no but to congratulate it rather and I take the so religious observation of this day to be a standing evidence of it And I can no way question but such wise men that have signalized themselves by their prudent Government of this City and preserving Order in it to such measures that no such City in Europe can boast the like and have received just marks of honor for it from a King that can never fail to reward Merit do very well understand their own duty and know how to demean themselves accordingly and will never sully the glory of these actions and the honour gotten by them by any thing unworthy of either It is justly to be hoped that as the late fire hath truly refined this City it rising up in a splendor much greater than was before so that it hath melted down all faeces and dregs of undutifulness that were formerly in the hearts of any of its Inhabitants And that as Justice seems written on your Gates so Lonalty will be the Imbellishments of your Palaces And I am the more confident in my hopes of these things because all considering men will clearly see these three great things to depend upon it and be secured by it 1. The honour and safety of the King 2. The honour and welfare of this City 3. The welfare and quietness of the whole Kingdom all these next to God's blessing will be secured by the Loyalty of this Capital City 1. The honour and safety of the King for as the honour of a King is in the multitude of his Subjects so his safety consists in the love and affection and loyalty of these Subjects and the greater the number of Subjects that are embodied is the more conducive to his safety is the love of them since they can always be more ready as well as able to yield him assistance and to strike despair into any that would attempt against him 2. The honour and welfare of this City it self he that will search into the causes of the decay or ruine of Royal Cities will soon find their separating from their King to be one great one I cannot multiply instances because I have not time of this I shall only beg you to call to your remembrance an instance in our next Kingdom of France it will be hard for any man without tears to read the misery of that City not very long ago but the cause is obvious it was being separated from their King by the Faction of the House of Guise and by the bewitching charms of a Holy League if you will recollect your own miseries in the late times which I have seen some of you weep for you will be able to ascribe it to the same cause effected also by the same means viz. the enchanting Sorcery of a Solemn Covenant Honourable and Beloved this is a great truth the safety of the King depends upon the welfare of this City and the welfare of this City depends upon the safety of the King And if men would look into the truth of things they would soon perceive that their interests are complicated and indeed the same The safety of all Bodies next ever to God's blessing consists in the firm cohesion of its parts And it is true in experience as well as speculation And who ever will trace either the ruine of the King or subsequent misery of this City to their first Origins will soon find the Artifice of some men in separating them from each other effected both And you may see the same things plainly still for these men that design now the same things again do pursue them still by the same method it is here that they first spread their Nets and place their Engins and their disappointment here will cause despair and unsuccesfulness ever to attend their mis-chievous devices And therefore my assurance that I speak to wise men gives me assurance also of their great care still to disappoint these men For as Solomon saith Surely in vain the Net is spread in the sight of any Bird So say I if we permit the same men by the same methods to trapan us again into the same crimes and make us serve to the same evil purposes again we then make our ruine our own guilt as well as our misery and must perish as unpitied fools for ever But God I hope hath reserved us to better purposes and will give us grace to pursue wiser Counsels A few days past have given good hopes that the Genius of the English Nation is recovering it self and your hearty compliance with those great and I hope wise Counsels will be mighty contributive in order to giving effect to these hopes 3. But the effects of your Loyalty will not be confined in so narrow a room but will be extended to the benefit also of all the Kingdom It is you that stamp the practice of all the Nation by your carriage they take their measures and make your Actions their Presidents So that you 'll not only save your selves by your signal Loyalty but you 'll be influential also in saving the many thousands of Israel The seeds of Loyalty sown in this plot of ground will quickly spring up into a Tree whose branches will extend to the distant shores which together with the Royal Cedar will make a Shadow under which your selves and all the Nation may sit safely and sing praises to God chearfully and be happy in the Contemplation of your great Bliss And now I have done but that methinks I see something in the countenances of this Audience which incourageth me not only to beg that you would but prophecy also that you will exercise your selves in these Tacticks sing this Lamentation with such hearty accents of pious sorrow as may reach even to the Throne of God and be accepted by him and prevail with him for pardon of the guilt of the death of the Father and a Blessing to descend upon the head of the Son and that God will graciously please to add those years to the life of this which he was pleased to suffer to be substracted from the life of the other That we will all learn to shoot skilfully in this Bow such Arrows as shall be sharp in the experience as well as midst of the Kings and our Enemies That as English Archers have been renown'd for their Chivalry in earth so they may ever be blessed for their Loyalty in Heaven That all our names may be recorded in the Book of Jasher and be found written in that Book of the Upright and Just Ones at the last day and our portions of Bliss be eternal with theirs in Heaven for ever more Which God of his infinite Mercy grant for Christ Jesus his sake To whom c.
one of which might justly occasion a lamentation 1. For first to dye to leave these splendid habitations for a cold grave to leave dear friends to converse with putrefaction and rottenness to have these beautiful Piles tumbled into confusion and dust to have our vast Possessions and Manors shrunk up into a few feet of Earth a pitchy Sheet and a strait Coffin are to most men living sad stories and the thoughts of them rarely entertain'd without sighs and a tear Mourning is therefore one attendant always upon Funerals Amongst the Jews there was always a set of common Mourners that their mourning might be more solemn and their lamentations more affective and I find it threatned as a judgement to Jehojakim that he should have an inglorious and contemptible Burial and should have none to make formal lamentation for him Jer. 22.18 And whoever consults the Genius of the Christian Religion will find its compassions are as great its affections as quick and its sense as tender as before and all it designs in this case is not to dam up the Fountain but take care that it flow only in due measures not that we sorrow not at all but that we sorrow in due proportions according to the measures of faith and with the abatements and intermixtures of Christian hope for that I take to be the meaning of that limitation in the Apostolical Canon That ye sorrow not as the Gentiles which have no hope 1 Thess 4.13 But this is but a small matter and the least of these considerations for if death be just matter of Lamentation certainly the death of a King is much more so when the Tall Cedars bow and the strong Oaks crack and are made to stoop low and compelled to lie prostrate upon the breast of their common Mother then as the storm is more strong so it is more awakening and summons the most serious regards and most real resentments And so it is also in this matter for when death knocks but at the common door the Mourners strike but the common key but when it rifles Palaces and enters into the Chambers of Kings and those that are gods die like men and fall equal Trophies to this rude Conqueror and are dragged after the wheels of his triumphing Chariot there you shall see always the Scene is dressed with all the solemnities of the deepest sorrow the croud of Mourners is great and the Herald's skill is needful to marshal the troops and to preserve order in the great confusion And this wants not good appearances of reason to plead its justification for as the wise Jews accounted David worth ten thousand of them his life of more value than the lives of thrice so many thousand of common persons So indeed have all wise civilized Nations accounted after the same rate and as they have solemnized the Natalitia of their Kings with all expressions of publick joy so they have observed the days of their death with as great demonstrations of Mourning when David in solemn manner lamented the death of Abner he gave a sufficient reason he thought for it in saying Know ye not that there is a Prince and a great man fallen this day in Israel and certainly if the fall of a Prince much more the fall of a King also will warrant mourning and if David might justly lament the death of Abner he might more justly do so upon the death of Saul But this also is much short of what yet remains unconsidered for if the death of Kings be just matter of sorrow then the more untimely and violent and preternatural the death is the more afflictedly ought it still to be resented When the Taper dies regularly having consumed all its oyl and exhausted all its store of moysture it expires quietly and no man is much concerned at it but when it meets with an interruption by the rude caresses of an impetuous blast then its snuff grows offensive and all men take notice of it and are concerned at the disaster And so it is with Kings in this case when they come into their Sepulchers as shocks of corn fully ripened and in their season as Eliphaz elegantly Job 5.26 when they die the common death of all men and go down to the grave in a good old age having honourably passed all the stages and periods of humane life there we pay them commonly but a common tribute and drop a tear upon their Hearse and bewail them upon the stock of common frailty and our grief that they are gone receives a just abatement from the remembrance that God spared them to us so long but when these fall like untimely fruit shaken by an unseasonable violent unkind wind there the chanels are full the streams run high the Accents are deep the Minstrels strike the dolefullest note and as it is said of David here men commonly ever exceed in their expressions of grief for so when good Josiah fell by the Arms of the Assyrians at the River Euphrates the people lamented the sad Accident at Megiddo with a sorrow that for the greatness of it became proverbial And yet the greatest of these considerations is behind for if all these things happen without any fault or concurrence of ours then our sorrow even from thence receives a great extenuation but if we have any ways been contributive to the mischief or been negligent and failing to do our utmost towards preventing of it then indeed our sorrow is much more just yea it is necessary I put these two together in one period and consideration you see and truly I do not know well how to part or distinguish betwixt them for though it be certain that there is a difference betwixt them absolutely considered and he that actually embrues his hands in blood is more guilty than he that passed by and did not endeavour to rescue though even he be greatly guilty also Yet in this case I am now upon there is little or no difference at all for Subjects are as equally obliged to assist their Kings in all straits and dangers as not to resist or rise up against them to bring them into the same and their failure in the first is as criminal as doing the second and only differs from it as the cause from the effect for therefore some men are encouraged to attempt the latter because others are negligent and failing in the former upon which reason it is certain if either exceed in guilt it is the former I take this occasion to discourse a little this matter because of a great and a most dangerous mistake that I observe to be Epidemical and common about it For as some men boast they obey the Law if they quietly submit to the penalty and pay the forfeiture as well as he that performs the positive duty for the neglect of which the former penalty is threatned So other men are apt to commend their Loyalty as much for not resisting as others do theirs for protecting their King
But as the former of these is an Error than which few are more dangerous as to the honor and power of Laws or more wholly defeating of the great end of them which is that their sanctions may be obeyed and the things done that they enjoyn for which cause it is that penalties are annexed not as ends of the Law but as motives to engage to compliance therewith From whence we may take just occasion to detect the sophistry and vanity of that common distinction of obedience into active and passive upon the strength of which many men hope to clear themselves from rebellion and disobedience I have many times wondred at learned mens accepting this distinction but not at all at their pains to solve these mens pretences for themselves when they have admitted it and therefore I think it needful first to detect the fallacy of it and then all the arguments from it are their own confutations and I cannot but think a small matter may suffice to do it for I do not know how ever to trust my own faculties in judging of any one thing in the world if passive obedience be not a contradiction in the adjunct And that both as to the words themselves about which plain evidence supersedes all dispute and as to the subrstate matter or thing signified by them for I would gladly be told whether any man suffer for obeying the Law or violating it No man can pretend he doth it for the first and to confess the latter and yet pretend obedience is to pretend that he obeys the Law when he confesseth he violates iâ— and I think a contradiction cannot be plainer in any instance This I take to be certain the end of the Law is obedience and the annexing penalties is but an Art to engage to it and the suffering it consequential only upon transgression and for men to pretend that the Law is equally fulfilled when the forfeiture is paid as when the condition is performed is the same thing as to say that he that is broken upon the wheel for Murther or Parricide obeys the fifth and sixth Commandments as well as he that honours his Father and never did any kind of violence to his Neighbour Besides it will fix the most reproachful character upon all Legislators whatsoever and make them little better than so many Tyrants or Devils in making Laws which if those under them obey they are pleased but if they transgress and suffer they are still as well pleased It was the just reproach of Draco's Laws that they were writ in blood but this is greater to all Laws for it makes them to design blood I confess it is necessary to vindicate the honour of Laws to inflict penalties for the breach of them but I take it this is not at all the end of them I have much more to say to this subject but that the digression would be too unbecoming Now the truth is just such a mistake as this is about Subjection to Laws there is also about Loyalty Subjection to Kings and it is every jot as pernicious to the safety of Kings as the other is to the honour of Laws for some men are as apt to claim the honour of Loyalty if they do not actually resist their King as others are that venture their lives and fortunes to assist and vindicate them against those that do resist them But how pernicious this is to the safety of Kings and how contrary to the true notion of Loyalty will soon be made appear For if Subjects be only obliged to the first and discharge their duty in it I would fain know how the safety of Kings shall be assured and who shall be obliged to assert them against violence and Treason All Nations have ever held the Persons of Kings to be sacred and accounted it their duty to protect them from all dangers and therefore have judged it needful to have Septs and Guards still about them But according to this doctrine all this is needless but the Apologue tells us who they were that would perswade the Sheep to discard their Guard And it is easie to see into the designs of all such perswasions Besides Loyalty sure is a nobler thing and in what breast soever it breaths will put a man upon endeavouring when need is to defend his King as well as forbearing to do him violence and â—e that considers those Oaths that Subjects bind themselves in to Princes will clearly see that thereby they are obliged not only not to do violence to them themselves but to do all that in them lieth that others also may not do it and it is treason when the King sets up his Standard for his defence not to repair unto it And where duty is tied on men by Oaths there to fail in it is not only common guilt but died with perjury And if it were otherwise we should make Loyalty a pitiful poor sneaking thing and give Kings infinitely less power over their Subjects than every petty Master hath over his Servants for thus much every such person expects from him that serves him that he should not only not do him wrong himself but to his power endeavour that none else may and every man will condemn him for a wicked servant that fails to do thus and why a Subject in the like case is not equally criminal will be hard to show Those famous Stories in the Annals of all Ages of Subjects that have interposed their own bodies betwixt danger and their Kings and received wounds themselves that were lighting upon them and thereby purchased to themselees a little kind of eternity while the Records of time last are clear Evidences of thus much that in all those Ages this hath been counted the Duty of Subjects and those have been signalized for happy that have had opportunity of doing it Thus Abishai's succoring David against the intents of Ishbi-Benob the Giant is recorded in holy Scripture and all the people congratulate the fact and vow never to permit their King to come again into the like danger and will rather fight his Battels without his Conduct than expose him to any hazard at all and you shall scarcely meet with any considerable History wherein there are not many parallel instances recorded And whoever shall please to read the story of Antius Restio his Servant when his Master was proscribed by the Roman Triumvicate as it is recorded by that excellent Patrician Valerius Maximus will be able to make this Observation that great harshness and unkindness in a Master do not discharge the Servant from this Duty for that Servant had receiv'd some extraordinary marks of an undeserved displeasure and yet for all that thought it his Duty when other Servants were contriving for themselves to contrive what he could for the safety of his Master which he happily effected by a very prudent stratagem And therefore it was a pitiful excuse that a Gentleman made for his disloyalty to the late King by