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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A80874	A sermon preached July 17. 1676. in the Cathedral Church of St. Peter in York, before the Right Honourable Sir Francis North, Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas; and the Honourable Vere Bertie Esquire, one of the barons of the Exchequer; His Majesties judges of assize for the Northern Circuit By Thomas Cartwright D.D. and Dean of Ripon, chaplain in ordiary to His Majesty.	Cartwright, Thomas, 1634-1689.	1676 (1676)	Wing C703A; ESTC R231183	17,951	45

Disorder and Dissolution 1. When there was no King in Israel who is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the living Image of God the Tribe of Dan will have a dead Idol they break into Micha's House rob him of his Priest and and consecrated things and if you inquire how such Sacriledge Idolatry Felony and Burglary could escape their deserved punishment 'T is fully answered that there was no King in Judg. 18. 1 Israel no Heir of Restraint for so the King is called Vers 7. of that Chapter because He by his Inheritance is obliged to curb and restrain all headstrong Impieties and to cast up Boundaries against such overflowing Iniquities 2. At another time we read of an horrible Rape committed a Woman violently and shamefully abused by the extravagant Lust of barbarous Ruffians and the Spirit of God renders this also for the reason of that violent Vncleanness of Gibeah That there was no King in Israel 3. Lastly The Men of Benjamin became the bold Champions of Gibeah's Lewdness and being flesh'd with the double success of their evil cause they persisted in their Villany till all but six hundred were destroyed These surprized the Virgins dancing at Shiloth ravish'd them away by violence from their Parents and enforced them to Marriage of which Rape and Riot the reason rendred is the same as it was of the former In those days there was no King in Judg. 21. 23 25. Israel So that my Text you see is no single instance no particular strange casual or accidental Emergence but as it was in the beginning so it hath been ever since and will be undoubtedly to the Worlds end Where there is no King Gen. 36. 3. Deut. 33. 5 that is no ordinary Judge or Governour as the word is elsewhere taken every one will do that which is right in his own eyes My Text is made up of Confusion Anarchy and the sad Effects of it divide it and the World nor can you expect any perfect Method in the prosecution of such Disorders wherein we are concerned to take notice of these three Particulars I. The Tragical Antecedent wherein the great cause of Israels Miseries and from what remarkably fatal time they bore date is recorded In those days there was no King in Israel II. The Terrible Consequent or Israels dismal condition without their King Every one did that which was right in their own Eyes III. The Infallible Connexion between that Cause and this Effect the one is so intail'd upon the other that there is but an intermediate Comma hardly a breathing space between the loss of a King and Licentiousness Which makes the words by a clear Epiphonema to declare the great Benefit of a Legitimate King in Israel the Necessity of Laws and the Happiness of those People who live under such a Government as takes an impartial care of their execution which will bring the Text home from the Jews to the Gentiles from those in Israel to us in England Now the worst beginning that any Men living ever made was when we of this Nation began to be a weary of our Late Martyr'd Sovereign that being the fatal time from whence we may experimentally derive the Original Cause of all ours as the Holy Spirit hath here done of Israels Miseries which I therefore term 1. The Tragical Antecedent In those days there was no King in Israel After Sampson's death there was an Inter-regnum not under Othoniel but between Sampson's and Eli's Government to which Drusius and Tremellius think this instance relates Others say there was no Supream and continual ordinary Magistrate over the whole body of the People for the Judges were extraordinary raised at Gods pleasure over a part of the People and without absolute Authority and therefore the People Judg. 2. 17 would not hearken unto them because their Power was only of Direction not of Dominion they could counsel but not correct them There were at that time many Task-masters over Israel but no King in it Now the King is of as publick and universal Influence in his Dominions as is the Sun in the Firmament He being the Publick Ballancer of each Private Interest with which he is intrusted as the proper Guardian of Equity and Justice Custos utriusque Tabulae to whose Sacred Custody God hath committed the Two Tables of the Law and intrusted Him to see that we live soberly among our selves religiously towards God and righteously towards our Neighbours Rerum prima Salus una Caesar. Martial l. 8. Epigr. 65. He is the principal Pillar upon which the Stress of his Kingdom lies and as the King doth not live Sibi sed Populo so neither doth He die to his own but to their disadvantage and though ten thousand others might steal out of the World and no body mind or miss them yet the Loss of Him will be as soon felt as the plucking up of a substantial Stake out of a rotten Hedge or the removal of a Buttress from a declining Wall And when this Tutelar Angel of a Kingdom is recall'd 't is time for the Inhabitants to tremble for fear of the Destroying Angel's coming among them A King will be suddenly and soundly miss'd not only in Edom but in Israel which will quickly turn to a Babel without him in as much as that very Law by which we hold our Lives and Liberties will be but a Dead Letter unless it have his Authority to actuate and enliven it For let the Rule be never so strait and perfect it measureth nothing out of his Hand who hath skill to use it and when the Law hath defined what is Right or Wrong there will want a Judge to sentence for the Plaintiff or Defendant and let the Directive Power of the Law be never so good it must of necessity fall to the ground if there be not a co-active to assist it Libertas Libertate Perit to live as we please would be the ready way to lose our Liberty and undo our selves Tyranny it self were infinitely more tolerable than such an unbridled Liberty For that like a Tempest might throw down here and there a fruitful Tree but this like a Deluge would sweep away all before it and Confusion hath ever been found so much worse than the hardest Subjection and even the most corrupt Government so much better than a Civil War that it was over-ruled in Nerva's time by Fronto the Consul Melius est sub his Cardan Encom Neron c. 5 esse sub quibus nihil licet quam sub quibus omnia That it is better to live under the severest Prince where every Suspicion is made a Crime and every Crime Capital than to have none at all but a lawless Anarchy And therefore the want of a King of which Israel so much complains is a complicated Mischief involving many thousand Evils in it and such as are not to be calculated by any single person but we must all lay our heads together to sum them up which

us that the Keys of the Temple were not hung at the High Priests Girdle but laid every Night under Solomons Pillow as belonging to his charge And for as much as the King of England holds his Crown of God in Capite to Him must he go not to the Pope for his Directions in this matter He is to consult Moses and the Prophets not Him and his Cardinals His Sword is to be guided and restrained by the Laws of Heaven and not controuled by those of Rome King James one would think had said enough to make their Papal-Bulls pull in their Horns with shame and to teach all Christian Kings to take heed of being toss'd by them with whom King-Killing hath passed the Muster not only of Works acceptable to God but also of such Meritorious Ones as may justly purchase the Crown of Martyrdom They call the Murder of Heretical Princes an holy and honourable Exploit by which they shall merit Salvation which though St. Paul forbid the Romans to whom he wrote under Pain of Damnation yet yet does the Pope of Rome and his Assertors encourage Subjects to as that to which they are bound under no less a penalty Conscientiae vinculo arctissimo says Creswell I know there are many Loyal Persons of the Romish Perswasion who do abhor those Jesuitical Principles and Practices and I wish the Pope would be so just to himself and us and so kind to them as to call those Church-men of his in question who have publickly abetted such Treasonable Conspiracies and that he would publish his Pontifical Decree to provide for the Safety of Kings a little better than his Colledge of Jesuits have done and to censure Mariana's and such other Books as have commended Regicides to the great scandal of Religion and then his Proselytes would have no occasion to complain of Persecution here in England which the Protestant Religion doth no where teach All Ecclesiastical Officers are but the Kings Vnder-ministers who being the Head of all under Christ ought to have an especial care of his Body the Church that no turbulent Papists or Phanaticks may under pretence of Conscience and Reformation out-face and controul God's and his Authority and raise such Quarrels in the Church about Ceremonies as may at last imbroil his Kingdom in the greatest Disorders and Exorbitancies imaginable And indeed when Men are grown so hardy as to venture upon the Mouth of any Cannon which is not charg'd with Chain-shot but with the Brutum Fulmen of a Flashy Excommunication which doth no Execution upon their Bodies or Estates it is much to be feared that they will when they see their opportunity assault the Power it self that set them up if they in whom the Execution of the Laws is intrusted do not think fit to proportion their strictness to the stubbornness of Grainsayers but the Rulers permit what the Rule forbids to the encouragement of disobedience For unless Justice do inflict the Wrath as well as Conscience enact the Law Impunity will breed Insolence and Vice grow the greater by prohibition Yield them up this one Flower of the Kings Crown and their Incroaching Fingers will be reaching after another their Malice being so unreasonable that it hath been found much easier to deny them all than having gratified them in part to prescribe them a measure And certainly one great cause why this Kingdom hath more Rebels than Murderers more Schismaticks than Sodomites more stubborn Nonconformists than High-way-men is because there is a more strict execution of the Laws against the one than against the other Give not me therefore but God leave whose Minister I am here as your Honours are on the Bench to call upon you to remember the Church of England when you sit down to Consult and Judge that her Sons may not forget your Lordships when they kneel down to pray and this we beg the more earnestly because the unsheathing of your Swords may happily prevent the destroying Angels drawing his I am not tempted to sin against the Publick Character which hath been so deservedly given to your Lordships nor do I in the least suspect any active or passive Injustice in you or that you need any encouragement of mine to act according to the Dictates of your Consciences and the Limits of your Commissions and therefore all that I have said in this matter is design'd to justifie to others the Oeconomy and Equity of your constant care and proceedings in this kind and not only the reasonableness but the indispensible necessity which lies upon you of performing that Great Trust which God and the King have reposed in you for the Publick Good of this Church and Kingdom But I know the touchiness of the times in which I speak to be as admirable as their contempt of Authority and do therefore expect to be told by some who are conscious to themselves how much they have deserved to feel the smart of your Censures in this kind how ill it becomes a Minister of the God of Peace whose Mercy is above all his Works either to be angry my self or to incense your Lordships against such dissenting Brethren who sometimes perhaps obey for wrath and sometimes also disobey for Conscience sake and that I should rather in meekness instruct those that oppose themselves if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledgment of the Truth than invite others to persecute them For so both the Romanists and Sectaries have agreed to call the Execution of the Penal Laws and to charge them upon the Church of England which hath no hand in the Execution of them I thank God I never yet was nor ought I to be angry with any Man for not seeing with my Eyes for not being of my Perswasion nor have I so much heat nor so little light but that I can over-look their Misapprehensions with the coolest Indifferency imaginable and do daily pray from the bottom of my Heart that God would bring into the way of Truth all such as have erred and are deceived But when Men will set up Altar against Altar and Pulpit against Pulpit not only without but against Authority and make no more of Obedience and Subjection than of a Ceremony for which they seem to mistake them I cannot imagine how the Laws could be less severe against them than they are nor how the Magistrate can more seriously oblige them than by over-ruling them to that degree of Conformity which is both their Duty and Happiness The Church of Christ among us which was once undoubtedly as seamless as his Coat these Canting Deceivers have now of late so rent by Schisms so torn by Separations that it is become like Joseph's Coat one piece is hardly coloured like another and I pray God it prove not like it in another particular also that it be not once more dyed Red and imbrued in Blood again I need not tell you what the Donatists did in Africa against Maximinian nor John of Leydens Men at

that we may the better do I proceed to examine that particular account which the second part of my Text gives of them viz. II. The Terrible Consequent or Israels miserable condition without their King in as much as every one did that which was right in his own Eyes Every Man whose short-sighted Soul can see no farther than his Eye ought not to be empanneld to give in a Verdict of Right of which to expect a true Judgment from him were to exact an account beyond the Sphere of his notice For admit that some of Nature's Courser Wares may lie upon the Bulk expos'd to the transient view of every Vulgar Eye yet these her Choicer Jewels of Right and Equity are lock'd up in her private Cabinet for their sight who can purchase them at their due rates of Sweat and Oyl If therefore any Mans Eye be the competent Judge of Right yet without peradventure not every Mans certainly not those of the Croud who prostrate their Assent to every shallow Appearance and defile their Judgments with each bold Conjecture that flatters them And indeed if every private Man had Wit and Honesty sufficient to govern himself and his own Actions there would be no need of Publick Laws to direct and Magistrates to guide them But alas most Mens Minds are too much out of order to have such a Trust reposed in them as being acted by fond and absurd Principles and so horribly impos'd upon by their Vices and Passions that their Determinations are as different as their Judgments and those as their Interests and they who have no reason in them but their Wills will hear none against them which would make Controversies and Dissentions endless if the Wisdom of Providence in a foresight of these Mischiefs to which we are thus obnoxious had not caus'd us all to be born Subjects to some Empire placing a Prince and Priest at first in every Family and suffering none since the World was better peopled to live without the Restraints of an over-ruling Government But if every Mans Eye could be supposed to be the competent Judge of some Right yet without peradventure not of his own Right for we are prone to fawn upon our selves and to be wilfully ignorant of our own failings Our Affections do so easily bribe our Judgments to most apparent degrees of inequality that it will be in vain to expect a Right Sentence where the Judge is a Party We do so infinitely believe what makes for our selves and so easily settle in a firm perswasion of the goodness of our own Causes without examining them that any thing seems Right to us if it be our Interest to have it so and whatsoever we see through those Selfish Spectacles comes with such great improvement to our Judgments that as oft as Reason is against us so oft are we against Reason Rectum non ex propria recti honestique rationem sed ex uniuscujusque libidine definitur Nor is there any Crime so bad but it seems as right in some Mens Eyes as the Worshipping of an Idol did in Micha's or as Rebellion under pretence of Religion did to them who had Espous'd the Good Old Cause and in pure tenderness of Conscience to make her a Sufficient Dowry Joyntred her in the Blood and Estates of their Lawful Sovereign and his Loyal Subjects till their Gospel-Reformation was in a manner compleated and the Godly Party came to Inherit the Fattest Portions of this Land Nor need we go back to them for an instance of Mens being blinded with their Passions and Interests for we see not the Beams in our own Eyes but hug our very Deformities when they bear our Names and will hardly be perswaded they are so when we take our selves to be their Authors Nemo suae mentis motus non aestimat aequos Quodque volunt homines se bene velle putant Prov. Many Men many Minds and each strongly addicted to his own If therefore every Man should be his own Judge so as to take upon him to determine his own Right and according to such Determination to proceed in the maintenance of it not only the Government but the Kingdom it self would quickly come to ruine and yet admit of the former and you cannot exclude the latter For the Hand will follow the Eye and Men do as it seems right to them be it never so wrong in it self so that if a vicious Eye be seconded with strong Hands and there be No King to pinion them we cannot expect more Miseries than will infallibly invade us nor fewer than befel the Jews when every Man did that which was right in his own Eyes Diseases in the Eye Errours in the Judgment are dangerous and there being not one Reason in us there is the more need of one Power over us Yet they who see amiss hurt none they say but themselves But how if their unquiet Opinions will not be kept at home but proves as Thorns in their Sides and will not suffer them to take any rest till from Liberty of Thinking they come to Liberty of Acting which the most Judicious Hooker foresaw they would do and we have seen they did Then without question if we cannot pull Mens Eyes out of their Heads which were inhumane to attempt nor beat them out of their perverse Opinions which were unchristian yet at least it is the Publick Interest and the Magistrates Duty to pinion their Hands and bind them to the Peace and the Kings Charge it must consequently be to look to His Subjects Eyes as well as he can that they sin not blindly for want of Direction and especially to their Arms that they sin not with a high Hand for want of Correction to look well to Micha in matters of Religion to take care to pull False Worship down and to set up the Power of Godliness in its room The letting loose of that string of Uniformity which the Laws have scrued up to its just pitch will make greater Discords in the Harmony both of Church and State than we can easily imagine Regis quisque intra se animum habet Every Man is apt to take more Liberty than he will allow and to look upon the Restraints of Authority as an Incroachment upon his Birth right and therefore doing of Right is a smooth term with them who are for the most part in the Wrong and Liberty of Conscience the plausiblest thing in the World even among Men of no Conscience at all But our Wiser Progenitors who expected Protection not only for Themselves but their Posterities did and might as reasonably ingage for our Obedience to them who should protect us nor are we therefore born in a state of absolute Liberty to chuse what Laws and Governours we please but Subjects to that Authority we now live under which we are bound to preserve both in Church and State with our Lives and Fortunes Nor is there any reason we should be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lawless to do