Man and one that fears God Exo. 18.21 And such a Man will do as Moses did v. 16. Make the people to know the statutes of God and his Laws by severely punishing the disobedient Thus I have given you the qualifications which make a Righteous Magistrate And the nearer that any man comes to these the Happier will the City be and the greater cause will the Citizens have to rejoyce I Come now to the second thing in the Text. The people Rejoyce of which I shall need to speak but little because every considerate man knows that the due Administration of Justice by a Magistrate duly qualified is the great preservative of his Happiness David could call for no greater hurt to his enemies than that a wicked man should be set over them And by the Rule of Contraries 't is one of the greatest blessings of this life for any Nation or City to have a Righteous Man set over them A Governour of Atheas thanked God that he never made an Athenian weep A Righteous Magistrate will take such Care of the City and of the Rights and priviledges of it as never to grieve an Honest Citizen By such a one good men will be greatly encouraged and vicious men will be severely punished which is a great cause of rejoycing When the Righteous are exalted the City rejoyceth and when the wicked perish there is shouting Prov. 11.10 We read of a Heathen who refused the Office of a Magistrate saying That if he govern'd ill he should offend the Gods And if he govern'd well he should offend the Citizens But thanks be to God as bad as the world is it is not so bad but that those who take Care to Govern well shall please the Citizens A Righteous Magistrate will have that applause from all good and sober men which Job had ch 29.11 When the ear heard me then it blessed me and when the eye saw me it gave witness to me He being a Righteous Magistrate all that saw him or heard him rejoyced in him As therefore you expect such a Magistrate be careful that you have a right Aim in your Choice and that you be not misguided by favour or affection or any sinister end Let me give my advice to you in these two concluding particulars First Act like true Citizens that value the good and wellsare of the City and be not byass'd to Act contrary to your own judgment Consider First That personal Obligations must not sway you in such a great concern as the choice of a Magistrate You must not do the City an injury because a particular man hath done you a kindness If in this Case my best friend and my greatest enemy should be in Competition and I am satisfied that my Enemy is the fittest man to govern and would be most serviceable to the City I cannot satisfie God and my own Conscience if I do not vote for my enemy because t is the publique good from which I must take my measures 2. The Relation and Obligations of a Society must not prevail I must confess that it is a very pleasant sight to behold the brotherly love which the members of particular Societies shew to each other And when a Brother of a Company proves in a Mans Judgment to be the fittest man 't is great satisfaction to the mind But otherwise a man shall deal Perfidiously and Treacherously by the City 'T is according to what I mention'd before as if a man should kill his Mother to do his Brother a kindness Besides every man desires to have a Magistrate that will Act impartially without favour and affection but how can you expect it if you are partial and act only from personal favour and affection in the choice of him It is a great concern And though it be but for one year yet it may prove a very Critical one and may require great wisdom as well as the other qualifications in him whom you make the Chief Magistrate Solomon tells us Eccl. 9.14 A parable of a poor wise man who delivered a City by his wisdom when a great King came against it We know that there is a Potent King who wages war against us and if by Treachery or force he can overcome this City he will look upon his work as more then half done And what a great blessing then may a wise man be who hath Authority as well as wisdom to preserve the City 2. Act like good Christians Let me beseech you in the name of that God who is the God of peace and by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ who is the Prince of Peace that there be no Unchristian Jarrings and Contentions amongst you which are a great dishonor to our Religion and a great prejudice to the Souls of Men. How can you expect that God should prosper your choice if you offend him at the same time Remember I beseech you that if you are True Christians you are fellow-Citizens with the Saints and of the Houshold of God which is the highest Obligation to Christian Love and Unity Every man may use his priviledge though he doth not disparage the name of Christianity He may Vote according to the best of his judgment without shewing any disrespect to him that Votes for other men It is a very deplorable Case if a Christian Magistrate cannot be Chosen by Christian Citizens without the breach of Christian Love I pray God of Heaven keep you from Vnchristian Heats and Animosities and give you his direction and blessing in this great and important affair that a Righteous man may be in Authority and that you may all have cause to Rejoyce in him FINIS Advertisement THE Unworthy Non-Communicant The Necessity of Restitution The Benefit of Early Piety Advice to Young Men to beware of Theft and to beware of Drunkenness By Mr. Smythies The aforesaid Books are Sold by J. Southby at the Harrow in Cornhil
not a Couragious one because he will be afraid to do his Duty upon the appearance of any danger He must not be like Ephraim A Silly Dove without Heart but one who will know his place and make others know it too He that saith This man will be Angry and the other will be disobliged is more fit to have a Feather than a Sword born before him Solomons Throne was supported by Lions to signifie that those that are in Authority must be as bold as that Creature As Uprightness and Impartiality is necessary for doing right to the Poor so is Courage and Magnanimity for the punishing of great and rich Offenders Magistrates must fear God but they must not fear men The Electors should therefore resolve as Gideon did that they will not have one who is fearful and afraid but one that will do by the stoutest Offender as David did by the Lyon and the Bear when the Lamb was taken out of the Flock He was not afraid to take the Lyon by the Beard and slay him to rescue the poor innocent Creature 1 Sam. 17.35 He must be as stout in the Execution of his Office as Job was who brake the jaws of the wicked and plucked the spoyl out of their teeth Job 29.17 He must not do by Men as Saul did by the Amalekites Cattle God commanded him to slay all the Cattle and he only slew the leanest and spared the fattest because he feared the People and obeyed their Voice Achilles's Armour must not be on a Cowards back The Punishment of a great Malefactor is a fearing Example to the small ones because it convinceth them that the Magistrate is resolved that no evil-doer brought before him shall escape V. Loyalty to the Supream Magistrate is another necessary Qualification Qui Coesarem portat He that bears the King's Authority in his hand will be the fitter to govern if he bears true Affection to him in his Heart And to chuse one that doth not may prove very fatal The Loyalty of the Chief Magistrate of the Metropolis or Imperial City is a great security to the Crown because danger doth commonly arise there What Alexander once said to one of his Chieftains in whom he placed great considence may the King and Queen say to the Lord Mayor of this City if he be Loyal If you be awake I may sleep The King sees with the Eyes of his Magistrates and with none more than with His Eyes who sitteth in the Chair of this great City This is probably the meaning of Solomon Prov. 20.8 A King that sitteth upon the Throne scattereth away all evil with his eyes that is with the Eyes of his Magistrates And if they be so blind that they will not see the Kings and the Peoples Case must be very dangerous And there is a necessity of more than ordinary Loyalty at this Time when the great Concerns not only of this but of other neighbouring Nations require the Kings frequent and long absence And when there are so many amongst us who are so insensible of our wonderful Deliverance from the Tyranny oâ— Popery that they would bring us back again into that worse than Aegyptian Bondage Men who desire nothing so much as to act the part of blind Sampson by pulling down the House the they perish themselves by the fall of it When the Disciples would have fetch'd Fire from Heaven to destroy the Samaritans our Saviour rebuked them and said Ye know not what Spirit ye are of What Spirit then are these men of who would fetch Fire from Hell I mean from France to destroy their own Country-men and the men of their own Religion But I hope there will be a Lord Mayor chosen again who will use his utmost diligence to disappoint the Design of these blind Protestants The Jesuits Thanks be to God are gone but wherever they are they cannot but be exceedingly pleased that they have Protestant Agents who are carrying on that Design which will bring them all back again to sit at the Helm as they did before By this it may appear what a necessary Qualification Loyalty is VI. And Lastly Piety which is the best Qualification He that ruleth men must be just ruling in the fear of God 2 Sam. 23.3 The Antient Romans would not endure that a Sentence should be pass'd by a vitious Magistrate Good Magistrates make good Cities When God would restore to his People Judges as at the first and Counsellors as at the beginning it presently follows Thou shalt be called The City of Righteousness the faithful City Esa 1.26 And on the contrary Cities are spoyled when they are governed by vitious Men. It the Magistrate be a Ruler of Sodom 't is the way for the Citizens to be the People of Gomorrha A Pious Magistrate is therefore highly to be valued because he will have a special regard to Religion and the Church of God He will remember the Lord and let Jerusalem as well as London come into his mind Jer. 51.50 It hath pleased God to bless our Church with many pious and Learned Prelates And if it pleaseth God to bless our State with Pious and wise Magistrates we may hope that we shall be at unity in our selves and that judgment will run down like waters and righteousness with such a mighty stream that vicious men will not be able to stemm the torrent of it God guided his people through the wilderness by Moses and Aaron When Magistrates and Ministers joyn in the promoting of Gods Honour we may expect that piety should encrease and wickedness be supprest Ministers cannot do it alone We can only tell sinners of the wrath of God that is to come and they either look upon it at a distance which they may timely enough prevent Or else they will not believe it till they irrecoverably fall under it But the wrath of the Magistrate is like a Roaring Lion to them in this world that is ready to tear them if they obey not The sword of the Spirit will not reach them but the Sword of the Magistrate may They are too hard to be hewn by the Prophets but they may be hewn by the Magistrates We complain with sorrowful hearts that we labour in vain but the Magistrate shall not need to bear the sword in vain but may be a terrour to evil doers And he hath reason to expect that God will be a terror to him if he be not The Magistrate should consider that his Sword is the Sword of the Lord as well as Gideons for the overcoming of those that are enemies to God and Goodness Cato exhorting Magistrates to punish offenders said That those who can suppress wickedness and will not deserve to be ston'd to death Quod ad scelerum licentiam invitarent improbos By not punishing wickedness they invited men to the commission of it The Councel therefore which Jethro gave to Moses is fit to be observerd by the Citizens this day viz. That they Chuse an able
A SERMON Preached before the Right Honourable Sr. Thomas Stampe LORD MAYOR THE Court of Aldermen AND Citizens of LONDON September 29th 1692. AT The Election of the Lord Mayor for the Year ensuing By WILLIAM SMYTHIES Curate of St. Giles Cripplegate LONDON Printed for J. Southby at the Harrow in Cornhil 1692. To the Right Honourable Sr. Tho. Stampe LORD MAYOR c. My Lord I Have obeyed the Command of your Lordship and the Court of Aldermen in this Publication which will Vindicate my Reputation to all sober Men from those Calumnies which are cast upon me I delivered nothing in this Sermon to which there is such unjust Exception taken but what I ought to have said in any City or Corporation in the King's Dominions on the like occasion And had the Citizens been as really united in their Hearts as Truth and Honesty are joyned together in this plain Discourse there would have been no such Reproaches That London may so know the Things which belong to Hâ—… Peace that they may never be hid from her Eyes And that succeeding Magistrates may follow your Example in your Great Station is the Prayer of My LORD Your Lordships most Humble and Obedient Servant W. SMYTHIES AN Election-Sermon Preach'd September 29th 1692. PROV xxix Ver. 2. When the Righteous are in Authority the People rejoyce THERE needs no Preface to a Proverb This is one of the Aphorisms of the Wise Man which are therefore highly to be valued and diligently to be observed because he had the Wisdom which is from above God is the Master of these Sentences And they are of excellent Use for the Regulation of Mens Lives and Actions through all the various affairs of this Life In this Book we are furnished with Ethicks Oeconomicks and Politicks by which every Man may know how to govern himself every Master may know how to govern his Family and every Magistrate may know how to govern those that are under his Jurisdiction and Authority My Text hath relation to the last of these and is fit for our Direction in the great Affair of this Day I cannot in the first place but take notice of Solomons Supposition which is the necessity of Authority or Government There needs no Interregnum to convince us of this For by the dayly Irregularities and Outrages of Men under a strict Government and severe Laws we may conclude that if there were no Authority to punish Offenders the World would be worse than a Forest of Wild Beasts And all honest Men like Job would curse the day in which they came into it Nay it would in one respect be worse than Hell it self where the Devils have Belzeebub for their Head and are under a sort of Government as we learn from our Blessed Saviour As therefore it is of absolute necessity that there should be Government so it is one of the greatest Concerns of this Life that there should be Righteous Governours The due Administration of Justice in a City is like the Fountains or Rivers which supply it without which the Inhabitants could not subsist And where there is Male-Administration that City would be like to Jericho of which 't is said 2 King 2.19 that it is well scituated but the Waters are naught And where there hath been any such Miscarriage a Righteous Magistrate may like Elisha make the Waters to be sweet again I come now to that which I chiefly intend which is to shew First Who is a Righteous Magistrate And Secondly That the People have cause to Rejoyce in him We may understand the Word Righteous in the largest sense as taking in all necessary Qualifications for the Magistratioal Office And these I shall rank under Six Heads I. The First is Wisdom The Government of a great City is of great Importance and requires great Wisdom and Prudence for the management of it for he must be a Wile Man both in the Government of himself and others First In the Government of himself and this must be over his Appetite and over his Passion 1. He must govern his Appotite that by luxurious Eating and Drinking he may not be unfit for the discharge of his great Undertaking The Sin of Drunkenness is a shame to the meanest Beggar but how inexpressibly shameful is it in him who is to punish the Drunkard and the Beggar too The Scripture calls Magistrates Gods because they are in God's place on Earth to execute Justice and Judgment But they are very unfit to be called so who are unworthy to be called Men. I have read of Two Laws amongst the Heathens for the prevention of this Sin in Magistrates One was that they should drink no Wine And the other was that they should be put to Death if they drank too much So necessary was Sobriety and Temperance accounted in them that govern by those who had not the Laws of Heaven to oblige them to it as Christians have Places of Authority are Places of Honour in which Men must have a care that they be not guilty of any Vice which will be a reproach to them whilst they live and cause their Names to rot when they are dead History tells us of a great Magistrate of whom it was said that he lived non ut vivat sed ut bibat he lived only to gratifie his drunken Appetite And when he was turned out of his Office and for grief hanged himself the people derided his dead Body and said There hangs up a Tankard So odious was Intemperance in him who should have been an Example of Sobriety and a Punisher of that Vice of which he himself was guilty Solomon saith Eccl. 10.16 Wo unto thee O Land when thy Princes eat in the Morning And v. 17. Blessed art thou O Land when thy Princes eat in due season for strength and not for drunkenness Where by eating we are to understand luxurious eating and drinking Eating and drinking is far from being the end of our Beings but appointed as a means to enable us for the duties of our several Places the doing of which is a great end for which we live This Temperance ought to be the care of all Men and in an especial manner of all those who are in Authority Their Minds had need to be upon their business and not upon their Bellies upon whom the Wel-fare of a great City doth so much depend They should imitate Moses of whom we read Exod 18.13 that he arose in the Morning to sit in Judgment And David saith Psal 108.1 I will early destroy all the Wicked of the Land By which Expesitors understand that he made the Morning to be the time of Judicature He was an early riser to do his Devotion to God Psal 5.3 My Voice shalt thou hear in the morning in the morning will I direct my Prayer unto thee and will look up And from that Duty like a pious Magistrate he went to the discharge of the other It was Gods special Command to the House of David Jer. 21.12
that they should execute Judgment in the morning which was anciently the time of that Administration because Magistrates were then more sit for that great Affair than after they had eaten and drank Intemperance makes a Man forget his business and therefore the Heathens were wont to call the God of Wine the Son of Forgetfulness If Magistrates are guilty of this it may cause them to pervert Justice The Prince who was made sick with bottles of Wine stretched out his hand with scorners Hos 7.5 when he should have stretched out his hand against them 2. There must be wisdom in the government of his Passion I mean that of anger for when that prevails it is a second drunkenness And truly he that is in the seat of judicature had need to have command of himself considering how many and how great the provocations are which he dayly meets with We read of wise Heathens who were very averse to Magistratical engagements because of the vexations that attended them One said that he could better endure banishment Another that he had rather go to his grave in quiet Most certain it is that the Office will try the Temper and Patience of him that undertakes it Moses was the meekest Man in the world and yet not always meek enough to govern his passion when disturb'd by a disorderly and Murmuring people who as the Psalmist saith provoked him so that he spake unadvisedly with his lips for which God was offended at him Solomon saith he that is slow to anger is better than the mighty and he that ruseth his Spirit than he that taketh a City Prov. 16.32 The meaning is that he who overcomes himself is more to be valued than he who by force and violence overcometh others Immoderate anger is called by the Latines Impotentia It is the weakness and impotency of a man which will give occasion to the Envious to Reproach them that are placed above them Where passion prevailes in the chief Magistrate the whole City may be discompos'd by his discomposure And amongst other evils which are too many for me to reckon up this great one is to be expected from a passionate Magistrate viz. passing hasty judgment it being impossible for him with due attendance and sedateness to weigh and consider all that is offered on both sides Slanderous Ziba putting King David into a passion caused a very undeserved severity against Mephibosheth It was a good saying concerning good Magistrates Ad puniendum non â—racundia sed equitate ducuntur 'T is not passion but equity that is their guide 2. He must have wisdom to govern others By wisdom I chiefly mean knowledge of the Laws which he is to execute and of those rights and priviledges which he is to preserve What Solomon saith of a Nation I may say of a City Prov. 28. By a man of understanding the state thereof is prolonged It reflects upon the Wisdom of Electors when a man is chosen who is only Honored to his Face because of his High Station and ridicul'd behind his back in many Companies for his great inability to perform the duty of it And I may use the words of Selomon in another place with little alteration Eccl. 10. v. 16. Wo unto thee O City when thy Governour is a Child which is all one in reference to age and understanding It was a great judgment which God threatned to the disobedient That he would take away the mighty man and the prudent man and give them Children to be their Princes and Babes to Rule over them Esa 3. And on the contrary it is a great blessing of God to have wise and good governours which he promised by the prophet Esaiah as an encouragement to reform the disobedient c. 1.25 I will restore thy Judges at the first and thy Councellors as at the beginning Such as Moses and Joshua and David were The world never was without mischievous men who would destroy the welfare of it nor any great City without those that seek to undermine its peace and prosperity By which every one may understand how necessary it is that it should be govern'd by a wise Magistrate according to that of Solomon Prov. 29.8 Scornful men or as 't is rendred pestilent men bring a City into a snare but Wise Men turn away wrath They prevent the fury of those men It was a good saying of a wise Heathen Vbi preses fuerit Philosophus ibi civitas erit felix where the President or Magistrate of a City is a wise man that City is happy And another saith that of all arts the well-government of a City hath the preheminence Wisdom is a necessary Qualification .. That 's the first II. A Second is Justice and Uprightness Which must appear by these two Negatives First He must not be byass'd by any personal favour Secondly He must not be byass'd by any sinister design of advantage to himself First Not by any personal favour or affection He must be an upright Man that doth not lean on one side A Malefactor must not be spar'd for any former friendship nor receive the greater punishment because of any former pique or prejudice Solomon saith Prov. 24 25. To accept persons in judgment is not good which is a Meiosis and signifies that it is exceedingly bad and abominable We read of two Eminent Heathens who acted diversly for this principle of uprightness and impartiality One of them being chosen a Senator and accepting of it made a splendid Feast to which he invited all his friends and entertained them with all imaginable respect and kindness But at the end of it he took a solemn leave of them as if he had been going into another Countrey at that time when he was only going into another Station intimating thereby that no friend must expect the least favour or kindness from him in the discharge of that Office in which the peace of his Conscience and the welfare of the City were greatly concern'd The other being Elected utterly refus'd it saying that he would never be placed at that post where he should be obliged to make no difference between his friends and his foes We may by these instances see how just and upright these men were who had only the light of natural Principles and not that revelation of the will of the Righteous Lord who loveth Righteousness and whose countenance doth behold the upright Psal 11.7 And who threatneth his Eternal wrath and displeasure to the unrighteous I may add farther that Magistrates must not only turn their backs upon their friends and acquaintance that justice may take place but upon their nearest and dearest Relations A Magistrate must be like Melchizedeck without Father and without Mother He must imitare our Saviour who when he was told That his Mother and his Brethren were without waiting for him said Who is my Mother and my Brethren Intimating that he had that business to do to which Natural Affection must give place Justice and Uprightness must