either now living or in the memory of many of us dead If our King be not fully of our Religion who were they that when they had by rebellious Arms first deposed then murdered the Father afterwards drove the whole Royal Progeny into strange Countries where they found more kindness from them of a foreign Religion than from the body of their native Subjects God divert from the three Nations the Plagues yet due to that Rebellion and its consequent Villanies In the mean while let the present consideration how Princes miscarriages light heavy and that most justly on their Subjects as well as on the contrary their prudent and pious Conduct so vastly advanceth both the spiritual and temporal Prosperity of their people let I say this most reasonable consideration move all of us to be duly devout in offering Supplications Prayers and Intercessions for our King and all sent by him Those great Rationalists who scarce will admit any other Law of Nature allow Self-preservation to be such I say even this obliges us to pray for Kings and that most ardently 't is an act in our own defence and for our own advantage But I trust we are most of us acted by more generous Principles let me therefore propound such also I say then lastly we are obliged in charity and good nature to this Duty And truly there is something of this in what I said but just now Who will not think himself bound to pity and as long as he lives pray for those whom his own Sins have provoked God to suffer to fall into Sin But to wave any such consideration put the case Kings were advanced so far above the race of Mankind that they could not either through human frailty or Gods vengeance on their peoples Sins fall themselves into any sin or do any thing amiss yet are they not thereby supposed impossible or uncapable of feeling their proper miseries And who knows not that all Crowns have their Weight and I may say their Thorns too Pardon that expression who knows not I must recall it Indeed none know the pressures of Crowns but those who wear them The infelicities of being in power especially in the highest place of power are greater than can be easily accounted To make a good man great is but to desire or necessitate him to be miserable for the publick Good to say nothing of perpetual cares waking nights and thoughts which the hearing of Chronicles read will not always divert of the most poynant sense of publick Straits national Affronts and a thousand things that will not enter into my head this one misery is enough to make any earthly Throne eternally uneasie that upon the poor Prince ever was and will be charged all publick Evils either his male-administration or some other his Personal guilt is still cryed out of though he in the mean time be never so wise vigilant virtuous or innocent Thus 1 Sam. xxx 6 the Amalekites invade Ziklag and carry the Women away captive and the people instead of rescuing them talk of stoning David These and such like miseries whoso consider will surely never think he can pray too often for his King I might speak of Obligations from humane Laws for humane Laws to this effect have there ever been not only in Christian but in Jewish and even in Heathen Countries Thus Darius when he ordered a kind of Endowment of the Jewish Temple required that the Priests should offer Sacrifices of sweet Savours unto the God of Heaven and pray for the Life of the King his Sons Ezr. vi 9 10. And it may be collected by parity of Reason from 1 Macc. xii 11. as well as more expresly by what is above said out of Josephus that the Jews practised accordingly The primitive Christians we have seen did it without any Imperial Laws and sine Monitore But what should I speak of such Laws amongst us In a word and to conclude the whole Evidence for this Duty If there may be any Obligation laid upon us which is not grounded upon Scripture Reason or humane Laws that is upon divine moral or political Principles of Justice Charity and Equity all which it is plain we have in the present case then I shall confess there is some Obligation wanting which might have been laid upon us to be assiduous or instant in Prayer for our King But because if even new Grounds of Duties could be assigned and humane Nature and Society should come hereafter to be regulated according to other measures than the World has hitherto known yet these will be obligatory still Therefore I must say after the Apostle I exhort that Supplications and Prayers Intercessions and giving of Thanks be made for all men For Kings and them that are in Authority And when I have in a very few words press'd the Practice of what I have hitherto been demonstrating to be our Duty I shall conclude First therefore in the name of God let none of us in what capacity soever whether private or publick persons be wanting to this Duty Be we what we will we are or would be looked upon as Christians or Friends to humane Society We are not such as plead for mens living wild and savage upon the face of the Earth If we be not such we are then concerned and held fast in the Tyes before-mentioned Wherefore In those publick Prayers which the Church has provided for us and most Christianly according to the Apostolical Injunction and primitive Pattern put into our mouths let us be cordial and sincere let them not pass over with us as matter of meer Form and Custom but honestly engage our Hearts in zealous desires and fixt resolutions of Loyalty I have heard it has been objected against our Liturgy that Prayers for the King occur therein too often that there is in this behalf a great deal of vain Repetition a Fault taxed by our Lord in the Prayers of Heathens It were an easie thing to vindicate our Service-Book from Tautology even in this regard were there now either Time or Need. In a word there never comes two Prayers for the King in the same Office of the same kind or to the same purpose And it is to be remembred diverse kinds of Prayers are commanded Supplications Petitions Intercessions and giving of Thanks are to be made for all men For Kings and them in Authority Or if there were any such yet new Affections still added to Prayers coming over again at some distance will as much make them new Prayers as our Lords greater Earnestness in the Garden made the Prayer which he uttered the third time in the same words no vain Repetition If we have any sparks of Reason in us let us be ashamed of such pretences We will tell the world that what some scrupulous persons thus plead against our Liturgy that it too frequently applies to God in behalf of the King will ever we hope operate to the maintaining it What these account its Fault may
the Laws of Christ the Honour of Supplies and of paying Tribute Kings must not be kept poor for this is the way to make them useless and to expose both them and their Subjects to the common Enemies of both You know whose Command it is Render unto Cesar the things that are Cesars and unto God the things that are Gods Matth. xxii 21. The Justice of which debt the Apostle gives us an account Rom. xiii 6. For this cause pay we Tribute also for they are Gods Ministers attending continually upon this very thing the thing he had spoken of in the fourth Verse namely the publick Good or in his language to minister to every one for good for the private good of each who doth good and for the publick good of all by executing Wrath upon such as do evil Now there is no greater burden than the perpetual Care Toil and Difficulty which lies on Kings and Persons in the highest Power in reference to such Administration of Justice and other like publick affairs And if our own private business and concerns cannot be carried on without Expence what must be the Charge of the Concerns of a Kingdom Wherefore as the undergoing such publick Cares and perpetual Anxieties deserves a publick and ample Reward greater Wealth and Revenues than those of any private man so the Necessiities of publick Business require greater Treasures to discharge them Hence I say is most evident the Justice of the case that Tributes and Supplies should be paid to Kings Let them be paid then will some say by them that reap the great benefit of the Government but how will it be proved to be every mans Duty to pay them The Answer is easie 1. Who reaps not the benefit of the Government and particularly the benefit of Protection by the Laws both as to his Person Fortunes Liberty good Name and the like except he have deserved otherwise He owes therefore for these his share towards the defraying the publick Expences But there is yet a farther Answer 2. We must know the King has the same right to such Supplies as we speak of to Tributes and his Revenues as any of us have to our Estates Nam propriae Telluris herum natura neque illum Nec me nec quenquam statuit Nature gives no man a property to his House or Lands or like possessions It is the Law that determines and sets out each mans property And the same Law that metes out to me what is mine assigns to the King what is his The same Law that gives me liberty to traffick to buy up and export and import Commodities allots to the King his Customes and it is as much a breach of the eighth Commandent whatsoever some men think of it to steal Custome as to pick a mans pocket of the two in some regard a greater I know the ordinary Evasion many have with which they do not so much quiet as for a while cheat or stifle their Consciences The Laws in this case say they are penal if we submit to the Penalty of the Law as we are content to do when we are caught which I must suspect and they who say it would do well to consider whether they so contentedly submit to legal Forfeitures as they pretend in this plea if we submit to the Penalty say they we are guiltless we have fulfilled the Law I utterly deny this and so will any man who understands any thing of Casuastical Divinity The Law by commanding me to do what will secure me from Penalty or Forfeiture commands me not to incur that Penalty or Forfeiture if therefore I wittingly incur it I break the Law except there were more particular Salvo's than I have seen in any of our penal Laws But because some will not understand this in the general let me put a particular case Suppose a man by defrauding the King of some comparatively small Dues incurs a Forfeiture which undoes him Who now is guilty of undoing this man the Law or himself If he would have honestly paid the King such Dues as he might have done and yet been an honest Gainer which was the thing commanded by the Law and by the Law his Duty he had been in a good condition but he chooses to break the Law and so has undone himself Is he not now doubly gulty first of a sin against the Law and the King Secondly is he not in some measure a Felo de se at least a Robber of himself and Family and the Guilt must needs bear its proportion and be Guilt still though not so great in case of lesser Penalties and Forfeitures Wherefore we see we owe the King the Honour of Supplies Custom or Tribute Fourthly We owe him the Honour of Candour and charitable Construction of thinking and speaking the best we can of him and all his actions You never knew a person who truly honoured another but he would be so far from thinking vilely of his indifferent actions mean of such actions which might be capable of being done wisely or to a good end as well as otherwise that he would find out excuses for his bad ones I pray you let us all pay our Prince this Honour at least let none of us be guilty of interpreting to the worst such Counsels and Actions the reasons of which we do not yet and perhaps it is not fit we should at present understand This very practice besides that it is most certainly our Duty to our King would be no small service to our selves and neighbours for it would prevent a multitude of those causeless but very tormenting Fears and Jealoufies nay even many divers reports too which are very frequent all over the Kingdoms But this I have formerly otherwise prest Lastly We owe to our King the Honour of our Prayers * These passages were put in when the Sermon was preached a second time in another place and on another occasion and of our Praises too in his behalf True Honour and Love are inseparable And 't is most sure no person of any serious Religion ever honoured and loved any man whom he did not pray for * and in whose good he would not cordially rejoyce and praise God for it Remember that most solemn passage of the Apostle 1. Tim. II. 1 2 3. I exhort therefore first of all that Supplications Prayers Intercessions and giving of Thanks be made for all men for Kings and for all that are in Authority that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all Godliness and Honesty For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour It is plain hence that in the settling of the Service of God in the Church of Ephesus one of St. Pauls first and chiefest cares one of his strictest Injunctions was that all sorts of Prayers should be offered up in the behalf of Kings which I have otherwise more largely discoursed and therefore for the present more briefly pass We see then now the main
guilt For he that said do not commit Adultery said also do not kill now if thou commit no Adultery yet if thou kill thou art become a Transgressor of the Law Jam. II. 11. And the same God you have heard said further Honour thy Father and thy Mother that is in one sense of the Command Pay thy King as well as Parents the Honour of Obedience together with the other points of Honour mentioned Wherefore if the Fear of God so far sway in our hearts that it control govern and direct our Actions we shall be loyal as well as devout for there is the same Divine Law and Authority for both and if in one point we cast off the Fear of God 't is vain to pretend it in another the same Fear were it sincere and real would operate to all cases as well as one When Herod i◠tender of breaking his Oath but not o◠Murder and guiltless Bloud it is sure he i◠such a Judg which fears not God however for some vain Honours sake he may regard Men. When Judas is thrifty and cannot endure that so much waste should be made of a Box of Ointment though it was a kind of fore-embalming his Master but in Charity had much rather it had been sold and given to the poor yet can upon the first occasion play the Traytor in the vilest and most mercinary sort we may be sure the Devil has entred him the Fear of God possesseth him not such damn'd Partiality could not consist with that Fear And so in the present case they are only such Apostles as Judas who can at once pretend to the Spirit of Christ and yet joyn with assist and animate Rebels nay which is more deplorable imagine contrive hatch and bring forth Rebellion But we have not so learned Christ if so be that we have heard him and been taught by him as the Truth is in Jesus This is the general Ground and as to more particular ones they have been already toucht For 1. We have heard that Kings are on Earth Gods Vicegerents now can any man pretend Faith and Duty to his Sovereign in person and at the same time defie vilifie or depose him in his Viceroy Is it not the same Royal Power that resides in both as such And is not the Undutifulness and Disloyalty to the Kings Majesty in his Viceroy still an Offence against the Kings Majesty Hear God himself deciding the case expresly 1 Sam. viii 7. They have not rejected thee but they have rejected me that I should not reign over them And 2. Can any of us after such express Texts produced doubt but it is Gods declared Will and peremptory Command that we should be obedient to the King and them which are sent by him Is the fifth Commandment no part of the Moral Law Or are the 13th of the Romans Let every Soul be subject to the higher Powers and this Paragraph of St. Peters Epistle whence the Text is taken no Gospel Did not Christ and his Apostles and the whole body of primitive Christians thus live and thus teach Was there in those days any such thing heard of as Resistance of Powers or Plots and Designs against Government though then the Government was in the hands of the unjustest and most tyrannical persons the Earth ever bore Did not Christianity grow up under Persecutions and was not the Bloud of the Martyrs the Seed of the Church This Scripture this all Antiquity teacheth us And herein indeed I must commend the Ingenuity of some of the Rebellious Saints of the late Age when particularly prest to produce Divine Warrant for Subjects taking Arms against the King or to shew where it might be found written in the Gospel that it was lawful to rise up against the Government * John Goodwin particularly some of them ingenuously confest that there was no Text for it nor was it a Doctrine of the ancient Christianity but they had it from the Spirit of God dwelling in themselves and it was a secret reserved by God to be revealed in the later age of the world when it would come to be more seasonable than it would have been in the Infancy of Christianity Ingenuè Peribonius a fair Confession indeed But I beseech you Brethren keep to the old and undoubted Christianity Be followers of Christ Jesus and if you are so the Fear you have of God the Faith you have of Christ will certainly lead you as Christ did to give unto Cesar the things that are Cesars as well as unto God the things that are Gods that is you will conclude the Duty to your God and to your King thus far inseparable To shut up all briefly in a double Exhortation First As the foundation of all Sincerity of all Honesty and Duty both to God and Man study and endeavour above all things to possess your hearts with a fixed and unmovable Fear of God The way and means thereto has been most plainly laid open in the beginning We have seen the true rise of that Fear and its genuine Nature It is a lasting sense of the Being Sovereignty Omniscience Justice and Power of God Inure your selves then to think much hereon and to attend hereto in all your actions Let these thoughts lie down with you by night and awake with you in the morning and accompany you in all your ways and business God sees God will bring to account By this means the Wisemans Advice will have effect upon you you will be in the Fear of the Lord all the day long Proverbs xxiii 17. Secondly Let the Fear of God have its perfect work Be not so false to your selves as to have the Fear of God with partiality but whatsoever you see is matter of his Will Command and Law and so consequently of your Duty do you honestly and without picking and choosing settle to and be conscientious in all and every such thing How canst think to answer at the great Tribunal of God the laying aside any of his Laws And particularly if Damnation be dreadful as what can be so if that be not remember who has said they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation Now thou canst not partake with those who do resist but thou must resist also Certainly if these things be laid to heart we shall all be no less good Subjects to our King than to God that is we shall be loyal and faithful unto both Now God make us all such and keep us faithful unto Death that we may receive the Crown of Life Which God grant c. FINIS REX REGIUS KINGS Succeeding in a Right Line A National Blessing Proved in a SERMON Preached at Cork Octob. 14. 1685. to a very full Assembly there met to solemnize THE BIRTH-DAY OF His Gracious Majesty James II. By Edward Lord Bishop of Cork and Rosse Dublin Printed by A. Crook and S. Helsham for William Norman Samuel Helsham and Eliphal Dobson Booksellers 1686. Advertisement THis Sermon was
or follow my business at home But if the King commands me abroad to serve him it is now a good work and my Duty to go abroad and serve him And so in other like cases But will some say What if the King should command us any thing that is unlawful What then must our Obedience be I answer 1. The King cannot be conceived to command us that is any men in our circumstances and conditions any thing but what he commands according to Law that is he can be conceived to command us nothing but what the Law commands And I must stand to it our Laws are good nay they are most excellent at least I could never find an ill one amongst those now in force This Supposition therefore is you see unreasonable and not to be put But you will say What if an ill Law should be made and our Obedience to it required These things are not in themselves impossiible I answer Under our Constitution and as the Frame of our Government stands if they be not impossible yet God be blessed they are most highly improbable and most unlikely But 2. And which for ever answers all There are few of us but have heard there is a double Obedience which may be paid to Governours Active or Passive Where the thing commanded is lawful to be done we ought to do it we owe active Obedience Eccles viii 2. I counsel thee to keep the Kings Commandment and that in regard of the Oath of God Thy Allegiance binds thee to it But in case the thing commanded be unlawful that is against any plain Command of God or that thou without Fraud or Dissimulation apprehendest and believest it to be so there is then passive Obedience that thou art to pay that is thou must meekly and patiently submit thy self to suffer whatever Penalty the Lawgiver thinks fit to inflict for the breach of his Law We may petition and supplicate for Forbearance and Mercy but in case we cannot obtain it we may not resist For whosoever resisteth the Power resisteth the Ordinance of God and they that resist shall receive to themselves Damnation Rom. xiii 2. This is the Doctrine of St. Paul and it ever has been the Doctrine of our Church See the Book of Homilies And thus as to the first branch of Honour due to the King the Honour of Obedience A second Honour which we owe to him is that of Fealty and Allegiance The word Fealty signifies only Fidelity or Faithfulness and what the particulars of the Faith we owe to our Sovereign Lord the King are we know all of us by the Oath of Allegiance In particular as we are not to be false Traytors our selves so neither are we to connive at or conceal those whom we have reason to suspect to be such And hereunto we are all of us bound First By the Oath aforementioned which that none may think an Imposition upon us or contrary to the Laws of God or to our Christian Liberty behold it in the very Kingdom of Judah that is in the Kingdom which of all ever on Earth was that of Gods most peculiar Erection and Care We had just now one proof of it out of Ecclesiastes I counsel thee to keep the Kings Commandment by reason of the Oath of God that Oath we cannot well conceive to be any other than the Oath of Allegiance which they to whom he speaks had taken to their King and particularly to King Solomon the Penman of that Book But in 1 Chron. last 24. You have both the time and manner or ceremony of taking it Then Solomon sat on the Throne of the Lord as King instead of David his Father And all the Princes and the mighty Men and all the Sons of King David gave the Hand under Solomon so the Text runs in the Hebrew as you may see in the Margin of your Bibles And what that kind of speech signifies you may learn out of the Story of Abrahams Servant Gen. xxiv 2 3. Put I pray thee saith Abraham to his Servant thine Hand under my Thigh and I will make thee swear by the Lord the God of Heaven and the God of Earth The giving the Hand under one was the Ceremony of a most solemn Oath By the Lord that is By Jehovah the God of Heaven and the God of Earth So again when Jacob was dying in the Land of Egypt he sent for his Son Joseph and said unto him Put I pray thee thine Hand under my Thigh and deal kindly and truly with me Bury me not in Egypt but I will lie with my Fathers c. And he said swear unto me and he sware unto him Genes xxvii 29 30 31. So that this their giving their Hand under King Solomon was swearing to him in person their Faith and Allegiance You see then Divine Warrant for an Oath of Allegiance And hereby first I say are we bound to pay our King the Honour of Fidelity for this Oath we have all of us taken or if any of us be so young as not to have taken it such are to be minded that we here all of us call our selves English-men And every English-man is born as I may say with the Oath of Allegiance in his mouth our Fathers took it and stand bound for us and we therefore bound in them 2. We are bound hereto by the Principles of Equity and Justice those common grounds of the Laws of Nations and indeed the true Law of Nature We expect Protection from the King his Laws and Government and God be blessed we do enjoy it Now is it not just that as we have Safety from him so he should have Security from us What Nation is there which gives not this Security to their Government Indeed it is the very Bond of Government without which it cannot subsist but all must run into Seditions Bloudshed Confusion Anarchy And therefore 3. We are bound to pay our King the Honour of Faith and Allegiance in our own Defence There are many who pretend and have long pretended God forgive them to be afraid of their Property Liberties and Religion My Brethren what can more certainly and fatally expose or destroy all these than Civil Wars And Civil Wars must needs immediately come in upon us if any of us at least any number of us start or swerve from our Allegiance Our King under God alone is able to protect us our Properties Liberties Religion and besides his Force Power he has manifested to the World Courage Will and Resolution enough to protect us In standing stedfast therefore we secure and preserve our selves and ours but if we stagger or fall off which God forbid we may weaken him but we shall destroy our selves I will add no more on this Point I trust I do not need Thus then as to the second branch of Honour due to the King the Honour of Fealty and Allegiance and our Obligations thereto The third follows Thirdly then We owe to our King by