Authority but to that damnation too which is threatned to him that resists and that that villain had need to be well baited or very stupid who will venture to be a thief in spite of the gallows and of Hell-fire Nay more God has guarded the Temporal laws by carrying his Spiritual laws up to greater height The Magistrate punishes only the gross acts of Murther Adultery or the like and humane laws are often too remiss to a fault for not censuring severely enough reproachful provoking words which naturally draw on blows and break the harmony and peace of Societies but a malicious thought a lustful desire an unjust coveting God revenges with everlasting burnings So that if the sanctions of Religion had but tolerable effect the Magistrate would have so little trouble as that the sword of Justice might rust in the scabbard From whence it appears to be the high interest both of the Magistrate and the City to preserve Religion in due credit and that profess'd Atheism and Debauchery deserve the Gibbet more than Theft or Burglary as strikeing more at the foundation of Government To all this we may add several observable occurrences in publick affairs which plainly speak themselves the foot-steps of a God as when we see good men by surprize snatch'd out of eminent danger rais'd by unexpected means to wealth and power When an honest and good cause prevails by its own simplicity against wit and power and all worldly