no man can as to these be at any time unable if he be not unwilling here impotency is impiety God strictly observes all wilfull and presumptuous transgressions and will be the avenger of them not is he to be deceived or satisfied with any formal excuses and pretentions used by wily hypocrites who offer chaff instead of good weat no more than he can be escaped or reresisted by any tyrannique power and insolencies when he maketh inquisition for these notorious omissions of Iustice Mercy and Humility which are the summaries of all good Laws and the seminaries of all piety grace and vertue nor shall these words of God which drop like the rain and gentle dew from heaven return in vain but will be swift witnesses against any soul whose barrenness presages it is nigh to our sing and burning for these laws and lessons as from Mount Sinai are with thunder and lightning Gods demonstrations are not only true but terrible armed with omnipotency never to be bafled pregnantly shewed by their own perspicuity and powerfully exacted by the divine severity who will carry himself frowardly or contrarily and as I may say with an uncondescending height and divine stiffness against those that are not humble in his sight resisting the proud and withdrawing mercy from the merciless yea requiring the justice of punishment on us because the justice of obedience is not done by us Ideo enim patimur justitiam quia non agimus as St. Bernard speaks for this is by the eternal vengeance still inculcated in hell as Virgil expresseth Discite justitiam moniti ne temnite divos while the Furies with their flaming iron whips flagellis ferreis flagrantibus do compel wicked and unjust men to suffer that justice which they refused to do to God to Man to themselves and others But I have done with the first general in which I observed the occasion and authority of this Demonstration Secondly I now come to the {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} or {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} thing demonstrated the grand lesson which God teacheth so clearly and constantly to all men at all times these are denoted under these three grand heads Iustice Mercy and Humility These are considerable 1. Conjunctim joyntly 2. Divisim severally in their united and distinct aspects 1. Consider them together and they afford us six things considerable First The paucity of these magna mandata or summè requisita grand demands The Lord lays but a few things upon us Tria sunt omnia a sacred Trinity of Precepts from the sacred Trinity of Iustice Mercy and Humility from the divine Wisdom Power and Majesty These make up that monile sacrum holy pendent or jewel which is the greatest ornament of humane nature and blessing of all Societies consisting but of three gems but they are paragons of great price for what is brighter than the invincible Diamond of Justice which is scintilla Dei a spark of God as pearls are drops and Diamonds sparks of the Sun what more beautiful than the gentle Saphire of Mercy what more amiable than the modest Emrald of Humility The paternal indulgence of God is pleased to give us in his teaching us short lessons compendious Counsels and holy Epitomes of his will and our duty At first he propounded but decem verba ten commands in the Decalogue which is a summary of all Theological and Moral Institutions After he reduceth these to a narrower compass of loving the Lord thy God and thy neighbor as thy self So Solomon To fear God and keep his Commandments Christ makes up all in one grand sentence of doing as we would be done unto whence the Emperor Severus took his famous Motto the Apostle St. Paul brings all points and lines of the Laws and Gospels circumference to this one center Love as the fulfilling of all in one word Nor doth he permit Timothy to vary from that {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} wholesome form of words the faith once delivered to the Saints which he had taught him as a short creed or summary no doubt of Christian doctrine which otherwhere is expressed in beleiving with the heart and confessing the Lord Iesus with the mouth so in the end of the commandment which is Charity out of a pure heart and a good conscience and faith unfained So inexcusable are they who refuse to learn of God whose commandments are neither grievous nor numerous but condescending to the weakest capacities and frailest memories to which what ever is necessary in religion is easie to be learned and retained For secondly as the particular heads are few in number so very short in the discourse some points may by long Orations be like gold malleated and extended to such great latitudes of diffused expressions as make them very combersom as the volumes of our times both in Dogmatick Polemick and Practick Divinity do witness while the superfluity of mans wit and eloquence glories to find out many inventions definitions and distinctions even in plain things wire-drawing religion into fine threads and driving the solid mass of Divinity as to Faith and Repentance love of God and our neighbours to leaf gold chopping and hewing and paring the pillars of wisdom into small chips and thin shavings Doubtless as Erasmus writes to Archep Warrham the Church of Christ was never in a more happy estate than when it was uno brevissimo symbolo contenta both contented with and kept in the compass of that one short Creed which we call the Apostles and which was yet once shorter than now it is Thirdly But commonly brevity is attended with obscurity Brevis esse laboro obscurus fio short and concise expressions many times wrap things up as it were in clouds whereas Laws ought to be meridiana lumina tanquam solis radiis scriptae so clear as none need complain so legible that he that runs may read them and so indeed are these divine demonstrations in the Text where the wisdom of God reconcileth brevity and perspicuity together as Pliny speaks of Trajans uniting Soveraignty and Liberty by an happy temper of Government or Empire which neither diminished his own just Prerogative as a Prince nor oppressed the peoples legal immunities as his Subjects so the Lord designing these Laws for all sorts of people fits them for all capacities in such a way that the very babes and simple ones may learn and understand and do them {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Laws saith Plato ought to be as common and catholick in their expressions as they are in their injunction or obligation that none may plead ignorance either by the prolixity or obscurity by the ennormious number or by the tedious length of them Fourthly We may observe the order and situation of the particulars First Justice Secondly Mercy Thirdly Humility there is as Calvin and others observe an {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} inverting of the Primacy and
ΜΕΓΑΛΕΙΑ ΘΕΟΥ Gods great DEMONSTRATIONS AND DEMANDS OF Iustice Mercy and Humility Set forth in a SERMON PREACHED Before the Honourable House of Commons at their Solemn Fast before their first sitting April 30. 1660. By JOHN GAVDEN D. D. Prov. 21.3 To do Justice and Judgement is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Clem. Alex. Apud nos quo religiosior quisque eo justior Minuts Fel. de Christ LONDON Printed by J. Best for Andrew Crook at the Green-Dragon in St. Pauls Church-yard 1660. TO THE Honorable the Speaker and other Members of the House of COMMONS NO sooner had I done my duty to Gods commands and yours Honorable and worthy but blessed be God you presently applied to do your duty to God the King and your Country with such Justice Mercy and Humility that you have by an astonishing joy revived the sunk spirits of all just merciful and humble men in these three Kingdoms who had for many years been sorely depressed and almost despaired under the importune injuries of some insolent and proud Masters who with Cesar or Pompey were impatient of any superior or equal yea with Lucifer and Antichrist they exalted themselves above all that were called God in the British Honour and Authority advancing their unjust and merciless ambition so high that at last it fell not by force so much as its own weight and that just confusion which God brought upon those Babel-builders whose foolish building had indeed many pinacles of fanatick opinions and projects daily starting up yet but one great Tower or Mole whose moorish or sandy foundation was tumult and violence its line and measure fancy and providence its materials the lives and estates of its Countrymen its cement the blood both of Kings Priests and People The gracious and glorious God who alone doth wonders hath by the Justice Mercy and Humility of the two Houses of Parliament added to the most renowned Generals humble valour and loyal courage soon made Nehustan of those brazen Serpents and Idols which were made up of subtilty and hypocrisie violence and impudence 7. In a few days even before I could print what I had preached we have lived to see that holy Motto under the Kings Arms made good Exurgat Deus dissipentur inimici Let God arise and his enemies shall be scattered Psal. 68.1 The royal Dieu mon Droit God and my right hath like Moses his Serpent devoured the Serpents and rods of those Magicians who usurped all things yet nothing more falsly and unjustly than that Inscription Deus nobiscum God with us when indeed they had neither his Word nor the Laws of the land with them with the like vain and arrogant ostentation did Dionysius boast of the gods good will and approbation when after his sacrilegious pillaging one of their Temples he had a very fair gale of wind to carry him and his booty home by sea Certainly nothing is more remote from Gods gracious presence and the power of godliness than that brutal power and inordinate might which is carried on with penal prosperities and successes but without any right as to Law and Justice which are the only rules and boundaries of good conscience also the soul and life of all righteous Government void of which the other is but cadaverosa potentia a putid carkass of prevalent usurpation which stinks in the Nostrils of God and all good men But You even You are those True Worthies who by your just loyal and humble agnition of and submission to the Kings lawful Authority have made Mercy and truth meet together yea righteousness and peace kiss each other You have fulfilled in the affirmative that old and ambiguous verse which I remember to have heard many years before our sad troubles which ends with Nullus In which Negative the time-serving Astrologasters and others strongly fancied they found a fatal period of the British Monarchy at least of the Stuartian royal family O how must it make those Diviners mad to see what I long ago hoped would be the meaning of it that King who was made and esteemed as Nullus a persecuted expulsed and as much as lay in humane malice a nullified King to see him reign as surely and gloriously as any of those royal Predecessors did who under the emblems of other words made up that strange verse To which so benign an interpretation and event there wanted not some providential omens and signatures as first that star which appeared a little after noon on the day of the Kings birth of which there were many eye witnesses in London and Westminster Next were those meddals of silver which were then coyned with this Inscription Hactenus Anglorum nulli to denote that Prince to be the Nonsuch who alone had the glory to be born Heir apparent to these three British Kingdoms Nor was his signal preservation after Worster-fight a small pledge of Gods special protection whose usual methods are to build up to an unwonted height and conspicuity of glory there where he lays the deepest foundation of earthly affliction I confess I cannot sufficiently with you and all good men admire the wonderful revolutions and intricate ridles of Gods providence punishing us justly for our sins yet relieving us mercifully from our sufferings We are yet in extacies of joy and wonder as those that dream hardly believing the strange undeserved and unexpected dispensations of God toward us in which he hath made that precious stone which some builders refused to become the corner the capital and crown-stone of the building the only center and stability of that Arch in which the loyalty and love the joy and hopes of all good Subjects and true English-Protestants do meet and six May you go on prosperously and unanimously under the Banner of the most high God to compleat your religious loyal just and valiant Counsels not only to establish his Majesties Throne and our civil rights in Truth Mercy and Peace but also to cleanse and repair the Temple the Church and house of the living God whose miserable dilapidations and sordid ruines in doctrine devotion discipline order and government are such that you cannot but pity to see all things sacred covered with dust and the Ministery of the Church both Bishops and Presbyters almost buried with the rubbish of factions confusions dissentions and despiciencies I confess this Church-work ought as the Kingdom of God to be first in every good Christians intention as no doubt it was and is in yours But you are not to be blamed by any unseasonable severitie if as to point of execution you first applied your selves in the present distress of our times and affaires to settle and secure as to the main those things which belonged to your civil rights and National peace The exigents or extreamities of which not bearing any delayes do sufficiently justifie your indeavors to preserve the ship of the State in which the Church is imbarqued which
great example no less than Justice and Mercy have by this we draw nearest to God and are fittest to accord with him by this we are partakers of the divine nature of Christs Spirit graces and rewards Pride which is its own Idol and Idolater its own Carver and Comforter hath its reward onely from it self or the vain world for God resisteth the proud and they must be sure to be destroyed who dash against God Hell is the pit and prison of proud Angels and men the first {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} they kept not their station or rank but lifted up themselves to be like to the most high beyond what was due to them The second because as Pharoah and Nebuchadnezzar they rob God of his glory both as to the justice which forbears to destroy them as they deserved and as to that Mercy which was conferred upon them beyond any merit in them Secondly As I have thus briefly considered these Three Subjects Justice Mercy and Humility in themselves so I am with like brevity to consider the predicates or actions applied to each of them 1. To do justice First Materially as to the merit of the cause and person Secondly Regularly as to the Law prescribed by God or man not by private opinion presumption or passion Thirdly Authoritatively by due order and commission derived to thee from the lawful supreme power for however all men must have the inward principles and desires for justice yet the doing or executing of it is not given to all but only those to whom the sword of justice is committed by the Law of God and man Christs question must be asked before a man does justice Who hath made me a judge or Ruler A man may be very unjust in punishing the greatest and most notorious offenders without due authority derived to him Fourthly Do justice formalizer as to the inward form principle or conscience for justice sake not for ambition as Absolom or reward or revenge or glory c. A Judge may give a just sentence before man and yet be an unjust Judge before God when he doth what is just materially but not mentally as to his end and design in doing Justice men must be sincere hoc agere make it their {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} business for Gods sake or from a good conscience for judgement is the Lords as Moses tells the Elders 5. Do Justice practice effectually not only think and meditate consult vote decree enact and declare or talk and plead and dispute and cavil or contend but bring forth the fruits of righteousness that all may see them and enjoy the benefit of them just Laws made and never executed are as good seed sown upon barren ground which never comes up beyond straw and wilde oats 6. Do Justice {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Impartially {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} in all things to all persons poor and rich not oppressing the rich because his fleece is large nor the poor because his strength is small and friends few Aequum dicitur quia aequat leges omnibus as Varro observes Justice must be streight or right without warping as equal and indifferent to all blind as to the persons though Eagle-eyed as to the cause and rule 7. Do it speedily especially in such cases when the effects of justice are not penal but beneficial Delays of Justice are so far denials and so long unjust when it is in the power of a Judge or Prince or Magistrate to do it no usury is so unjust as that which makes advantages by dilatory justice In penal effects of Justice there dilatory executions may be more venial and tolerable because they are mixtures of mercy and reprieves in order to repentance for which God gives us the great pattern in his giving us space to repent and being so slow to excute vengeance on us though daily provoked by us 8. Do it {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} not {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} in rigor but in measure judgement and proportion as they said of old {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} God is an axact Geometritian duly measuring and weighing or pondering the actions of all men and proportioning his judgements to them so ought men to demean themselves in doing justice calmely as in the cool of the day without passion or transport Perit judicium quum res transit inaffectum the eyes of judgement are blinded when the mists of any passions arise either prejudicating the person for the cause or the cause for the person 9. Do justice {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} with humanity pitty and compassion to the person in the greatest severities against and justest detestations of their sins Justice among men much more among Christians must have not only vulnera but also viscera bowels as well as blows Ingenuous Justice dolet quoties cogitur esse ferox is afflicted when compelled to inflict punishment and feels the strokes it gives condemning the Judge to commiseration when he condemns others to misery this tenderness or temperament it learns from God who deplores when he executeth or denounceth his judgements his bowels are turned within him when he is forced to give over his people to the destroyers hence are his many forewarnings importunings and beseechings of men to flye from the wrath to come as why will ye die c. and How shall I give you over to be as Admah and Zeboim how shall I make thee as Sodom and Gomorah Secondly To love Mercy here first the order is observable That Justice must first be done before Mercy else it is as very preposterous to exclude Justice to make way for Mercy as it is presumptuous to do unjustly under pretence of shewing Mercy Like the design of some mens cruel charity to get an estate by all imjurious ways in order to do works of charity or to build an Alms-house like the giving alms or legacies before we pay our debts Such Sacrifices are abominable to God we must not rob the Exchequer of Justice to put into the Corban or poor mans box of the sanctuary 2. We may observe the emphasis of the word put to Mercy beyond that is to Justice this must be done as a work and task which is enjoyned us but the other Mercy must be loved and delighted in Justice is opus necessarium alienum a necessary but strange and unwelcome work compared to Mercy in this also we have the precedent of the divine goodness whose {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} pleasure and delight is in shewing mercy where there is any capacity but his executions of Justice are as it were a pressure and distress upon him not that he is not infinitely just to all the extents of Justice but he is superinfinitely merciful so as to set even
we are humiliati most humbled and debased by Gods providence it is very insutable then to boyl and swell with thoughts of repining and murmuring against God as if he injured us or treated us unworthy of us No here to be humble is to be silent and submisse to pray to prostrate at Gods feet to accept of the punishment and own it as from a Father who chastiseth us that we may not be condemned with the world humility disarms God and is a salve shield and cordial in the worst estate which is then best for us when we grow more humble as pride is a moth or curse that blasts all even the best we are injoy or do Alienating God from us and driving away his good Spirit when it finds us our own Gods and worshippers It is but just to leave us to the heaven of our own fancies and to be satisfied with our own delusions Third General Cui to whom God shews and of whom he requires these great lessons and duties Thee O man 1. To all mankind in general as creatures capable to know good and evil just and unjust and accordingly to chuse and do as they are directed from the inward dictates of right reason and those self-convincing principles which are within their own consciences 2. To thee O man more especially who enjoyest the light of Gods Word in the pale and bosom of the Church where the righteous precepts and merciful commands of God are more evidently set forth by laws repeated by examples multiplied by judgements and rewards proportioned to mens works none here can plead ignorance of duty both to God and man 3. Thee O man in thy particular station as occasion and power are put into thy hand whether Jew or Gentile great or small rich or poor Prince or Peasant Lords or Commons Priest or people no man is unconcerned in these Demonstrations to every one God says as Nathan did to David Thou art the man God requires Justice Mercy and Humility of thee O King who sittest on the throne of Majesty who art in Gods stead as his Vicegerent a kind of mortal Deity honored with the name and vested with the power of God and much more with the imitations of the divine excellencies of Justice and Mercy toward man as of Humility toward God Shalt thou reign because thou closest thy self in cedar and art compassed about with strong guards Did not thy Father do justice and mercy and then it was well with him He judged the cause of the poor and needy was not this to know me saith the Lord Thou even thou O King art to fear him who is King of Kings and Lord of Lords higher than the highest the terror of Tytants who pulleth Princes from their seat and poureth contempt upon all their glory thy surest policy is true piety and the best reason of State is this pure Religion and undefiled even to do Justice to love Mercy and walk humbly with that God by whom Kings raign Whose thrones are not to be established without Justice Mercy and Humility Nor can they be injured so much by any as by themselves their Pride before God like Nebuchadnezzars and Belshazzars will abase them and their oppression of their people will most oppress themselves at last Secondly Of Thee O wise man and mighty Counsellor who art esteemed by others and thy self as a great State Intelligence digging deep for counsels and wrapping up thy self in the darkness of thy cloudy projects and designs thou who gloriest in thy Oracular Policies as Achitophel and disdainest to be nonplust in thy wisdom or defeated in thy designs Of thee the Lord requires to give no counsel but such as is just nor to decree other than righteous decrees To agitate nothing in Councils of State and Parliaments by partiality faction and oppression to sinister ends and unjust interests either of Prince of people because the Lord sitteth among Senators and will cause a just decree without mercy to be executed upon those who either execute or decree unrighteous and cruel things Thirdly Of Thee O subordinate Iudge and Magistrate O great Lawyer and eloquent Pleader the Lord repuires not to turn Justice into gall and Judgement to wormwood not to judge for reward or pervert the cause of any either for fear or favour or for respect of persons not to make pleadings of Law to be as gins and snares to innocent simplicity by a fallacious sophistry and dilatory felony which robs the Clients purse as the bushes and brambles do the sheep of his fleece when he seeks and hopes for shelter from them No temporal advantage can counterpoise the detriment and danger which unjust and merciless actions bring upon those who willingly offend against the laws of the just and merciful God and thereby incur eternal damnation deserving to be beaten with many stripes because they know the will of God and do it not St. Bernards Motto to all judges is omnia judicata rejudicabuntur what comes short in mans measure or weight of Justice shall be made up by Gods eternal recompences 4. Of thee O Soldier O valiant and mighty man who hast power in thy hand to save or destroy to kill poor men and lay wast fenced Cities of thee God requires justice and mercy which must be the measures of War as well as of Peace there are jura belli laws of righteousness and moderation which God exacts in wars even defensive which seem the onely wars that can be just For sure to make war without some precedent or threatned injury must needs be very injurious Not might but right must be looked at where the lives of men are concerned justice is not to be measured by the length of thy sword or the strength of thy Arme or the number of thy Soldiers but by the Laws of God of Nations and of every polity The Justest war must not by passionate transports be carryed on to unjust exorbitant and cruel oppressions either to harmless and unarmed people or to immoderate demands in point of reveng and compensation much less to build ambitious Babels and covetous confiscations upon others ruines The Soldiers had their lesson of John Baptist what to do when they had so much grace as to ask the question they are not commanded to lay down their Armes but to do violence to no man c. 5. Of thee O man God requires Justice mercy and humility whose prosperity either in violent or injurious ways have made thee rich and great or who increasest thy estate by that which is not thine in equity and conscience who makest no scruple of Extortion rapine racking rents sacriledge oppression and rigorous extortions who hast built thy nest on high and feathered it with the spoils either of thy Neighbours and Tennants or of Church and State of the Crown and Crosier where cheap purchases witness to your faces and upbraid both byars and sellers of the injustice of
mercy and his blessing upon one great heroick and steady soul got the wind of the Jesuitick Anabaptistick and fanatick designs who have abused us with their long wiles O lose not the advantages which God hath given you to bring your Church and Country into a fair and happy haven after so many tempests and agitations of infinite loss and hazzard There are many holy Duties and Christian Rites which call for your Justice and Mercy the two blessed Sacraments which have a long time been either wholly despised or prophanely abused or very partially used The Lords Prayer also the Ten Commandments and the Creed all sacred and wholesom forms of excellent use to the people of Christs flock but despised and neglected by some of their supercilious Pastors to the great detriment of true Religion and abatement of piety these expect your exemplary Justice to restore them to their primitive and Catholick honor which will be a mercy to the whole Nation which by extemporary novelties and crude varieties in Religion hath been wholly deprived of all those pristine forms of liturgical devotions by which the generality of Christians were best informed and most affected as to the grand fundamentals of Religion Sure it is but the effect of crafty or crazy brains to deny us all use of Our Father in English because we gave over the Pater nosters the Ave Maries and other prayers which were in Latin and so of little use to the vulgar It was once thought a blessing to have prayers and holy duties in a language which people understood Now t is a seraphick stratagem of Satan to make people forget those things which they could easiest remember and best understand Lastly There are many prevalent and epidemical sins of Sacriledge Prophaness irreverence Perjury rash swearing Duelling Vncleanness and all manner of licentious discoveries of Atheism and irreligion which call for your Justice to suppress them for they are the cruellest enemies of Church and State If you will indeed do Justice love Mercy and walk humbly with your God if you will shew loving kindness and sense of honor to your Country resolve upon all those dispensations restitutions and exercitations of Justice and Mercy which are before you Which you will best do if you 1. Be pleased so to fix our Laws yea our legislative and Soveraign authority so that we may be no more tossed too and fro with every wind of mens ambitious fancies qui malunt leges quam mores mutare who had rather change our good laws than mend their own ill manners 2. To remove all obstructions which are inward in your own souls and outward in other mens passions or actions by which either Justice or Mercy are most hindred of their free course 3. If you listen not to that wicked maxim of the Devils politicks Fieri non debuit factum valet as if evil actions did call for perseverance not repentance Nullum tempus occurit Justitiae no time or fact must prescribe against justice truth God and the Church 4. When you have undone by justice what hath been done by injustice to the undoing of Church and State Prince and People Then will mercy be seasonable by acts of such amnesty pardon and oblivion as may rather compose than irritate the spirits of men praestat motos componere fluctus 5. If you needed which I hope you do not any motives to these great indeavours and discoveries of justice and mercy it is no small one which the Platonists observe as to the difference between just and unjust the good and evil men which is as great as between light and darkness order and confusion men and beasts good and bad Angels as between a King and a Tyrant God and the Devil God is the first fountain and grand example of justice and mercy as the Devil is of injuriousness and cruelty 6. If you inquire Cui bono what their reward shall be First the conscience of well doing and this to your Country and in its greatest distresses Next you shall have that reward of lasting honour and renown by which your names as repairers of our breaches shall be embalmed in the love of their Country and transmitted with a sweet resentment to all posterity where as the names of proud and cruel oppressors shall rot and perish like their own dung the blood thirsty and deceitful men shall not live out half their dayes not only as to those dies naturales but as to those dies civiles which preserve the living fame of worthy men to many generations as blessed he is but short-lived whose infamy only survives as the damned in hell are counted dead because they only live to shame and torment As for your direction what and how to do excellent things you need not search Achitophels braines or rake the skull of Matchiavel you need not call up the Ghost of Richelieu or conjure up those subtil spirits of Government which may tell you the Adyta imperii arcana principum the depths mysteries intrigoes and riddles of States you need not listen any longer to those Seraphick Syrens and Phanatick Counsellors who under the title of Gods cause and the Saints interest which I know not what blessed projects or gainful godliness had made a shift to undo all but themselves yea and themselves too as to all sence of justice or mercy or honor or conscience of modesty or humility You need not advise with flesh and blood with humane passions and lusts facilis parata est ad virtutem via the counsel of God is at hand {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} you cannot easily miscarry by following his wisdome in justice mercy and humility however you had better perish in Gods way as to temporal effects then prosper for a season in the Devils which must end in endlesse infelicities There can no better course be followed in civil justice than that which was given by the Oracle to the Sicilian Pyrates when afflicted by the plague after they had gotten much booty they enquired What they should do to be releived Answer was given in these letters R. A. S. P. P. which some cunning man interpreted to import by the Acrostick letters thus much Reddite Aliena S'ultis Possidere Propria Restore to others what is theirs if you hope to preserve to your selves your own else your common weal will be but a common wo There is neither darkness in your way of justice and mercy nor will there be much difficulty God hath and will remove mountains of malice hypocrisie and injustice before you yea he hath prepared the vvay for you by levelling the levelers and confounding the confounders of all things civil and sacred His vvord and the lavvs of the Land vvill tell you vvhat is to be done State super vias autiquas bonas stand and enquire for the good old ways and walk therein that you and we may find that rest vvhich hath been a long time and ever vvill be denyed us in any of those fantastick and novel models vvhich make religion a nurse of rebellion pretend that the Kingdome of Jesus Christ vvill indure no temporal Christian Kingdome except such as they may rule and raign in But you have not so learned Christ neither his law nor his Gospel suggest any such unjust and cruel counsels nor do they favour any violent and rebellious designes Do as I believe you will what becomes your duty to God and man your love to your Country your respect to true Religion and your care of your posterity and no doubt God will be with you both to strengthen your hands and to make your faces to shine with that glory in this life which is the first but least recompense of just and honorable actions and also with that eternal glory which is the purchase of Christs blood and the honorary recompense of God to all that in the way of well doing seek for honor and immortality to which the Lord bring you and all his Church for Jesus Christ his sake to whom with the Father and the blessed Spirit be all glory and honour now and ever Amen FINIS May 20. Anno 630. Preface The great and publique importance of this Parliament Prov. 23. â— 2 Chron. 15.2 The way of our happiness Iudg. 9.7 Prov. 28.9 2 Kings 7.8 Ier. 5.25 Partition Matth. 5.7 Psal. 13. Phil. 2.8 The demonstrator 1 The occasion 1 Sam. 15.13 Isa. 58.3 Ezek. 18 15. 〈◊〉 7.4 Ioh. 1â— 1â— Psal. 50.8 â—sa â—6 3 Psal. 51.17 1 Sam. 1â— 22 Hos. 6.6 2 The credit and authority of the Demonstrator Psal. 94.10 Iob 28. 2 Gen. the thing demonstrated Matth. 22.40 Ieâ— 7.9 1 Ioh. 4.20 Luk. 10.25 Tit. 2.11 1 Iâ—stice Ioâ—. 18.38 Quest Ans. What Iustice iâ— Iustice in the fountain Rom. 2. Iustice in the câ—stern Iustice in the conduits Iustice to God Mal. 5.6 Selves Others Gen. 4â— â—1 3 Demand Mercy Exod. 34. â— Psal. 103.8 Psal. 1 6 Mercy in God In Man Prov. 20. â—8 Lam. 3.22 Matth. 18.27 â— Sam. 15.11 Matâ—h 9.36 and 14.14 Deut. 29.11 13 Psal. 130.3 Iames 2.13 3. Humility Luke 17.10 1 Cor. 4.7 1 Per. 1.4 These three considered in their practicks The acts or exercises of three Vertues 1. To do Iustice Rom. 13.4 Luk. 12.14 Deut. 1.17 Exod. 11.25 and 23.3 Psal. 106. Hoseaâ— 11.8 To love Mercy Isa. 28.21 Mercy must be loved Col. 11. 2 Kings 20.31 3. To walk humbly with thy God Psal. 19.4 5. and 61.9 2 Cor. 11.12 Lev 16.41 so whom this Demonstration and demand is made Of Kings and Sâ—â—â—â—aign Magistrates Ier. 22.15 16. Of Counsellors c. Of Magistrates Of Soldiers and men of might Luk. 3 14. Of the most prosperous O Ministersf of the Church Of the glosing Hypocrites Of the whole Nation 4. The manner of Gods Demonstrating Application or Vses Iosh. 7.13 Conclusion