Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	king_n	life_n	lord_n	7,709	5	3.7103	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A53104	A sermon preached in the parish-church of St. Sepulchres, on Monday the 30th of January, 1693/4 being the anniversary solemnity for the martyrdom of King Charles I / by Richard Newman, late Vicar of Kynton ...	Newman, Richard, Vicar of Kynton.	1694 (1694)	Wing N924; ESTC R7939	7,681	32

whatever the Ceremony of Investiture is by the Customs of several Nations equivalent thereunto it puts a Note of highest Difference and Distinction between the Persons dignified therewith and Others For Three high and honourable Functions we read in Scripture were conferr'd by this distinguishing Ceremony of Anointing and all of them fenc'd and priviledg'd from Injuries by Vertue of that Holy Oyl namely the Priestly Prophetical and Royal Offices Not to instance in the Two former as not suitable to our present Occasion yet were it easy to prove That the Almighty has Written a Nolite Tangere a Priviledge from common Handling especially the last The Royal is so highly secur'd by the Holy Scriptures That they exact from Subjects such a ' special Awe and Reverence towards KINGS as not only binds the Hand and Tongue but even the Heart also to its good Behaviour And in the Case of this very King Saul when he was once Anointed KING the Holy-Ghost imposes the Brand of Sons of Belial that is Sons of the Devil upon all those who despised or spake contumeliously of Him 1 Sam. 10.27 And Solomon the Wisest of all Mortals strictly chargeth us Not to curse or wish evil to the King no not in our Thoughts Eccles 10.20 So that this Consideration was extreamly conducing to the Aggravation of the Amalekite's Sin in my Text and in him of every King-Killer's Offence For if the lesser Injury may not be done to KINGS surely the greater may not If our Tongues nay Thoughts are not to injure them How much less our Hands Secondly To strengthen this Consideration yet further Holy David calls him not only Vnctus Anointed but Vnctum Domini the Lord 's Anointed which Title particularly relates Him to God as his Vicegerent and enhaunceth the Sin of every one that shall presume to lay violent Hands upon the Lord 's Anointed to the Guilt of High-Treason even against GOD Himself That the Title of the Lord 's Anointed is attributed and belongs to other Kings besides Saul as to all the Jewish Kings yea and besides even Heathenish Kings also is evident from that instance of Cyrus Isa 41.1 And argues that the same Security belongs to all other Kings as being no less related to God and commissioned under Him according to that in the Proverbs By me Kings Reign And so I come to the Third Aggravation taken from the Fact it self and that is represented notoriously Foul in Three Respects First That it was in its own Nature Bloody He destroyed the Lord 's Anointed It was not a Murther intended only nor a Murther barely attempted without Success but an actual and real Murther And yet had he not effected it the very Attempt considering the Quality of the Person had been so hainous a Crime that the Laws of Nature and Nations would have punished it with Death But here the Guilt is infinitely aggravated by the Execution of that which had been so highly Criminal but to attempt For a King however attempted against whilst he is in Being fills the Royal Seat and heads the Common-wealth and animates all Courts of Justice by the Authority of his Name yea lays some restraint upon the most Lawless and dissolute Persons on the Account of a Possibility of being called to Account for their Outrages and Enormities but the actual taking away of a King's Life exposeth the empty Throne to the next potent Vsurper silenceth the Laws annulleth all deputed Powers by the Expiration of their Commissions renders every Man in a sort his own Master and sets up for the Time as many Lords of mis-rule in a Nation as there are evil disposed Persons in it And therefore the Fact of this Amalekite was the more hainous as being an actual destroying of the Lord 's Anointed But Secondly It was a voluntary and wilful Act for He stretched forth his Hand and that with a purpose to destroy the King Had the King accidentally rush'd upon his drawn Sword or had his armed Hand by Impression from some external Force been made the instrumental Cause of taking away the Life of the Lord 's Anointed or any other like Accident had render'd him the Destroyer of the King though besides his Intention yet had it been an Infelicity to have been bewail'd all the Days of his Life And this I hope to make further appear if you please to consider with me the Person whose Death we this Day commemorate compar'd with King Saul in my Text I mean our late Gracious and now Glorious Sovereign A Person by what I have read and heard of Him of a Temper so far different from Saul's that as the One seem'd to be compos'd of Cruelty so the Other by all the Relation that I ever met with seem'd to have nothing in his Constitution but Clemency A Person in both Capacities both of Man and King so free not only from the Guilt but even from the Suspicion of any enormous Crime that even the Malice of his Accusers themselves could find nothing to stuff out that black Charge which they unjustly laid against Him but the unhappy Contests between Himself and his Subjects which indeed were his great Infelicity but their Guilt who first made the unhappy Breach and afterwards as much as in them lay hindred the making it up because their own Consciences of having unpardonably offended Him told them they could expect no Security but in his Ruine A Person and King of so elevated a size both of Intellectual and Moral Endowments that I may be bold to say the Stature of his inward Man as much over-topp'd and surpass'd the most accomplish'd of his Subjects as King Saul's outward Man did overlook the rest of the Israelites 1 Sam. 10.23 For his Intellectuals He was endow'd with such an height of Fancy as would deservedly have won him the Laurel in a Common-wealth of Poets He was Master of so sublime a Grandeur of Language and stately Majesticalness joyn'd with an amiable Fluency of Stile as might have challenged a Dictator's-ship amongst the best of Orators of which his Royal Remains are an indisputable Evidence And for his soundness of Judgment both in Points of Controversie and Cases of Conscience he might have challenged the Theological Chair upon the Account of meer worth and have sate not only Regius Professor but Rex Professorum in both Universities For his Morals He was Just Valiant Temperate Chast Merciful and what not and that even to such a Proportion as that he might have set the very best of his Subjects a Copy of Vertue in his own Example Indeed he was a Prince that might have past clear with the universal Reputation Of the best of English Kings had he not been so unhappy as to Reign in the worst of Times wherein the English Manners were so extreamly debauch'd with the Blandishments of a long continued Tranquility and Plenty and their Judgments so miserably intoxicated with Prejudice and Censoriousness that too too many neither lov'd the Practice of Vertue

themselves nor would willingly allow the Reputation of it in others A King whom if we had not by our Sins render'd our selves unworthy to enjoy longer we had been it may be in doubt of nothing more than being surfeited with our own Felicity and that we enjoy'd Him not all the World must bear Him Witness it was not his Fault seeing at that last and Fatal Treaty as Providence made it at Newport He there shew'd so great a Desire in his Gracious Condescentions to make his People Happy that he even forgot he had any share of his Own to challenge among them having indeed given them all but what he could not part with I mean That Sovereign Goodness of Disposition which was the only thing almost that he had left besides the redintigrated Affections of his People divers of whom began then to know Him better and therefore valued Him the more out of Conviction that they had ignorantly persecuted Him under a mistaken Zeal to support his Throne withall So that I think I may truly say It was the fatal Infatuation and Infelicity of these Nations that they knew not in the Day of their Visitation The things that belonged to their Peace and therefore were they by the Righteous Judgment of God for a full Decad of Years and more justly hid from their Eyes O fortunatos nimium bona si sua nôssent Anglicolas And for his Religion this I think may safely be said of Him without Exception from any but such as all Religion may blush to own That if the Imployment of his serene Hours were of a piece with the Entertainment of his Solitudes and Sufferings that Man is not enough Christian himself who can admit a Dispute in his own Bosom whether he ought not to be ranked amongst the chiefest of Christians And indeed whatever we thought of Him Living as to his Religion the Consequences of his Death too sadly Evidenc'd how much the Protestant Cause was concern'd in his Preservation and especially the sad Face of this Orphant Church of England after the unhappy Death of this its Nursing Father which from that Time forwards became the most woful Scene of Anarchy and Confusion that ever was seen in the Christian World if we may at all give Credit to the best of Histories not excepting even Munster it self which saw but the Prologue to our Fatal Tragedy For who knows not whatever Persons or Parties stept up in his vacant Seat made it the Master-piece of their Policy like self-interested Chirurgeons to keep our Wounds open that they might keep themselves in Practice and to maintain opposite Factions to peck at one another that whilst the People were busied in private Contests they might be the less sensible of their Oppressions insomuch that the Revival of old Heresies and Schisms every one of which carried a Legion of new Ones in its Belly together with the apparent Dangers of Extirpation to the true Protestant Religion and all its Professors for many Years together since our Sins remov'd Him from us have convinced not a few that he was not so much to blame as was too commonly thought for not giving his Consent to those violent and sudden Changes which their mis-guided Zeal amongst many others alike mis-led in those unhappy Times too importunately call'd for In the mean while If what I have said concerning the Person whose Funeral-Anniversary this Day is appointed to solemnize and I am afraid I have rather injur'd his blessed Memory by saying too little than the Truth by saying too much of Him I say if you find your selves in any measure sensible of the Loss you suffer'd by his violent Removal I hope then you will be the better prepar'd to entertain the next Consideration wherein this accursed Parricide exceeded that of King Saul's in my Text if we consider the Persons who committed this horrid Fact And so I come to run the Parallel between the Persons Murthered The Death of King Saul and the sad Occasion of this Day 's Solemnity And indeed many Kings Deaths are Recorded in Holy Scripture and divers of them Violent and Bloody and many of them brought about by the Hands of Rebellious and Traiterous Subjects But to equal all the hainous Circumstances of the most execrable Murther committed this Day on King Charles the First of ever Blessed Memory I know no Example that can in the least pretend to outvie it 'T is true indeed that both of them were Kings Anointed and the Lord 's Anointed and both Murther'd by Subjects but the Difference of them so vastly distant that no Power of Invention can ever bring them to an equal Parallel As First They were not Native-Forreigners as the Amalekite in my Text was but these Parricides were his Majesties Native Subjects that had drawn their first Breath in his Hereditary Dominions and to this natural Bond of Allegiance had voluntary added divers stronger Tyes of Religious Oaths Protestations and Covenants yea some of them that lifted up not their Heads only but their Hands against Him were such as did eat of his Bread his own Sworn Servants and none of them obliged by any such Provocations of cruel Usages so that it is hard to conceive how it might be possible to load a Malefactor with more aggravating Circumstances to render Him monstrously Criminal But Secondly A Second Consideration to amplifie the horrid Murther of this Day may be taken from the Fact it self in that it outvies the Death of King Saul For the Amalekite's Fact was a sneaking Business acted in a Corner so that it had not been known but by his own Relating of it But that of this Day was a publick Tragedy in all the parts of it wherein the Conspirators made all the World Spectators of their audacious Effrontery For here was a Pageantry of publick Justice an High-Court a Bench and a Bar a President and a Prisoner an Indictment and a Prosecution and at last an illegal and wicked Sentence even against the Lord 's Anointed and all these in the most publick Place of Judicature in the Three Nations And last of all a most Bloody Execution and that not in a Corner but in the open Street in the Face of the Sun as if they meant with a kind of Defiance to God Himself to call Him in as a publick Spectator to behold how insolently they trampled upon his Authority in his undoubted Vicegerent A Tragedy which in all the Acts and Parts of it I may be confident to affirm all the Histories in the World can never parallel For many Kings indeed have died by the Sword by the Dagger and the Pistol and many by poisonous Compositions and other such Instruments of private and clandestine Ambition and Revenge but never Any till this black Day by the Executioner's Axe upon a publick Scaffold in the Face of his own Royal Pallace so that here was a Confluence of all that wilful Cruelty and Insolence could contribute to the Aggravation of a Villany I shall conclude All with an humble Supplication to the King of Kings That the horrid Murther which was this Day committed on the Sacred Person of the Lord 's Anointed may be so wiped off from the Score of these Nations That we be never visited with those very Evils or any that may appear so hainous as those were And as God hath been so graciously merciful to us and deliver'd us once and again within a few Years last past and has protected and defended us from all those Dangers which might have happened to us if his infinite Mercy had not interpos'd So we may perpetually honour our present Sovereigns that now sit on the Throne with the most Noble and Glorious Titles of The Allayors of our mutual Heats and Animosities The Moderatours of all our Differences and The Reconcilers of us to each other in Vnity and Godly Love That so we may walk worthy of the Vocation wherewith we are called with all Lowliness and Meekness with Long-suffering Forbearing one another in Love Endeavouring to keep the Unity of the Spirit in the Bond of Peace Eph. 4.1 2 3. Which God of his infinite Mercy grant we may All do for Jesus Christ his Sake Amen FINIS ERRATA Page 25. Line 18. for Heads Read Heels