unsatisfied but ever says Give give This being so great an evil let us see what curb can be found for stopping its career It will soon appear that all the Arts of Government cannot do it Religion is that alone which teaches us to discharge our selves of this Tympany whose swellings are so incurable Our Saviour hath commanded us to learn of him who was lowly in heart his Apostles charge us That in lowliness of mind we esteem others better than our selves That we humble our selves in the sight of God and be clothed with humility as with a garment And indeed this blessed Doctrine does no sooner prevail on us but it changes that blind value and fondness we have for our selves into a profound unaffected Humility that represents our Faults and Defects as clear to us as our former Vanity did our supposed Excellencies and instead of vast towerings brings us under great Contrition deep Self-denial and an humble mistrust of our selves and thus Conscience obliges us to be subject by setting out of the way this great provocation to disorder 2. Another Cause to which not a few of the Distempers of Societies owe their Rise and Growth is the heat and fury of mens Passions which being once kindled by their pride and blown on by many outward accidents at length become so fierce and violent that no Banks can resist their torrent but they sweep all before them Some are born under the disadvantage of ill Nature and a Cholerick Disposition and if these meet any provocation which must needs fall out often for as a tender Body doth soon feel pain so an ill disposed Mind is quickly disquieted their heated Spirits are all in a Fever and they either swell with Rage fret with Envy or boil with Revenge And thus are their thoughts set to work how to drudge happily under the severe bondage of their tyrannical Passions One perhaps to be revenged on some triumphing Favorite whom he can overtake no easier way will be ready to drive all to confusion to comply with his disquieting Malice Another that is not so much in bondage himself to those ill-natured Passions yet being captivated with the Charms of a fair but imperious and spiteful Mistress must give himself up as the instrument of all her ill Nature and being distracted with the extravagant Notions of Knight-errantry thinks himself bravely gallant when he has sacrificed all things to her wicked Resentments Private Animosities are known to have had a larger share in publick distempers than any will willingly own and this must needs be so still if there be no assured means for qualifying the heat and tempering the Passions of Men For no Government can be so well ballanced but that many will find themselves aggrieved by it or by those who manage it and if upon these irritations we ask counsel at our blinded and misled Passions we may be well assured they will ever drive us into all the excesses of Fury and Confusion How excellent then must this Divine Discipline be which tames the wildness and smooths the roughness of our unpolished Natures teaching us to put off wrath anger malice blasphemy and evil communication out of our mouths and instead of those moulds us into a Divine temper like our meek Master obliging us to forbear one another and forgive one another as he has done us For that Divine Wisdom which he taught the World is first pure then peaceable gentle and easie to be entreated It no sooner gets into our breasts but it dulcifies our Choler qualifies the bitterness of our Gall and gives us the possession of our Minds out of which nothing can turn us and transforms us from that ravenous Temper into a Dove-like disposition and instead of these boiling thoughts which do ferment gives the quiet serenities of a good Conscience and fervent Charity so that we are no more Sons of Thunder but Children of Love and do no more bluster out in Passion but from the Calm of a cool Spirit do breathe out soft and gentle Affections And if of a sudden a storm arise within us our Consciences will at once both arraign condemn and kill these Passions that raise it and thus teacheth us to be subject by destroying these passions that do both marre our own Quiet and endanger the Publick Peace 3. Another Occasion that hath engaged many into seditious Courses hath been the narrowness of their Fortunes to which they not understanding the Philosophy of contracting their desires which is the safer and easier course studied by all means whatsoever to enlarge them so as to satisfie the Vanities and Prodigalities of an undiscreet Expence As the turbulent Youth of Athens advised his Uncle finding him busied to prepare his accounts rather to study how to make none at all Those people think they drive a sure Trade for they can lose little and may gain much therefore are ready to embark in the most desperate Designs hoping to fish some advantage from troubled waters Their Small Fortunes joyned with their gaping desires are ever setting a new edge on their ulcerated Spirits and none are so furious as these who pinched with want and cold and armed by despair must do or die If the ordinary Course of Law and Justice go on they are undone but the disordering these does both reprieve them from ruine and feed them with some hopes Now no treasure can answer the demands of all ravenous devourers who cannot dig and are ashamed to beg nor can the greatest exactness of care reach every Individual of a State or oblige them to an expence proportioned to their Fortune much less to limit their desires to it but still there be many Prodigals who out-run themselves and those are often men of brisk Tempers and ungoverned Appetites In what disorder then must Government be if this cannot be repressed Perhaps in an evener Tract of Peace and Plenty when Order and Authority maintain their Reputation such dissolute wasters of their Fortunes cannot prove so considerable as to disturb the Peace of a Nation But all States are subject to Accidents that weaken them and the Censures of an unruly multitude will often blast the Reputation of the best Government And at some such disadvantage these untoward Male-contents may catch an opportunity of doing much mischief how great a happiness then is it to any Nation to embrace and obey that Religion which teaches us Not to take thought what we shall eat drink or put on that disbands the solicitudes about to morrow and the anxious cares that oppress weaker minds our holy Faith teaching us that we are pilgrims on Earth as all our Fathers were calls up our thoughts above the depressions of sense to seed our selves with the assured hopes of approaching Glory and Happiness in another state which does so entirely swallow up the sense of any present Trouble that it leaves no other impression on us but to make us long to be gone beyond these
Instructions he gave his Commissioner for consenting to the abolition of the Order of Bishops he wrote thus Carry the Disputes so that the conclusion seem not to be made in prejudice of Episcopacy as unlawful but only in satisfaction to the People and for setling the present disorders and such other reasons of State And he likewise ordered him to take care that Episcopacy should not be abjured as a point of Popery contrary to Gods Law or the Protestant Religion And at the same time in a Letter to the Primate of that Church he wrote thus We do assure you that it shall be still one of our chiefest studies how to rectifie and establish the Government of that Church aright And he adds a little after You may rest secure that though perhaps we give way for the present to that which will be prejudicial both to the Church and our own Government yet we will not leave thinking in time how to remedy both After God in his wise and holy though to us unaccountable Counsels suffered the Rebellious Arms of his Enemies so far to prevail that nothing did promise any hopes of his being re-established on his Throne but the consenting to all the demands of these in whose hands he had cast himself then did the strict care he had to keep a good Conscience appear by his hazarding all things rather than endanger his inward quiet and therefore he told them That when he was satisfied in his Conscience with the lawfulness of what they desired then but not till then could he grant their demands and was willing to enter in conference with any they would appoint about these two Points the one being the Divine Appointment of Bishops and the other his being obliged to defend them by his Oath of Coronation And the account of one of his Discourses I have seen is thus That he would run the hazard of all his Crowns below rather than endanger that above and that though the quiet of his Kingdoms and the settlement of his Throne were very valuable yet the peace of his Conscience must be preferred by him to all things And in a Discourse he had which he wrote with his own Pen he used these words Not to stay you too long upon so unpleasing a subject I assure you that nothing but the preservation of that which is dearer to me than my life could have hindered me from giving you full satisfaction for upon my word all the dangers and inconveniences which you have laid before me do not so much trouble me as that I cannot give full satisfaction to the desires of my native Country especially being so earnestly pressed upon me And yet here again I must tell you for in this case repetitions are not impertinent that I do not give you a denial nay I protest against it and remember it is your King that desires to be heard And in another Paper he sent to those that governed then in his Native Kingdom he writes these words If it be so clear as you believe that Episcopacy is unlawful I doubt not but God shall so enlighten mine eyes that I shall soon perceive it and then I promise you to concur with you fully in matters of Religion and therefore he subjoyns He hopes they would not press him to do that which was yet against his Conscience until he might do it without sinning And he concluded that Paper with a Postscript to the Ministers That he hoped they as Ministers of Gods Word would not press upon him untimeously the matter of Church-government until he adds I may have leisure to be so perswaded that I may comply with what they desire without breach of Conscience which I am confident they as Church-men cannot press me to do And in these conscientious Resolutions he was so firm that in a private Letter he writes thus For Gods sake do not so much as expect much less linger after any other or further matter from me for upon the faith of a Christian you shall have no more than what is now laid before you And in another Letter As for your Covenant when and not before that I shall be satisfied in my Conscience that I may allow it I will He going on grounds so strict and well-pleasing to God it was no wonder he maintained that serenity of mind that when he got Letters that told him how he was to be used being engaged at Chess he continued to play after he had read his Letters without shew of any commotion or disturbance which I have seen under the hand of an eye-witness And in the Moneth of March before his Martyrdom when he was almost out of all hopes yet he would not depart from these Christian Resolutions which I find thus expressed by his own Pen For any enlargement concerning Church-affairs I desire you not to expect it from me for such expectations have been a great cause of this my present condition which I assure you I am still resolved rather to suffer than to wrong my Conscience or Honour which I must do if I enlarge my self any thing in these points These are some of the true Characters of a Defender of the Faith of one that did approve himself to be under God and Christ the Supreme over the Church and of one that was indeed fitted to bear all things rather than sin against God or his Conscience 2. Another Character of Saul is his cruelty which was so enraged that he spared neither Son-in-law nor Son but threw his darts at them to have killed them and his cruelty against David was also joined with perfidy and breach of trust for after he had given him the most sacred assurances he still continued to pursue him and caused to be murdered fourscore and five Priests for the pretended fault of one which he believed upon the delation of an Edomite This was a fact both so cruel and so impious that he could find none to execute it but that uncircumcised Alien and all this was the effect of that evil Spirit was let loose upon him when by his sins he had driven away the good Spirit of God But our Royal Martyr did daily shew more and more Evidences of a truly Divine and Christian Spirit What full Indemnity and Oblivion did he offer his Enemies even though they would not allow any Indemnity to his Friends And how much he was against all cruel or severe practices may appear from these Evidences one is under his own hand in these words The present distractions about Religion are so great and of that nature that perswasion as well as power must be used to restore that happy tranquillity which the Church of England hath lately and miserably lost for certainly violence and persecution never was nor will be found a right way to settle peoples Consciences And this went so far with him as to give him a strong aversion to the excuting sanguinary Laws against even the Emissaries of Rome which I find he thus
Israel for whom David had that respect that even when he was most unjustly hunting his life yet he would not stretch forth his hand against him seeing he was the anointed of the Lord. And in this our Royal Martyr was his Parallel since he was by a tract of an undisputed Succession that which Saul was by immediate Revelation the Lord 's Anointed And indeed he looked on himself as having his Authority from God as will appear from the following instances which before I mention I must preface with this that I will not enlarge on the whole field of that Murdered Princes Vertues for that were both endless they being so many and needless they being so well known But having by a great happiness seen not a few I may add hundreds of Papers under his own Royal Pen I shall only now offer divers passages drawn out of those that vvill give some Characters of his great Soul And as in the Indies the Art of Painting is only the putting together little Plumes of several colours in such method as to give a representation of vvhat they design vvhich though it be but coarse vvork yet the Colours are lively so I can promise no exact vvork but true and lively Colours I vvill offer being those mixed by our Martyr himself though perhaps unskilfully placed by me And as the Popish Legend tells of tvvo Pictures of our Saviour done by himself one particularly vvhich he left in Veronica's Handkercher vvhen he vviped his face vvith it so from the svveat of our Royal Martyr some Lineaments of his Face shall be offered And to return to make good the character of our late Soveraign he ovvned all his Authority to be derived from God and therefore in one of his Papers I find these vvords vvhen he is acknovvledging the great blessings and eminent protection he had received from the hands of the Almighty he adds To whom we know we must yield a dear account for any breach of trust or failing of our duty towards our People And in another Paper reflecting on the Demand concerning the Militia he gives the reason vvhy he could not consent to it as it vvas proposed Because thereby he wholly divested himself as he conceived of the power of the Sword intrusted to him by God and the Laws of the Land for the Protection and Government of his People thereby at once disinheriting his Posterity of that Right and Prerogative of the Crown which is absolutely necessary for the Kingly-Office and so weakening Monarchy in this Kingdom that little more than the name and shadow of it will remain In another Paper he expresses his zeal to preserve the Lavvs as became Gods Vicegerent in these vvords If we wanted the Conscience we cannot the discretion to tempt God in au unjust quarrel the Laws of our Kingdom shall be sacred to us we shall refuse no hazard to defend them but sure we shall run none to invade them And that Paper vvhich is very long he thus concludes God so deal with us and our Posterity as we shall inviolably observe the Laws and Statutes of our Kingdom and the Protestations we have so often made for the Defence of the true Reformed Protestant Religion the Laws of the Land and the just Priviledges and Freedom of Parliaments From these Evidences it will appear what severe thoughts he had of the Obligations he lay under to Almighty God from whom he had his power and to whom he knew he was to give account of his Administration 2. We find it is said of Saul that after he was anointed God gave him another heart and that meeting a company of Prophets he prophesied to the astonishment of those that beheld him How much of this Divine Spirit rested on our Blessed Martyr all those Meditations which were his Exercises in his retirement do abundantly declare If by Saul's prophesying be meant the foretelling what was to come I meet somewhat very near it from his Royal Pen Anno 1642 in a Letter wherein he writes these words I have set up my rest on the justice of my cause being resolved that no extremity or misfortune shall make me yield for I will either be a Glorious King or a Patient Martyr and as yet not being the first and at present not apprehending the other I think it now no unfit time to express this my resolution to you A very overly observer will see much in these words even without a Commentaty Or if by prophesying be to be understood an elevated way of trusting in God and adoring him then I shall add what I find under the same Sacred Pen when he was at Newcastle in a Letter to one of his Subjects Know that I rather expect the worse than the better event of things being resolved by the Grace of God and without the least repining at him to suffer any thing that injury can put upon me rather than sin against my Conscience And in another Letter Now for the sad consequences I know no so good antidote as a good Conscience which by the Grace of God I will preserve whatever else happen to me A third Character we have of Saul is that he was very careful to protect his Subjects when in danger as appears both by his haste to relieve Iabish-Gilead when sore pur to it by the King of Ammon and by his engaging against the Philistines with so much Personal danger to himself and his Family Now what our Martyrs zeal for protecting his Subjects was I speak not of his care in protecting the oppressed Protestants in Germany and France which I leave to the Historians I shall make appear from the following Evidences What vast Concessions he made to his native Kingdom every body knows and therefore he concluded a Paper he signed on his Pacification with them in these words And as we have just reason to believe that to our peaceable and well-affected Subjects this will be satisfactory so we take God and the World to witness that whatever Calamities shall ensue by our necessitated suppressing of the Insolencies of such as shall continue in their disobedient Courses is not occasioned by us but by their own procurement And in a Letter to one of his Commissioners there he writes But if the madness of our Subjects be such that they will not rest satisfied with what we have given you power to condescend to which notwithstanding all their Insolencies we still allow you to make good to them We take God to witness that what misery soever fall to that Country hereafter it is no fault of ours but their own procurement And in another Letter at that same time We take God to witness we have permitted them to do many things for establishing of Peace contrary to our own judgment How far he complied with their most unreasonable desires to the very great diminutions of his Royal Authority is well enough known When he saw them inclined to engage in the Civil War in this Kingdom he
left no mean unessayed to satisfie even all their jealousies and fears and therefore in a Paper under his own Pen he writes these words We do conjure all our good Subjects of that our Native Kingdom by the long happy and uninterrupted Government of us and our Royal Progenitors over them by the memory of these many large and publick Blessings they enjoyed under our dear Father by these ample favours and benefits they have received from us not to suffer themselves to be misled and corrupted in their affections and duty to us by the cunning malice and industry of these Incendiaries And when he heard these dismal news of that most barbarous Rebellion in Ireland with what zeal he set about the sending relief to them may appear from the following words of one of his Letters to one in his Native Kingdom after he had lamented the miseries and afflictions to which his good Subjects in Ireland were reduced through the inhumane and unheard-of cruelties of the Rebels there and had regrated the delays of sending supplies to them through the distractions of England he adds So that if some extraordinary course be not taken for their present supply it is not like their miseries will end sooner their days Therefore he required them to haste the sending over their Forces assuring them That if the Parliament of England did not punctually pay them he would engage his own Revenue rather than delay so good and so necessary a work and that he would issue out such Warrants under the Great Seal of England and grant all their other desires which in reason could be demanded for the advancement of it And after that seeing that work went on slowly he was resolved to have gone in person to have carried it on more vigorously and to have hazarded himself that he might preserve his People But finding that Resolution gave great Jealousies to those who censured him whatever he did he gave it over How careful he was to prevent a Rupture in this Nation not only his great Concessions prove but his constant offers of Treaty even when things went prosperously with him do demonstrate therefore reflecting on this in a Paper under his own Pen he writes We denied not any thing but what by the known Law was unquestionably our own we earnestly desired and pressed a Treaty that so we might but know at what price we might prevent the miseries and desolations that was threatned but this was absolutely and scornfully refused and rejected And in a Message which though it was never sent yet remains under his hand he writes these words And now he conjures his two Houses of Parliament as they are Englishmen Christians and lovers of Peace by the duty they owe their King and by the bowels of Compassion they have towards their fellow-subjects that they will accept of these offers whereby the joyful news of Peace may be again restored to this languishing Kingdom And thus far the Parallel of Saul and our Martyred King hath held good but now they must depart from one another and it shall appear how our late Soveraign was on many accounts hugely preferable to the King lamented in my Text yet I shall name one particular in which Saul had the better of him Saul had by his rash Oath endangered Ionathan's life which he seemed resolved to execute but the earnest intercessions of his People prevailed on him to change these his severe and cruel resolutions But alas our Martyr having firmly resolved to save a person he judged innocent and clear of the Treason charged on him did to comply with the most pressing desires of his People consent to the putting him to death We have seen his fault and the specious colours that led him to it next let me lay before you his Repentance expressed by himself in a Letter Anno 1642. One thing more which but for the Messenger were too much to trust to Paper the failing to one friend hath indeed gone very near me wherefore I am resolved that no consideration whatsoever shall ever make me do the like upon this ground I am certain that God hath either so totally forgiven me that he will still bless this good cause in my hands or that all my punishment shall be in this world which without performing what I have resolved I cannot flatter my self will end here And he ends that Letter thus Beside generosity to which I pretend a little my Conscience will make me stick to my friends How deep his sense of that sin how great his apprehensions of the Judgments of God and how true his notion of Repentance was cannot but easily appear upon the first hearing these words But for this one advantage the King in my Text had of the King of the Day we shall find many great and noble Characters in which he excelled him And first Saul pretended some zeal for God he built an Altar for him he honoured Samuel his Prophet he went and destroyed the Amalekites but when it might serve his turn he did not stick to disobey God he saved Agag and much of the spoil of the Amalekites pretending it was preserved for offering Sacrifices He had not patience to stay for Samuel but did sacrilegiously offer the Sacrifice himself But our Martyr did not only express great regard to God in his Prosperity by many high marks of his zeal and constant attendance on the Worship of God his great esteem of all worthy and deserving Churchmen and his Royal bounty to the advancing all pious and religious purposes But by his constant and firm adhering to those Rights of the Church and to all he judged himself bound in Conscience to maintain therefore it was that he did choose to bear the greatest dangers rather than sin against his Conscience When the violence of his Native Subjects against the Order of Bishops had brought things to that pass that it could not be maintained without much blood and confusion he judged that God loved mercy better than sacrifice did give way to their fury but with that tender care that became a man of so severe and exact a Conscience and this shall appear by some evidences I go to mention Having signed a Paper of Concessions wherein he had used the word it pleased him reflecting on the importance of that he wrote the following words in a Letter to him that had the managing of that business I must desire you to alter one word that I should not be thought to desire the abolishing of that in Scotland which I approve and maintain in England Now the word content expresses enough my consent to have them surcease for the present But the word pleased methinks imports as much as if I desired them to take them away or at least that I were well pleased they should do so But I leave it to your ordering so that you make it be clearly understood that though I permit yet I would be better pleased they let them alone And in the
expresses in a Paper written with his own Pen Concerning Goodman the Priest the reason why I reprieved him is that as I am informed neither Queen Elizabeth nor my Father did ever allow that any Priest in their times was executed meerly for Religion which to me seems to be this particular case yet seeing I am pressed by both Houses to give way to his Execution because I will avoid the inconvenience of giving so great a discontentment to my People as I perceive this mercy may produce I remit this particular case to both Houses but I desire you to take unto your serious consideration the inconveniences which as I conceive may upon this occasion fall upon my Subjects and other Protestants abroad especially since it may seem to other States to be a severity with surprize which I having thus represented do think my self discharged from all ill consequences that may ensue upon the execution of this person For his fidelity in observing his Treaties I have already in another branch of this Discourse mentioned some passages that shew how religiously he resolved to observe them and his refusing to serve his Interests by Promises which how useful soever they might have been to him yet since he could not with a good Conscience observe them he would not make them shews how sacred he accounted all his Promises and his offering to quit the command of the Militia either for a determinate number of years or for his whole life shews how carefully he intended to observe all he promised since he was willing to give such a security which as it was strong so it diminished his Authority in the most tender and most sacred part of it I shall to these add only one instance When he saw those of his Native Kingdom engaging in the War against him in this Kingdom it is obvious enough how much the securing Berwick might have advanced his service and his Armies in the North could easily have done it yet since by the Treaty with that Kingdom it was not to be garrisoned so religiously did he observe the Treaty that he would not put a Garrison in it But that fidelity was not minded by those who conspired against him who did notwithstanding the Treaty Garrison the place upon which occasion he wrote what follows No industry hitherto could have so far prevailed with us as to have gained any belief that our Scotch-Subjects would countenance much less assist this bloody Rebellion in England yet we know not how to understand the levying Forces both Foot and Horse within our Native Kingdom and their entering the Town of Berwick in a hostile manner Our most malicious Enemies must bear us witness how religiously we have observed these Articles on our part whereas if we had not been more tender than the advisers of this breach have been of the Publick Faith it is obvious to any how easily we could have secured that Town from all Rebels And after he had refuted the Pretence they made use of he adds Such then as shelter themselves under that pretext will find from thence but a slender warrant before God who knows the integrity of our heart and how inviolably we intend to preserve all that we have granted that Kingdom so long as they suffer themselves to be capable of our Protection and those favours He likewise wrote in another Letter at that same time these words Such high indignities to us and to our Authority make us believe they have forgot they have a King and their Oaths in preserving us in our just power as their King But God will discover and punish such undutiful thoughts how closely soever they be clouded with pretences of safety to Religion and Liberty which they know will be ever dearer to us than our own preservation 3. And to close up this Parallel Saul when in danger betook himself to the basest Arts and went to the Witch at Endor to ask Responses about the event of that Battel he was to give the Philistines not considering how he had provoked God to withdraw his protection from him and that all the powers of Hell and evil Spirits were no longer able to preserve him and having got a sad answer to his over-curious Question the common fate of all who will by these forbidden Arts thrust into the secrets of the Divine Councels we find him wofully faint-hearted sore afraid fall flat on the ground and refuse to eat And after that fatal Battel he had neither the courage to out-live it nor the strength to finish his desperate design upon himself but after he had fallen on his own Sword he called an Amalekite to compleat that Self-murder which he begun by his falling on his Sword and finished by these cruel Orders he gave But nothing of all this belongs to our Royal Martyr who depended on God and submitted to his will in the course of all his Councels both of Peace and War And when it pleased God for the punishment of his People to expose him to the malice and cruelty of his Enemies even then he proved more than Conquerour and according to the prospect he had of it long before he was a Patient Martyr Nor did he express the least meanness of spirit when brought lowest he would neither give up the Rights of the Church nor the Crown of People nor Parliaments to their insulting pride who trampling on all Laws Sacred and Humane had made themselves the sacrilegious Masters of his Person and Power And as he was not cowardly or languid under all his misfortunes so he maintained his Authority as long as he was able and did not faintly despond nor abandon his own Rights or the Protection of his People But this leads me to the sad part of my Discourse wherein I am to compare the Reasons we have for mourning with these David and the People of Israel had on this Occasion and it will be easily allowed ours must be by so much the greater by how much our Royal Martyr did exceed their King which hath been demonstrated in the Parallel I have given First This Kings Death was his own Deed and though the Victory his Enemies got drave him to that despair yet none of the People were of accession to it and for the Amalekite if his relation was true as it was an Alien from their Commonwealth that did it so Saul was well served for not destroying the Amalekites as Samuel had commanded him therefore they had no particular reason to be sorry but only because they had lost a King who as he was none of the worst so he was far from being one of the best Princes Perhaps David had some more reason to fast and mourn and as his Conscience did before accuse him for cutting off the Hem of his Garment so now the Arms he bare against him did trouble his Conscience For though much may be said for David in that case he was the designed heir of the Crown by Gods appointment he
generally guilty in the Death of so religious and pious a Prince 2. But the People of Israel had this great allay to their grief that they had a Prince designed by God for the Succession who had given such approved Evidences of his great Piety Wisdom Valour and Conduct that their Government was presently to take a settlement though it is true Abner set up Ishbosheth Saul's Son who was followed by all Israel only Iudah Davids own Tribe adhered to him But this was after two years War decided and all Israel received David for their King and still the Government was steady and even and therefore they had not that reason to afflict them which we had on the occasion we now remember It is true the right of Succession was clear and undisputed but those who killed the Father continued their Crimes by pursuing the Son and not only driving him from his Rights but when one of the Tribes of our Israel even that which justly glories in a nearer Interest in our Soveraigns Person had adhered to him and crowned him though with very unjustifiable reserves then did that party bathed in the Fathers Blood thirst likewise for the Son 's and carried the War into that Kingdom and when the Righteous Heir of our Murthered Martyr came into this then again did carnal wisdom and the care of mens Lives and Estates prevail over those strong tyes of Loyalty and Subjection God having reserved the establishing him on his Fathers Throne to his own immediate Arm wherein there should be a clear declaration of his wise and wonderful Providence in turning about the hearts of the Nation to him so that to Posterity it will be a Problem which of the two is the more astonishing either the Rebellion against the Father or the recalling the Son and that some of the very same persons should have been instrumental in both by the latter action expressing their true and sincere Repentance for the former But alas the Interval was long it was not only a two-years War like that betwixt Saul's Son and David but a ten-years Thraldom wherein those that had complained of some small incroachments on Liberty before did totally overturn all the Freedoms both of Parliament and People but to colour this a little gave a large and unrestrained Liberty in matters of Religion by which all sense of Order and Regular Government being quite cast off many by the custom of an unbounded Lawlesness became habitually Sons of Belial and as Heifers unaccustomed to the yoke cannot again be brought under these necessary Restraints and Regularities of Religion and Law Nay which is worse though but the effect of the former many youthful and extravagant spirits being once delivered from all obligation to any piece of Religious Worship come by degrees to lose all sense of it and seeing those irregular and ungoverned Practices of many pretenders to Religion who were visibly advancing their own Designs under the colours of Piety they came to imagin Religion was only a pretence by which ambitious men carried on their own Ends and the many Subdivisions and different Parties they observed about matters of Religion made them also judg there could be no certainty where there was so much debate and dispute And to all this may be added that by Oaths and counter-Oaths which they often took having passed from the Oath of Allegiance to the Covenant and from that to the Engagement their Consciences became seared and past feeling or being much wounded by such swearing to avoid the smart of that they took themselves to these cursed arts of getting quiet in their impious Practices by throwing off all sense of God and Religion and setting up professedly for Atheism which is so natural a result of what has been said that I think it cannot be doubted to have sprung from it And hitherto I suppose it is unquestionably clear that we have much more reason to lament the matter now before us than those had who are in my Text. 3. And now I advance to the third and last Part of my Discourse to consider what this mourning was and what ours ought to be they upon so sad news and so great a loss were both very tenderly affected for the Death of a King that had so many good Qualities that he being dead they had reason to forget his bad ones the loss also of so noble a Prince as Ionathan who may justly pass for one of the bravest Hero's and the most generous Friends that ever was could not but be very sad especially to David whose Friendship with Ionathan was beyond what is either in History or Romance and as hitherto all the generous parts of the Friendship were on Ionathans side though we find David's returns were as tender and rather more for at their parting when their mutual Friendship set them both a-crying it is said David exceeded But now when David was to have made returns suitable to what he had received from Ionathan he is snatched away by the Sword of the Philistines they had also many brave Country-men that were killed To this was to be added the sad condition the House of Israel was in by so great a defeat all which concurring could not but make a deep impression on the hearts of David and the People with him which did set them to their Tears and Prayers both for their own sins and perhaps they reckoned their arming against Saul one and with these they also mourned for the sins of Israel praying God to avert his Judgments to prevent the mischief might follow and to recover his People from the ignominy of so bad a loss and in the end to settle David so on the Throne of Saul that their might be under his Reign Justice and Truth Plenty and Peace both at home and abroad This is a clear fair account of the work of those with David in my Text. And after this the Application will be easie from which I shall not digress by proving the lawfulness and fitness of Anniversaries that being so well done by others but refer my Hearers to Zachary by whom we find the People of God fasted during the Seventy years of the Captivity the fifth and 7th Month he also mentions their Fasts of the 4th 10 Month though it is plain there are no such Fasts commanded in the Old Testament and yet the Prophet is so far from blaming these stated returns that he only blames their being formal and regardless of God in them and gives them directions how they should have ordered them But leaving this unreasonable Objection which is made by none but those who have the chief reason to mourn and fast on this Occasion I go next to propose what the Nature and Ends of our Mourning and Fasting should be which I shall lay open briefly in two Points 1. The one is to mourn before God for the guilt of this atrocious Sin that if any of us have been as was before laid open involved in
the Eternal Wisdom of that Architectonical Mind will in due time bring forth and in the mean while rest satisfied in all he does commending things in our prayers to him and doing every thing that befits our Condition for preserving Peace Order and Religion but going no further for the wrath of man doth not work out the righteousness of God And thus Conscience fixing our Subjection on the unshaken basis of our Faith and Confidence in God binds us by the strongest Ties to our Duty 3. A third Argument Conscience offers to oblige us to be subject and quiet is the servent and extended Charity it possesseth us with to all Mankind which must needs hold us from engaging in courses that will prove destructive to a great part of it Where we consider what the mischiefs of Rebellion and Civil War are what Dissolution of Government and Confusion of Justice it brings after it how much Bloud and Rapine Oppression Plunder and Profanation of the most Sacred things are the certain Effects of Commotions if they be long-lived what Lover of Mankind or Person truly charitable will engage in courses so black whose Catastrophe may prove so tragical and run far beyond what was at first designed and produce Effects far more mischievous than those that were complained of How many dispeopled Cities depopulated and burnt Villages what Tears of Widows and Orphans and of Aged Persons bereft of their Children who were the comfort and support of their Age must follow on such courses when the fields are covered with the Carkases of the dead and the Scaffolds smoak with the bloud of Innocents and that not only with common Gore but Royal and Sacred Bloud A pathetick and florid Eloquence could easily manage this Theme with those advantages as to raise horror in all at Courses so barbarous and unchristian which the common Sentiments of Humanity will make those of softer and relenting Tempers hate much more the meek and peaceable Christians And that these are not the Melancholy representations of a troubled Fancy a little Reflexion on what we have seen and known and a penetrating prospect into what may be before us will easily make out to all considering Minds Therefore strong and fervent Charity to Mankind will prove a certain curb to repress new attempts at those disorders the Effects whereof are not yet old nor out of mind And here again Conscience obliges us to be subject 4. The last Consideration which I shall propose by which Conscience binds us to Subjection is the Practice and Example of our great Master who was made perfect through sufferings the whole course of his Life was a perpetual Tract of doing good and bearing ill he paid the Tribute when demanded and charged the Iews to render to Caesar the things that were Caesars And when he was to lay down his life for us he submitted himself patiently not only to the will of his Heavenly Father but to the Civil Powers which then governed in Iudaea Though he as the Heir of all things might have claimed the Empires of the World as his Right yet since he humbled himself so as to be born in the low character of a Subject he in that as in all other things became a perfect Pattern to us of all Righteousness When the accursed Band came out against him though he could have brought down Legions of Angels for his relief yet he not only submitted himself to them but both rejected and reproved S. Peter's too forward zeal and told him That such as drew the sword should perish by the sword and when the ill-guided fervour of that great Apostle had misled him to the excess of smiting with the Sword our Saviour expressed his displeasure at it by his miraculous piecing the Ear again with the maimed Head And when he was accused to Pilate of being an Enemy to Caesar and pretending to set up another Kingdom he did in the plainest stile was possible condemn all practisings against Government upon pretence of Religion by saying My Kingdom is not of this world if my Kingdom were of this world then would my servants fight that I should not be delivered to the Iews but now is my Kingdom not from hence This doth so expresly discharge all busling and fighting on the pretence of Religion that we must either set up for another Gospel or utterly reject what is so formally condemned by the Author of this we profess to believe And never Cause of Religion was of so great concern as the preserving the Head and Author of it whom with equal mixtures of Injustice and Violence his enraged Enemies were against all colours of Equity and contrary to Law and Religion dragging to that death which though it proved the happiest thing to Mankind yet on their part who acted it was the foulest Crime the Sun ever saw The blessed Apostles followed their Masters steps in this as in all other things and therefore having learned of our Saviour that lesson of bearing the Cross and suffering patiently when Injustly persecuted counted it their glory to be conformable to him in his sufferings and indeed if we examine the Nature and Design of that holy Religion our Saviour delivered we will find nothing more diametrically opposite to all its Rules than the distempered fury of these misguided Zealots who being carried on by the fierceness of their Ungoverned Passions have upon colours of Religion filled the World with Bloud and Confusion Otherwise does S. Paul teach the Romans in this Chapter though then groaning under the severest rigours of Bondage and Tyranny and S. Peter doth at full length once and again call on all Christians to prepare for sufferings and to bear them patiently and though the bondage of the slaves was heavy and highly contrary to all the freedoms of the humane Nature yet he exhorts them to bear the severities even of their froward and unjust Masters with this Argument That Christ suffered for them leaving them an example that they should follow his steps From these unerring Practises and Precepts must all true Christians take the measures of their Actions and the Rules of their Life And indeed the first Converts to Christianity embraced the Cross and bore it not only with Patience but Joy and as long as Christianity continued pure and unallayed this Doctrine of patient suffering was not only a big and empty boast but gave proofs of its Reality by the unexempled Patience and Sufferings of the Christians in a succession of Three Ages and Ten Persecutions These blessed Witnesses of our Faith were burning and shining Lights as well by the Purity of their Lives as by the Stakes and Flames of their Martyrdom Nero unpalled them and clothing them with Pitch-coats made burn them as Torches in the night but these Fires scattered the darkness of that Night of Idolatry in which Rome lay buried and both enlightned and inflamed many that lay freezing in darkness It was the astonishment of
the World to see such numbers of all Ages Sexes and Qualities with that alacrity and chearfulness of Submission offer up their Lives for the Faith and neither the Cruelty of their unrelenting Persecutors nor the continued Tract of their Miseries which did not end but with their days prevailed on them either to renounce the Faith or do that which is next degree to it throw off the Cross and betake themselves to seditious Practices for their preservation but continued stedfast both in their Faith and Patience by which they inherited the Promises Nor was Christianity endamaged by all that fury on the contrary the Bloud of the Martyrs was the Seed of the Church whose Field being thus fatned did spring up thirty sixty and a hundred sold so that for every new harvest of a persecution there was a plentiful crop of Christians And there is no reason to think these blessed Martyrs endured all their sufferings constrained by necessity because they could do do no other for as we find in the inspired History that at two Sermons there were Eight thousand Converts so Profane as well as Ecclesiastical Writers assure us the numbers of the Christians became very soon so vast that nothing but the Conscience of the Duty they owed the Supreme Powers obliged them to be subject Pliny who lived a hundred years after our Saviour wrote to Trajan That in Pontus and Bithynia there were great numbers of Christians of all Ranks both in Cities and Villages so that the Temples of their Gods were by the prevailing Growth of Christianity left desolate A little after him Marcus Aurelius had a Legion of Christians in his Army of whom he gives this Character in his Edict That they carried God in their Consciences and when there were so many in the Army we may on a fair computation reckon their numbers to have been very great Not long after that does Tertullian plead for those in his days in his admired Apologetick and tells the Romans That if they would stand to their own defence they wanted not the strength of Numbers and Armies that neither the Moors nor Parthians nor any other of the Nations that fought with the Romans could match them who filled the whole World all their places Towns Islands Castles Villages Councils Camps Tribes Senate and Market-places only they abandoned their Temples to them adding That to what War were they not both fit and ready even though they were less numerous who were butchered so willingly if their Discipline did not allow them rather to be killed than to kill And elsewhere he vindicates the Christians That none of them were ever found guilty of conspiracies against the Emperors whom they acknowledged to be set up by God and therefore judged themselves bound to love reverence and honour them But as the Christian Religion continued to spread by a vast and prodigious increase so did the spite of the Infernal Furies grow fierce against it by the same proportion and in the last Persecution which continued about twenty years we find the Martyrs of one Province Egypt reckoned to be betwixt eight and nine hundred thousand and yet no tumults were raised against all this Tyranny and Injustice And though after that the Emperors turned Christian and established the Faith by Law yet neither did the subtil attempts of Iulian the Apostate nor the open Persecutions of some Arrian Emperors who did with great violence prosecute the Orthodox occasion any seditious Combinations against Authority These are the great Precedents this holy Doctrine of the Cross hath in the first and purest Ages and though Religion suffered great Decays in the succession of many Ages yet for the first ten Centuries no Father or Doctor of the Church nor any Assembly of Church-men did ever teach maintain or justifie any Rebellions or seditious Doctrines or Practises 4. And thus I have made good what I undertook to evince That Conscience doth with the greatest evidence of Reason and Authority bind us to an absolute Subjection to the Higher Powers and have observed what was the Path our blessed Saviour himself followed the Traces whereof are to be known by those bloudy steps he hath left behind him for our Example and Instruction We have also seen a glorious Cloud of Witnesses following him in the same way he both opened up and consecrated to them But after all this it may be perhaps objected That all Christians at least all pretenders to it have not followed the same Rule and that some Divisions of Christendom which in all other things run very wide from one another yet meet in this Doctrine of resisting the Supreme Authority and not only so but they vouch Religion for their Warrant and their Quarrel both and pretend a Zeal for God his Church and his Cause in all they do This is the last part of my Discourse to which I obliged my self in the beginning and I will handle it with the round plainness that such a Point how tender soever some may think it requires It is true about the end of the Eleventh Century this pestiferous Doctrine took its Rise and was first broached and vented by Pope Gregory the Seventh commonly called Hildebrand the first Pope of that name though a far better man had basely and shamefully courted the cruel and perfidious Phocas and treated him in a stile of mean and sordid Flattery that misbecame any man much more so great a Bishop But the Pope I now speak of went more briskly to work and begun that insolent and bold pretension of the Temporal power of the Popes over all Kings and Princes that they being Christ's Vicars on Earth must have all Power in Heaven and Earth deputed to them and that as S. Peter's Successors they had the two Swords the Spiritual and the Temporal put in their hands Upon this he aspired and exalted himself above those whom the Scripture calleth Gods Nor did this rest in a bare speculation but any that will read his Epistles and knows the History of his Life will see what dismal confusions he brought on Germany and Italy and laid the Foundations of those bloudy Wars which followed and continued for some Ages Then did the Factions of the Guelphs and Gibellins divide Nations Towns and Families and fill all places with bloud and confusion How other Popes did afterwards set the same pretensions on foot both in France England and in many other places is well enough known to all that are acquainted with History and for two or three Ages the Tyranny of this was so heavy that any Insolent Church-man was able to disturb Government by carrying Complaints to Rome of some pretended Incroachments on the Ecclesiastical Immunity upon which Monitory Breves and Bulls were dispatched from Rome and every Prince was either to obey these how much soever they might prejudice his Government or to look for the Thunders of Excommunication Deposition absolving his Subjects from their Oaths of Fidelity and the transferring