one of which might justly occasion a lamentation 1. For first to dye to leave these splendid habitations for a cold grave to leave dear friends to converse with putrefaction and rottenness to have these beautiful Piles tumbled into confusion and dust to have our vast Possessions and Manors shrunk up into a few feet of Earth a pitchy Sheet and a strait Coffin are to most men living sad stories and the thoughts of them rarely entertain'd without sighs and a tear Mourning is therefore one attendant always upon Funerals Amongst the Jews there was always a set of common Mourners that their mourning might be more solemn and their lamentations more affective and I find it threatned as a judgement to Jehojakim that he should have an inglorious and contemptible Burial and should have none to make formal lamentation for him Jer. 22.18 And whoever consults the Genius of the Christian Religion will find its compassions are as great its affections as quick and its sense as tender as before and all it designs in this case is not to dam up the Fountain but take care that it flow only in due measures not that we sorrow not at all but that we sorrow in due proportions according to the measures of faith and with the abatements and intermixtures of Christian hope for that I take to be the meaning of that limitation in the Apostolical Canon That ye sorrow not as the Gentiles which have no hope 1 Thess 4.13 But this is but a small matter and the least of these considerations for if death be just matter of Lamentation certainly the death of a King is much more so when the Tall Cedars bow and the strong Oaks crack and are made to stoop low and compelled to lie prostrate upon the breast of their common Mother then as the storm is more strong so it is more awakening and summons the most serious regards and most real resentments And so it is also in this matter for when death knocks but at the common door the Mourners strike but the common key but when it rifles Palaces and enters into the Chambers of Kings and those that are gods die like men and fall equal Trophies to this rude Conqueror and are dragged after the wheels of his triumphing Chariot there you shall see always the Scene is dressed with all the solemnities of the deepest sorrow the croud of Mourners is great and the Herald's skill is needful to marshal the troops and to preserve order in the great confusion And this wants not good appearances of reason to plead its justification for as the wise Jews accounted David worth ten thousand of them his life of more value than the lives of thrice so many thousand of common persons So indeed have all wise civilized Nations accounted after the same rate and as they have solemnized the Natalitia of their Kings with all expressions of publick joy so they have observed the days of their death with as great demonstrations of Mourning when David in solemn manner lamented the death of Abner he gave a sufficient reason he thought for it in saying Know ye not that there is a Prince and a great man fallen this day in Israel and certainly if the fall of a Prince much more the fall of a King also will warrant mourning and if David might justly lament the death of Abner he might more justly do so upon the death of Saul But this also is much short of what yet remains unconsidered for if the death of Kings be just matter of sorrow then the more untimely and violent and preternatural the death is the more afflictedly ought it still to be resented When the Taper dies regularly having consumed all its oyl and exhausted all its store of moysture it expires quietly and no man is much concerned at it but when it meets with an interruption by the rude caresses of an impetuous blast then its snuff grows offensive and all men take notice of it and are concerned at the disaster And so it is with Kings in this case when they come into their Sepulchers as shocks of corn fully ripened and in their season as Eliphaz elegantly Job 5.26 when they die the common death of all men and go down to the grave in a good old age having honourably passed all the stages and periods of humane life there we pay them commonly but a common tribute and drop a tear upon their Hearse and bewail them upon the stock of common frailty and our grief that they are gone receives a just abatement from the remembrance that God spared them to us so long but when these fall like untimely fruit shaken by an unseasonable violent unkind wind there the chanels are full the streams run high the Accents are deep the Minstrels strike the dolefullest note and as it is said of David here men commonly ever exceed in their expressions of grief for so when good Josiah fell by the Arms of the Assyrians at the River Euphrates the people lamented the sad Accident at Megiddo with a sorrow that for the greatness of it became proverbial And yet the greatest of these considerations is behind for if all these things happen without any fault or concurrence of ours then our sorrow even from thence receives a great extenuation but if we have any ways been contributive to the mischief or been negligent and failing to do our utmost towards preventing of it then indeed our sorrow is much more just yea it is necessary I put these two together in one period and consideration you see and truly I do not know well how to part or distinguish betwixt them for though it be certain that there is a difference betwixt them absolutely considered and he that actually embrues his hands in blood is more guilty than he that passed by and did not endeavour to rescue though even he be greatly guilty also Yet in this case I am now upon there is little or no difference at all for Subjects are as equally obliged to assist their Kings in all straits and dangers as not to resist or rise up against them to bring them into the same and their failure in the first is as criminal as doing the second and only differs from it as the cause from the effect for therefore some men are encouraged to attempt the latter because others are negligent and failing in the former upon which reason it is certain if either exceed in guilt it is the former I take this occasion to discourse a little this matter because of a great and a most dangerous mistake that I observe to be Epidemical and common about it For as some men boast they obey the Law if they quietly submit to the penalty and pay the forfeiture as well as he that performs the positive duty for the neglect of which the former penalty is threatned So other men are apt to commend their Loyalty as much for not resisting as others do theirs for protecting their King
they may never come into the sad circumstances of suffering it themselves But then if there be a great guilt occasioning this evil as Religion teacheth us still to believe for God afflicts not causlesly the sons of men and great judgments never proceed from God but when great sins in men call for them Then indeed the ends of Religion in commending this Sorrow even to Posterity are great and importing For then this may serve as an excellent method to impress on men the greater dread of all such sins and the stricter care to beware of them for so good men set up marks where wracks have been made to give notice that the next Passengers may avoid them And so wise Religion by enjoyning us to bewail the sins of our Fore-fathers doth excellently contrive for the rendring us more heedful of them And yet it will be religious upon another great score i. e. in order to the escaping the punishments due even to the posterity of such great sinners for some sins are of such great guilt and so extreamly facinorous that they cannot be expiated by the punishment of one only Generation and in such cases what is defective in the sufferings of the Fathers will be supplied in the sufferings also of the Children after them and the intayled curse cannot be cut off but by a signal sorrow and eminent repentance But this Discourse will perhaps be more seasonable some Ages hence when innocent Posterity shall be told the story of these things and find our present most just Lamentation written in the Book of Jasher 2. And now I have done with the words in that first sense I proposed to speak to them and shall in hopes of your patience proceed to speak to them something in the second in which I shall not need to be so long as I have been in the former For I no way question but your thoughts have already prevented much of what might be said in the application of them to this day and the sad business of it I shall therefore content my self to tell you that as we have the same thing to lament that David had in the Text so all those reasons that stand strong for the one do so also for the other and as they warrant this Lamentation of his so they will do the same thing for ours For we have the untimely death of a King to lament as well as he and for the same reasons too so that so far we are equal But there are two Circumstances in which our case exceeds this mightily and I name them because they both make our Lamentation more just and needful 1. The first is the great difference between the persons whose deaths are lamented 2. The second is the difference between the persons by whom their deaths were effected 1. There was a great difference between the persons it is not to me a pleasure to rake into the imperfections of any man much less to uncover a Fathers nakedness it is no way becoming to reproach Kings nor strike them with the tongue against whom a secret thought can hardly be innocent I do not intend to advance the Honour of our King upon the ruins of Saul But yet as one Star differeth from another in glory though all be lucid and glorious so though there were many great excellencies considerable in Saul yet it will be no dishonour to his memory to say there were more in our King and which is more these were never sullied by any one known vice as they were in the other I dare not venture at his character nor go about to draw his Image before you lest it should suffer by so rude a hand and lest I should Profane what I purpose to Honour for he that praiseth weakly and imperfectly doth in truth dishonour and disparage It shall therefore suffice me to tell you and I have reason to believe it that whatever was requisite to make him good as a Man and honourable as a King God had bestowed upon him in measures as great as humane imperfection is well capable here of And if one of his glorious Predecessors were Canonized and is remembred to this day under the Honourable Title of Confessor he doth justly deserve the same Glory and will ever be remembred by all good men under the as glorious name of the Holy Royal Martyr 2 But secondly there 's a great difference between the Instruments by which their deaths were effected I do not know how to make any comparison between them unless it be in calling both Amalekites and truly it will concern them to consider if they do not deserve the name and I pray God give them Grace to consider whether the curse of Amaleck be not justly their portion But here is the difference mighty and great Saul fell by the hands of strangers from whom no better things could be expected were it in their power to do it But our Martyr fell by the unnatural violence of his own Subjects from whom all the World might expect better by men who must first offer violence to themselves martyr their own consciences chase all remains of justice and compassion out of their own breasts before they could do this murther and cease wholly to be men that they might commence Devils For truly I do not know how they can expect any better name whom no tyes of Laws no bands of Conscience no Obligations of solemn Oaths can hold or restrain from the greatest of wickednesses If St. Peter were called Satan for but out of a mistaken expression of Love endeavouring to save his Master from running into danger how much more justly must the cursed Iscariot be called Devil for betraying the same Master into that danger But my business is not to upbraid nor aggravate the guilts of these men it is rather to bury them in a Sea of Tears and beg us by our Christian Lamentation and Sorrow to cast a Mantle over them that they may no more come into Gods remembrance And to excite us all to the most passionate doing of this I shall beg the Patience of this Honourable Assembly whilst I endeavour to evinee the becomingness and necessity of it from these four great Christan Topicks 1. The vindicating the Honour of our excellent Religion from any Imputations of being accessary ro this fact 2. The Expiation of that guilt that it may dye the Nation in and prevailing with God for the full pardon of it 3. The prevention of those punishments that yet may be impending for it 4. The deeper impressing a care upon us all to prevent with the greatest concernedness all incidences into the like heinous sin for the future First for the vindicating our Holy and Excellent Religion from any imputations of being accessary to this direful fact And truly among all the sad consequences of this day there are few or none that we should be more concern'd for than the dishonour that seemed to be done to Religon by it and none
Chaplyn Major Jovis XXXImo die Janarii 1677. Annoque Carol. Secundi Angliae c. XXXmos This Court doth desire Mr. Hesketh to Print his Sermon preached yesterday at the Guild-hall Chappel before the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of this City Wagstaffe A SERMON Preached before the Right Honorable Lord Mayor AND ALDERMEN OF THE CITY of LONDON AT Guild-Hall Chappel ON JANUARY 30th 1677 8 By Henry Hesketh Rector of Charlewood in Surrey LONDON Printed for Will. Leach at the Crown in Cornhill near the Royal Exchange 1678. Imprimatur Guil. Jane R. P. D. Hen. Epis Lond. a Sacris Dom. Feb. 2. 1677. 2 SAM 1.17 18. And David lamented with this lamentation o-over Saul and over Jonathan his son Also he bad them teach the children of Judah the use of the bow behold it is written in the book of Jasher AMong all Nations in the World that have been blessed with any sober sense of things we shall find this ever to have been a fixed and constant Custom to signalize times of extraordinary Occurrences with some special Marks and Characters which might commend them to more than common observation judgeing it very becoming and proper that such Times should not pass only in the comnon crowd but that as the Accidents of them were extraregular so mens entertainments thereof should be according And on the other hand Seasons of great sufferings and signal disasters have been spent in and afterwards remembred by deep and afflictive resentments and these men have called Fasts and marked them in their Calendars for Times of publick Mourning This is a Custom which as it may serve to many excellent ends of Prudence and advance many great Purposes of publick Good so it seems to carry a good tincture of Religion upon it and to derive a sufficient warranty from it For since it ought to be the care as well as it is much the duty of all good men that have a due veneration of God and any becoming sense of a Divine Providence superintending the World and all the affairs of men in it to permit the passages of no day to pass unobserved it will much more become matter of their care not to suffer extraordinary and signal Disposes of Providence to do so Especially since God intends all these things as Lessons and Instructions to the World to awaken men to due thoughts of Himself and more concerning regards to their own Duty It is therefore laid down in holy Scripture as a sure character of an evil man to be regardless and unobservant of Gods common judgements but it is a rank sign of Irreligion and next to an Atheistical contempt of God not to be deeply affected when his hand is lifted up in greater chastisements and not to entertain a very humble sense of his severer Inflictions It is the just Honour of this day that its Institution is founded upon all these great Reasons of Prudence and Religion and warranted by Precedents among all sober Nations of Prudence to impress by the observation of it upon men the deeper sense of the sad accidents thereof and of Religion in entertaining such great afflictions with those humiliations and tears which both they and the sins of this Nation that occasion'd them do most justly call for And it will be no prejudice nor disparagement to it to observe that it stands warranted by precedent and may plead its vindication from the suitable practice of the best and wisest and most religious persons in all Ages of the World and particularly of one no less eminent for all these then David the Prophet as well as King who upon the sad news ef the tragical death of Saul effected by the Arms of the Philistins upon those unhappy plains of Gilboa lamented over him with this lamentation following Also he bad them teach the children of Judah the use of the bow behold it is written in the book of Jasher In which words I take notice of these three principal Observables 1. David's instituting a Form of Lamentation for the death of Saul King of Israel And David lamented with this lamentation over Saul and over Jonathan his son 2. His enjoyning the people to be taught to joyn with him in it Also he bad them teach the children of Judah the use of the bow 3. His recording of it for the Notice and Imitation of successive Generations Behold it is written in the book of Jasher Of all which three observables I shall beg patience while I speak something 1. In their more independent and absolute sense or at least only as they relate to their own matter and are a History to us of what is past and gone 2. In their relative sense and as they have an aspect upon us and the business of this day in which sense we may call this the Application of the matter of them to our selves First I begin with them in the first sense and therein with 1. The first observable in them David Instituting a Form of Lamentation for the death of Saul And David lamented with this lamentation over Saul and over Jonathan his son In speaking to which I do not desire to be interrupted with the clamorous objection of this age against all publick Forms in any thing relative to Divine Service It is very well and a happy thing that the great starters of the dispute have sufficiently confuted their own Maximes and the imposing a publick Directory will make ridiculous all general Arguments against Liturgy It is sufficient that the Institution of this stands warranted by and may claim a right in all those great Reasons for a standing Liturgy which yet do and I am confident will stand unassoil'd to the great dissolution And if there be any man that thinks otherwise he hath now a fair opportunity to signalize himself and gain the reputation of a daring Goliah by challenging all the Armies of Israel and I little doubt but he shall meet with the fate of his great Denominator and I am the more confirmed herein because here is a David that stands ready to take up the Gantlet And it may not perhaps be impertinent or unpleasant to observe that as if there were some secret Magick or Charm in the name of David all that relates to him hath never been controverted and of all the parts in the Liturgy the Psalms the Metrical composures of David which are so great a part of it have least of all been disputed and I cannot guess at a reason of this unless it be that their pretences to the Spirit would hence have received their own confutation and all men see it was not the Spirit of God that acted them for there is no doubt but that can indite Metre as well as harangues in Prose but their fears of this would never permit them yet to put it unto tryal But I pass all this and proceed to consider this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the consideration of which we shall meet with a complication of Reasons every
not ashamed to acknowledge that I receive great help and direction in finding out this sense and such also is that not to be contemned ancient Translation of Tindal in our own tongue And consonant to this sense is it understood by some very Learned Expositors and would have been so by all were it not that a fondness to follow some trifling Rabbies have betraied them into the contrary I do not desire to be told for I have hinted it my self that some of the Jewish Masters understand this place otherwise I know it and that they also have understood many others very ridiculously and have miserably trifled and said many very unreasonable things upon them And none more so than what they have delivered with respect to Kings and therefore something relative to our present matter as perhaps you may hear more fully by and by I do not speak this to disparage all Jewish Learning I would have it encouraged by some but not therefore idolized by others I would not bring an Odium upon all the Rabbies but I would not have their sayings made Oracular and the great Standard of Truth For when God hath blessed us with a clear and full relation and given us a key by which to unlock more clearly all their mysteries then ever they themselves could I do not know how to account it a due veneration of that Revelation to forsake it to go and grope in Umbrages and Shadows and Types and in fabulous Traditions and Legends such as most of their Books are stuffed much with if not wholly composed of Besides experience hath attested the dangerous consequences hereof it hath been made evident of late by a learned pen how most of our Christian errors have derived from an over valuation and too great a fondness of Jewish doctrines and customs and truly I think it neither difficult nor injurious to give the same Origine to our late woful state rebellions and to shew the doctrines of the late Usurpers to be but the transcripts of what the latter Jews do fabulously report of the power of their Sanhedrim over Kings But I must beg pardon for this digression and hasten to show the unreasonableness of the contrary Exposition and that not only 1. From the impropriety and inelegancy of the Speech and the strangeness of the Apostrophe which is apparent in bringing in David beginning a publick lamentation and then breaking off with an impertinent command to teach the children of Judah the use of the Bow But secondly and chiefly from the improbability of the thing for it cannot reasonably be thought that the men of Judah were now to learn the use of the Bow or ignorant of it it was the common tactick practice over all the East And both Saul and Jonathan were excellent Archers themselves And the use and knowledge of the Bow was so very common that as Bread in the Hebrew Dialect is commonly used to signifie all Food so was the Bow to denote all sorts of Armature This therefore now I take to be the granted sense of these words and truly cannot but wonder if any one that hears it do not presently see the great consonancy of it and therefore from the reasonableness of the sense I proceed 2. To account for the equitableness of the thing And certainly if there was reason for David's lamenting the death of Saul there was so also for the peoples joyning in consort with him and joyntly singing this sad Expicedium For certainly that man hath a strange notion of Superiority and Government that thinks it not Instituted for the good and benefit of those that live under it but for the Grandeur and State of those that exercise it Vain men that judge by appearances and shadows and look only on the outsides of things are apt to stare at the Port of Kings admire the rich Embroidery of their Robes and those sparkling Diamonds that embellish their Crowns and Diadems But wise men that see those Thorns that are stuck in their Ermins and those great cares that their Crowns are lined withal do very well know and wisely consider for whom these heavy Crowns are worn and who they are that reap the benefit of all this state and that is certainly the people who therefore have great reason to condole their death and lament their loss as being really their own That Kings are great Blessings to their people besides the concurrent sense of all Nations might be made evident from those many great benfits that accrue to their Subjects from their Protection and Government without which experience hath too often taught the World what a scene of things would presently take place for the sight of which I would remit every one here to the four last Chapters in the Book of Judges but that our own fresh and yet bleeding experiences can tell more and may justly supersede all other notices of these things The wise Greeks took care to transmit the notice of these things by those very names that Kings and Crowns were expressed by for the Diadem is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the people and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Foundation that assures the peoples safety and experience hath commonly attested the Wisdom of the Word in shewing how tottering the common safety is still when these are weakn'd And almost all Nations have used appellatives of analogous significations for therefore have they been called Shepherds and Guardians and Fathers and Gods not only to denote the happiness of enjoying them but to express the exposed condition of these that want them And it will add mightily to our sense of this to consider that God himself hath used every one of these appellations yea even the highest of them for Kings are commonly called Elohim in holy Scripture and that not only because they are Images of God's Power and Greatness but because they are instruments of his goodness and convey blessings to people so great as justly to be entitled Divine There is a place in the Psalms that I have offen admired and it is pertinent to our present matter 't is Psal 65.7 Who stilleth the raging of the sea and the noise of his waves and the madness or tumult in last translation of the people as if the quieting of people and preserving them in order were as argumentative of a Divinity as the stilling the rage of the sea and that as both bespeak the same Power in effecting of them so the happy consequences bespeak the same goodness And for these reasons all Nations almost in the World have been studious to pay the biggest Honours possible to their Kings nay have thought no mortal honours big enough for them but have ascribed them into the number of their gods and at their death contended for their Apotheosis And this hath been one chief reason of idolatry men thinking they could never enough honour their Princes unless they turned idolators of them which though it were an ill requital
of God by whom Kings Reign and who confers such blessings on men by their Ministry yet it shews clearly what a great sense they had of these benefits And this hath been done not only amongst the rude and barbarous Nations but the most polished and refined even by the wise and grave Romans themselves Now these benefits of enjoying Kings will be of use to give us the just measures of our danger when we loose them I have seldom seen a tall Cedar fall but the subjacent Plants have been bruised by it and the whole Vicinage hath been shaken and smarted under the effects of it And if the welfare of the people do not always suffer yet it is always greatly endangered when these changes come Besides God hath told us in his holy Word that he often takes away Kings in his wrath and that their death as it is the Index of a great displeasure so it is often the Prologue to many tragical miseries And we shall find the like intimations commonly in his providence for he seldom calls Kings to these Chambers of darkness but himself hangs up Tapers to light them thither Shaggy Comets usually preceed the Funerals of Kings and as they are always startling and amasing Monitors so they are almost always portentous unless it be when the prayers and tears and repentance of men interpose and obstruct their malevolent influence From all which things I suppose it sufficiently intimated what great reason there is that the people should lament the fall of their Kings and the children of Judah be taught the use of the bow But that 's not all it is not enough that the present Generation do thus but that succeeding ones also entertain the same sense of these things for so David here doth not only cause the present Generation to be taught the use of the bow but he causeth it to be recorded also for the notice and imitation of posterity behold it is written in the book of Jasher which 3. Is the third and last general Observable in the understanding of which there can be no other difficulty but only what we are to conceive this Book of Jasher to be That it is not the Bereshith the Book of Genesis which the Jews call the Book of the just men because it relates the lives of Enoch and Noah and Abraham and Isaac and Jacob those real just men is so ridiculously plain that it is confutation enough to repeat it The Learned Masius I remember in his Notes upon Joshua the 10. v. 13. where there is also mention of this Book only mentions this exposition of some Rabbies on purpose to expose it and let the World see what pitiful interpreters of Scripture they sometimes are And if we consider how they make out this sense we shall see their trifling plainer For this they say is written in that Book of the Just Ones because in the Blessing of Jacob to Judah it is said his hand should be or his Bow say they upon the neck of his enemies but besides the force of explaining Hand by the Bow the impertinency of it if it were so is very evident for what relation is there between that Blessing and this Curse or Misery because the bow of Judah should prevail at last over his enemies therefore Saul shall fall by the bow of the Philistins But I stay too long upon such triflings Josephus gives Learned Men a good ground to interpret otherwise i. e. of a Record that was deposited and kept in the Temple wherein several things of extraordinary moment were recorded for the notice of Posterity But that which will yet bring the matter nearer is the observation of Learned Men that nothing but metrical Composures or Songs upon these extraordinary occasions were recorded herein Some of the Ancient Jews have reckon'd up ten of these Songs which it is probable were recorded in this Book before the time of Samuel Such was that of Moses and the Children of Israel at the Red Sea and of Moses before his death that of Joshua when the Sun stood still to give perfection to the overthrow of the Five Kings which is expresly said herein to be recorded and such was that of Deborah and Baruch at the discomfiture of Sisera c. it is not material whether we know them all or not And to these doubtless in process of time were added others and particularly this Epicedium at the death of Saul And then I had just reason to say that this was not recorded only for the Notice but the Imitation and use also of Posterity for these Songs being thus recorded in a book kept only in the Temple with directions how they were to be sung for that all learned men add too is clear evidence that they were ordered at some stated times to be sung and taken into the Common Service That this book is now lost is no great wonder so is the Temple it self and so is the book of Nathan the Seer and so is the book of the large Chronicles of the Kings of Judah all which we know assuredly were written and extant a considerable time among the Jews So that I am now clear of this obstruction and the sense is plain this book of Jasher was a book in which David recorded this Lamentation with directions how it was to be sung by Posterity And indeed this is not done without good reason for there are some great ends both of Prudence and Religion served by it 1. Of Prudence for there will be few methods by which a deeper sense of this great Judgment will be impressed upon men then by thus appointing the memory of it to be attended with tears and a Solemn Mourning for as all men believe that men are not apt to mourn for nothing so when they shall see wise and good men commending things to be lamented not only by the present Generation that feels them but transmit the same sad Memory of them to Posterity they must needs apprehend them not to be any common or trivial evils but very great and mightily concerning And what excellent ends of Prudence and Government may be served by this only thing i. e. begetting a through sense in mens minds of the great misery of loosing Kings is easie for any presently to observe For this will most effectually endear the blessing of having Kings and teach men highly to esteem and value it and he that doth thus cannot possibly be either disobedient to their Government or trayterous against their Power and Person 2. But then the ends of Religion in this are greater and more worthy of consideration For if we suppose this loss of a King barely as a great evil without any respect to the peoples sins that might have occasioned it Why then by commending it thus to the Lamentation of Posterity men may learn both to be more fearful of such an evil and more awful of that divine wrath that doth inflict it and more earnest in their prayers that