the Hand of Aaron And after the Death of Moses the Supreme Authority of the Jewish Nation was still in a single Person being committed by God either to the High Priest or to some Eminent Man whom he was pleased to raise up such as Joshuah and the several Judges For that the High Priest or the Judge when there was one in those days had the Soveraign Power invested in him is evident from that Command of God Deut. 17. 12. And the man that will do presumptuously and will not hearken unto the Priest that standeth to minister there before the Lord viz. to the High Priest as the scope of the place plainly shews or unto the Judge even that man shal die and thou shalt put away the evil from Israel and all the People shall hear and fear and do no more presumptuously Is not this as great an Authority as any Monarch in the World can desire thus to have all Persons obliged to acquiesce in his determinative Sentence and final Decree and to have a Power to punish all wilful and presumptuous disobedience with Death Josephus expresly calls their Judges Monarchs and Grotius supposeth them to have all things belonging to Kings except their pompous Train and external Grandeur Isti verò Judices planè similes erant Romanis Interregibus nisi quòd Satellitium Pompam Regiam non habebant ac propterea nec Vectigalia exigebant If it be objected That in those days as some Texts speak there was no King in Israel The meaning of those places is not that the Judges were not real Monarchs but that at some certain times there was no particular Judge who sat as their Supreme Dictator and exercised regal Authority among them as also that the High Priest whose Office it was to govern when there was no Judge was negligent and careless of the publick Affairs And the great Blessings of Kings and Monarchs may be understood even by the horrid Impieties and Disorders that happened in those Days when there was no King in Israel such as was the detestable Idolatry of Micha in making himself Gods and consecrating one of his Sons to be his Priest the Sacrilegious Theft of the Danites who stole Micha's Gods and his Priest too the monstrous wickedness of the Benjamites of Gibeah towards the travelling Levite and his Concubine the dire effusions of Blood in the Civil War that ensued the extinction of the whole Tribe of Benjamin except six hundred Men the Destruction of forty thousand Men of Israel and the allowed Rape of six hundred young Women against their wills without the consent of their Parents and contrary to a publick and solemn Oath These and no better than these were the unhappy concomitants and consequents of having no King in Israel that is to say of having no Supreme Ruler who exercised a Soveraign Power among them as the Judge and when there was no Judge the High Priest ordinarily did The last of their Judges was Samuel and when he had governed many years the Infirmities of his Age and the Iniquities of his Sons whom he placed over them gave them occasion to desire a King that they also might be like all the other Nations and that their King might go our before them and fight their Battels Hereupon the Soveraign Power was translated from Judges to Kings and so it still was lodged in the Hands of a single Person Neither had their Kings any more Power than their High Priests and Judges had For Samuel and his Predecessors had as ample Authority as any Soveraign Princes although they were not called Kings But now like all other Nations their Governour was not only a King by the Supremacy of his Power but had the very Name and Title with all the pompous Magnificence and Ensigns of Royalty But here in the History of the Jewish State we meet with a remarkable Passage which deserves to be the more considered because divers have thought it a great Objection against Kingly Government The sum of it is this That God was extreamly angry with the Israelites for desiring a King and proclaimed his Indignation by loud Thunder-claps and a violent tempestuous Rain in Wheat-Harvest which made them confess that they had added to all their Sins this evil in asking a King From whence some of our Republicans conclude That Regal Power and Authority is so far from being of Divine Appointment that it is such a humane Invention as is displeasing unto God To this I answer That although God was angry with them for asking a King it was not for this Reason because he hath any dislike of Kingly Government He was not offended at the Act it self of desiring a King which is in it self very innocent and may often be most just and necessary but he was displeased at the manner and circumstances of it In desiring a King they asked a good yea an excellent Thing and a great Blessing from Heaven But God was angry because they asked this good Thing with an ill mind and at a time when they ought not to have desired it For First It may be conceived that they asked a King out of the Pride of their Hearts They thought it a disparagement to be subject to a Judge who â—ived among them without any great Pomp or State And although his divinely inspired Wisdom and immediate direction from Heaven abundantly comâ—â—ensated all the defects of External Magnificence they were unwilling to be under such a Governour but being ambitious of worldly Glory they would have such a Soveraign Prince as the other Nations had they would have a King to go out and in before them with all the visible Splendor of Royal Majesty Secondly Their desiring a King was accompanied with Infidelity and Distrust of Gods Providence and Protection For it was when they were in fear of an Invasion by Nahash King of Ammon And that it was this Diffidence of theirs rather than the Form of Kingly Government that God was displeased at is evident from Samuels Expostulation with them in which he briefly recounts Gods constant care for their Preservation in all their former Dangers and how by the Hands of Moses and Aaron and Jerubbaal and Jeptha and Samuel he had delivered them from all their Enemies on every side Thirdly They desired a King without any just Cause or legal Warrant or due Advice in a rash Tumultuous and Seditious manner at such a time when they had a Supreme Judge who was a Lawful Soveraign of Gods own Appointment Even in his Life and Reign they desired a King They had not the Patience to expect his natural Exit by Death but they would have this excellent Governour who deserved so well of their Nation Deposed and some other Advanced in his place God might therefore very justly be angry with them for rejecting so worthy and eminent a Person who was not only their rightful Prince but one who had Ruled with great Prudence
run the Round of Sinning and Confessing and Sinning again and then Confessing again all the while conceiting themselves to be secure enough in that black Circle As if every sin although never so often repeated were as soon expiated as confessed But do they think to cheat and charm God Almighty thus easily when they come to him with their Hypocritical Acknowledgments and feigned Promises of Amendment made perhaps with much appearance of Affection but not without some kind of mental Reservation or secret Intention of affronting him again Will the great Searcher of Hearts be appeased by such a Mock Devotion as Lewis the eleventh paid to the little Image he wore in his Cap which when he designed the Murder of any whom he feared or hated he would take from his Head and kiss beseeching it to pardon him that one Evil Act more and it should be the last What performance can be more slight what more easie and trivial than to give God a few good words like the Complements we bestow upon Men and to exclaim against our selves in perfunctory Confessions There is no Mortification in all this it exhausts neither Blood nor Spirits it lops off none of our Limbs it breaks none of our Bones And what if our Confessions be made with some pain and sorrow That doth not presently argue the sincerity of our Repentance Every Melancholy Fit at the Remembrance of our sins is not to be accounted Godly Sorrow For no small grief and sadness may arise in the Mind of the most impenitent Criminal not out of any Dislike of his Fault but of the Punishment that follows it not because himself is wicked but because there are good Laws against him and a just Power and Authority to put them in Execution The sinner may be extremely troubled to see that what is so pleasant to him is not safe The Presage of the uneasiness of Hell in which all the Delights of sin are like to conclude may often cut him to the Heart and yet this Grief may little or nothing abate his Affection to it He may still look kindly on his beloved Lusts although he behold them with Tears in his Eyes But when he thus weeps not at the Evil but at the Danger of those ways in which he walks and will not return from the Evil although though he hath so sad a Prospect of the Danger his wilful Guilt defiles his Tears but his Tears will never cleanse his Guilt When all the Terrors of his Mind and all those Anticipations of Hell those gnawings of the Worm which he feels in his Conscience cannot persuade him to amend his doings such a high Fortitude in sin such a resolute Embracing it under so difficult Circumstances plainly shews that he is wedded to it with indissoluble Bonds hath taken it for better and for worse and will keep and maintain it with its Delights and Pleasures and with its Plagues and Torments too never intending to be divorced from it But if the Apprehension of infinite Danger and the formidable Aspect of insupportable Misery have some Influence upon him to cool his Affection to his Sins and produce Resolutions of Amendment this indeed is a good Step towards Repentance but still there may be a considerable Distance betweeen the Purpose and the Thing it self When Men have surfeited with their sins they cast them up with Bitterness make passionate Resolutions against them and wash themselves as they think in penitential Tears but as soon as the Tears are dried up the Resolutions are forgotten and they return to the Vomit and Mire Thus he who was intemperate the last Meal resolves to fast the next but when a few Hours have wrought off the heavy Load of his first Excess he adds a second and his Vow of Abstinence is either not remembred or not regarded But such ineffectual Resolutions so suddenly broken do rather enhance than expiate our Guilt and surely the Aggravations of sin deserve not to be numbred among the Acts of Repentance Thus we see set a man have the clearest Convictions of the Evil of his Ways let him make solemn Confessions and Supplications and do it with some Regret at the sad Consequences of his sins and some Resolutions against them he hath not yet repented with that Repentance which will procure a Pardon from God unless he return and amend Therefore our Church to prevent all mistakes begins her Absolution with these Words Almighty God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who desireth not the Death of a Sinner but rather that he may turn from his Wickedness and live implying that there is no Repentance unto Life without turning from sin no true Penitent but the true Convert And thus much is evident even from the proper and natural signification of those two words in the New Testament by which Repentance is expressed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the one importing a real change of Mind the other better care for the future So that if we be sinners there is an indispensable Necessity of altering the Temper of our Minds and the Course of our Actions Nothing can secure us but a real Reformation nothing less than this can evince the Truth of our Repentance And the Work of Reformation ought to be applied by us to the right Objects to our own evil Ways and Doings and to all of them without Exception This the Text expresly requires Return ye now every man from his his own evil ways amend your your own doings The World is full of Reformers and yet there is but little Reformation The Reason is because most men love to reform without their own Province and beyond their own Jurisdiction to reform every thing besides themselves They are Curiosi in aliena Republica critically censuring and controlling the Actions of others without any Authority intermedling where they have no Commission dictating Counsel before 't is asked and correcting those matters which belong not to them They are very zealous for the Reformation of their Neighbours yea and their Superiours too they will teach their Teachers and direct their Governours As little Friends as some men are to the sacred Episcopal Order they will needs be in St. Peter's Phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the worst sort of Prelates the Visiters and Reformers of anothers Diocess And as great Enemies as they profess themselves to Popery they will needs be little Popes and Universal Bishops where ever they come The very Mechanicks and Peasants of this Age have their new Schemes of Theology and new Models of Government by which they will undertake to regulate and reform the whole Frame of things among us both in Church and State when in the mean time they suffer their most proper Charge their own souls to lye under a Chaos of Disorder and Confusion over-run wasted defiled and almost destroyed by unreasonable Appetites rebellious Lusts and ungovern'd Passions These men can rip up the Vices of the Times without
at length into such a Deluge of boundless Wickedness as quite extinguished the Light of our Israel and pulled down upon as so singular an Instance of the Divine Vengeance as no Nation had felt before the most barbarous and unparallel'd Murder of one of the best Kings â—hat ever sat upon a Throne our late most Gracious Soveraign From hence 〈◊〉 say it will appear that this Days humble and mournful Reflection on â—hat blackest of Britain's Tragedies is 〈◊〉 great and common Duty to which â—…ll even the most innocent Natives of his piacular Island are indispensibly obliged These Conclusions I take to be clearly inferred from those Premises and I believe no sober and knowing Man can think otherwise if he seriously and thorowly consider this Royal and Divine Aphorism which came from the Pen of Solomon and the Mouth of God For the transgression of a Land many are the Princes thereof But by a man of understanding and knowledge the State thereof shall be prolonged In which words there lie before us these Four Observables First a publick National Judgment and that is the ill State of a Nation under Polyarchy or Plurality of Supreme Governours when many are the Princes thereof Secondly the notorious Cause of such a Judgment it is expresly ascribed to the Wickedness of a People the transgression of a Land Thirdly the opposite National Mercy or the Happiness of a Nation under a well settled Monarchy when 〈◊〉 a man of understanding and knowledge the State thereof is prolonged A man that is to say one Man one Soveraign Prince in opposition to the many Princes before mentioned Fourthly The principal means whereby so great a Mercy is procured and that is the Wisdom of the Monarch his understanding and knowledge I begin with the first of these the National Judgment many Princes by which it is plain we are to understand Supreme or Soveraign Princes For many inferior Magistrates or subordinate Governours are at all times necessary to every State and Kingdom even in their most peaceful and flourishing Condition It is therefore the multiplication of Soveraigns that Solomon here speakes of by many of whom may be meant either many lawful Soveraigns or many Usurpers both which are publick Evils although the latter be the more signal Judgment First then by Princes in the Text we may understand lawful Soveraigns and of them there may be either many successively or many at once There may be many successively in a Monarchical State sometimes by the very Nature of the Constitution as in an Elective Monarchy where the Crown is not inviolably fixed in one Royal Family and in the one â—ight Line according to Priviledge of â—irth and Proximity of Blood but is conferred on various Persons of divers Families or different Lines according to the Will and Pleasure of the Electors This is an ill State in comparison of Hereditary Monarchy At the Death of every Prince 't is subject to an Interregnum in which the whole Frame of things may be unsettled and every new Election not only commits the Administration of Affairs to untried hands but may also expose the Kingdom to great Chages and dangerous Revolutions arising from the opposite Interests Affections and Inclinations of various Families and consequently of such Persons as are chosen out of them Indeed if it happen that the Elected King be the Son of Nobles as Solomon speaks if he descended from the Sacred Race of Kings and hath been educated among Princes from his Youth iâ— he hath not only the Title Place and Office but the real Majesty and Authority the God-like Spirit the Wisdom Justice and Clemency of a King matters may go well while he Reigneth Blessed art thou O Land when thy King is the Son of Nobles Eccles 10. 17. But if it so fall out as it often may iâ— an Arbitrary Election that the Prince be chosen out of the meanest of the People if he be a Person of low Birth and servile Condition the Kingdom can never be happy under such a Governour For a Servant when he reigneth is one of those three things for which the Earth is disquieted and one of the four which it cannot bear Prov. 30. 21. 22. Sometimes also by the Will and Pleasure of Heaven and by the Visitation of God there may be many Princes successively even in an Hereditary Monarchy when by reason of the frequent Deaths and short Reigns of Kings there is a Succession of divers of them within a few years This is generally disadvantageous to the Happiness of 〈◊〉 Nation if it doth not prove fatal to When there is such a Mortality of Monarchs that the Earthly Gods die â—â—ster than common Men when the children of the most High are brought â—â—w and not one alone but many of â—â—e Princes fall by an untimely Dissolution before they can bring their deâ—…ns and endeavours for the safety and â—elfare of their People to any good â—aturity and when the Crown thus swiftly passing from one to another is devolved upon Infants who are unskilful in the Arts of Empire obnoxious to the unfaithfulness of Tutors and easie to be misled by the treacherous Conduct of ill Ministers this ruffles the publick Affairs and usually causeth great discomposures Wo to thee O Land when thy King is a Child Eccles 10 16. Although this Wo may be in good measure prevented where the Change and the loss of Princes is recompensed by the continuance of the same wise Counsellors and the defect of Age made up by the uncorrupted Innocence and the early Piety of the Crowned Child But as the having many Princes successively is sometimes the misfortune oâ— the best of Monarchies so the having many together and at once is the constant mischief of a Republick when the Soveraignty is actually invested more than one either in a certain number of Select Persons which is incoâ—modious enouh or which is muâ—â— worse in the very Multitude and general Crowd in the whole Body of 〈◊〉 People the Head and the Feet 〈◊〉 Brains and the Heels the Honouraâ—â—â— the Wise the Sober and all the base and blind and boisterous Rabble having their share in the Government I deny not that these Republicks are lawful Powers in those places where by Divine permission they have had a durable continuance and establishment Long Possession may give them a Title and as bad as they are Use and Custom and the Situation of some Countries may make them tolerable in some few particular places Neither will I say that Solomon did expresly and designedly pronounce this Sentence concerning them The truth is they cannot boast of so great Antiquity It doth not appear that any such Forms of Government had ever been heard of in his Days But because many in this Age and in this Nation have been such fond Admirers of Common-Wealths I shall for their sakes enquire whether these rare Models of Government although they do not fall directly under Solomon's Censure be really any better