Christ doth administer much matter unto us Christ uttereth his voice three manner of wayes 1. Way for Christ speaketh unto his sheep three manner of wayes 1. By the inward inspiration of his spirit which suggesteth good motions into the hearts and heads of his sheep 2. By his holy Word that is written unto us by his Prophets and Apostles 2 Way to declare his will that is his Laws Statutes and Ordinances his decrees promises and threatnings that we might obey his precepts believe his promises and fear his threatnings 3. By the lively voice of his under Shepherds 3 Way those Preachers that he continually sendeth to instruct his sheep and to inform them of the truth and true meaning of his will that is set down in his written Word 1. And because there are many spirits we are not to believe every spirit 1 Iohn 4.1 but we ought to be very careful to try the spirits whether those motions and inspirations of the spirit that we have be agreeable to the written Word of God which if they be not they are the suggestions of the lying spirit and not the inspiration of Gods Spirit 2. And because the written Word is but the dead letter a dumb Judge and full of mysteries and obscurities Christ sends his servants to explain that written Word as Councellors do the written Law unto his sheep or if it were not so there was no need of Teachers but every one that had a Bible and could read ir could understand the voice of Christ But Christ knew how necessary it was for his sheep to have Instructors and explainers of his will and therefore he sendeth his under-Shepherds continually to sound forth his voice unto them and he tells us plainly Luke 10.16 He that heareth them heareth him But here by the voice of Christ which the preachers are to explain unto the sheep the question is whether they ought to alledge or cite any other voice or the voice of any other man then what is set down by the divine Pen-men of the holy Scriptures in the Canonical books of the Old and New Testament which are the only writings that are of divine inspiration and infallibly true without any commixion of any errour For some will believe nothing and would have nothing said or alledged but what is set down directis terminis in the holy Scriptures that are the only undoubted voice of Christ therefore they do blame them much and tax them sore that cite any other Author or produce any other proof of any truth then what is found in the holy Bible To these men I answer that as I love their Zeal to Gods Word so I pity their Ignorance of Gods Will for they should know that as every lie is the voice of the Devil who is a lier from the beginning and the Father of all lies as our Saviour saith so every one that is of the truth heareth my voice saith Christ and as he is Pater luminum the Father of Lights so he is Pater veritatum the Father of Truths and every truth qua truth John 8.44 John 18.37 1 Sam. 10.12 is the Voice of God and comes from God as when Saul prophesied it became a Proverb in Israel Is Saul also among the Prophets and when Caiphas the high Priest that condemned Christ to death prophesied that it was expedient for the Jews That one man should die for the people that the whole nation perish not John 11.10 his words were the Truth of God and they are registred in the holy Scriptures nay more when Satan said I know who thou art even the holy one of God And again Thou art Christ the Son of God And when Peter said Thou art Christ the son of the living God Luke 4.34 4â— Utriusque confessionis non neganda sed agnoscenda est veritas the truth of either of their confession cannot be denied but must be acknowledged ought to be believed for truth not because either of them hath said it but because what either of them hath said is true otherwise if we refuse to believe the truth because the Devil speaks it his malice is so great that to hinder our Faith he would perchance very often say the truth that we might not believe iâ— which is his aim and desire alwayes when he doth speak truth and therefore Quamvis hic laudatur iste tamen vituperatur though S. Peter was commended yet Satan was reproved for his confession because he had no command nor commission to speak that truth and he spake it to none other end but that it might not be believed because he hoped that none would believe the Devil Galat. 1.8 but S. Paul tells us That if an angel from heaven should preach to us any other gospel then what was truth he should be accursed to teach us that neither the worthiness nor the unworthiness of the persons speaking but the lawful commission and authority of the speaker the truth of what is spoken is most chiefly to be regarded by the hearers and therefore Christ saith The Scribes and Pharisees that were wicked men and his enemies do sit in Moses chair that is they are lawfully called to teach the people and to expound the law of God All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe Mat. 23.2 3. that observe and do but do not ye after their works because they say and do not And therefore though the holy Scriptures primarily infallibly and perfectly without errour be the voice of Christ and the true Word of God yet this denieth no but that other Writings either of holy Faith witty Poets and learned Philosophets or whosoever they be that write the Truth either Historically or Physically or Morally may secondarily be stiled the voice of Christ so far forth as they are the words of truth otherwise S. Paul would never have cited three Testimonies of the Heathens to justifie the truth of what he delivered which was like the fact of David to cut off Goliah's head with his own sword or as the Israelites robb'd the Egyptians of their Gold and of their Jewels when we take what is good out of prophine Authors as S. Aug. sheweth at large De doct Chr. l. 2. c. 40. and produceth many excellent points out of their Writings De civ dei l. 8. c. 6 7 8. And if it were not lawfull and useful to quote other Authors as the Voice of Christ unto the people it had been but a vain thing either for the Fathers of old or for any other learned Divine now to write any thing at all if their writings bare no credit or was of no use either with the Readers or the Hearers of their explications or shall we think that all the learned Authors that have written since the Apostles tiâ—e were such fools as to take such pains as they have done to no purpose which must needs be to no purpose if no use can be made of
himself alone for he like a wise man judged that man which doth all things out of his own head superbum magÃs quà m sapientem esse rather a proud man then a wise man as Titus Livius saith Charles Stuart our now most gracious King therefore I make no question had his Counsellours then and as we finde it by the Transactions of business in Jersy and Breda he was in his greatest affairs guided by them the more fault theirs if they misguided him though the more dammage his neither yet can he be excused from all fault if he was misguided by them the great God that governs all things and crowns events according to their deserts hath made it manifest to the world Laertius in Solon that his Counsellours have not fully followed the old rule in Laertius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Consule non quae suavissima sed quae optima Counsel not those things that seem most sweet and pleasant but those things which are best and most honest for these Ductores Principis Counsellours of this young Prince consulting with flesh and blood and considering what was likest to advance his design and not considering what was most agreeable to God's Will have in the Judgment of some not so well advised their good Master and had he not been as it seemeth another Jedidia beloved of God by following their Counsel in the Course that he took he might have been taken in a snare to his utter ruine That is in Worcester Fight But what was the Counsel that they gave him it appeareth by the tryal of Master Love and by the event of those treatises betwixt the Scots Commissioners and the Presbyterian Agents out of England Captain Titus Drake and the rest and the Prince that they perswaded him to comply with the Scots for that by this means he should peaceably gain the Crown of Scotland and with the Strength of Scotland joined with the Presbyterian Party of England which were very considerable he might easily gain the Kingdom of England and then Ireland must needs yield An unquestionable uncontroulable way in the judgement of man but it seemed not so with God as the event did make it clear and therefore as when the Counsellours of Rheoboam differed in their advice the one sort saying Si loquaris verba lenia speak to this people fair and they will be thy Servants and the other sort bidding him to tell them that His Father whipped them with rods but he would scourge them with Scorpions Rheâ—boam should have had the Discretion to know which was the best to follow for herein consisteth the greatest wisdom of any Prince in the Election of his Counsel because it is most likely that among many wise men both the best and the worst Counsel will be propounded And it is a point of great wisdom to be able to follow the best to choose the good and to refuse the evil and the wisest man in the world may easily fail herein especially in great matters whose future and contingent events are so doubtful And therefore it is no wonder nor any fault-unexcuseable for the best traveller to mistake his way in the dark or in a wilderness among the thickets But could any wise man that remembered the former passages betwixt the Scots and the late pious King think or any good Christian believe that God whose ways are always right as the Prophet speaketh and the just shall walk in them but the transgressors shall fall therein would prosper the counsel that leadeth to any erroneous course no no this cannot be And therefore as I conceive the Counsellors of this good Prince failed though not in their love and faithfulness to their Master but in their advice in directing him the best way and he not knowing which way was best Incidit in Scyllam cupiens vitare Charibdim By seeking to escape the Lions it may be the Irish Catholicks he fell among Bears if I may so call the Scottish Presbytery whose feet Rev. xiii 2. the holy Scripture tells us are as the feet of a Bear But his Counsellors may answer as a very learned Scotchman discoursing hereof answered me that their purpose was right and their intention exceeding good aiming at the same end as is now blessed be God for it come to pass But I say the just God will not approve of our intentions to do good if we go about to effect that good by an evil way for as the Scholes tell us si bonum feceris malâ intentione non imputabitur tibi pro bono if thou doest good with an ill intent it shall not be imputed to thee for good so in like manner si malum feceris boná intentione non imputabitur tibi pro bono if thou doest evil though thou meanest never so well and thine intention be never so good yet shall it not be imputed to thee for good because the God that is most perfect in all his ways and in every thing doth require that the good which we do should be perfectly good ex omni parte on all sides and in every respect for as the Prophet speaketh He requireth truth in the inward parts and will have heart and hand minde and tongue to go together and therefore we may not do evil that good may come thereof or to enable us to do good Job xiii 7. neither may we speak wickedly for God nor talk deceitfully for him as Job speaketh much less may we do the same for the greatest preferment in the World And therefore if this good Prince had been well informed and throughly given to understand all the former passages and proceedings of those Scots that so undutifully so unkindly and so treacherously dealt with his good Father and for what ends they did it I believe he would have never wandred those ways that he travelled unto them but he having thus mistaken his way he missed of his end and the Presbyterians that had made a Covenant with death as the Prophet speaks of the Jews and an agreement with Hell it self did not stand any ways to further his design but when the overflowing Scourge did pass through then were they troden down by it and he had been likewise troden down himself or taken which had been worst had not the eye of Heaven which saw the innocency of his heart not wittingly offending in any way watched over him and as he did when he led Jacob to Padan-Aram that he might escape his Brother's wrath so it guided him most miraculously in man's judgment to the haven where he would be that so he might escape the treachery of some professed friends and be delivered from the malice of his cruel enemies for I fear we may say with Obadiah All the men of thy confedracy have brought thee even to the border Obadiah v. 7. the men that were at peace with thee have deceived thee and they that eat thy bread have layd a wound under thee that is his own counsellours by perswading him to take
and made a simple conversion of White to Black and of Good to Evil. For As I shall answer for what I say at the Dreadfull day of Judgment I do here profess that in all mine Observation of what I saw and what I heard of the Lords and Gentlemen of His Court in so many years as they know I lived therein which was ever since King James died till the Wars began I knew neither Lord nor Knight nor Gentleman nor any other man whatsoever neither have I read in any Historie Greek or Latine of any Emperour or King I will not except Constantine nor Theodosius nor St. Edward of Ingland that was a juster King a wiser Governour and a better man then King Charles that was so Pious in his Devotions so just and upright in all His Actions so sweet in His Disposition so loving to His Friends so mild to His Servants so ready to forgive His Enemies and so free from all revenge for His greatest wrongs that when His own Subjects and Servants so Undutifully and Maliciously Rebelled and Warred against Him and bespotted His Innocent Conversation and pure Life with most false and venomous Aspersions I heard him say I thank God I can freely forgive all my Enemies and I pray God that God would forgive them and I dare boldly affirm it and can justifie it that He was as good a Protestant if not the best Protestant in all the Christian World and I am sure the best Protestant King or Prince that ever England saw who when I came unto Him immediately after Edg-Hill-fight and said that whatsoever otherwise we wanted in our Abilities yet our Prayers should never be wanting to beseech the Almighty God night and day to bless Him and to protect Him from all His Adversaries He answered that He thanked us for our Prayers and desired us to continue our Prayers still as He hoped we would do for Him because He suffered all this War and whatsoever else should betide Him for our sake and for the defence of the true Protestant Religion as it was Established in the Church of England and for the preservation of the known Laws of these Kingdoms and all the while I lived in His Court I never saw the man Clergy or Laity that shewed himself so punctually professing the Protestant Religion and so zealously and regularly observing the true service of God as His gracious Majestie What other Character I should give to this most excellent Prince for a loving faithfull Husband to His Queen and for a dear indulgent Father to all His Children His goodness therein is very very far beyond my ability of Expression as it is indeed in all the other particulars so that the praise and Eulogie which Homer gave to Achilles and Ulysses Virgil to Aenaeas Xenophon to his Cyrus Eusebius to Constantine and Osorius to Emmanuel King of Portugal I may truly ascribe to Him or rather what the Prophet Jeremy and the Son of Sirach saith of the good King Josias or the Scripture of King David that he was a man according to God's own heart so I hope and believe that I may say with out mistake without offence that King Charles the First was a man according to God's own heart and though as Christ non dimidiavit dies suos so God did soon bring this good King to His death that He might be soon delivered from the contradictions of Sinners and soon brought to enjoy the glorious Crown of Eternal life yet was He most blessed both in His life and death as hereafter I shall more fully shew unto you And therefore I had rather say no more then to say too too little as I shall when I say my best of this most gracious and now most glorious King Charles the First And though he was so good so gracious and so pious a King yet this good gracious and incomparably pious Protestant King the gentlest meekest and of the sweetest disposition of all the men I ever saw was as you well know most rebelliously Warred against most Judas-like sold most treacherously betrayed and most maliciously Barbarously and for the spiteful mischeivous manner thereof most Jewishly and unexpressably Murthered and many more Noble-men and Gentle-men Clergy and Laity Murthered in like manner onely for His sake and for the truth of their Loyalty unto Him and their Fidelity unto God as I have Mystically and yet fully shewed in my Book of The great Anti-Christ revealed and in these Treatises following And can any thing so fowly defile the Land and so highly provoke the Wrath and Indignation of God against his people as the shedding of so much Innocent Blood or shall we think that the just God will rest satisfied and contented to have his Wrath appeased especially if we consider what he saith to the three sons of Noah Gen. ix 5 6. and of the Bloody sins of Manasses 2 King xxiv 4. and to Ahab for letting Benhadad to escape 1 King xx 42. when he seeth the pretious Blood of so Good so Gracious and so Pious a King His own Vicegerent and the Blood of so many faithfull Christians Noble-men Gentle-men and other loyal Subjects that have lost their lives for their constancie in professing the true service of God the right Faith of Christ and their duty and loyalty to their true and lawfull King left unexpiated and according to the Law of justice unrevenged and unpunished The truth of God saith Not so therefore His now gracious Majestie lest His filiall affection of so good and so loving a Father and His anger and indignation against such monstrous Murtherers might seem to transport Him with Passion to be over-partial too rigid and too severe in His censure against these Murderers did most wisely religiously and Christian-like transmit the Judgment and Punishment of these transcendent Malefactours to his Parliament who as he knew had infinitely suffered most unspeakable Detriment and Dammage as well though not near the like nor so much as himself in the loss of their so good a King And the late Parliament that was The Keepers of the Liberties of Ingland by the Authority of our Parliament and you may compute what Number of Arithmetical Letters this name contained and had very many of the King's Enemies in it and therefore likely not to do all things so well as they should do yet hath it most gallantly religiously and justly sentenced many of them to death and the just God without Question doth most propitiously accept and approve of all those their doings which are just according to his own Precepts But though herein they have done very well yet do you think that they have done sufficiently well I will not presume to teach them that in State Affairs are better able to be my Teachers then I to advise their Wisdoms what they ought to have done yet as I am 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I must humbly crave leave to set down what I conceive to be the just Will of God
honoured and that so their own proper vertues only and not their Ancestors makes them glorious I had rather be as Juvenal saith the son of Thyrsites a base coward and to imitate the exploits of Achilles the most valiant Heroick than to be the son of Achilles and to behave my self like Thyrsites And I would choose sooner to be a faithful Jonathan the son of persecuting Saul than a rebellious Absolom the son of godly David But as Horace saith and we have seen it true that Aetas parentum pejor avis Horat. 3. Carm. 6. tulit Nos nequiores mox daturos Progeniem vitiosiorem The Progeny is worse than the Progenitors our Fathers worse than our Grandfathers and we far worse than our Fathers and our children like to be worse than we are a Progeny most vitious Earipides in Heraclid generatim bane sententiam ad omnes mortales retulit when as the off-spring still proves worse and worse and as Euripides saith Thou shalt scarce find one son amongst many 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is not worse than his father which made a certain poor Widow most earnestly to pray for the long life of her oppressing Landlord that was a most wicked Tyrant and her grievous persecutor and being demanded the reason why she did so zealously pray for him that never did her any good The poor womans prayer for her cruel Landlord but had heaped upon her very many intolerable wrongs she answered It was because she knew his Grandfather and he was a very bad man and an unjust Oppressor of his poor Neighbours and his Son this mans father proved worse than he and This man is far worse than them both and if he were dead I fear his son will be the Devil himself So these Jews though they were originally descended from Abraham the friend of God yet the posterity of Abraham degenerating How children degenerate from their Parents and the Progeny still growing worse than the Progenitors angring God in the Wilderness forty years together and killing his Prophets when they enjoyed the promised Land S. Stephen tells them they were now the children of Persecutors and of murderers and our Saviour saith John 8.43 They were the children of their father the Devil because he was a murderer from the beginning And as then it happened with the posterity of Abraham the Jews to grow worse and worse from Gods friends to be the Devils children So I fear it is now with the whole World and with all the posterity of the first good Christians to grow worse and worse and instead of being a faithful people to become a faithless and a stubborn generation a generation that setteth not their heart aright and whose spirit cleaveth not stedfastly unto God For in the Primitive times the Christians continued with one accord in the Temple praying and praising God and had Cor unum animam unam Acts 4.32 but in the suceeding times they degenerated and the love of many did wax cold and iniquity so far and so fast incrased that Linacrus reading the 6. What Linacrus did and 7. chapters of S. Mat. threw away his Testament and said Certè aut hoc non est Evangelium Christi aut nos non sumus Christiani Certainly either this is not the Gospel of Christ or we are not Christians that are so far from doing what he teacheth and commandeth us to do But when we find our Fathers to have degenerated from their good Fathers and instead of being faithful Christians and good Subjects to become Rebels and Murderers or Idolaters and the like to rob their neighbours and to resist their King to renounce their Baptism and to prophane the Chuches to countenance the wicked here on earth and to despise the Saints that are in Heaven as some of our Fathers lately did all these things and did much more horrid acts than any of these then ought we not to imitate them and to walk in the wayes of our Fathers as these Jews did and as the Prophet Jeremy saith have done worse than their Fathers Jerem. 16.12 for we ought not to observe the Statutes of Omri nor walk in the wayes of Jeroboam nor do the wickedness that our Fathers did but we ought to do as the Lord adviseth us by his Prophet Ezechiel saying unto us as he said unto the Jews Walk yee not in the Statutes of your Fathers neither observe their judgements Ezech. 20.18 nor their ordinances nor defile your selves by walking in their wayes and doing the like wrongs as they have done or confirming and continuing those injuries which they acted against their neighbours But What good children ought to do if they have made any Laws and given any Judgements to take away the goods or the lands and possessions of any man unjustly be he of what Nation or of what Religion soever when he hath done nothing worthy of censure and much lesse of disinheriting as I am sure and you may be sure of it they have done to very many in these Dominions and especially in this Kingdom Then do not ye justifie those doings and make good their judgements and continue the wrongs and oppressions that they have done and so sin with your Fathers and worse than your Fathers by making your selves not only the partakers of their sins but also the Patrons and Protectors of all their unjust proceedings But do ye confess the iniquities of your Fathers and say with the Prophet That they have done amiss and dealt wickedly and so do ye shew your selves sorry for their sins and recede from their unjust doings and rectifie what they have done amiss And if we thus return unto God Zach. 1 2. Malac. 3.7 then God promiseth that He will return unto us and he will blesse us But when we have Abraham to our father and are the sons of Jacob the children of such fathers as feared God and walked in his wayes relieved the poor and built and beautified Churches and spent their dayes in praying and doing all other pious deeds and wronging no man either in word or deed then ought we not to say with our new Saints They were superstitious and ignorant and walked in darkness by thinking to merit heaven by their works What good children ought not to do and have therefore merited to be sent to hell which is a most ungodly and uncharitable censure of most ungracious children that delight rather to spit in their fathers faces than to commend and to imitate their Vertues But we ought to honour the memories of our forefathers that have most faithfully served God and procured the blessings of God to those children that will serve God That God blesseth the good children for their godly fathers sake Gen. 26.24 as they have done because God loveth and hath promised to blesse the good children that will walk in the wayes of their godly fathers for their fathers sake that had formerly served him and
good fruit and to cast it into the fire And it is the duty of every faithfull Steward to give to every one his own portion in due season that is mercy to whom mercy belongeth and judgment to whom judgment appertaineth and not to give that which is holy unto dogs or to proclaime peace and pardon to them to whom the Lord professeth there is no peace but saith peremptorily He will not pardon them And therefore I hope your honorable patience will bear with me that as the Prophet David saith My song shall not be of mercy alone nor of judgment alone but of mercy and judgment together especially upon Zimri and all such that like Zimri will slay both their King and their Master which is the first thing mentioned in this Text that is Zimri's Murder And For murder you may observe that the same may be committed three manner of waies 1. With the heart 2. With the tongue 3. With the hand 1. The heart killeth a man four speciall waies 1. By desire 2. By anger 3. By envy 4. By hatred For 1. The Prophet saith Psal 5.6 The Lord abborreth the blood-thirsty and the deceitfull man i. e. him which desireth and longeth for my death as he that is thirsty desireth drink 2. Our Saviour saith Whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause Math. 5.22 he shall be in danger of judgment 3. The Apostle speaking of the wickedness of the Gentiles saith Rom. 1.29 They were full of envy murder debate And the wise man saith Alius alium per invidiam occidit One man slayeth another through envy Sap. 14.4 as Cain through envy slew his brother Abel and the Jews our Saviour Christ Qui igitur periêre quia maluerunt invidere quà m credere who therefore perished because they had rather to envy him then to believe in him Cypr. in Ser. de livore saith Saint Cyprian 4. Saint John saith that Whosoever hateth his brother is a man slayer 1 Joh 3.15 Lev. 19.17 and therefore the Lord saith Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart for as he that looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery in his heart so he that hateth his brother hath killed him in his heart 2. The tongue killeth many men yea Plures linguâ quà m gladio periêre Jam. 3 6 7. The tongue hath slain more then the sword for the tongue is a fire and a world of wickedness it is an unruly evill full of deadly poyson And the son of Syrach saith It hath destroyed many that were at peace Eccl. 28.13 And the tongue killeth two waies 1. By flattery 2. By detraction 1. Saint Augustine saith that Plus nocet lingua adulatoris quà m gladius persecutoris And Antisthenes was wont to say It was better for a man to fall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 among ravens then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 among flatterers 2. The Prophet saith Ezech. 22.8 Viri detractores fuerunt in te ad effundendum sanguinem In thee are men that carry tales to shed blood and Job saying unto his friends that slandered his integrity Why do you persecute me as God and are not satisfied with my flesh doth intimate thereby that detractors are like cruell Canibals that eat mens flesh and drink their blood Nam qui aliena detractione pascitur proculdubiò alienis carnibus saturatur for without doubt whosoever feeds himself with detraction doth satisfy himself with mans flesh saith S. Gregory And I doubt not but this Zimri and all other the like Zimries that killed their Masters had killed Elah in all these waies before he slew him with his hands because all these murders of the heart and of the tongue are but steps stairs and progesses to the murder of the hand For first we begin to distast and to dislike a man then we grow angry with him for some things that displease us and if he hath any virtue in him or any honorable place or preferment or any love or good opinion from the people we will presently envy him and then hate him and so hate him more and more and then the tongue will begin to play his part and though in presence it will flatter him whom the heart detesteth yet in his absence it will lay loads of scandalous imputations upon his person and upon his actions Camerar l. 6. c. 2. even as Absolon did upon the government of King David and the forecited example of Maion against William King of Sicily and abundance of such Varlets that I could relate unto you And when they have proceeded thus far to envy his happiness and to hate his person as Cain hated his brother Abel and the way is thus made by scandalous aspersions there wants nothing but the stroke of the hand to effect the tragicall murder of the man whom they desire to destroy So Zimri did when he found his opportunity slay his Master Elah so the servants of King Amon slew their Master So Phocas did slay his Emperor and his Master Mauritius So Artabanus Captain of the guard killed his own King and his Master Xerxes Diodorus l. 11. after he had retired out of Greece So Brutus and Cassius with their associates murdered Julius Caesar And so you know who murdered their Master and King Charles the First And this is the greatest mischief that one man can do unto another to take away his life with bloody hands for though he take away my goods yet I may get more as Job did after all was taken from him if he cast me into prison yet at last with Joseph I may be set at liberty and if I be banished my Country yet with the Israelits I may live to return out of Captivity as Henry Bullingbrook Duke of Lancaster did but when he hath taken away my life and killed me there is an end of all hope and that is an evill that can expect no remedy and a wound that cannot be cured nor any waies paralleled by any other mischief And therefore Num 35.33 seeing as the Lord saith that blood defileth the Land and the land can not be cleansed of the blood that is thus shed but by the blood of him or them that have shed it I will here to perswade the blood-thirsty men to quench that thirst and the Magistrates by no means to neglect to punish that sin and especially to induce those Magistrates and all those that transcend the power of the Magistrates that have like Zimri slain their King and their Master or defiled themselves with the blood of their brethren to a sad and serious repentance set down eight speciall things that do shew unto us the horrible odiousness and haynousness of this sinne of murder and you may find them all set down in lib. 3. cap. 2. of the true Church p. 385. and in the Great Antichrist revealed l. 1. p. 81. 1. It is a sin against nature because every creature loves
considered that if the war was unjust yet as S. Augustine saith Aug. contra Manich. Reum facit regem iniquitas imperandi innocentem militem ostendit ordo serviend the iniquity of commanding makes the commander guilty and the order or duty of serving sheweth the Souldier to be innocent because that being commanded he may not refuse and he must not resist nor lift up his hand against his Governour but tolerate whatsoever is inflicted upon him unlesse he can by a fair and lawful means prevent it because it is far better to be a Martyr then a Traytor and as the Prophet saith Obedience is better then Sacrifice and Rebellion it is as the sin of Witchcraft And if the Apostles and Martyrs and the Primitive Christians were thus dutiful obedient and loyal subjects to such Tyrants and Usurpers and Persecutors as the aforesaid wicked Governours were how much more dutiful and obedient and thankful to God for him ought we to have been to such a loving mild and godly Christian King as wronged none of us but did preserve peace in these dominions and upheld Justice and Judgement among us untill that Antichristian long-Parliament rebelled against him And so the premises being well considered to the boyling spirits of discontented persons that distast all meats that sute not with their palats and have not the patience to tarry Gods leisure and to espic a convenient opportunity to do the work that is just and ought to be done in its due time but will inconsiderately and unseasonably like Brutus and Cassius attempt to do good service uuto the Common-wealth by taking the usurper out of the way I say their intention is very good and their desire most laudable yet lest with Brutus and Cassius they disturb the Common wealth and lose their own wealth and destroy themselves by their unseasonable prosecution of their commendable design I would advise them and all of their mind in all places where such Vsurpations are maintained to follow the example of Jehoiada to watch their opportunity and then to do it throughly and not to fail which as I conceive is both a just and a wholesome counsell But this people whereof this our Prophet speaketh murmured and spurned and like our Parliament rebelled and kicked not against an Vsurper which had been commendable in them but against their own lawful king which was most displeasing unto God And therefore these Jewes and all that imitate these Jewes are here justly threatned to be rejected and cast off by God for their stubbornesse 1 Sam. 15.22 disobedience and rebellion against their lawful King For as Samuel saith that obedience is more acceptable to God then sacrifice so I say that obedience to our lawful King and his Magistrates is the best thing that we can do to procure the peace and tranquillity of the Common-wealth 3. The last branch of their wandring from the right way 3 Branch of their wandring three-fold was their injuries and oppressions against their neighbours and this was three-fold 1. The robbing of their goods 6 Robbing their neighbouâ—s of their good Jerem. 22.17 2. The imprisoning of their persons 3. The taking away of their lives 1. The Prophet tells us the heart of this people was for covetousnesse and for oppression and for violence they builded their houses by unrighteousnesse and their chambers by wrong C. eode v 13. they used their neighbours service without wages and gave him not for his work and this they did saith the Prophet that they might build them wide houses or stately Palaces V. 13. with large chambers and great windowes cieled with Cedar and painted with Vermilion They cared not what wrongs they did to others so they might get it unto themselves they had no regard to justice as you may see it in the 15. and 16. verses but whatsoever they did to inrich themselves and from whomsoever they took it it must be reputed just and none dare speak against it And yet the Prophet tells us that as a Cage is full of birds so are their houses full of deceits Jer. 5.27 and therefore they are become great and waxen rich yea they are waxen fat and shine and do overpasse the deeds of the wicked And Amos 8.6 as the Prophet Amos saith they bought the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of shoes So greedy was this people to scrape together the wealth of this world and had no regard to equity honesty or good conscience And which is more wonderful from the least of them even to the greatest of them every one is given to covetousnesse and from the Prophet even to the Priest Jerem. 6.13 Esay 56.1 every one dealeth falsely and the Prophet Esay calleth them greedy dogs that could never have enough And whether any such covetousnesse and oppression be amongst our men and especially amongst our Levites in these dayes let them that are oppressed with over-heavie Taxes Customs Excise c. judge I leave it to you that have best experience of these times to determine and I will not be the accuser of my brethren as some Duns Scotus of them have been of me though to no purpose But whether it was the love of Justice to punish us for our sins or covetousnesse to inrich themselves and their associates that made our Grandees of late years to take away the reward of our labours even of all our labours from our very youth to our decrepit age I leave it to the Judge of all the world to detetmine for they have done it and he knoweth best why they did it onely we professe it to all the world that our consciences cannot tell us of any thing that we have done to deserve to be deprived of it And therefore we presume to pray to God though we taxe them not that the woe which the Prophet denounceth against this people Jerem. 22.13 for their covetousnesse and injustice may not light upon any of them that took away the bread out of our mouthes and our childrens and left many of the most painful labourers in Gods Vine-yard to dig or beg or starve 2. 2 Imprisoning their persons Jerem 5.26 This people laid wait as he that setteth snares to catch men i.e. they had spies in every corner and if they found any that spake any thing against them or against their covetousnesse or injustice though it were never so true then as they did with Jeremy they would throw him into the dungeon so Herod did with John Baptist and with S. Peter and with the rest of Gods Servants that reproved their injustice and spake the truth to them And do I say that any of our men in these day es did so or doth the like But as when the Sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord in the dayes of Job Satan came also among them so I fear that when the children of God do now come to present themselves in his
〈◊〉 the Lord shall deliver him in the time of trouble much more blessed shall he be that helpeth and relieveth the oppressed and especially those that have formerly wronged and oppressed him he shall be doubly blessed 1. Because he relieveth his wants And 2. Because he remitteth his faults and revengeth not his own wrongs And so you see how we are to honor to esteem and to love all men 2. As we are to honor all men in generall 2 What love we owe to the Brother-hood so more especially we are to love the Brother-hood in particular where observe 1. The Act. 2. The Extent 1. The Act is love and love saith the Schoolman is Bene velle amato but that is no more then Amor affectivus and the Apostle speaks not here de amore affectivo tantum sed de amore effectivo simul of the inward affection only but also of that love which is declared by the effects in outward actions and therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arist Aethic l. 9. c. 5. To love is to will that which we esteem good to any one and to the uttermost of our power to procure that good unto him as Aristotle saith So that this our love to the brother-hood comprehendeth 1. An hearty affection without dissimulation 1 Joh. 3.18 not only in tongue and in word but in deed and verity i. e. from the heart 2. An actuall performance of all the good that we can do unto them as praying for them comforting them and administring to their necessities not only with our purses but also with our words with our labours Crysost in Ro. 12. ho. 21. and with any thing that lieth in our power to stand them in any stead This is the act that we are to do And 2. For the Extent of it we are to do it most especially saith the Apostle to the Brother-hood Touching which point of Fraternity or Brother-hood you must observe that there is a two fold Brother-hood whereof you must hate the one and love the other That there is a two fold fraeternity As The 1. Is in Evil and from the Devil The 2. Is in Good and from God For 1. Simeon and Levi were brethren but it was in the evil 1 The evill Brother-hood saith the Scripture when the instruments of cruelty were in their habitations and therefore cursed was their brother-hood Gâ—n 49.5 7.7 and their unity was to be divided in Jacob and to be scattered in Israel And so the wicked at all times Faciunt unitatem coutra unitatem do as S. Augustine saith unite themselves together against verity and against the unity that should be among Cristians Psal 2.1 2. which is the unity of faith and religion and as the Prophet David saith the Heathen do furiously rage together How the wicked like the Scots and the Parliament do combine and covenant together and the people do imagine a vain thing and all take counsell together and plot against the Lord and against his annointed so Pilate and Herod though at ods among themselves for other things yet they can be reconciled and agree together to crucify Christ And so Solomon tels us how the Congregation of the ungodly do confederate and Covenant as now they do together to strengthen themselves in their wickedness saying one to anothe Come let us cast our lots together let us have but one purse that is one common treasure amongst us all Prov. 1.11 14. and let us undergo the same fortune be the same good or bad And therefore it is no new thing for Traytors Rebels and Robbers and other the like wicked men though of different sects and severall opinions yet to unite themselves together and to take oathes and make covenants confederacies and conspiracies against the professors of the true Religion and against those that they are bound Salust Conjurat Caâ—el X â—â—â—phâ—n de ascend Cyri. by former oaths to obey as it was in the conspiracy of Cateline which Salust relateth and in the confederacy of the Grecians when they went up with Cyrus the younger against Artaxerxes which Zenophon setteth down at large and the covenant of the holy leaguers of France against their King and the like But you must remember to do what God commandeth you to do in such confederacies saying My son walk not thou in the way with them resrain thy fâ—ot from their path Prov. 1.15 for their feet run to evil and make hast to shed blood as you may read in the foresaid Authors what abundance of innocent blood those wicked covenants and confederacies have caused to be spilt And therefore this being not the Brother-hood that you should love if you love God and your own souls you must hate the same as you do the gates of hell because that as the Psalmist saith in covenanting against right and against the truth they are confederates against thee O God and against thy servants And what created power under Heaven How hard it is to escaâ—e the mischief of subtile confederates is able to unty that knot and to escape that malice which villany subtilty and cruelty have combined to bring to pass Or what man is able to withstand a multitude of united enemies that have strength and wealth enough and have covenanted and sworne to fight against him untill they have destroyed him Surely when their plots are so subtile their power so great their wealth of Gold and Silver so much and the confederates of sworne brethren so many it is impossible to prevent their mischief and to escape out of their hands if the Lord himself doth not stand to help his servants and as the Prophet saith if he that dwelleth in heaven laugheth not these covenanters to scorne if the Lord have them not in derision yea if he speaks not to them in his wrath and vexeth them in his sore displeasure 2. 2 The good Brother-hood The other brother-hood is good among the good and in good in faith to God in obedience to our King and in love towards all men and this brother-hood is many fold as specially 1. Is four fold Naturall 2. Nationall 3. Politicall 4. Spirituall 1. 1 The naturall Brother-hood Naturall brethren begotten of the same parents bred in the same house and after the same manner should not be like the off-spring of Cain that killed his own and his only brother Abel and as Romulus killed his own brother Remus and Antoninus murdered his brother Geta in his mother's lap 2 Chr. 21.4 and King Joram slew six of his own naturall brethren the sons of Jehosaphat Jâ—seph de Ant. l. 14. c. 2. deinceps with the sword when as such miscreants are unworthy to live on earth neither should they jar hate or envy one another as Jacob and Esau did and Jacobs children did their brother Joseph and as the dissention of Hyrcanus and Aristobulus made way for
nolle and the Scripture sheweth how good and joyful a thing it is for to see such brethren to love one another and to live together in unity yet the Brother-hood whereof the Apostle speaketh and is to be loved above all other Brother-hoods whatsoever Christians ought to love one another better than natural brethren that are not Christians is to be understood de fraternitate Spiritus of our spiritual Brother-hood whereby we are regenerated and made all the sons of God and so Brethren by adoption and grace For this fraternity of the Spirit unites men more and tyeth them better to love one another than the fraternity of flesh and blood Because as S. Augustine saith The natural Brother-hood similitudinem corpor is refert sheweth the likeness and coherence of the body but this Brother-hood of the Spirit unanimitatem cordis demonstrat declareth the unity and unanimity of the heart and that is interdum sibi inimica sometimes breaking out to deadly hate as it did betwixt Cyrus the younger and Artaxerxes But this is sine intermissione pacificâ alwayes remaining in perfect love And therefore ut Religio derivatur à religando as Religion is so termed because Religion tyeth all that are of the same Religion to love one another it tyeth and knitteth men together by fervent love among themselves and by a constant faith to God So we find that men of the same Faith and Religion have loved and relieved one another and stuck together better and firmer than any other kind of men whatsoever And so they are here required and commanded to do by the Apostle Love the Brother-hood that is love them especially and above all others that are of the same faith and do profess the same Religion of Jesus Christ as you do For you see all Hereticks and Sectaries and the professors of false religions do so and why should not you that are true Christians and do professe the true Religion of Christ much rather do the same But here we ought to be very careful A special Observation and to take special heed that we be not too censorious and too rash judges to set down the bounds of this Brother-hood and so straighten the extent and diminish the number of the Brethren by our determining who be those sons of God in Christ which we may and ought to love and relieve rather than the rest of men which we suppose we are not to love so well For you must know which our precise Saints will not know that the Brother-hood which the Apostle meaneth here Who are here understood by this Brother-hood and those that S. Paul termeth the houshold of faith and in other places the Saints of God is to be understood of all Christians and doth comprehend all those that were baptized and did professe the Gospel of Jesus Christ And these might then as they may also now be easily discerned and distinguished from the rest of the Pâ—gans and Infidels that did not believe the Gospel of God Because the one sort had the Fathers name written in their foreheads when they were baptized and so received the outward sign and badge of Christianity Revelat. 14.1 which they professed and were not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ Rom. 1. And the other sort refused the profession of Christ and would not embrace the Gospel and receive the badge of Christianity but either persecuted the Christians or at best slighted and rejected the Faith of Christ But where all men are baptized and do professe to believe the Gospel and to do service unto Christ to distinguish the sound branches of the true Vine and the faithful members of Christs body from the rotten boughs and hypocritical professors and so to determine which are the Brother hood and which not is such a presumption of men as can no wayes be warranted by the Word of God for Conscientiae latebras hominibus scire non permissum est We cannot search into the hearts of men and God suffereth not men to know the thoughts of other men and the secrets that are lurking in their consciences which is the proper work of God who only is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hierom. epist 5. The searcher of the heart and reins saith S. Hierom. And therefore we must confesse that as the Apostle saith 2 Tim. 2.19 The Lord only knoweth who are his and can discriminate the lively branches from the rotten boughes and the truly regenerated Brother-hood from the soly outward professors of the Faith of Christ And we can judge no otherwise of any men than by their fruits that is by their actions and outward appearance We are often deceived by the outward appearance of things and that appearance when we judge of inward things by the outward doth oftentimes deceive us when as Multa sunt quae non videntur ita multa videntur quae non sunt Many things are which are not seen so many things are seen to be which are not As the falling-Stars seem to be Stars and yet are not And the hypocrites that like Water-men do row one way and look another way seem to be good Christians and yet are not So many men have the fear of God in their hearts and do love God and are the true children of God though these graces are not seen but are as we see the Sun is sometimes over-clouded with those sins that proceed from the frailty of the flesh And therefore our Saviour bids us not to judge according to the outward appearance that is not to judge of the inward things by the outward John 7.24 but to judge righteous judgement But you will say How can that be Quest or how can we judge righteous judgement if we can judge no further than the outward appearance or if Interiora non cognoscuntur per exteriora The inward things may not be known by the outward signs I answer That many times indeed Respon the inward things do cohere with the outward appearance as the heat sheweth there is a fire which we see not but this is not alwayes and therefore not infallible And I say that when our Saviour bids us to judge righteous judgement he meaneth not hereby that we should enter into the hidden things of the heart How we ought not to judge of our Brethren or search into the secrets of God and so positively and rightly to determine and judge as our Gnostick Sectaries seem to do who are Gods chosen Saints and who are wicked Reprobates Who are the Brother hood that are to be loved and who are the limbs of the Beast that are to be rejected which we cannot do But he meaneth that we should not judge of inward hidden and secret things by the superficial shew of outward things Or that we should not judge of the secret intention of the heart when we see but the outward action of the hand or as Saint Augustine saith he willeth that we should not
judge de actionibus mediis quaevel in malo vel in bono animo fieri possunt of such actions as may proceed and come either from an evil mind or from a good heart or else de futur is contingentibus of future things what may happen to any one because that in all these things we may easily be deceived as we see some man like unto S. Paul de quo desperamus subitò convertitur fit optimus of whom we despaired is suddenly converted and as he was from a persecuting wolfe became a holy Saint so is this other man from a deboist drunkard become a devout Christian and we see other men like King Saul and Judas and Simon Magus de quibus multum praesumpseramus defecerunt facts sunt pessimi of whom we conceived much good have suddenly relapsed and became most wicked so that nec timor noster certus est nec amor neither our fear of the one nor our hope of the other can have any certainty at all And on the other side he would have us to strive and study to the uttermost of our power by the ways and means that are left unto us to know the truth of outward things and to search for the understandiug of those things that God hath revealed unto us Of what thing â—ve may judge and so to judge righteous judgement in those things wherein we are allowed to judge and that is de praesentibus externis apertis of things present or past and the things that are manifest and externall as to discern white from black light from darknesse good from evill and a sober man from him that is drunk or a true subject from a false Traytor and the like so far as their outward actions do appear Which may be done without entring into the hearts and thoughts of men or diving to deep into the secrets of God for our Saviour tells us that as the tree is known by his fruit that is cujus generis sit of what kind it is an apple or a crab The words and works of every man do testifie whâ—t he is Judg. 12.6 John 10.25 a fig tree or a thistle so we may know men by their words and by their works whether they be therein good or bad the blessers of God or the blasphemers of God for as the damsell said to Saint Peter Thy speech bewrayeth thee and the pronouncing of Shiboleth discovered who was an Israelite and who not who a Gileadite and who an Euphraimite And our Saviour saith The works that I do do bear witnesse of me so the words and works of every man else do sufficiently testifie what he is for the present good or bad But though I do know by the fruits of what kind the tree is yet I know not thereby whether the tree be rotten at the root or not so though I know by the words and works of men whether they be therein vertuous or vitious Saints or sinners yet I cannot judge thereby what kind of hearts they have good or bad or what will become of them for the time to come For you know what the Prophet saith Many give good words with their mouths but curse with their hearts and the Israelites drew near unto God with their mouthes and honoured him with their lips but their hearts were farre from him and therefore seeing that virtus consistit in actione vertue consisteth in action in our works rather then in our words our Saviour tells us Matth 7.21 Not he that saith Lord Lord shall enter into the Kingdom of heaven but he that doth the will of his Father which is in heaven and Saint Paul saith directly Rom. 2.13 Not the hearers of the Law though you should hear a Sermon every day in the week but the doers of the Law shall be justified because our works do more fully and more certainly shew what we are rather then our words for quid audiam verba cum videam contraria facta to what purpose shall I hear good words Our words like the leaves and our works like the fruit while the tongue like Joab saith Iâ— it peace my brother and the hand stabs us to the heart they will avail us nothing being like the Spiders web that will make no garment for us because our words are like the green leaves that make a fair shew upon any tree and our works are like the solid fruits whereby we discern the sweetnesse and the goodnesse of the tree And yet I told you how far we may judge of the fruits and works of men so far as 〈◊〉 see and no further because we may as easily be deceived by the specious works of the hypocrite as by the scandalous deeds of the transgressors which perhaps for ought we know may have better hearts towards God then the others that have far more glorious works in the sight of men And therefore I say that we ought not to make a distinction among Christians and gather Churches unto our selves to be a congregation of Saints separated from the rest of the wicked as the Apostles gathered Churches from the unbelieving Jewes and the Idolatrous Gentiles Because all those that are baptized and are received as the children of the Church and do professe the Faith of Christ are comprehended in this Brotherhood and is not to be rent in pieces like Jeroboams garment but ought to be kept intire like the Coat of Christ and to be loved and and cherished as this our Apostle adviseth us But then seeing this brotherhood which we are thus chiefly to love is not the brotherhood of society which reason perswadeth nor of consanguinity which nature teacheth nor of our Election and Adoption to be the Sonnes of God which we know not but of the profession of the faith of Christ and receiving of the signes and badges of Christianity which are visible to our eyes of flesh and credible to the judgement of charity Quest it is much questioned and of too many men very unjustly resolved whether all that are baptized and do thus professe the Christian Religion and are not cut off from the Communion of the Church for some detected and apparant iniquity are comprehended in this brotherhood and are thus specially to be loved To which our rigid Saints do absolutely deny it because we see so many Sects and so many kinds of men that do thus professe Christianitie and say They do all believe in Christ and do wear his badge and do him service as Papasts Puritans Brownists Anabaptists and the like And therefore if this be true that all these are contained and united within this bond of fraternity and with a Christian love to be imbraced you will make the way to heaven very broad and this bond of brotherhood of a very large extent But I answer that I must not shut the gate of heaven against those Sol. to whom Christ hath opened it nor make the way thither narrower then God hath made it
and therefore I say that the bond of this Christian fraternity which we are commanded to retain and to love all that are comprehended within it though it be woven like Josephs coat Gen. 27.3 with some diversity of thred and threds of many colours yet ought it not to be easily broken and soon cut in sunder and the mercies of God should not be too narrowly contracted for why should men be more rigid then God or why should any errour exclude men from the Churches Communion which will not deprive them of eternal salvation and we find that in the Apostles time the Corinthians denied the Resurrection of the flesh which is a principal Article of our Christian faith and the Galathians erred as fowly in one of the chiefest and most fundamental points of Christianity which was the point of our justification so far that S. Paul tells them if they be circumcised as many of them would be that is after they had embraced the truth of the Gospel they were fallen away from grace and Christ should profit them nothing and many other foul errours they had amongst them and yet the holy Apostle in regard of their profession to be Christians and their Christian conversation to lead a just and an upright life calleth them Saints brethren his children and the Churches of God Chillings p. 220. And so the seven famous Churches of Asia were infected with many errours and accused of foul corruptions and yet the holy Ghost denieth them not to be Christians and disdaineth not to call them the Churches of God And therefore I say though the Papists and Puritans Anabaptists and Brownists and the like differ from us that are the true Protestants in many particular points of our Religion yet while they professe to believe in Christ What are the chiefest points of charity and to live like Christians in the fear of God in true obedience to their King and in unfeigned love and charity towards their neighbours which I conceive to be the chiefest points of Christianity and the parts and parcels of our wedding garment I say they are our brethren and to be deemed our Christian brethren and we ought to love them and are obliged to live in peace with them and to suffer them unwronged to live peaceably with us and not to do as in the madnesse of their misguided zeal too too many men are bent on either side to hate persecute rob and murder one another because they will not be of the same opinion as we are or they are of which is a thing impossible in nature because Faith cannot be compelled either to believe what I list not or not to believe what I list as Lactantius saith and it is inconsistent with the very Principle of our profession that we should rob men and take away their estatesâ—s because they will not professe the same Faith and Religion that we do for compulsion may make men hypocrites but not Saints and you know the chiefest points of our Christian Religion are Faith Hope and Charity and the Apostle tells us the greatest of these is Charity because our love and our charity as they are of a far greater perpetuity so they should be of a far greater latitude and extent then our Faith and Hope can be And therefore What we are to hate and what to love in all Sectaries and professors of Religion though my knowledge and my judgment will not suffer me to be of the same Faith either with the Papists Puritans Anabaptists or the like erroneous Sectaries but perswadeth me to hate and detest both their Positions and their Practices yet my Religion teacheth me to love their persons and in my conversation to live in Peace and to joyn the right hand of Christianity with them and rather desire to exceed them in all the Offices of love then any wayes to shew the least hatred or do the least injury to any one of them all and withall to pray for them and to use all loving means to bring them to repentance for their errours and to embrace the truth This which I professe is the readiest way to winne them for as the Scripture saith Prov. 10.12 Hatred stirreth up strife but love covereth a multitude of sins and is the readiest way to convert the sinner And I think if men did this and not break the bond of love nor straighten the extent of this brotherhood they might the sooner be reduced to imbrace the same truth and to be united in the same faith because true love is the most attractive thing in the world and the want of love is the cause that so much wickednesse doth abound even as our Saviour testifieth And therefore it is most requisite that we should be very earnest and very often to insist upon these points and to urge these duties to honour all men and to love the brotherhood And so having heard that no Christian that is baptized and professeth the Gospel of Jesus Christ is to be excluded from this Brother-hood We are now to confider wherein the love of this Brother-hood consisteth and what this Extensive love includeth in it and upon survey we shall find it to comprehend 1. An Vnfained affection of good-will unto them without dissimulation to wish them all happiness and prosperity not only in words but even from our very hearts 2. An Earnest endeavour to procure them all the good that their necessity requireth so far as it lyeth in our power to help them As 1. To pray for them that God would bless them and preserve them from all evil and save them even as S. Paul saith Brethren Rom. 10.1 my hearts desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved 2. Most cheerfully to administer to their necessities in all that lieth in our abilities for that is the Apostle's meaning both in his Epistle to the Romans chap. 12.13 And in this 1 Tim. 6.17 18. Chrysost in loc as S. Chrysostom sheweth saying Non solum pecuniis sed verbis rebus corpore aliis quibuscunque modis vult nos juvare egenos the Apostle would have us to help the needy not only with our purses but also with our words in speaking for them and with our labours to do them good and to preservs them from all manner of damage in their estates yea Rom. 12.20 without any difference of friends or foes for so the Apostle bids us If thine enemy hunger feed him if he thirst give him drink And so the Lord saith if thou meet est thine enemyes Oxe or his Ass going astray thou shalt surely bring hem back again to him Exod. 23.5.6 and if thou seest the Ass of him that hateth thee lying under his burden and thou wouldst forbear to help him thou shalt surely help him or leave thy business to help him O most heavenly and divine love how happy were we if we were filled with such love and how
but will notwithstanding all the promises of the Gospel and all the threatnings of the Law most fearlessely run to all kind of wickeduess And although the servil-fear hath for its object malum poenae 1 Of the servil-fear the evil of punishment and the filial-fear hath malum culpa the evil of sin Qâ—ia in illo timetur ne incidatur in tormentum supplicii August in isto ne amittatur gratia beneficii because that by the first we fear the torments of Hell-fire and by the second we fear to lose the joyes of Heaven Gregor in pass Et quem à prava actione formidata poena prohibet formidantis animum nulla spiritus libertas tenet nam si poenam non metueret culpam proculdubiò perpetraret And he that abstaineth from evil only for fear of the punishment is not refrained by the freedom of Gods Spirit because he would certainly commit the sin if he were not withheld by the fear of punishment And so as S. Augustine saith Aug. l. 2. contâ—a pelag Qui timore poena non amore justitiae fit bonus nondum bene fit bonus nec fit in corde quod fierâ— videtur in opere quando mallet bonnm non facere si posset impune He that doth good for fear of the rod more than for the love of goodness doth not that good so well as he ought to do it neither is that done in the heart which seems to be done in the work when he had rather not do it if he might leave it undone without punishment Yet this servil-fear is very good and very necessary for most men That the servil fear is good and how because that as the needle draweth the threed after it so this fear entring first into the heart maketh way for the other fear to follow after and when this keepeth us from the evil it maketh us by little and little to fall in love with the good for as nemo repente fit pessimus but the sinner falleth into Hell by certain steps and degrees so we ascend to Heaven per scalas gratiarum by passing on from faith to faith and from one grace unto another that is from the weaker still unto the stronger and from the lesse perfect unto that which is more excellent The Scripture perswadeth us to this servil-fear Exod. 20.20 And therefore we are perswaded to this fear both in the Old and New Testaments As 1. Moses saith unto the Israelites God is come to prove you that his fear may be before your faces that ye sin not And the Prophet Esay saith Sanctifie the Lord of Hosts himself and let him be your fear Esay 8.13 and let him be your dread And the Prophet Jeremy saith Fear ye not me saith the Lord and Will ye not tremble at my presence Pavor vester terror vester Jer. 5.22 which have placed the sand for the bound of the Sea by a perpetual decree that it cannot passe it though the waves thereof tosse themselves yet can they not provaâ—l though they roar yet can they not pafs over it 2. Our Saviour saith Fear not them which kill the body Math. 10.28 but are not able to kill the soul but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell Which very thing is further amplified Luke 2.5 and the Precept reiterated by S. Luke And S. Paul saith Heb. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God And therefore the Prophet biddeth us to kisse the Son lest he be angry and so we should perish from the right way And yet such is the nature and so great is the sottishness of foolish man that he will be afraid where no fear is he will startle at his own shadow he will suggest fears and raise jealousies unto himself as we see the English Rebels have done out of nothing We fear every vain thing more than we fear God for they dreamed they were undone when they were most happy and they made the World believe the King raised War against his Parliament when we saw the Parliament caused the King to flee away to save his life Thus we fear flies and tremble at the sight of feathers and the great God that is a consuming fire whose voice teareth the Mountains dryeth up the Seas and shaketh the Wildernesse we are no whit afraid to provoke him every day for though he chargeth us with a sub-pae-na as we shall answer it at his dreadful Judgement To honour all men to wrong no man to obey the King and to do to all men as we would they should do to us yet Revenge against our neighbours Rebellion against our King Robbing the poor Killing the innocent and the like are things of no more account than killing flies So much do we fear our God! But against this every man will say that he feareth God and what he doth he doth it for his service So the grand Rebels Corah Dathan and Abiram tell Moses All the Congregation is holy So that Arch-hypocrite Saul saith I have performed the Command of the Lord and when Samuel reproved him that he had not obeyed the voice of the Lord he stiffely justifieth himself 1 Sam. 13.15 20. and saith yea I have obeyed the voice of the Lord and have gone the way which the Lord sent me and if any thing be amisse it is not I that am to be blamed for it but the people which took of the spoil and they took it to none other end but for the service of God that they might sacrifice unto him in Gilgal Even so all Rebels and all hypocrites justifie themselves under the spâ—cious pretexts of doing all for Gods honour and the good of the Gospel and if any thing be amisse it is that which they cannot help it is the fault of their unruly followers which also cannot so much be condemned because they intend all for the glory of God and by the spoil of the Bishops and Recusants to set up a Preaching-Presbytery which will be a very acceptable sacrifice unto God and a far better service than now is used And therefore I do very ill to taxe them that they fear not God And so the case standeth Marcus ait Scaurus negat I affirm it and they deny it But in truth though it is the property of all hypocrites to cloak their wickednesse under the pretence of bettering things Yet God likes better of what Himself requireth than of what these Will-worshippers think to be more honourable for him And as Samuel was faign to convince Saul by the bleating of the sheep and the lowing of the oxen so to prove these Rebels to be void of the fear of God I must say Si non creditis oraculis credite oculis If you will not believe my words look into their deeds for as the Tree is known by the fruits The two things that the fear of God doth 1. To
that the same true God which giveth the Kingdom of Heaven to his children only giveth the Earthly Kingdoms both to the good and to the bad as he pleaseth yet alwaies justly And for Nimrod I say the words bear no more then he became mightier then other Kings or began to Tyrannize more then all the other Kings And for S. Peters words I say he means it only of Elective Kings Which in another place I shewed more fully than the time will now give me leave in what sense he calleth them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Therefore I say the calling of Kings is the proper Ordinance of God as it is fully and most learnedly shewed by a most Reverend Prelate of our Church lately published and intituled Sacro-Sancta Regum Majestas Howsoever as I said we condemn not as unlawfull the right of all Elective Kings yet we ought to acknowledg how much more bound we are to God that himself in a rightfull line of succession hath appointed our Kings to raign over us so that we need not fear the error of our Election if there be no error in our submission 2. As we are to consider quem whom so we ought to remember qualem what manner of King we are commanded to honor for as the unjust Vsurper may govern the people justly as they do sometimes and in some places so they that have just Titles to their Crowns may prove unjust in their Governments as too too many both of the Kings in Israel and Judah and I fear many other Kings have been And yet if they be our lawfull Kings be they what they will Cruell Tyrannous or Idolatrous or if you will put all together I say we are bound to honor them and no waies to Rebell against them for if thy Brother the son of thy Mother or thy son or thy daughter Deut. 13.6 or the wife of thy bosome or thy friend which is as thine own soul shall intice thee to Idolatry and to serve strange gods thine eye shall not spare him neither shalt thou have any pity upon him but for the son to rise up against the Father the wife against her Husband the servant against his Lord or the subject against his King here is not a word and we are not to do what the Lord doth not command as Tostat well observeth upon this place Therefore though Jeroboam made Israel to sin by setting up his calves to be adored Nâ—buchadnezzar commanded all his people to worship his Golden Image Ahab Manasses Nero Julian and the rest of the persecuting Emperors did most impiously compell their Subjects to Idolatry and exercised all kinds of cruelty against Gods servants yet you shall never find that either the Jews under Jeroboam or Daniel in Babylon or Elias in the time of Ahab or any Christian under Julian or the rest of those bloody Tyrants did ever rebell against any of those wicked Kings for they all considered the law of God and I beseech you all to consider it likewise 1. Exod 22.28 Moses saith Thou shalt not speak evil of the Ruler of thy people yea though he should be evil yet must thou not speak evil of him for as thou art to honor thy Father not so much because he is good as because he is thy Father and therefore the son of Noah was accursed because he despised his Father when his father sinned so we are to honor our King and to speak no ill of him though he should be never so ill for Is it fit to say to a King Thou art wicked And to Princes Ye are ungodly Job 34.18 2. 2 Not to do the least indignity unto our King As we are to bridle our tongues so much more ought we to refrain our hands from offering the least violence unto our King When the Lord saith peremptorily Touch not mine annointed where he doth not say Non occides or ne perdas the worst that can be but ne tangas the least that may be neither doth he say Sanctos meos my holy ones but Christos meos my annointed ones whether they be holy or unboly good or bad therefore though Saul was a wicked King and a heavy persecutor of David without cause hunting him like a Partridge upon the Mountains and seeking no less then to take away his life yet when the men of David said unto him Behold the day of which the Lord said unto thee I will deliver thine enemy into thine hand that thou maist do to him as it shall seem good unto thee what seemed good unto him Truely no waies to hurt him nor to do the least indignity unto him for his heart smote him because he had cut off the skirt of his robe and therefore he said unto his men 1 Sam. 24.4 5 6 The Lord forbid that I should do this thing unto my Master the Lords annointed to stretch forth my hand against him And why so because he is the annointed of the Lord that is not because he is a good man but because he is my King Nay we are not only forbidden to offer violence That we are to protect our King with the hazard of our lives but we are also injoyned to give our best assistance to protect the persons of our most wicked Kings for David not only staid his servants with the former words and suffered them not to rise against Saul but when Saul lay sleeping within his trench and David and Abishai took away his speare and had the power to destroy him What saith David unto Abner Art not thou a Valiant man And who is like thee in Israel Wherefore then hast thou not kept thy Lord the King This thing is not good that thou hast done as the Lord liveth 1 Sam. 15.16 ye are worthy to dye because you have not kept your Master the Lords annointed And if this thing is not good and David jesteth not but sweareth As the Lord liveth they are worthy to dye that preserve not the life of their King be he never so wicked then certainly this thing is not good and they are more then worthy to die that not only refuse to assist but also rise in Arms to persecute and to take away the life of a most Pious and a Gracious King So you see the person whom we are to honor the King whatsoever he be good or bad 2. The Honor that we are to exhibite unto him is to be considered out of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a word so significant that it not only comprehendeth all the duty which we owe to our Father and Mother but it is also used to express most if not all the service of God when he saith If I am a father Malach. 1.5 where is my honor And therefore when Ahassuerus asked Haman What should be done unto the man Whom the King would honor he answered let the Royall apparell be brought which the King useth to weare and the Horse that the King rideth upon
that we fail not to observe his Commandment ne rapiat fiscus quod non capit Christus lest the Rebell should take all because we will not part with what is fit both to defend our selves 2 To the hazard of our lives and to assist our King 2. If we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren as Saint John saith much rather ought we to do it for our King and I could shew you many worthy examples of many Jewes and Gentiles that are made famous throughout all generations for what they sustained in the defence of their Kings You may read that when David was assailed by a mighty Gyant named Ishâ—benob which was of the sonnes of Rapha the head of whose spear weighed three hundred shekels of brasse Abishai the son of Servia with the danger of his own life ran betwixt him and the King and for this faithfulness to his Master 2 Sam. 21.17 God assisted him so that he killed the Philistine and it is recorded in our Annals to his eternall praise that Sir Hugh Sincler at the Siege of Bridg-north seeing an arrow that was shot at his Master King Henry the second stepped betwixt the shaft and his Soveraign How freedily subjects ought to assist their King and not to 〈…〉 till it be too late and so receiving the arrow into his own body was therewith shot to death that he might thereby preserve the life of his King And as you see how far we are to aid and assist our King to the uttermost of our abilities with the hazard of our lives so we ought to consider the time when this assistance is to be yielded unto him for the School-rule is most sure Gratia ab officio quod mora tardat abest That aid is not good when it doth no good but doth a great deal of ill because we depended on it and were disappointed of it And this hath been the losse of many Armies and the destruction of many men that have perished in the expectation of their relief as the debates and delayes of the Carthaginians to send aid unto Hannibal lost him Italy and thereby lost themselves and many the like examples I could produce to you Therefore when Metius Suffetius promised aid unto the Romans and yet deferred the performance untill he could perceive which was most likely to prevaile of both parties the Romans more incenst against him that thus subtilly deceived their expectation then against their enemies that were in open rebellion tore him in pieces betwixt wild horses and the Poet saith to him that thought it a hard censure At tu dictis Albane maneres It was but very just because he was so false and the Merozites for the like faults were most fearfully cursed by God himself Judg. 5.23 And therefore Tolle moras semper nocuit differre paratis Let them that mean to aid their King take off delayes for as God loveth a cheerful doer so he loveth a speedy doer of any good and therefore he saith To day if you will hear his voice hearden not your hearts and put not off his service till to morrow But wise Counsellers will tell us that great bodies do move slowly and many matters cannot suddenly be concluded it is true yet the deferring of such duties as may be a weakening to one part and a strengthening to the other and the delayes that may be purposely protracted should be as wisely prevented as they are craftily intended I am no States-man neither will I presume to prescribe Rules for Counsell but as we daily pray O God make speed to save us O Lord make haste to help us so let us humbly beseech Almighty God that he would speedily assist and send aid unto our King and set an end to our vexations and compose all the differences of these poor distracted Kingdomes that so we might joyfully serve him and praise him without end Per Jesum Christum Dominum nostrum cui Laus Honor Gloria in secula seculorum Amen Jehovae Liberatori THE SIXTH TREATISE John 10.27 My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me THe blessed Apostle Saint Peter saith that Jesus Christ while he lived here on earth went about doing good that is Acts 10.38 not good to himself for so all worldlings and all ambitious men go about continually to do themselves that which they conceive to be good but he went about to do good to all others as strengthening the feeble comforting the broken hearted and healing all that were oppressed of the devil and as Saint Matthew saith he gave sight to the blinde he cleansed the leapers and raised the dead Mat. 11.5 all good deeds indeed And yet the doing of all these good deeds to all men that had need of them and were capable of good could not move all men to speak good of him All speak not well of Christ that did good to all nor to give him good words for all the good works that he did unto them but though some said he hath done all things well and he could neither make the lame to walk nor the blinde to see if God were not with him yet others and they were the major part and the nobler part of the people the Scribes and the Pharisees said he was a grand Impostor a Seducer of the people a Sabbath-breaker a drunkard a glutton and a wine-bibber a man possessed of the devil a friend of Publicans and sinners Neque enim Jupiter neque pluens omnibus placet neque abstinens Theog 25. and what not good God! Quid Domini facient audent cum talia fures What shall good men doe when such wicked men dare say such things of the Son of God But you may see and you ought to consider it that as Theognis saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Alius tibi male alius melius dicet bonos alius valde vituperat alius laudat God himself that made all things exceeding good and doth all things exceeding well cannot please the never satisfied will of all men but when one would have peace another would have war when some desire rain some others desire to have faire weather and so one will speak ill of thee another well and one will exceedingly dispraise the good another will as much praise them and commend them So different are the mindes of men And therefore how is it possible that either I Go how we will or doe what we will we shall never please all men or any man else either in our Sermons or in our Prayers though we preach nothing but truth and pray as Christ commandeth us to pray should notwithstanding satisfie all our hearers but that the Sceptick blameth what the charitable man commendeth and though our intentions be never so straight yet their expositions will be found often crooked And this cannot be helped neither is he the wisest that otherwise expecteth it but
will endeavour to discharge his duty by good report and evil report 2. You may observe that goodness it self is hated and truth it self slandered and traduced for in his mouth was found no guile but as Saint John saith he is the way the truth and the life and yet all that malice can invent is thought little enough to be laid on him he must bear in his bosom the reproach of a mighty people and he must endure the contradictions of a wicked generation And therefore what wonder is it if the best King and Governour in the world were he as mild as Moses as religious as King David as upright as Samuel and as bountiful to Gods servants as Nehemiah or if as worthy Preachers as ever trod pulpit were they as faithful as Saint Peter as loving as Saint John and as zealous as Saint Paul should be maligned traduced and slandered for you may assure your selves it is no new thing though a very true thing for the wicked to deal thus with the good and godly at all times But among all the subtil arguments doubtful questions and malicious disputations that the Scribes Christs good deeds inraged the wicked Pharisees and Heredians had with our Saviour Christ which were very many and all only for to intrap him in his speech that they might bring him to his death and not to beget faith in their own hearts that they might attain-to eternal life this conflict in this chapter seemeth to be none of the least for after he had so miraculously healed the poor man that was born blind their malice was so inraged and their rage so furious against him that they excommunicated the poor fellow and thrust him out of their Synagogue for speaking well of him that had done so much good for him or because he would not be so wicked and so malicious as themselves and then gathering themselves together round about Christ they began to question him about his office and very strictly to examine him whether he was the Christ the Messias or not And Our Saviour Christ Christ answereth for the good of the godly that knew their thoughts better then themselves intendeth not to satisfie their desire which was to receive such an answer whereby they might accuse him yet for their instruction that would believe in him he setteth down an institution or an infallible induction whereby both their subtil question was fully answered and his own true servants perfectly expressed and distinguished from them that serve him not in these words My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me Wherein The means ways to save us our Saviour setteth down the means whereby the true Christians are eternally saved in being called justified and sanctified which are the three main steps or degrees whereby we pass from our natural state of corruption unto the blessed state of grace that brings us to eternal glory 1. Called in these words My sheep hear my voice 2. Justified in these words I know them 3. Sanctified in these words They follow me 1. Then the Christians are called to come to Christ in that he saith My sheep hear my voice for as Adam after his transgression never sought for God until God sought for him and said Adam Where art thou So all the children of Adam would never come to Christ if Christ did not call them to come unto him but as wisdom crieth without and uttereth her voice in the streets Prov. 1.20 so doth this wisdome of God Jesus Christ cry Come unto me all ye that are weary and heavy laden and I will ease you and if he did not cry and utter forth his voice his sheep could not hear his voice but God sendeth forth his voice yea and that a mighty voice and as the Prophet David saith The Lord thundered out of heaven Psal 68 33. and the most high uttered his voice And that not onely as he did once unto the Israelites God uttereth his voice two wayes when he delivered his laws on mount Sinai but also to all others whom he calleth and uttereth his voice unto them two special ways 1. To the ears of his people by the mouths of his Prophets 1 To our ears Apostles and Preachers of his holy Word that do continually call and cry unto them to come to hear his voice and to obey his Precepts 2. To the hearts of his servants by the inspiration of his blessed Spirit 2 To our hearts which teacheth them to cry abba Father and perswadeth them to yield obedience to all his heavenly motions And our Saviour saith that his sheep or servants will hear his voice that is both uttered by his servants and inspired by his Spirit and they will neither neglect to hear the preaching of his written Word nor suffocate or choak the inspired Word that is the internal motions of his holy Spirit but they will most readily and willingly hear both these voices My sheep hear my voice howsoever uttered Three things observable For the further and the better understanding of which words you may observe these three things 1. The denomination Sheep 2. Their appropriation my sheep 3. Their qualification hear my voice 1. By Sheep here is understood not those four-footed silly creatures The children of God called sheep in a double respect that by their wooll and lamb and milk and their own flesh are so profitable unto us and by their simplicity are so easie to be kept and are the most innocent among all the beasts of the field but those children of God and true Christians that are called and compared unto sheep in a double respect 1. In respect of Christ that is their Pastour or Shepherd 2. In respect of themselves that are his flock 1. Christ is often called in the Scriptures our Shepherd 1 Grand Shepherd of the sheep Christ the good Shepherd in two respects 1. A lawful entrance into his Office Heb. 5.4 1. By the testimony of his own conscience 2. By an outward approbation and he is set forth unto us in this 10. c. by a double manifestation 1. Of a lawful entrance into his Office 2. Of an absolute performance of his Duties 1. The Apostle saith No man taketh this honour unto himself that is to be the Shepherd over Gods flock and a Priest to teach Gods people but he that is called of God as was Aaron And how was Aaron called 1. By God inwardly by the testimony of his own conscience that tells him the Spirit of God calleth him to such an Office 2. Because a man is not to believe his own private spirit that many times deceiveth us therefore God would have Aaron to take his commission and his ordination from Moses as you may see Exod. 28.1 and as the Lord had formerly said unto Moses that he should be instead of God unto Aaron to call him unto the Priests office And as no man taketh or should
ut bene agerent they will not understand the truth that they might do well 2. 2 The Hypocrites The next sort of bad hearers are the hypocrites which for a while will seem to be Saints and in the end will prove Apostata and an hypocrite is a Greek word that was used to signifie a Stage-player who for a time weareth the habit and carrieth the stile and title of a King An Hypocrite what it signifieth or acteth the part of some valorous Knight when as indeed he is but a Peasant and a Coward of no resolution and being applied to matters of Religion it signifieth such a one whose mouth ears and face and all other his outward deportment do make shews of great piety and Religion when as really he is nothing of what he seems to be but as the Watermen do look one way and row another way so doth the hypocrite pretend one thing and aim at another thing as those Spyes that were sent by the chief Priests and Scribes to watch our Saviour Christ did feign themselves just men but it was to this end saith the Evangelist that they might take hold of his words Luke 20.20 that so they might deliver him to the power of the Governour So here is a fair pretence to be just and honest men and yet a most wicked purpose to intrap and betray our Saviour Christ And have we no such Spyes in these daies that come to hear us that they might take hold of our words and pervert our words too that they might accuse us Res ipsaloquitur and I have found them And therefore seeing such hearers of Gods Words have but the shews and shadows of Religion and no substances they are fitly compared to those falling stars which the Phylosophers do call assub for as these in the night time do seem to be truestars in the Firmament and yet they are nothing else but certain fat exhalations of the earth which being lifted up through the upper Region of the ayr and kindled through the heat and force of the upper Element which is the fire do suddenly fall again into nothing So these hypocritical hearers of Gods Words that are Catones foris and Nerones intus as upright as Cato and as zealous as S. Paul without and as deceitful as Tyberius and as cruel as Nero within do for a while seem to be good Christians in the Church of God but because the Words that they hear take no root in their hearts that are canales non conchi like Sluces and Channels to convey it through them and not pools or vessels to retain it still within them when the fire of affliction and persecution and the fear of losing their honours and preferment cometh they fall away saith our Saviour even as the falling stars and they are ready to turn with every wind as you may note in your books the many multitude of Professors both Clergy and Laity that have done so since 1641. I pray God it be not laid to their charge 3. 3 The worldling The last sort of bad hearers are those worldly men that would gladly come to the Kingdome of heaven but they cannot be perswaded to relinquish and forsake the things of this world but they are so far addicted and so much in love with the pleasures and vanities of this present life that as Christ saith the cares and riches of this world do so choak them Luke 8.14 4. The good Christian that they bring no fruit unto perfection But the sheep of Christ with an honest heart and a simple desire to understand the will of God and know the truth that they may believe the one and obey the other do hear the voice of Christ And therefore as when Moses called the people of God to hear the words and Commandments of God and told them how the Lord willed them to sanctifie themselves the day before to make clean their apparel and to keep themselves from their wives Exod 19.10 4. 15. v. How men should prepare themselves to hear Gods Word that they might with the more purity and sincerity hear his words So the sheep of Christ considering that this outward sanctification and preparation of this people to hear Gods Word was but the type and figure of that inward purity and due preparation that they should make when they come to hear the voice of Christ do earnestly pray to God that they may come to hear with a good intent and not for fashion sake or with a prejudicate conceit of the Preacher or an obstinate mind to perfist in their own erronious Opinion whatsoever they hear to the contrary or especially to catch at some things from the Preacher to accuse him but to be truly edified in the Faith of Christ and rightly instructed for the true service of God These be the true sheep that do rightly hear the voice of the true Shepherd and all other hearers that do call for preaching and run after preaching and seek for singular Preachers of their own Faction are but wicked or formal hearers of the voice of Christ and such as the Prophet Esay speaketh of which follow after the Word and gather precept upon precept and word upon word and line upon line here a little Esay 28. 10.13 and there a little and are never the better but fall backward and grow worse and worse because these hearers do resemble the Inhabitants that are about the fall of the river Nilus which is very great and the fall thereof so exceeding high The customary hearers like the Inhabitants about the fall of Nilus Macrobius and the noyse of the fall so violent and so loud that at the first it astonisheth the hearers so much and maketh them in a manner sensless and to hear nothing else by reason of the violence of the noyse yet at length saith Macrobius when they are accustomed with the noyse thereof and that it becomes habitual to them it seems as nothing to move them to astonishment even so is the Word of God to these hearers At first it seems to quicken and make some impression in them but the same being so often sounded and the voice thereof so familiar to them and so often heard of them it moveth their hearts no whit at all but it passeth so smoothly through them that it maketh no operation within them which makes the Apostle tell us 2 Tim. 3.7 that they are ever learning and so ever hearing and yet never able to come to the knowledge of the truth 2. Having heard the act which my sheep are to do that is 2 The object my voice to hear as they ought to hear attentively reverently and religiously to be edified and bettered thereby we are now to consider the object of this act what they are to hear and that is not the Turks Alcoran nor the Popes Traditions nor the Jewish fables but my voice saith Christ And this voice of
all places and at all times we have such Sichemites and Gibeonites as deceive the world and do blind the eyes of men by making them to believe they are the only Saints of God and do all for the honour of God but the Lord knoweth them not for any such Saints and Christ doth not acknowledge them for any of his sheep but though they shall say to Christ Lord Lord have we not prophesied in thy Name and in thy Name have cast out devils and in thy Name done wonderful works that is preached and fasted and prayed and fought for thy service and the like evidences of our faithfulness unto thee yet Christ that knoweth very well they did all these things for their own ends Mat. 7.22 23. will profess unto them I never knew you depart from me ye that work iniquity And S. Luke is more ample in setting out the discourse and Dialogue betwixt Christ and these men at the last day saying When once the Master of the house is risen up How S. Luke describes the hypocrites and hath shut the door and they standing without shall knock at the door saying Lord Lord open to us and he shall answer and say unto them I know you not whence you are then shall they begin to say we have eaten and drunk in thy presence that is when they received the blessed Sacrament of his Body and Blood at his own Table and thou hast taught in our streets and we were daily hearers of those Sermons that were preached though but in Chambers or in Barns or in the streets but he shall say I tell you as being angry for their presumption and hypocrisie I know you not whence you are depart from me all ye workers of iniquity there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth when they shall see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the Prophets and the rest of Gods faithful servants whom they persecuted in the Kingdome of God Luke 13.25 26 27 28. and themselves thrust out of doors But can they perswade themselves that our Saviour Christ will not know them when as they seem to be so zealous of his worship How hardly it is to perswade hypocrites to acknowledge themselves to be hypocrites and profess themselves so earnestly and so strictly to observe his will and to do nothing without a warrant from his written Word Surely no they cannot be perswaded hereunto but it is easier to convert the drunkards adulterers and harlots then to perswade these hypocritical Saints that they are sinners save in that general notion that we are all sinners for as decipimur specie recti we are deceived in them and the world is blinded through that shew of piety and profession of Religion which they make so they deceive themselves hereby Fallit enim vitium specie virtutis umbra For it is most certain that vice deceives the owner under the shew and shadow of virtue when as our Saviour saith to his Apostles they shall persecute you and imprison you Lament 4.5 Was there ever any time wherein this was more truly fulfilled then now in our daies and scourge you silence you and rob you of your means and maintenance and as the Prophet Jeremy saith cause those that did feed delicately to lie desolate in the streets and those that were brought up in Scarlet to imbrace dunghills and yet they that do these things shall not be Infidels and Pagans but such as shall think themselves very good Christians and to do God herein very good service to persecute his servan s. And what a cruel deceit is this to beguile their own hearts and to deceive their own souls to think they have God Almighty by the hand when the devil holds them fast by the toes and to perswade themselves they are the sheep of Christ when Christ professeth he knows them not to be his sheep but knoweth them to be the Wolves of Satan But can any thing be unknown to God or be hid from him which knoweth the secrets of our hearts and understandeth our thoughts long before he knoweth what is in the deep Sea and how far the world extendeth he knoweth the number of the stars and calleth them all by their names and he knoweth the height of heaven the depth of the Sea and the length of all the Spheres and doth he not know these men Indeed we know them not they are such Camelions that can change themselves into all colours saving white that is put on all manner of shews and shapes but that which is virtuous and honest but God knoweth them very well intus in cute both within and without for so the Lord professeth I know their works and their thoughts Esay 66.18 And therefore you must understand there is a twofold knowledge in God 1. The one general or universal 2. The other special or particular The first is over all the things in the world as they are his creatures The twofold knowledge of God and the works of his hands and so he knoweth all men good and bad and all creatures both in heaven and in earth The other is only over his Church that is his children whom he hath chosen and loveth and which therefore do love honour and obey him in doing his will and keeping his Commandments And thus he knoweth not the wicked hypocrites How God knoweth both the godly and the wicked oppressors extortioners and the like sinful generation and brood of Vipers as John Baptist calls them to be his children but knoweth that they are none of his children but rather the children of their Father the Devil for as a Father knoweth his Son and as he is his Son provideth for him an inheritance and knoweth his servant but knoweth him not for his Son and therefore provideth no inheritance for him but appointeth him to do some drudgery and keepeth him for his service So Christ knoweth his sheep and as they are his sheep he provideth for them eternal life and he knoweth the Goats the Wolves and the Foxes and knoweth them not to be his sheep and therefore provideth no inheritance for them but wil severely punish them because they neither follow him nor hear his voice but as the Lord saith Refused his counsel and despised his reproof Prov. 1.30 And this should be an exceeding grief and terrour unto the wicked when God shall say unto them as a Father doth to his disobedient Son I will not know him that is I will not acknowledge him for my son so God will not own nor acknowledge these men for his children though he knoweth them and knoweth their works well enough And on the other side this is an exceeding comfort and joy unto the godly when as a friend shall say of his friend I will know him wheresoever I see him before friend and foe and I will acknowledge him my friend and my self his friend in what state or condition soever he be rich or poor
consumed to ashes and reduced to nothing their power weakness their prudence folly and their excellency base in respect of that boundless Omnipotencie infinite Wisdome and incomprehensible transcendent excellencies of God For if he is not barren that imparteth fecundity unto others nor he poor that can make many rich then surely he must needs be most beautiful that can adorn the poor Lilies of the field with a far more glorious mantle then any of those choicest robes that covered the body of the wisest Solomon For though fields and gardens and Palaces and the bodies of men and women and so the Heavens and the Angels and the whole frame of this Universe which the Grecians called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because it is so admirably beautified and composed in number weight and measure are all innamelled with abundance of beauty yet all these beauties proceeds from him and reside in him and are comprized in him in a far more eminent degree of excellency How eminently all perfections are in God then they are in the best of these creatures themselves because that in these creatures they are all limited in Essence and hedged within the narrow bounds of natural perfections But in God all the Attributes of his bounty simplicity verity charity justice mercy benignity and all other amiable colours and most glorious beauties of his perfections which the Angels rejoyce to behold the blessed Saints contemplate and we poor wandring Pilgrimes do all aspire to see are all illimited infinite and boundless And befides all this if we consider him truly he is whatsoever is desirable or can be desired by any one as Omnipotency to him that affecteth power Omnisciency to him that desireth knowledge and the Antient of daies to him that desighteth in antiquity And as S. Ambrose saith Siesuris ipse est panis if thou art hungry he is the Bread of Life Whatsoever we desire we may have the same in God if thou art thirsty he is the Fountain of Living Water if thou art naked he is the Garment of Righteousness if thou art sick he is a heavenly Physitian if thou art in prison he is with thee as he was with Joseph if thou art in danger he is a present help in trouble if thou beest dead he can restore thee to life for he is life which is of all things so infinitely desired and he is light which is so much admired he is truth which is so much commended he is the God of Peace which is the Mother of all plenty he is the God of Unity which is the honour of all Brethren he is the God of Constancy which is the Crown of all Friendship and he is the God of Wisdome which is the glory of every man And to be brief all things that are good are in him and derived from him who is goodness it self And therefore causa diligendi Deum Deut est this only consideration that he is God and such a God is a sufficient cause of loving God as S. Bern. saith because these are excellencies enough to attract love from the stoniest hearts quae genuere ferae which the most salvage men have produced if they did but truly consider them And yet this is not that which the Apostle setteth down here to be the ground and cause of our loving God but seeing our weakness could not ascend so high as to conceive the excellent brightness of this everlasting glory therefore his goodness was pleased to descend so low as to express that which is neerer unto us and doth more feelingly concern our selves Whom men do naturally love best that is the love of God towards us and the great good that we receive from that love for the Apostle knew that all men were naturally inclined to love their benefactors and to love them best which do profit them most And albeit very often this kind of love is but base and vitious yet being guided with reason Iob 1. and ruled by charity it may prove good and virtuous therefore as the devil maliciously suggested of holy Job that he served not God for nought so the Apostle wisely doth here intimate that we love not God without cause especially if we consider that great and real love of God which hath and doth continually so infinitely profit us for we love him because he loved us first Touching which words though our love to God is first set down in the series of these words yet seeing by the order of nature causa precedit effectum the cause doth ever precede the effect I will by Gods help speak 1. Of that great love which God hath shewed unto us 2. Of that love which in requital thereof we owe unto God And the first shall be the subject of my whole discourse at this time wherein you may observe as many parts 1 In Gods love to us four things observable as there be words 1. The Lover he He loved us first 2. The affection loved He loved us first 3. 1 The Lover Divers pretend to love us The beloved us He loved us first 4. The time first He loved us first 1. Who is this He that loveth us for there be very many that pretend to love us and yet in very deed do love us not at all especially 1. The Devil 1 How the Devil professeth to love us 2. The World 3. Our own selves 1. In the third of Hosea v. 1. Diabolus Dicitur amicus saith a Father Satan is said to be the lover of the seduced soul even as the lascivious loves the Harlot for the Devil comes unto us as he came unto Adam and saith You shall be as gods and I will make you happy and you shall be victorious when he means to plunge us into all miseries and to hurl us headlong into hell And to that end we can intend nothing nor resolve upon any good action What manner of love the Devil beareth to us wherein this dissembling Lover is not alwayes ready to intrap us as Progne did to Tereus proponendo quod delectabile supponendo quod exitiale by giving us like the Whore of Babylon a drink of deadly poyson in a golden Cup to teach us Heresies out of the holy Scriptures to set up a meer Anarchy under the glorious title of a Gospel-Government and to raise a most odious rebellion under the name of King and Parliament and under the pretence of Faith and Religion But O good God is it possible that tantum potuit Religio suadere malorum No no God will tell us this is nothing else but Satans plot who desires our ruine and he desires not only thus to fill us up with evil but also to infect all our good for if we pray he casteth wandring thoughts into our minds and when our hearts should think most of God he will guide our eyes to withdraw them to some other object as S. Hierom confesseth of himself that while his tongue was talking with God in
from many sins they would fall into most fearfull abominations and did not he sustain them with his hand they would pull down many mischiefs and kindle many plagues upon their own heads 3. Way 3 By bestowing many gifts and favours upon his creatures as sending them raine and fruitfull seasons Acts 14.17 making the Sun to shine both upon the good and upon the bad and filling our hearts with food and gladness by giving us Health Wealth and Prosperity 4. Way 4 By that which is above all and beyond all the rest in giving his onely Son to redeem us when we were captives and to save us when we were utterly lost Seneca saith we esteem our selves too highly if we suppose our selves worthy that the revolution of Winter and Summer should be done for us But alas good Philosopher if thou thinkest it strange that the world should hold his course for our sake what wouldst thou think if thou knewest as much as we that God for our sake should send his only Son to suffer the most ignominious death of the cross to deliver us from everlasting death The inexpressable greatness of Gods love in sending his Son to redeem us for this love is so full of all bottomlesse Mysteries so transcendently infinite that all the other multitudes of his blessings heaped upon us in our creation and preservation are not worth the talking of or so much as to be once named in comparison of this blessing but as the light of the Sun obscureth all the light of the Starres so the consideration of this benefit swalloweth up all the memory of all other benefits whatsoever And therefore this is ever and anon shewed and urged as the chiefest argument of Gods love and as the most royal Present whereby the King of Heaven did so exemplarily commend his love towards the sons of men 1 Johon 4.9 for as the Apostle saith in this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was manifested the love of God towards us that he sent his onely begotten Son into the world Why this benefit exceedeth all other benefits that we might live through him And the reason why this benefit transcendeth and excelleth all other benefits seemeth to be two-fold 1. Reason 1 Because That before our creation we had done nothing that had displeased God or opposed his purpose to produce us but before our redemption we had every way offended his Majesty rejected his grace and refused his favours towards us nay we had not onely slighted his love but we had also in all hostile manner done as we see others do now unto us rendered to him evil for good and for all his grace and loving favours we offered Wars and all despightful Indignities unto him Reason 2 2. Because in our Creation Dixit facta sunt he spake the world and they were made commanded and they stood fast but in working our redemption Multa dixit magna fecit dira tulit he spake many excellent Sermons he did many admirable Works and he suffered many intolerable Things and yet Solus homo non compatitur pro quo solo Deus patitur of all Gods creatures The exceeding greatness of the Mystery of our Redemption by the Incarnation Passion of Christ Col 1.26 1 Pet. 1.10 12. man alone regards not all this for whom alone God did all this And therefore this work alone was that astonishing project wherewith the invisible God blessed for ever intended in the fullest measure to glorifie all his Attributes even at once and to make himself far more admirably known by this then he was either by the Creation or the preservation of all the things of this world And this was that unsearchable Mystery that was hidden from the Ages and the Generations before in which God would make known the riches of his glory and which the holy men of God for many ages together longed to see and the Angels themselves desired 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 most heedfully to pry into it So you see that God by innumerable wayes and specially by this superlative argument of his love to mankind doth sufficiently testifie that he loveth 3. For the extent and object of Gods love the Apostle saith that he loveth us 3 The Parties loved us Love what it is The extent of is The extent of Gods Love 1. Himself 2. All that he made and S. Austin defineth love to be a motion of the heart delighting it self in any thing And the better we conceive the thing to be the more is our heart inflamed to love it and therefore God being the chiefest good he must needs in the first place love himself best as the Father loveth the Son the Son in like manner loveth the Father and both of them equally love the holy Spirit and the Spirit them And besides himself God loveth all things that he made because all that he made were good Sin he made not therefore he loves it not but hateth the same with a perfect hatred But though God loveth every thing which he hath made That of all Creatures God loved Mankind best yet he loveth not all things equally alike for we finde that he shewed more evident testimonies of far greater love to mankind then he did to any other creature whatsoever for though he loveth his Angels with a very great and singular love when he maketh them his Ministers and these Ministers flames of fire that do continually burn with the love of his Sacred Majesty yet we do not read that he stileth himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a lover of Angels as he termeth himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a lover of men as Zanchy well observeth out of Tit. 3.4 And this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his love to man more then to any other creature appeareth more manifestly by the manifold effects of his love As 1. In creating man alone after his own Image 2. In giving to him alone dominion over the rest of his creatures over all the works of his hands 3. In predestinating his onely begotten Son to take upon him our flesh thereby to exalt the humane nature alone above all other creatures whatsoever for though the Angels were of a pure simple and unspotted being and we of a terrene corrupted substance yet as the Apostle well observeth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heb. 2.16 he took not upon him the Angels but he took the seed of Abraham And therefore the Prophet David considering these many many testimonies of the divine love to man crieth out with admiration O God what is man that thou art so mindfull of him or the son of man that thou so regardest him thou madest him a little lower then the Angels but it was to crown him with glory and worship Psal 8 5. Gods love to men not equally alike to all men Prov. 8. Exod. 20. Psal 11.6 And therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here hath an emphasis that God loved us men or mankind 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
all his ways Psal 145.17 and holy in all his works and the Prophet Daniel testifieth as much and so do all the Saints and Servants of God yea and the very wicked Reprobates do confess the same for Adoni-bezek the Tyrant that had Seventy Kings having their Thumbs and great Toes cut off to gather their meat under his Table doth acknowledge that God did most justly deal with him as he had dealt with others and so we finde that the Law of God is most just and requireth Justice to be done at all times in all places and to all persons as an eye for an eye tooth for tooth and he that sheddeth man's blood by man should his blood be shed yet such is the corruption of man's Nature that we do often judge amiss of the just Judgments of God and therefore Christ adviseth us not to judge that is amiss or if we judge not to do it according to the Superficies and outward appearance of things but to judge righteous Judgments and especially of all the Judgments of God that he sheweth either in this world or in the world to come And because God of late hath poured out much of his wrath and indignation and shewed many Judgments upon these Kingdoms I will endeavour Rom. 2.3 by the help and assistance of the same God to make as the Apostle saith a Declaration of the just Judgments of God to stop the mouths of all discontented Murmurers and to shew the just deserts of us all that either have been or still are most justly punished and I shall further shew how that in the midst of God's anger against these Nations he was pleased to continue his mercies and loving kindnesses to his dear and faithful Servant and our late most gracious King of ever blessed Memory Charles the First And first as the Poet saith A Jove principium Musae so I shall begin with him that was Jehovah's Vice-gerent the Anointed of the Lord and our most gracions King CHAP. I. FIrst then for King Charles I knew him before he was crowned King a most virtuous Vera quidem res est patrem sequitur sua proles Et sequitur leviter filia matris iter and Religious Prince religiously following the pious steps of his good and godly Father and well-beloved and well spoken of by all his Fathers Court pietas spectata per ignes and his Travels through France and Return from Spain have sufficiently testified his sincerity and constancy in the true Religion so that I may truly say of him Firma valent perâ—se nullúmque Machaona quaerunt And after he was crowned King all in white in token of that purity and innocency which he desired always to retain according to the counsel of Solomon that saith Let thy Garments be always white I living in His Court in no mean place had a very great desire to note and observe the lives actions and contrivements both of the King and of most other men that were of any note in the King's house and throughout all the space of seventeen or eighteen years that I was resident in His Court whereof I waited in my turn six or seven years upon His Majesty my Witness is in Heaven that I could observe none nor find out any man either of the Lords Knights or other Gentlemen of his House that was of so mild a Disposition so courteous in his Conversation and so pious in all the actions and circumstances of Religion as King Charles was a man that I never heard to take the Name of God in vain at any time nor ever saw him passionately angry with any man neither do I believe that the mouth of the Father of Lies could justly tax him of any open crime or inexcusable defect either of Charity Equity or Piety before the Birth of the Long Parliament or after throughout all his life for he knew that Qui sceptra duro saevus imperio reget Timet timentes metus in autorem cedit Seneca in Oedipo Act. 3. and I am sure I am able to arise in the last day to testifie against many of his enemies and accusers that I have often heard them justifying him in those things for which afterwards they accused him and condemned him yea they were his Counsellours to have them done and then his Prosecutours and Persecutours of him unto the death for doing them Much more could I speak and speak it most truly in the just praise and commendation of this good and godly King and when all that I could speak were set down I must confess mine offence that plenty it self and the abundance of his virtues Talem vix reperit unum Millibus 〈◊〉 multis bominum consultus Apollo Ausonius and merits hath made me poor in mine expressions thereof Prob dolor infoelix sors nostra amittere talem Ter foelix talem quae tenet or aviorum And is it not therefore strange that the just and good God should suffer the wicked Sons of men so strictly to prosecute and so unexemplarily to handle and to deal with so just so good and so Religious a Prince as the Long Parliament hath done with King Charles and so to confute that Poet which saith Nullum caruit exemplo nefas when as no Historie of any Times of any Kingdom can parallel the proceedings against King Charles I answer no not at all but in the death of this good and godly King may be seen the great merey of God and I dare not say the Revelation of the just Judgment of God but the gentle chastisement of a most loving Father to a most dear and dutiful Son that all men that see the same might praise God for the one and fear him for the other for as the death of the Son of God Jesus Christ was most unjustly done by the wicked Jews that condemned him for Blasphemy against God and Treason against Caesar whereof he was most innocent and guilty of neither yet was it most justly suffered to be done by the determinate Counsel of God as Saint Peter sheweth because that out of his great love and mercy to save sinful man he became his Surety to pay his Debts and to satisfie God's Wrath by suffering that death for our sins that as the Prophet saith We by his stripes might be healed therefore did God most justly execute upon him what he had most mercifully undertaken for us all so though King Charles was a very good man and a most religious Prince and as his friends knew most innocent and free from all those crimes that were layd to his charge by the long Parliament yet could be not be justified from all offences against his God but as Moses that was faithful in all Gods House yet failed he a little at the waters of Meriba and as David that was a man according to Gods own heart yet offended he also in numbering the people and as Ezechias and Josias that were two of the three best Princes of all the Kings of
Israel and Judah yet both of them transgressed the one in shewing his Treasures to the Embassadors of the King of Babylon and the other in his confederacy with a wicked King and God justly punished every one of them Moses that he should not so much as enter into the Land of Canaan David with the loss of threescore and ten thousand of his people Ezechias to have all that he shewed transported into Babylon and Josias even with death in the Valley of Megiado so King Charles though a very good man and a most just and pious Prince and a faithful Servant of Jesus Christ and a strenuous defender of the true Faith yet because that when God for his tryal tempted him as he tempted Abraham Job and many others temptatione probationis non deceptionis to see how far he would stand unmoveable in the right way he either through fear and frailty or rather as I conceive by the deceitful perswasions of some whom he supposed to be his faithful Counsellors but were indeed seducing friends yielded and perhaps with some reluctancy against his own minde consented to the desires of some evill men to do those things that offended God therefore as he did though deceived what he should not do like the man of God in 1 King so his good God that did most truly love him did notwithstanding most justly suffer his Counsellors to become his enemies to warr against him and to punish him for what himself and his friends knew and most others conceived and do believe he never did for it is just with God to punish our sins and offences when and where and how and by whom he pleaseth as I shall declare unto you by this plain Story which may illustrate this point unto you A certain poor man had a Pick-axe wherewith he got his living and there was a certain rich man his Neighbour that coveted the same and finding it on a time left where the poor man wrought stole it from him so that the poor Labourer was fain to provide another and after many years and the memory of the Pick-axe quite forgotten the rich man driving some of his Cattel to the Market a lusty fellow that had stollen a couple of Oxen drove them among the rich mans Beasts and after a while fearing to be apprehended by the search and cry that he perceived to come after him he prayed the rich man to drive his Oxen a little way while he went a Furlong or two to deliver a Letter to such a Gentleman and the rich man suspecting no evil did so but not long after the searchers for the Oxen found them with the rich man driven towards the Fair amongst his own Beasts and apprehending him prosecuted him so eagerly and the rather because he was a rich man that he was condemned to die for stealing of those Oxen and being upon the Ladder complaining of this injustice and professing his innocency herein he spieth a Kite flying up and down over his head and crying as he conceived for the Pick-axe for the Pick-axe whereupon his Conscience accusing him he cryed out that God was just and his judgement right for though he was innocent from the Oxen yet he long agone had stolen a poor mans Pick-axe for which God now brought him to this end so no doubt many a Thief and murtherer may escape for the robbery and murders committed by them and yet may suffer for that which they never knew which is most just with God though unjustly done by men And so God might justly though most mercifully too suffer the enemies of this good King to condemn him for what he never did because he might offend God in some other things for which he was never blamed by his enemies nor accused by the Parliament And let no man wonder nor blame me for saying that the King though never so good a King and so pious a man should notwithstanding fail and offend God in some things when the Apostle tells us plainly that in many things we offend all For as there is no condition of life be it never so happy but it hath his cross to shew unto us that perfect felicity is to be expected elsewhere so there is no Prince nor any man living be he never so wise but he sometimes erreth and be he never so virtuous but he will sometimes offend else should he prove himself to be more then man because as Plutarch saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is more then is in the power of man to offend nothing in great matters such as are the Affairs of Kings and Princes But what were those things wherein this good King hath failed and offended God and for which he might justly suffer his enemies to warr and to prevail against him can any man tell what they be I answer that the wisest of the Kings friends conceive them to be not those things for which his enemies warred against him and condemned him most unjustly but might be those things wherein contrary to his own free desires he yielded to the desires of his enemies and those you may finde in the Bishop of Ossory his Discovery of Mysteries to be those three principal mistakes and not denied to be so by the King himself when Secretary Falkland would for those things have suppressed that Book but the good King told him they were true and so suffered the Book to be published 1. The threefold errours of the King To yield his assent to put the Earl of Strafford to death 2. To pass the Act that excluded the Bishops from the House of Peers and the other Clergy from Civil Affairs 3. To make the Parliament perpetual and so by himself indissoluble till they consented to dissolve it These things pleased the Parliament but might displease God and might without doubt most justly move God to be offended with his Majesty and to suffer his enemies most unjustly and causelesly to rage against him for that First Touching the Earl of Strafford the King we all know loved his person and admired his worth and took indefatigable pains at his Trial to be fully certified and informed of those things whereof the Earl was accused and as the Poet saith Regia And this the King confessed at his death saying God for bid that I should be so ill a Christian as not to say that God's Judgements are just upon me when many times he doth inflict Justice by an unjust Sentence this is ordinary I will onely say that an unjust Sentence that I suffered to take effect is punished now by an unjust Sentence upon my self crede mihi res est succurrere lapsis inquirere verum This was a most royal part in him and which Moses commanded to be observed before any Idolater should be condemned but after he had so religiously and diligently searched into the depth of their malice that accused the Earl and found out the truth of his cause and his Conscience informing him that he was no ways worthy