have Councels power and Authority interest and influence fit to advance the publick welfare by correcting the distempers and reducing all to a due constitution of health They that is 1. Those Princes or Kings Judges and Chief Magistrates who being themselves vicious or Idolatrous or Hypocrites or vain turning Piety into Policy and Religion into reason of state not onely infect the people by the contagion of an impious example but are willing the people should be as bad as themselves That for their enormities being followed by their Subjects they may seem less by the Imitation and as it were Approbation Kings that rule their people not by Law and Justice but by will and Passion more for their own pleasure than the publick Welfare that are great Oppressors flaying as well as fleecing their people yea breaking their bones and eating their flesh Ruling men not as rational creatures of the same Creator nor as brethren in the same Saviour sons to the same Father of their Countrey but as mere Slaves and Vassals forgetting that every King hath a King in heaven above him to whom he is subject and must give account not onely of the hurt he hath done and the wounds he hath made on the soules and bodies the estates and consciences of his people but also of their Health and good he hath left undone when it was in his place and power like the Sun in the firmament or as a little God among men to have been {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} a Catholick good to Church and state that thousands might have been blessed by them in this world and to eternity blessed God for them Not only the hands but the mouths eyes of Princes are healing of their peoples evils if they will but rebuke and reprove frown upon and discountenance evil doers Mens sins and Accounts enlarge according as their influence and relations ampliate which carry their obligations with them to God and man Great place and power are of all things most to be avoided if they onely serve to aggrandise a mans sins either of omission or commission for to augment his Judgment and Eternall torment 2. Those subordinate Counsellors and inferior Magistrates who are under the command of man and more of God these heal slightly when they are not men of Integrity fearing God and hating Covetousness but crafty Complyers with the inordinate lusts and passions with the illegal commands of either Princes or people contrary to their oaths so by flattery or faction to make way for their Ambition and gain by the undeserved favor of either or dividing one from the other by a most unnatural war and jealousie Such as please man rather than God and love themselves more than their Country or the Church such as prefer their bodies and Estates before their souls and put the healings of the Church and true Religion in the last place or Rear of affaires and when they profess to heal the Irreligion of others by severe Acts and Ordinances against Adultery Swearing Prophaness debauchery drunkenness corruption injustice c. yet themselves are higher by the shoulders than the most of the people in these and other enormities As if Peers or privy-Counsellors or Counsellors of State or Parliament-men had a Priviledg to sin more or to repent and suffer less than other men Nothing weakens the credit and Authority of any publick Lawes so much as when the Law-givers least observe them or are the first that break them like Physicians that prescribe strict diet to their Patients but themselves indulge all manner of Epicurisme Here every one is prone to retort Physician heal thy self The best things are commonly done by the best hands Religio medici Conscience is here required as well as his Science They will hardly do their Country good who care not either to serve God or to save their own souls Men should make conscience of private actions much more of publick adventures which are of grand consequence as the undertakings in war and not to be done rashly slovenly slightly and indifferently Nor may publick Counsellors or Ministers of State like Achitophel think they do wisely or safely because they go with the vogue and stream of times with the winde and tide or humor of some people in their prevalent Factions discontents and clamors by which vote Christ himself was crucified Mark 15.13 Common people in their Paroxismes or fits of discontent like sick and pained patients are ill Dictators to their Physicians who must advise better for them than they would for themselves else they will heal their hurts very slovenly slowly and ill-favouredly to their own sin and reproach as well as others pain and charge Nor is it enough for Aarons excuse to say The people are set upon mischief when they would needs have him make them visible Egyptian Gods to go before them under the figure of a golden calf to be instead of their true and invisible God publick Persons and Honorable Counsellors as Joseph of Arimathea must not go quâ itur sed qua eundum as peoples fury or the prevalent Faction drives them but as the Word of God and the Lawes of the land direct them else they shall bear not onely their own but the iniquity of their people who sin and suffer unwarned and naked hurt and unhealed upon the account of such cowardly Counsellors and corrupt Magistrates or Ministers of State all whose wisdomes will come to nought and they will at length like Achitophel be snared in the halters of their own twisting 3. Those Priests and Prophets those Pastors and Teachers those Bishops and Presbyters who are in Publick Place and sacred Authority as to the things of God the matters of Religion and mens souls good These heal slightly when they do the Work of God negligently when they skin over scandalous publick sins as Ely to his Sons with soft reproof when they sowe pillows under Princes Parliaments and peoples elbowes when they fear the face and offence of men more than of God when they are workmen that need to be ashamed their Lives and Actions confuting their Instructions and their doing making their Doctrine to blush when they heal publick Enormities or calamities by I know not what novel Inventions and magick spels of fine words which are no better than the powder of a post compared to the approved Catholick prescriptions of 1600 years which were soveraign for Clergy and Laity to preserve order and unity soundness of Doctrine and inscandalousness of manners in the Church of Christ under Christian Kings and Queens who were bountifull nursing Fathers and Mothers to the Church of Christ and the Clergy yet not by the Dominion and pomp luxury and tyranny of Bishops nor yet by the Factious and refractory humours of Presbyters much less by the schismatick sauciness of people who cast off both Bishops and Presbyters but by the fatherly
chief Magistrate of a Commonwealth to be similis altissimo as high as the highest in three Kingdoms which unity of this Church those have sought most subtilly to divide whose interests and purposes was to destroy it that by balancing of parties they might better keep up themselves as dancers on the rope are wont to do This restoring of the Church to its pristine unity is to be done by such an harmony of Doctrine as may be publickly owned and confessed by such an uniform way of worship as shall be publickly recommended and encouraged by such an authoritative and orderly Church Government among Bishops Presbyters and People as may carry on the Discipline of the Church for Ordination and Censure with gravity and honor with piety and charity redeeming both holy things and the Ministers of them from that vulgar insolency and Plebeian contempt under which they are fallen and have long lain either by their own indiscretion levity and divisions or by the petulancy force or fraud of others whose aim is to have no Presbyters as well as no Bishops yea and no Churches of the Reformed Religion That lenitive of equanimity forbearance and moderation in respect of consciencious Dissenters from the publique consent customs and constitutions in the Church which Christian charity requires and publique peace with safety may bear will best be prepared and applied when we fully see what is noxious malicious and intolerable what is only inconvenient and imprudent or infirm and venial in mens opinions and pretensions to be sure such a wise method may be used and such a course taken to have able Ministers and honest Magistrates concur in their judgement and joynt endeavors that the Justice of the one and the gentleness of the other the ability and sanctity of both in their places and performances may be such as shall render the established Religion so venerable and conspicuous as will in a few years draw all sober men to it when they shall see nothing in it but what is for the main conformable to Gods Word and necessary either for the being ot wel-being of Humane and Christian Societies As Civil so Ecclesiastical hurts are best that is soonest easiest surest healed revertendo ad leges bonas antiquas by returning as the wounded Hart to Dictamnum to those Laws and Canons wâ— are not therefore bonae quia antiquae but therefore antiquae quia bonae in which the aequum unum bonum make the vetustum Their verity equity and piety gave rise to their antiquity and their antiquity gave reverence and solemnity to their equity or goodness T is certain there can be no compleat health in the body till every part every limb every vein every vessel doth its Office in due time and place irregularities must be rectified defects supplied excesses repressed ill humors purged and all reduced by Law to good order A blessed work and to be done with as much Moderation and gentleness as the fidelity of the cure will permit and the spreading of the disease doth require wherein many parts may by weakness or by nearness to the fons morbi the first peccant or ill affected part have contracted sad distempers which will easily be cured of their anguish if the evil neighborhood be mended Here generous and gracious remissions are just and Christian to misled multitudes and to such whose penitent errors shew they were not of malice but credulity and mistake who are more zealous now for health than ever they were to be debauched and disordered so much to their own and the publique affliction Acts of pardon Amnesty or Oblivion are excellent lenitives Publico bono tam publicae quam privatae simultates injuriae sunt condonandae to pardon as well publique as private losses and injuries to the publique peace to interpret the intent and meaning of either side to have been good who persist not in evil the zeal of some to maintain their Loyalty to the King for which they thought they had the clearest commands of Gods Laws and mans The zeal of others to preserve the lawful priviledges and fixed authority of Parliaments against any thing that by violent overthrowing of those must needs hazard the overthrow of all possibly neither of these parties might be so bad or blameable as to the first intentions but that they may easily be reconciled in the medium which both first professed to intend namely King and Parliament setled laws and established Religion if this had been kept to the quarel had been soon ended in Church and State the misery was that by jealousies and misunderstandings the passions and transports of both sides might so overbear them as to occasion those sad conflicts and consequences upon both which neither of them at first intended but deprecated and detested mean time while humors were in motion new and unexpected diseases got head under the name of interest of State of liberty and common equity which had no law little reason or Religion So between the Episcopal Presbyterian and Independent Parties much of the acidness and sharpness of the humor would be allayed if this Poltice of charitable censure and interpretation were applyed one all sides that the first did but aim to maintaine the order and eminency of presidential Episcopacy which was so universal so antient so primitive so apostolical and so prosperous in the Church of Christ the second designed onely to bring Episcopacy to such a paternal temperament with Presbytery that the whole Clergie of a Diocess and the concerns of Religion might not be exposed to one mans sole jurisdiction without the such joynt counsel consent and assistance of Ministers as is safest for Bishops Presbyters and People the third of Independents or Congregationists which seemed to stickle for the interests of people in religious transactions where their souls are so much concerned what Minister they have and how both he and others of their congregation behave themselves either to the edification and comfort or the scandal and grief of that part or members of the Church with which they actually congregate and communicate It seems but agreable to the ancient usage of the Churches of Christ in St. Cyprians Tertullians and Irenaeus his time that no publique transactions much less impositions touching Religion should be made without fairly aquainting the Clergy and Christian people too with the grounds and reasons of them that Church-government might not seem to be a tyranny or an arbitrary and absolute domineering over the faith and consciences of Christs flock but a mutual and sweet conspiring of the Shepherds with the sheep to make each other happy in truth and love by orderly authority and due subordination I should be glad to see the beams of this candor this kindness this charity shine in all faces from all sides that the Shiboleths of different dialects and designes the carnal and unhappy discriminations of I am of Paul I of Apollos and I
and State It will be found true by us at last as well as hitherto some others have felt it to their smart That a Commonwealth as well as Kingdom divided against it self cannot long stand Et sero medicina paratur Cum mala per longas invaluere moras in vain shall we at last cry out How have we been deluded how have we despised counsel and neglected such plain and safe remedies as would have cured us long ago There want not birds of prey Eagles Ravens and Vultures that wait for the feebleness and fall of this Church and State that they may pick out its eyes of Religion and Learning of Law and Justice the Universities and Inns of Court that the life and soul of Christian and humane Societies Equity and Charity Reason and true Religion being departed the cadaverosa Patria Ecclesia carkass of our Church and Country may be their spoil and booty which God of his mercy forbid In the Text there are six things to be enquired 1. Persona laesa icta afflicta the patient or afflicted whom the Prophet yea God himself deplores and ownes she is called the daughter of my people 2. Plaga or laesio the grief or malady her hurt or lesure 3. Ficta medela or insana sanatio the pretended cure or verbal healing they have healed with saying Peace peace slightly and superficially 4. {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} or mendacium the fallacy and cheat when there is no peace 5. Medicorum turba the Physicians or Empiricks They great Statists grave Polititians formal pretenders to do great feats and miraculous cures in Church and State when really they are no other than imperious hypocrites magniloquent Montebanks cruel and covetous confident and careless Boasters of their skill but no way Effecters of a real cure 6. Vera medendi methodus the true way of curing a diseased Nation a distressed Country a sick and languishing Church which is implied and supposed to be First as evident in it self Secondly As easie and as feasible by these Pretenders if honest Thirdly As it is necessary apt and seasonable for the poor patient hence the great blame and reproach imputed to these Tamperers or Medicasters They to their sin and shame They with their pride and pollicy They with their cunning and cruelty They more for want of honesty than ability have thus superficially skinned over and perfunctorily healed the hurt of the daughter of my people saying c. Of these I intend by Gods blessing to speak not as a Ruler or Magistrate nor as a Statist and Polititian nor as a Soldier and Commander nor as a Citizen and Trader but as a Preacher or Minister of God to his Church And since we are excluded beyond all men in the Nation from being chosen to meet or advise in any other ways of publick Counsels Civil or Ecclesiastical you may not think much if as men and Christians no less than Divines we use the freedom of this place to acquaint you with the sence and sympathy of our souls yea of Gods spirit in and by the Prophet when he was not a Spectator only but a joynt sufferer as we Ministers have been more than any order of men in the common hurts and miseries of Church and State 1. I begin with the Patient who is called here both by God and the Prophet The daughter of my people {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} That is gens mea or populus meus First In relation to God the people that I have bred up with so much care and tenderness the Nation that hath been to me as a Son or Daughter the Vine that I have planted watered and fenced for my self That Polity of Church and State to which I was Lawgiver the chief Counsellor and Constitutor the Supream head and Governor the Captain Shepherd and Bishop their great King and Protector My peculiar people whom I had preferred beyond all Nations as a Theocracy or holy Monarchy and royal Priesthood This is the Patient with whose hurts sores bruises wounds and sorrows these practicants have most impudently padled and cruelly pleased themselves in turning publick miseries of Church and State to their private advantages 2. In relation to the Prophet the daughter of my people which are of the same linage and derivation of the same Father and family of the nearest blood both by parentage and alliance with whom I have the same Laws and civil immunities also the same Religion and sacred communion Natural Civil Ecclesiastical kindred endears me to them they are as flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone yea we are or ought to be of the same spirit and soul as having the same God and Saviour the same holy duties or solemnities to engage us in love and dearness as well as nearness to each other so as the publick and common good should be the supream good of every particular We cannot be happy or miserable alone as members in one body all our enjoyments are social and all our sufferings are sympathetick This is the daughter of my people for whom I am so concerned and afflicted that I preach and pray I write and weep I wake and dream lamentations and tears for her as a man as a Citizen as a true Isrealite or Jew as a Christian as a Protestant or reformed Professor This Title of the Daughter of my people is so frequent in Scripture that it seems to importune the Reader to consider the importance of it Isa. 1.8 and 22.4 Jer. 4.12 and 9.1 and 6.14 19. Lam. 2.11 Zach. 9.9 So Daughter of Sion and of Jerusalem or the like expressions First To shew not so much the fruitfulness of a Nation whom God so blesseth that they encrease and multiply as that softer and procreative or mother sex doth to great numbers which are as the off-sets or fruit of a pregnant womb as the people of God are sometimes called his first born and his sons in respect of that masculine vigor and valor which was among them while God was with them so the daughter of his people as apt to bring forth Secondly But further to express the tender care and fatherly indulgence that God hath toward such a people as are called by his name who have had the special signets and bracelets the jewels and ornaments of his favour the glory of his Ordinances and presence among them God himself is afflicted in her afflictions such as torment her torment him he feels her wounds and faints as it were to see her blood prodigally shed as water on the ground either by open enemies or fallacious Physicians and cruel Phlebotomists who under pretence of healing the hurts they have made or festred venomed and inflamed do cut and lance and sear and lop and purge and let blood to such evacuations and superfluity as quite exhaust the best and vital spirits of a Nation bringing it to fainting fits