crave any Tax or Subsidies from his Subjects but upon a very just cause and urgent necessity and that if he did otherwise he would not be reputed a King but a Tyrant What is requisite and necessary upon the former accounts the Apostle calls their due and Christ himself the things that are Caesars and Vlpian that famous Lawyer Nerâ—i Reipublicae sine quibus non potest administrari nec consistere Ulpian the sinews of the Common-wealth without which it cannot be governed nor subsist They are granted to them by the Laws of all Nations and therefore the Duty calls more for practice then for proof For notwithstanding they may challenge these by their Charter granted to them by the great God and K. of heaven and earth Applicat yet many there are that part with what is required of them upon that score as unwillingly as with their bloud yea when they were inevitably necessary and that too by a necessity of their own creating to satisfie those debts which their former Rebellion and the fruit thereof had contracted upon their banished Soveraign yet these were not paid without a great deal of murmuring and repining England in the time of the late Usurpation like Issacher and he like an Ass Time was when England like Issacher was as an Ass couching between two burdens and contentedly bore them plying her provender without noise or groaning and seemed willing to purchase her quiet at any rate under a Tyrant who made his Lust his Law but now snuffs at what is imposed not by a boundless Prerogative but by that very authority which was of their own free election like an ungrateful Beast But now like a proud pampered Horse which being eased of a great part of his burden by the mercy of his owner kicks and lashes to quit himself of the rest being very willing that he should bear it himself All that goes this way is set down upon the account of their losses Good Princes like trusty Factors whereas good Princes are like skilful and trusty Factors for their Subjects expending their moneys to their own best advantage and returning them trebly the worth of it in such commodities which most wise men value Or like the Sun Aptly compared to the Sun which by its attractive heat draws up vapours from the Earth which may well be spared and returns them in fruitful showers Custom Tribute c. to Vapors So the Tribute and Custom the Taxes and Impositions which the Higher Powers exhale as Vapours by the force of urgent necessity are richly exchanged into the sweet refreshing Rains of Peace and Plenty And thus I have given an account of the particular Duties included and implied in this general one of Fear as I found dispersed here and there in the holy Scripture The next piece of work which I have to do is to enquire after the subject by whom it must be paid which is every one that comes under the name of a Subject whom Solomon here calls his son 2. Part of the Text viz. the Subject My son fear thou the Lord and the King who in a political sense is a Father and in the same his Subjects are his children So that every one whom the King in that sense may call his son he may upon that very account call upon him for this fear The Apostles rule is general Rom. 13.1 Qui tentat excipere conatur decipere Origen his strange sense of the word soul For what taken in the Scripture and admits of no exception He that goes about to except endeavours to deceive and where there is none excepted there can be none exempted unless that strange sense which is fathered upon Origen concerning the word Soul be Orthodox namely a fleshly and carnal person which is a sense of which I think I may safely say that is never used in Sacred Writ It is used indeed properly for the noblest part of man which is of a divine extraction and stamped with the glorious image of him that did infuse it Sometimes for the will and affections by a Synecdoche of the whole for a part and by the same figure the Soul which is a principal part is put for the whole man God saith to the Prophet Ezech. 18.4 that the soul that sinneth that is that man or woman whoever it be that sinneth if he repent not shall die which includes all and so it doth here in the Text Carnal and Spiritual Saint and Sinner and never is used to signifie a carnal in opposition to a spiritual person We read in one of the Epistles of St. Peter 1 Pet. 3.20 of eight souls that were saved in the Ark which Noah by Gods direction had provided against that Deluge which he threatned to bring upon the old World for its daring impieties Should we understand by those eight souls eight carnal persons as we may upon as good a ground as in the other place we should make that which was one of the most remarkable pieces of Justice that ever was executed upon the World the greatest example of injustice To destroy all the righteous and let such a number of wicked persons escape to send a Floud to drown the one and to provide an Ark to save the other Some put that sense upon it here and offer their reasons I know there is a generation of men in the World that are very willing to embrace that sense there where subjection is required so universally without exception and offer their ground for the exemption of themselves and others which are at least in their own conceits the holy and redeemed of the Lord. 1. Sublata causa tollitur effectus Subjection say they came in by sin but they are freed from sin and so consequently from subjection take away the cause and the effect must cease Christ having freed them from the one he hath freed them from the other also Disproved By the same Argument they may as well dispute themselves out of the reach of death for by one man sin entered into the World Rom. 5.12 and death by sin so death hath seized on all for that all have sinned Yet let them live as blamelesly and as innocently as they can What man is he that liveth and shall not see death shall he deliver his soul from the hand of the grave No man can attain to a life of sinless perfection till he is dead Velis nolis intra fines tuos habitabit Jebuseus subjugari potest exterminari non potest Willing or nilling this Jebusite will continue within thy borders thou mayest keep it under but canst not root it out We may give sin its mortal wound but its full and final expiration is reserved for the stroke of death Religio peperit divitias fâ—lia devoravit matrem As it was said of Riches the daughter of Religion Religion hath brought forth Riches and the Daughter hath
united to the body so neither doth the spirit of God which is the very soul of the Church enliven any member of it that is not united to the rest in the bond of peace and love A blessing which this Nation for many years enjoyed under several of her peaceable Princes That of England the admiration and envy of other Nations even to the admiration and envy of her neighbours who were forced to cry Miserere with a doleful voice when she might sing Te Deum with a chearful heart Which had she done she might have had continued unto this very day without the least interruption But because she did not but abused her peace by using it as a weapon wherewith to fight against the God of her peace he taught her by many years sad experience to know the worth of it by the want of it and how for the future to value the mercy of Peace by the misery of War She unthankfully bestrid and unworthily slighted a peaceable Prince and therefore deserved to be doomed by an irrevocable decree to the Government of devouring Storks Aesops Fable of the Frog morallized Our Jehovah more merciful then their Jupiter as Jupiter did the Froggs in the Fable Yet God in mercy hath heard her Petition and contrary to her deservings hath removed those Birds of prey and hath sent a Dove a Solomon to reign over her who hath had just cause to take up the complaint of David Psal 120.6 7. My soul hath long dwelt with them that hate peace I am for peace but when I speak they are for war Let them prosper that love and seek the peace of Jerusalem and scatter thou the people that delight in war These three blessings are the ground upon which the Apostle presseth this duty of Prayer for those that are in Authority and if they flow down from Heaven upon us through their care as the fruits of our Prayers and our Prayers be seconded with a life answerable to those mercies we may conceive the firmer hopes of their continuance 3. Reason from their temptations wherein their Subjects are concerned either Now because these Guardians of our blessings are so liable to so many temptations and amongst the rest to those sins whereby they may forfeit these blessings from us and to those oppositions and strivings of wicked covetous and ambitious men who will not stick to trample all these under their feet to advantage themselves and work their own sinful ends and interests it behoves us to pray as zealously against these as for the other 1. As to their Cause Against their temptations and the rather because we may possibly be concerned in them either as to their cause or as to their effects Subjects are many times the causes of their Sovereigns temptations This is clear in the history of Davids numbring the People Exemplified in Davids sin 2 Sam. 24. and the sad consequents of that rash and unadvised act which was so in that he did it without any lawful cause as two there were upon which it was justifiable Two cases in which lawful Exod. 30.12 First upon an Ecclesiastical account as that which ye are directed to in the Margine which was commanded by God himself in memory of his blessings and tended to the redemption of their souls In memoriam beneficiorum Dei Gallus in locum as it served for the maintenance of the Tabernacle and the Ministry thereof which was instituted for that very end and purpose Secondly Political in a way of preparation to a War offensive or defensive that so by numbring those that are fit to bear Arms Princes may be the better satisfied of their Subjects strength and furnish themselves out of those numbers with such supplies as are suitable to their occasions A device that always was is still and ever will be lawfully enough made use of upon that occasion But David did it upon neither of these accounts neither for the glory of God that seeing his Subjects increase and multiply and his own honour thereby advanced he might give God his due praise who was the author of it nor for the safety of his Kingdom which was then in no danger being at peace both at home and abroad but rather for ostentation sake rejoicing and which was worse placing his confidence in them This sin whatsoever was the ground of it highly offended God and is severely punished with a sweeping Plague which in the space of three days destroyed threescore and ten thousand people He sinned and his Subjects are punished for it The sin was the Kings the punishment falls heavy upon the Subjects who for ought we read to the contrary did not so much as desire it His General shewed his dislike and desires him by all means to desist from his purpose Is not this according to the Proverb Ezech. 18.2 The Fathers have eaten sowre Grapes and their Childrens teeth are set on edge Ezech. 18.2 and to that of the Poet Quicquid delirant Reges plectuntur Achivi Kings dote and do amiss and their Subjects suffer for their miscarriages David who was eminently if not solely guilty is not so much as touched in that Plague The sin being his in equity the punishment should have been so to This is according to that ruled case the soul that sinneth shall die V. 12. Yea David himself as conscious to himself cries These Sheep David excuseth them and takes the blame upon himself what have they done Done Enough questionless the most innocent of them not only for God to plague him here but to damn him forever hereafter Sins though sometimes they may not be the moving cause yet they are always a meritorious cause of judgment Gods justice acquitted 1. By a distinction No man lives and sins not and the wages of the least sin is death if any be pardoned it argues the mercy of the forgiver and not the quality and quantity of the sin forgiven But we need not fly to this distinction in this case for if we read the History deliberately we shall soon be satisfied 2. By a discovery of the cause of the sin that though David occasioned that Plague by his sin yet their own sins were the cause of it And that according to both these heads of distinction meritorious and moving too 2 Sam. 24.1 the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel and he moved David against them to say go number Israel and Judah By which it appears clearly that their sins whatever they were that provoked God to anger were the cause why God permitted Satan to tempt David and with-held his restraining grace which should uphold him so that he was both led into temptation and left in temptation upon the account of their sins and what influence theirs had upon him that may the sins of any other Subjects have upon their Princes Applicat Therefore it is equity as well as
such loud lies and such notorious slanders were not their hearts overcharged with the gall of envy and spight Others who would be thought more modest begged of God in their publick devotions that he would not charge that bloud upon his head but upon his heart And these seem to have more of charity but whether they really had so I leave to them to judge who have so much of discretion and so little of prejudice against so deserving a Prince They charge the War on the King as the Author as to discover in it an implicit concession if not an apparent charge of a horrid guilt upon a guiltless person and whether it had not been more proper for them Laid at the right dore who were the contrivers and promoters of that War which produced those bloudy effects He vindicates himself 1. By a serious appeal How seriously in those Meditations and Prayers which he composed in his solitude and sufferings did he invoke the great and omniscient God to witness his endeavours for the diverting of the necessity of that War which some mens ambitions first raised and then falsly fathered upon him And yet the confidence of some mens false tongues was such that they would almost make him suspect his own innocency that he could be content by his silence at least to take upon himself so great a guilt before men 2. By his willingness to avert the necessity and redeem his Subjects from the misery of it 3. By his Speech on the Scaffold if that would allay the malice of his enemies and redeem his people from the miseries of War sith God knew his Innocency Follow him to the Scaffold where he was brought to take his farewel of the World and from whence he was within a few minutes to go to give his account to God and therefore no fit time nor place to dissemble with either how solemnly doth he disclaim it 4. By his infallible Argument And for the fuller satisfaction of all his Subjects many whereof had been so miserably deluded he referrs them to those Commissions on both sides for raising their Armies and wills them to take notice of their several dates They proved the aggressors and what he did to be in his own defence and they would find those of his Enemies had the precedency which animated and armed so many of his subjects against him And from thence they might easily resolve themselves in that question who were the Aggressors and that what he raised was upon the score of self-defence which the Law of God of Nature and of Nations allows not only to Princes but also to their meanest Subjects He was brought to a sad Dilemma A sad Dilemma and professeth himself put to a hard choice having such a love for his People and so earnestly desired theirs either to kill his Subjects or to be killed by them If I am violently assaulted and can apprehend no possibility of saving my own life but by taking away his Rather kill then be killed is the Law of Nature and is allowed by the Law of Nations who otherwise is resolved to deprive me of mine God dischargeth me of the guilt of it and chargeth his bloud upon his own head If men will raise an Army and therewith hunt after the precious life of their lawful King and if they by the just hand of God perish in that rebellious pursuit where can any rational man think will that bloud lie as to the guilt or be visited as to the punishment of it but on themselves Some have proceeded farther yet 3. Against those who have broken his manacles with as much ease as Sampson did the 7 green Wit hs Judg 16.9 even to imbrew their hands in the bloud of the Lords anointed who for the most part of them have not been so sensible of cutting off the thread of his life as David was for the cutting off the lap of Sauls garment who was a Prince that exceeded Saul in his extraction in his life and conversation as much as Davids sin fell short of theirs Their sin considered in the nature of it and the most favourable construction put upon it Clamitat ad coelum vox sanguinis c. 2. In the degrees of it who had his own innocence to extenuate it besides the inconsiderableness of his crime in comparison of theirs which by many aggravating circumstances is so heightned that all the Records sacred and prophane from the beginning of the World to this day cannot afford its parallel It is a fearful yea a crying sin to shed the bloud of any person and so tender is God of the precious life of man that he will not hold those guiltless that strip him of the comforts of it which are the very life of that life but hath prohibited it and will punish it as a degree of murder The life of man in the best sense is but a dying life but such a life is so in a worse and there is little difference between that and laying violent hands upon him onely that they grant this favour it it be a favour to die by degrees If there be any mercy in murder proh saevior ense Parcendi rabies concessaque vita dolori Claud. I should think it lies in that supposing his Peace to be made with God that gives a man the quickest dispatch and puts him soonest out of his pain Tristior est letho lethi mora To grant a man a life to live in misery is less eligible with some persons then death and in some cases the lingring delay of death is worse then death it self It is a Law long since enacted in the Parliament of Heaven Gen. 9.6 Exod. 21.28 that whoso sheddeth mans bloud by man shall his bloud be shed yea if an Ox gore a man or woman that he die he shall be stoned to death In which Law God the Law-giver discovered such a detestation of that sin 3. In the subject The bruit Beast not exempted much less man that he would not suffer murther to go unpunished no not in the bruit Creatures which understood neither precept nor threatning to shew how severely he would punish it in men that are endued with reason and know what is good and evil And what a fearful thing it is to fall into the hands of a sin-revenging God if they shall break through both of those strong fences to sacrifice their Brothers bloud to their own malice or to right their injured Reputation which would gain more by passing by then by punishing an offence especially when there is so great a disparity between the satisfaction and the provocation and that there will certainly be a day of reckoning which is most commonly in this life when bloud will have bloud which is the common price of bloud The greatest sin we can commit against our brother and when for the taking away their Brothers life they will be
Chapter with several others will satisfie any who have a desire to inform themselves Though by repentance he escapes as to his person He himself indeed died in peace because by his unfeigned repentance he had made his peace with God in testimony whereof Psal 51. he hath left a Copy of it upon record that those who stumble at his Fall might be directed to rise again by his Example But whoso seriously weighs some of those expressions intimating the difficult recovery of Gods favour which by those sins he had justly forfeited will think it a point of sound discretion rather to take the more diligent heed to their own standing If it be so heinous a sin to take away the life of the body Inference against Soul-Murderers Tot occidimus quot ad mortem ire quotidie tepidi tacentes videmus Greg. in Ezech. Homicida dicitur Diabolus non gladio armatus non ferro accinctus ad hominem venit verbum seminavit occidit noli ergo putare te non esse homicidam quando fratri tuo mála persuadeas Aug. in Joh. 8. a far greater and more heinous it must needs be to destroy the life of the soul When we see men posting to destruction and endeavour not to stop them by a seasonable reproof we are after a sort guilty thereof The Devil is called a Murderer from the beginning not that he set upon our first Parents with a Sword or any other murdering weapon but with seducing words saying In the day that ye eat thereof your eyes shall be open and ye shall be as Gods knowing good and evil he procured their fall and questionless he is no less guilty that lies in wait to deceive and draw others into Schism Heresie Rebellion and such lik fruits of the Flesh which had their beginning from Hell and will have their end in damnation Yet how many have this to answer for who as yet go as upright under their guilt as Sampson under the Gates of Gaza Not that I take upon me peremptorily to censure or finally to determine the future estate of any Inter Pontem Fontem God might shew them mercy between the Bridge and the Water and with as much ease save a Souldier gasping upon the ground as he did the Thief dying upon the Cross But suppose the best that he did give to many that fell in that unjust quarrel that mercy first to see their sin to repentance and that next to pardon it yet no thanks to those who did engage them who were so far from sounding a retreat to countermand their Proselites that they have given but small evidence to the World of their own repentance Yet notwithstanding this if we grant which is too possible that some of those poor seduced souls did die in their sin God will require the bloud of the Seduced at the hands of their Seducers Ezek. 3.18 it is easie to read at whose hands God will one day require their bloud The inference is genuine though somewhat beside my purpose I shall therefore insist no further upon it but leave it with this hearty wish to those An Apology for the digression for whose sakes I have made this short digression that they may be as sensible as it self is seasonable My business is as a Solicitor for the King of Kings to draw up a Charge against a rebellious Nation Rebellion arraigned with her chief Actors and Accessaries or rather a rebellious Faction in the Nation for that not having the fear of God before their eyes have traiterously and wickedly imagined conspired and compassed the death of the Lords Anointed The charge enforced and her crime aggravated from the quality of the Object Regicide 2 Sum. 18.3 I have shewed already how God detests that crying sin of Murther and with what dreadful fury the Avenger of bloud did pursue the Murtherers But alass those instances fell as far short of this as there is of difference betwixt the Objects on whom the murthers were perpetrated Those were Homicides acted on Subjects this a Regicide committed upon the person of Gods Vicegerent and their lawful King who in the ballance of the Sanctuary which is exactly even outweighs ten thousand of the other Wherein this resembled those before mentioned Some thing of resemblance to this I find in both the former namely in the close and cunning contrivance more yet between this and the former of them in that both that and this were carried on under the same colours of Religion and Justice Proclaim a Fast so these under a pretence to seek God most blasphemously intitling him to the worst of Villanies Had they indeed when first ingaged in that design searched the Scripture as good Christians should daily do which conteins in it the revealed mind or will of God to which all are bound to apply themselves for resolution in all their doubts Their eyes would have dropped out of their heads ere they could have found so much as the least colour of a Precept or warrantable President for their proceedings had they consulted the thirteenth Chapter of the Epistle to the Romans Rom. 13. which troubles a Rebel as much to read as some say it doth a Witch to say the Lords Prayer it would have put a bar to all further attempts and in stead of taking away their Soveraigns life Benhadads Policy if practised might have saved his life secured their own and prevented the loss of many thousands of their fellow Subjects would rather as Benhadads Ambassadors with badges of their deserts have implored his pardon to secure their own And this they might have done upon as firm a ground of hope to speed because that King was as merciful as ever was any of the Kings of Israel But that is not the onely fence that God hath made for the safeguard and security of Princes I have before quoted other places which speak their Authority to be so sacred that God will not allow their Subjects so much as the liberty of their thoughts against them We read indeed of many Regicides in Sacred Writ and prophane Story Last Argument aggravating it above all Murthers of the same kind as without parallel That of our Saviours by the Jews his own Subjects came nearest to it but they acted it privately these in the face of the Sun One instance there is indeed in the New Testament and but that one the murdering of a King too and he higher then the highest Monarch upon Earth the Lord Jesus Christ that Prince of Peace barbarously crucified between two Thieves as if he had been yea the greatest of the three to whom as few Kings ever came so near in their lives so none ever did in so many circumstances of his death Yet this even this instance of this King In some things exceeds it though it doth even in many things exceed ours as far as Heaven exceeds Earth and God exceeds Man in
destroyed the Mother so Sin brought forth Death and Death destroyed Sin But although the reign of Death be universal both over Saints and Sinners Distinction of death in reference to the righteous and wicked yet there is a vast difference between death as a curse which is properly the punishment of sin and so it is to all impenitent sinners and death as it is by Christ altered and changed from a curse into a blessing as it is to the righteous being a happy passage from a Vale of tears to a Paradice of joy The like of their Subjection Formidine poenae So is there between that servile subjection of the wicked for fear of punishment from him who should not bear the Sword in vain which is a fruit of their sin and that civil subjection of the righteous upon the score of Conscience which is a blessing to that King that hath such Subjects and will draw down the blessings of God upon themselves Did every Subject carry such a Conscience in his breast what quiet and peaceable lives should we live in all godliness and honesty But these men tell us further Their 2. Reason That they are governed by the Spirit of God therefore they need no other government they are a Law to themselves wherefore then should they be under the Laws of men We have a usual saying Refuted and the grand cheat discovered All is not Gold that glisters neither all men what they pretend to be And most commonly they that are the readiest to make their claim are the backwardest to prove their Title whereas the greatest Saints have always acknowledged themselves the greatest Sinners In the time of our Civil Wars when the Canon Law was lowdest Inter arma silent leges and our Common Law was almost silent these mens actions proclaimed them to the World to be far from righteous persons plundering or in plain terms robbing others to enrich themselves So that none stood more in need of Laws then those that stiled themselves The Godly Party and all others Reprobates The best that are or ever were upon the face of the earth since mankind was multiplied could not but be sufficiently convinced of the necessity of good and wholsom Laws both for themselves and others for although they for their own part are guided by the free Spirit of God and so want not the Laws of Men to compel them yet they have need of them to secure them We may safely suppose that they would not willingly wrong others but cannnot but also imagine that others would wilfully injure them and whoever he be that wrongs them God hath tied up their hands fast enough from righting themselves that is Gods prerogative and by his designation the Magistrates office And surely they have little reason to expect protection from them St. Austins censure of such Si quis putat quia Christianus est non sibi esse vectigal reddendum aut tributum aut non esse exhibendum honorem debitum de eis quae haec curant potestatibus in magno errore est Aust in loc Colimus Imperatorem ut hominem à Deo secundum sola Deo minorem who will yield no subjection to them I shall therefore leave these Anarchical and Antinomian Spirits to the censure of S. Aust writing upon those very words If any man thinks because he is a Christian that he is not bound to pay tribute and taxes and yield due honour to the higher Powers he is in a great errour So then by every soul is meant every person Time was when this exposition was admitted for Orthodox and the duty accordingly owned and practised So it was in Tertullians time We reverence the Emperour as next to God himself and inferiour to none but himself there is none above him but he that made him so Yea even in Rome it self by its chief Bishop Agatho who wrote in this stile to Constantine the then Emperour Secundum piissimam jussionem mansuetudinis vestra pro obedientia quam debuimus dirigimus presentes confamulos nostros As your Clemency hath godly commanded us according to the obedience we owe we have sent these our fellow-servants But since they have pluckt their own necks out of the yoke and set their feet upon the necks of Princes they have found out a way not only to exempt themselves but others also from their due obedience pronouncing them excommunicate and thundring out anathema's against any that dare to own or assist them proving himself to be the Antichrist 2 Thess 2.4 as S. Paul describes him who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped so that he as God sitteth in the Temple of God shewing himself that he is God subjecting all Laws both of God and Man of Nature and of Nations to his own interpretation dispensation abrogation how to whom and when he pleaseth The close of this second part I shall conclude this with the saying of Frederick the Emperour to that proud Pope Adrian 4. whom he checks for his insolence and sends him to Christ whose servant he pretends himself to be to learn him better manners Cum Christus noster vester institutor nihil à Rege accipiens tamen pro se Petro censum persolvit exemplum vobis dedit ut vos ita faciatis Seeing Christ both our Founder and yours did take nothing of the King but did pay tribute to Caesar for himself and Peter he gave you an example to do the like Every soul or every one that hath a soul so long as that soul is in his body death only can give him a discharge from that obligation must be subject to the higher Powers so the Apostle Every soul that is a son and every son that is a subject is the subject of this fear in the Text he ows it and must pay it both in the strictest and amplest acceptation to the King who next under God is the object of it and comes in the next place briefly to be considered My son fear thou the Lord and the King The 3. part of the Text viz. the Object The King without any Epithite good or bad implying we must fear him whether good or bad On what his Title grounded both negatively and affirmatively His Title to this fear depends upon no other Title but that which he hath to his Crown Not because he is religious wise just potent and formidable but because he is a King which he may be without any of these qualifications and if he be so whether he have any or none he must be feared Cogitet quaelibet uxor viri dignitatem suamque inferioritatem non aestimandam esse ex virtutibus forma nobilitate divitiis sed ex sola ordinatione divina in hac fundatur mariti authoritas subjectio uxoris quae abrogari mutari ex causis istis accidentalibus nec debet nec potest Bishop