THREE SERMONS Preached at the CATHEDRAL IN NORWICH And a Fourth at a Parochial Church in Norfolk Humbly Recommending I. True Reformation of our Selves II. Pious Reverence towards God and the King III. Just Abhorrence of Usurping Republicans And IV. Due Affection to the Monarchy By John Graile Rector of Blickling in Norfolk LONDON Printed for W. Kettilby at the Bishops Head in St. Paul's Church-yard 1685. To the Most High Puissant and Noble Prince HENRY Duke of Norfolk Earl Marshal of England Earl of Arundel Surry Norfolk and Norwich Lord Howard Mowbray Segrave Brews of Gower Fitz-Alan Warren Clun Oswaldestre Matravers Scales Graystock Furnedal of Sheffeild and Howard of Castle-Rising Constable and Governour of His Majesties Royal Castle and Honour of Windsor Lord Warden of the Forrest of Windsor Lord Lieutenant of Norfolk Surry and Berks and of the City and County of the City of Norwich c. May it please Your Grace AS there is a small Annual Rent payable to one of your Norfolk Mannors from that little Spot of ground which I possess so there is a great and perpetual Tribute of Honour due to your Grace from the Possessor of it And as the holding that Land gives me the Priviledge to be one of the Tenants of a most Just and Generous Lord so the Tenure of my Reason while I shall be Master of any will make it my Duty to be one of the most Humble most Awful and most Obsequious Admirers of such a truly Noble and Puissant Prince as Personal Virtue would have made your Grace if Glory of Ancestors had not This I have been ambitious publickly to acknowledge and I kneel to your Clemency for a Pardon of the bold Product of that Ambition the almost unpardonable Confidence of a Dedicatory Address from so mean to so great a Person and the presuming to offer such imperfect Discourses as these Sermons to your most piercing and discerning Judgment But whatever Defects they may labour under they were Preached with an Honest Design of doing God and the King the most seasonable Service I could in these Licentious and Seditious Times And they are now Published with an encouraging Hope as well as with an humble Desire of receiving the best Advantage they are capable of towards the promoting their well chosen Design if they may be sheltered under the auspicious and favourable Protection of such an Illustrious Patron of Pious Loyalty as the First and Highest Duke in England next to those of the Blood Royal manifesty is I had almost said necessarily must be Your Grace well knoweth that Loyalty is a considerable Part of Christian Religion and that it is no where more strenuously asserted than in the Church of England a Church signally Eminent as upon all other Accounts so particularly for requiring of all her Members the most faithful Allegiance and Subjection to their Lawful Soveraign his Heirs and Successors Hence it was that although the present Age hath afforded but few Proselytes from the Church of Rome to us and too many from us to them neither the Corruption of the Times nor the prejudices of Education nor the powerful Influence of the Neerest and Noblest Relations nor any of those tempting Considerations which bear so great a sway with other Men could keep Your Grace from the Communion of our Church a thing very memorable and worthy to be known by all Posterity both to our Churches eternal Honour and to Your Graces immortal Renown My Lord The very Height of your Dignity inferior only to Sacred Majesty and Royal Highness doth hardly equal the transcendent Height of your Great and Noble Spirit which makes it a Province worthy of an Angel to give a just Character of Your Grace and forbids my weak Pen to attempt it lest I should affront Your Heroick Virtue with a dissonant and deformed Panegyrick But yet as an Echo of publick Fame I shall adventure to repeat what with an unanimous Voice is generally said of Your Grace That none ever more deservedly enjoyed the Favour of his Prince or the love of his Country And long may your Grace live to enjoy more and more of both until you be at last translated from this great Happiness to a far Greater So prays My Lord Your Graces most humbly devoted Servant John Graile An Advertisement THE Author of these Sermons being induced to publish the three former by the Desires and Approbation of some considerable Persons who heard them preached hath chosen himself to add the fourth in which he hath endeavoured to finish what he began in the third He knows they are sent forth into a Learned and Critical and which is more discouraging into a Contentious and Censorious World But he is willing to sacrifice his Name and Reputation and whatever he accounts dear or pretious to the Cause of God and the King and to the Interests of Peace and Truth and Justice He is content to pass thorow evil Report or good Report if by the Divine Favour and Blessing these plain Discourses may be any way beneficial even to the meanest Readers by convincing them whom they are to Reform and whom they are to Obey and how impossible it is to be good Christians if they be not good Subjects that being preserved from the pernicious contagion of Seditious Principles and having a due sense of and a grateful Affection unto the most Ancient and Excellent Constitution of Government which God hath placed over us they may lead under it a quiet and peaceable life in all Godliness and Honesty THE CONTENTS SERMON I. OF true Repentance and Reformation of our Selves our universal Obligation to it the Divine Assistance we may expect therein and the present necessity of it not admitting any delays Preached Jan. 13. 16 77 78. On Jer. 35. 15 Return ye now every man from his evil way and amend your doings SERMON II. Of the Duties of Revering and Honouring God and the King and the danger of Associating with Seditious Innovators Preached Feb. 4. 16 82 83. On Prov. 24. 21 22. My Son fear thou the Lord and the King and meddle not with them that are given to change For their Calamity shall rise suddenly and who knoweth the ruine of them both SERMON III. Of the Inconvenience of Polyarchy and Popular Soveraignty the Plagues and Mischiefs of Vsurpations and the true cause from whence they spring Preached Jan. 30. 16 83 84. On Prov. 28. the former part of the 2 Verse For the Transgression of a Land many are the Princes thereof but by a man c. SERMON IV. Of the Excellency of Monarchy and the great Blessing of a Wise Monarch Preached May 29. 1684. On Prov. 28. the latter part of 2. Verse But by a man of understanding and knowledge the State thereof shall be prolonged TRUE REFORMATION OF Our Selves SERMON I Preached Jan. 13. 16 77 78. Jer. XXXV 15. Return ye now every man from his evil way and amend your doings THIS Admonition how plainly soever it may sound
And if the Fear of God be considered as it is a filial Reverence compounded with Love it will be much more powerful to move and excite Obedience to him Reverence willingly offers readily pays and chearfully performs what was forced and constrained by meer Fear If Awe and Affection be united in a devout Veneration of the God whom we serve his Service which before was a Yoak and a Burden then becomes perfect Freedom so pleasant and so natural to us that to refuse it will be an Extinguishing of our own Joys a Resisting oâ— our own Desires and a Violence to ourselves A man that highly reveres another is as much inclined to please him as he is to please himself and as unwilling to offend him as he is to wound his own Breast Obedience therefore is an Inseparable Effect of filial Fear or Reverence And that which is so is the most certainâ— Mark of the Truth and Reality oâ— our Religion We all profess Religion and the Fear of God we all pretend the highest Awe and Reverence to his divine Majesty But do we sincerely endeavour to serve and please him Are we guilty of no wilful disobedience no chosen and deliberate violations of his holy Laws If we indulge any of these the true Fear of God is not in us For it is fourthly to be noted That these are the Contraries and Opposites unto this Fear All wilful and presumptuous Sins are perfectly repugnant to it These are Affronts and Contempts bold and Impudent Practices which carry the Marks of great Irreverence clearly written upon their Brow When men deliberately chuse to do those things which they plainly see and know to be contrary to the Divine Laws this is a manifest Discovery that there is no Fear of God before their eyes Let us therefore prove the truth of our Religion by the sincerity of our Obedience particularly by our Obedience to those Commands of God which require us to be Loyal to our Prince That we may fully shew what an Awful Sense we have of the Majesty and Soveraignty of the most high God both in our Words and in our Actions let both our Words and Actions declare how much we revere his Power and Authority not onely in himself but in those also whom he hath set over us And so I come to the second part of Solomon's Advice wherein we are admonished unto the Fear of God to subjoyn the Fear of the King who is Gods Vicegerent Of which I shall discourse in the same Method as I have done of the former by considering its Nature Degrees Effects and Contraries First As for the Nature of the Fear which we owe unto the King 't is very much of the same nature with that Fear which is due to God himself onely 't is inferior and subordinate to it For Kings are honoured in holy Scripture with the adorable Name of God And the Laws of England looking upon the King as a God upon Earth do attribute unto him in some Analogy diverse Excellencies that belong properly to God alone such as are a kind of Omnipotency in raising men from Death to life by pardoning whom the Law hath condemned a certain Omnipresency by his numerous Officers who every where represent him and little less than an Infallibility and an absolute Perfection of Wisdom and Righteousness For our Law will have no Error no Injustice no Folly no Imperfection whatsoever to be found in the King The Fear therefore which we owe to our dread Soveraign even like that which we render to the divine Majesty is a most profound Reverence for an high Esteem of and a most humble and dutiful Affection unto his Sacred Person and Authority It is a filial Fear compounded of Dread and Love For the King is the Father of our Country by whose Providence and Protection we are supported and defended by whose vigilant Care and Conduct we quietly enjoy all that we possess Of this as St. Jerom hath observed even the Philistines were so sensible that it was a constant Custom among them to call all their Princes by the name of Abimelech which signifies both Father and King And it was the Promise of God to his Church that in the Times of the Gospel Kings should be her nursing Fathers and Queens her nursing Mothers Which great Blessing hath been and is most visibly enjoyed by us in this Nation as much as by any People under Heaven Since then by being born the Kings Subjects we have the Happiness to be his Children the very law of Nature doth oblige us to pay him all the Awfulness and Affection and Duty of Children If I be a Father saith God where is mine Honour If I be a Master where is my Fear Now the King next and immediately under God is the great and common Father the supreme Lord and Master of us all And therefore secondly The Degrees and Measures of Honour and Fear which are due to the King are the very highest and the greatest next unto those that are due to God himself The supreme Power and Authority under God being lodged in the sacred Person of the Soveraign Prince he may justly demand the supreme Honour Within his own Dominions he is only less and lower than God he is greater and higher than all Ranks and Orders of Men. Yea all the States of the Realm joyned together all the Nobles and Commons and the whole Body of the People have not a Power and Authority equal to his All his Subjects whether Publick Magistrates or private men not only severally and apart but joyntly and together are under his Command For otherwise he would not be the King of a Kingdom or a Political Society united under one Form of Government but only a King of single men separately taken and so he would be a strange kind of Chimerical and imaginary Prince a King of nothing but a Rope of sands In the first Epistle of St. Peter Chap. 2. ver 13 and 14. that great Apostle makes this plain Distinction between our Subjection to the King and to all other Magistrates whether taken collectively or distributively We are to submit to the King as Supreme to all others as his Officers and Delegates Sent and Commissioned by him all of them together as well as each of them apart having received all their Power and Authority from him and he having received his from God alone For the King is no Substitute of the People but the Minister of God and his Power is the Ordinance of God This is the Voice of Scripture and of Reason and this I may with the greatest Confidence because I can with the strongest Evidence affirm it being not only the unanimous Opinion of all the Wisest Politicians and Statesmen in the World but also the Catholick Doctrine of the Christian Church for many hundreds of years together that a Monarch or Soveraign in his own Dominions hath no Superior but God Almighty And indeed it would be
very strange if any considering men should think otherwise For it is a manifest Contradiction to be a Soveraign or Supreme Prince and to have a Superior Those Kings who have any Power above them are only titular not real Kings The Soveraignty is always lodged where there is the highest Authority And according to the Constitution of our Nation it is most certainly in the King for the Lords both Spiritual and Temporal together with all the Commons assembled in Parliament do by a Solemn Oath acknowledge the King to be Supreme and themselves to be his Subjects and they have in publick Statutes particularly declared the sole Supreme Command and Government of the Militia ever to be and to have been by the Law of England the undoubted Right of his Majesty and his Predecessors and that both or either Houses of Parliament cannot nor lawfully may raise or levy any War offensive or defensive against his Majesty his Heirs and lawful Successors Neither can any Laws or Statutes be made by them but onely such as the King approves Neither is the King accountable to them or to any other or liable to be punished by them or by any other besides God These are the Essentials of Soveraignty or supreme Power to have the sole Power of the Sword to have the Legislative Power to have a Power which is irresistible and unaccountable and no way subject to the coercive Authority of any other Every compleat and Imperial Soveraign hath all these And that we are under such a Soveraign the whole Parliament did acknowledge in the 24. H. 8. c. 12. in which it was Resolved That by sundry Authentick Histories and Chronicles it is manifestly declared and expressed that this Realm of England is an Empire and so hath been accepted in the World governed by one Supreme Head and King having Dignity and Royal Estate of the Imperial Crown of the same The Kings Majesty being therefore the only Supreme Governour in his Dominions next under God and having full perfect and entire Jurisdiction and Authority from God alone which no other Magistrates have but by Emanation from him ought to be revered by us with the highest Degrees of Awfulness and Veneration that can justly be paid to any Person or Power upon Earth The Fear and Hoour we owe to him is greater than we owe to any other and is the very greatest that can possibly be expressed except only that Divine Honour and Adoration which is peculiar to the Deity Thirdly This Awful Fear of our Soveraign Prince if it be really within us will have the very same Effect that the Fear of God hath It will produce a most humble and loyal Submission a most faithful and dutiful Obedience to him We shall execute his Commands with Chearfulness and bear with Patience what he inflicts upon us We shall carefully endeavour to observe and keep all his just Laws that is to say all those which are not contrary to the Laws of God And if it so happen that we cannot comply with his Injunctions by Reason of their Repugnancy to the Divine Commands then we shall meekly and quietly submit to the Penalties that ensue such non-complyance There is but one only case wherein a good and loyal Subject who duly fears and honours his Prince will refuse to obey him and that is when such Obedience will by no means consist with his Obedience to God then indeed he will obey God rather than Man because he fears God more than any mortal Man more than the greatest Monarch in the World But there is no Case whatsoever wherein he dareth either to resist or reproach the Person or the Authority of the King or to offer any Indignity to him For in the fourth and last Place it is to be remembred that all Acts of wickedly presumptuous Disobedience all Oppositions by Force of Arms all reviling Expressions and all manner of Affronts are the most manifest Contradictions to the awful Fear of Soveraign Majesty Where the Word of a King is there is Power Eccles 8. 4. But if his Word be slighted and his Power despised he is not honoured as a King Who may say unto him what doest thou None surely can without great irreverence Is it fit to say to a King thou art Wicked or to Princes ye are Vngodly Job 34. 18. No it is very unfit it is one of the highest Instances of Impudence Rudeness and Unmannerliness It is such Behaviour as doth no way consist with the Deference Obsequiousness and profound Lowliness which ought to be in Subjects But what is it then to take Arms against him Is it not plainly a fighting against God whom the King represents and with whose Authority he is invested Prov. 30. 31. A King like God is one against whom there is no rising up No not upon any pretence whatsoever without open Perfidiousness and Rebellion of which when any are guilty they not only affront their Prince and contemn his Laws and Government they not only act contrary to their Duty and Allegiance but they totally cast off the very State and Quality and Relation of Subjects yea they are such Monsters of Men as do in a great Degree renounce humane Nature and common Civility They are as natural Brute beasts made to be taken and destroyed So St. Peter describes them 2 Pet. 2. 10 12. If we have therefore any Fear of God or the King if we have any Regard to Religion or Loyalty Humanity or Civility we will abhor the thoughts of ever joyning with such salvage untamed ungovernable Creatures such Wolves and Tygers in humane Shape as Rebels and Traitors are Yea if we desire to keep our selves out of danger we will have nothing to do with any of the Friends or Correspondents of such ill men with any factious Designers who do more remotely attempt to destroy the Government by introducing the Changes and alterations of it Which brings me to The third Observable in the Text The useful Caution against Joyning or Associating with seditious Innovators Meddle not with them that are given to change That is joyn not thy self to any turbulent Sect or Party whose Discontent with the present State of Things or desire of Novelty makes them affect a change especially in those two great Interests of a Nation Religion and Government both which the due Fear of God and the King would preserve inviolate Now by how much the better the established Religion and Government is by so much the worse and the more detestable are all such Combinations and Confederacies for the Change of either of them Upon which Account I verily believe no People in the World have greater Reason to hearken to this Counsel of Solomons than we have For wherefore should we desire or endeavour an Alteration either of our Religion or our Government Our Religion is the true Christian Religion restored to its primitive Purity and reformed from the Corruptions and Abuses both of Hereticks and Schismaticks And shall we joyn