Selected quad for the lemma: death_n
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A23819
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The regal proto-martyr, or, The memorial of the martyrdom of Charles the First in a sermon preached upon the first fast of publick appointment for it : an appendix to The grand conspiracy / by John Allington ...
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Allington, John, d. 1682.
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1672
(1672)
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Wing A1214; ESTC R14382
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21,772
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40
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this you shall find is gathered even from the very language of God Himself for the Lord by his Prophet Rebuking Israel Thus saith Why will you die O House of Israel Alas Israel had no mind no will in the world to die They would never have given suffrage or consent to their own death And yet for as much as they willed that which would infallibly bring death upon them God lays their death even to their own charge and makes their destruction an act of their own will saying Why will ye die O House of Israel Now as the Men of the old World the Deluge as the Men of Sodom their Fire and Brimstone and as Israel their Destruction so were all we the cause of the Kings death who continued to commit those sins and to act those wickednesses for which God was resolved to deprive the Nation of so great an Happiness 2 Chron. 35. We read how Josiah going out to Battel was slain before Necho King of Egypt Now Josiah was so good a King so right-hearted toward his God so Religious and so zealous of his Honour that it is generally concluded He was slain not for His own but for the sins of His People insomuch that some conceive Jeremiah made his Lamentations with Order unto him That Soveraign whose Murther we this Day Commemorate He was never so much Charls le Grand as He was le Bon. He was never so Great as he was Good He was to say no more as Gold tried in the Fire exact and pure or as Saul for height even so He for Piety was far above his Brethren and yet even He could not stand before His Enemies The Lord went not out with His Armies He fell as did good Josiah before the Uncircumcized And why so Was it for want of Valour or Prudence or Skill in Feates of War No He had all these what then Truly it was because the Sins of His Party fought stronger against Heaven than their Armes could do against the Rebels The lowd Volly of Oaths discharged against God Himself The Drink Offerings of the Mighty The Rapine Plunders and abominable Exactions done in his Name This made our King miscarry this prevented God from going out with our Hosts These Achans so troubled our Israel that as God the Son King of the Jews was smitten wounded and slain for the Transgressions of His People Even so the Transgressions of His People the sin of his Three full and flourishing Kingdoms these were the Provocations and these a great cause why God took away so great a blessing and delivered into Bloody Hands so innocent a KING 1 Sam. 12. 25 If ye shall do wickedly ye shall be consumed both ye and your King It is not said if ye and your King do wickedly then shall both be destroyed but it is onely said If ye shall do wickedly yet both ye and your King shall be consumed Whence it clearly appears to me that the provocation of a people and the sins of a Nation they may and oft have a great influence upon the death of a King and that a King may be taken away not so much for his own as for their Transgressions And therefore I beseech you all in the name and fear of God if it onely be that you may live peaceably and plentifully and every man sit quietly under his own vine and comfortably eat the fruit of his own labours let us therefore forbear any longer to provoke our God Forasmuch as swearing and whoring and drinking prophane and ungodly Ryots Forasmuch as doing wickedly may again provoke God to consume both us and our King let us upon this day of solemn Humiliation and Fasting for the glory of our God for the safety of our King for that sad share which we contributed toward this so foul a murther let us sow in tears that we may reap in joy let us henceforth abhor at least those sins which gave the Rebellious an advantage those sins which gave occasion to the Enimies of the Lord for to blaspheme and to say the Kings Friends they were onely Libertines Papists Atheists horrible Swearers and Blasphemers Enimies to God and the power of Godliness I beseech you for Gods sake that all who profess Loyalty may profess piety that Fear God and honour the King may be as close in our hearts as we find they stand together in the Book of God and then I am sure we shall ever prevent this first guilt the provoking of God to take away or to permit the murther of our King Secondly A second consequential Consent or previous disposition to the destruction of Gods Annointed it was The deserting of him Non obstans the not preventing the not bindring of it whilst yet it was in our power And this is an undoubted way of contracting guilt from the sin of others he who hinders not what he may and where he is bound doubtless he is volitum in causa of what effect followeth upon this culpable neglect As for instance he who stands or sits before a window thorow which the wind blows and the snow or rain beats if he will neither remove thence nor pull to the cazement he is undoubtedly a consenter to his own wetting and a consequential willer of his own cold-taking for he both might and ought to have prevented it That Father or Mother who by a timely and seasonable correction might have kept their children from lewd and vile courses and have not endeavoured it such parents they have a guilt even in their transgressions even in the misdemeanors of such children For 1 Sam. 3. you shall find God threatens a judgment upon old Eli because his sons made themselves vile and he restrained them not because old Eli hindred not when he might the Lord imputeth a portion of his sons sin even unto him Now to apply this to our present purpose First Had the people of this Nation kept close and conscientiously to their Allegiance and their Oaths there had been no Rising had they kept those cazements as they were close shut the Tempest of War and the Storms of Blood had never broken in yea had they clapt them to when they first opened there had been an end For to speak in the phrase of our Royal Martyr When the Devil of Rebellion first turn'd himself into an Angel of Reformation Whilst yet the Religious Mask of the Godly Party had but one Presbyterian Face to cover the Vizard might easily have been knockt off before numerous Faces and many Factions appeared under at first but one godly Hood before the Prince of Darkness transformed himself into an whole Firmament of New Lights the King in the right sense might have been secur'd For at first what Elisha said to his Servant was with us most true There was more for us than was against us more for than against the King But with a Non Obstante for not using the means and power they had for not preferring a publick and
their Rebellion having nothing to answer for their Murther of Gods Annointed having nothing to keep off that deadly stab which the charge of their killing the just one gave unto their very souls Acts 7. 57. They stop their ears but with wide open mouths they ran upon him and to stop that mouth whose truth cut their hearts for want of arguments so silenced him with stones that he died at their feet of whose death the Holy Ghost is pleased to take notice and to record not onely the Actors but a bare Consenter also in these words And Saul was consenting to his death But what talk I of the Murther of a Deacon upon a day solemnly set a part to be humbled for the Murther of a King my answer is I find so nigh a conjunction between Sacred Majesty and Holy Order between Prince and Priest between Gods annointed to be Kings and Gods annointed to be Prophets that we can scarse find the man who will wrong the one but if occasion serve he would do as much for the other and therefore we find them both equally shielded in one verse Touch not mine Annointed and do my Prophets no harm Psalm 105. They who will harm the Prophets they will not stick to arm against the Annointed They who killed the Just one they made nothing of murthering his Messengers and indeed in order to this horrid Murther in order to the betraying of our Just one and the Lords Annointed what was more previous than the stoning of his Prophets the sequestring silencing and depriving from all comforts of this life who ever durst as did Stephen magnifie the Lords Annointed or did dare to say They were his Betrrayers or his Murtherers Indeed between Deacon and King there is a great disproportion Deacon the lowest degree of Ministry and King the superexcellent for Majesty and yet the same Kings who are sometime called Gods they are also stiled Rom. 13. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gods Deacons too that is Gods selected and peculiar Servants and thus considered St. Stephen and our Soveraign may very well admit a Parallel For Was S. Stephen Acts 6. 5. a man full of Faiih and the Holy Ghost such was our Soveraign Full of Faith for it was in faith of a better that he gave up his earthly Crown Full of the Holy Ghost for the most envious cannot deny his Meditations and Solitudes to be the undoubted Breathings of that Spirit Was St. Stephen endowed with such high parts and gifts that v. 10. They were not able to resist the Wisdom and the Spirit by which he spoke Even so was it with our Blessed Soveraign or else we had never heard of An Ordinance for no Addresses nor as himself speaks had he been assailed with Armies instead of Arguments yea when his cursed Conspirators when those who sought his life and those who in order to it had declared him A Fool one unfit to govern when they had divested him of all counsel and sequestred him from all Advice when many and the choicest of the pack were sent to him as the Herodians to our Saviour to entrap and entangle him in his words they found him so qualify'd as the Book of God testifieth of S. Stephen That they were not able to resist the Wisdom and the Spirit by which he spake and therefore as St. Stephen was confuted with stones because they were not able to do it with Arguments Even so therefore was our Blessed Soveraign not permitted to speak against the High Court of Justice Therefore brought to his Scaffold and therefore cut off because they were not able to resist his Wisdom because they found he was no less good than great as they served St. Stephen Acts 7. 58. even so they ran upon him and cast him out of the City Yea the very circumstance of place whence those came who did this deed that relateth to St. Stephen too for the High Court of Justice that pack of Miscreants which were sent to do this Villany they came forth of St. Stephens Chappel Now being in Stephens Martyrdom the Spirit of God is so severe as to take notice not onely of those who as I may say sealed and signed his death not onely of those who ran upon him and were the actors in this Murther but of a very Accessory of a stander by of one who gave no vote flung no stone did no hurt being the Spirit of God takes notice of one who did onely look to the cloathing of those that stoned him vers 58. One that did onely look on and like the thing certainly we shall find Consenters as well as Actors are mightily to be humbled for the sin of this day Not onely they who plotted and preached and prepar'd the Murther but those also who liked it when it was done Those who by any complacency or after act or subscription avowed the thing All such are guilty of the Horrid Murther of this Day or else vainly did the Holy Pen observe what is our present Text And Saul was consenting to his death In and about these Words we shall consider of these three Propositions First a man may be guilty of that sin in which he was no actor by being onely as Saul here stands recorded A Consenter Secondly a guilt may be postnate unto a fact for after the stoning of St. Stephen it is observ'd and not before that Saul was consenting to his death Lastly Consent may contract so deep a guilt that without confession and contrition it may hale the vengeance of an Actor upon the Consenters head First A man may be guilty of that sin c. Consent it is the conception and the first quickning of every sin consent it is that which gives the first being to every iniquity insomuch that he who consenteth though he never act further is an actual sinner before his God Nam scelus intra se tantum qui cogitat ultum And therefore said our Blessed Master Matt. 5. 28. Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery already with her in his heart He who hath a wanton a lascivious and an adulterat reflection upon a beauty he who looks and lusts though he never exchange a word never touch handle or come nigh the woman even this very consent this very complacencie it is Adultery in the eye of the most pure For saith our Saviour the son of a Virgin he hath committed adultery with her already in his heart And as consent in the Concupiscible even so consent in the Irascible it contracts a like guilt For as he is an adulterer who looketh and lusteth though he never violate the chastity of the woman even so a man may be guilty of Murther and yet never draw bloud a man may be a Manslayer and yet never harm or hurt a person For the express determination and words of St. John are Whosoever hateth his brother is a Murtherer 1 Jo. 3. 15. Now if it be so that consent is the