they might be blessed and happy for ever Let the Officers of the Army mourn for she Cloathed them in Scarlet and put on Ornaments of Gold upon their Apparel Lastly Let all the Inhabitants of the Land Mourn For the Beauty of Israel the Glory of our Nation is now clad and wrapt up in Mourning And now having filled our Hearts with a deep sense of Grief for the Death of our Pious Princess what we are chiefly and more especially to Bewail is our Sins which are the true cause of all the mischief done us and will if not timely and sincerely repented of do us more Let us then lay our Hands upon our Breasts and weep bitterly that the Floods of Impiety are risen to such an height that they break through all Banks all Bounds all Laws as if they had got the Ascendency of the Word and were out of the reach and above the check of an Almighty Power Jeremiah complaining of the many and heinous Sins of Judah tells us that Prophaneness was gone forth into all the Land and that Men were grown Impudent in Sinning Were they ashamed when they had committed abominations nay they were not ashamed neither could they blush Jer. 8. v. 12. And can we when we reflect upon the common Practices of this dissolute Age and how greatly Iniquity abounds among us think our selves deserving a better Character It is manifest that there is an excess of Corruption and Degeneracy among us that neither the most endearing Mercies nor the most terrible Judgments can reclaim us that Religion notwithstanding the great helps and advantages it meets with than which perhaps no Age had ever greater is in a very low and languishing Condition hardly able to come up to the Character of the Church of Laodicea being fallen from luke-warmness to somewhat farther distant from the Temper which God requires So that without endeavouring to aggravate that which already exceeds all Number and Measure we may safely sit down with this perswasion that we as well as the Jews have done enough to make God angry with us and least we should continue to provoke his Anger against us let us not only Mourn for our own Sins and the Sins of the Land by fits and starts but let us instantly manifest the truth reality and sincerity of our Sorrow by an outward entire Reformation of Life and an inward change of Mind this will prove the most effectual Method to turn away the fierceness of God's Anger that we Perish not Thirdly and Lastly Are Religious Princes a mighty Blessing to a Nation This then should teach us to set a very great and due value upon our present Sovereign and to fix all that Love and Affection that was divided between the Royal Pair upon him alone it was for our Sins as well as the Tryal of his Christian Valour that Heaven so unexpectedly smote him in the most tender part to allay and sweeten therefore so severe an affliction Let us esteem the early acknowledgments of Duty and Loyalty among the least of those many and innumerable Services we stand indebted to him let us prize him as God's Vice-gerent as the anointed of the Lord as the Breath of our Nostrils Let us offer our most humble and devout Prayers to God for him beseeching him to Crown His Arms with success both by Sea and Land that he may be a terror to his and our Enemies to cover him with his Providence as with an impenetrable Shield to preserve his Sacred Person from all the Plots and Attempts of his Enemies both at home and abroad and after a long and happy Reign here on Earth to change a Fading into an Incorruptible Crown of Glory to be worn in the highest Heavens Now to God the Father God the Son God the Holy Ghost three Persons but one Eternal God he ascribed all Glory and Honour Dominion and Majesty both now and for ever FINIS
Josiah in the Text was a very great Mourning 't is said to be as the Mourning of Hadradrimmon in the Valley of Megiddon Zech. 12. v. 11. Eus Ecc. Hist de vita Constantini lib. 4. cap. 65.67 And when Constantine the Great Dyed how greatly did the Tribunes Centurions the whole Order of Judges and Magistrates Lament his Death all places were filled with doleful Shrieks and Lamentations that the common Good of them all was taken from them These Instances plainly prove That to make doleful Resentments upon occasion of the Death of good Princes was the practice of the Church of God and a Practice 't is as Old and Ancient as the Church it self for 't is founded upon the Law of Nature How pleasing and agreeable to Nature is it to Weep and Grieve for the Death of our Natural Parents especially if they be Good Much more then surely if we have any true Zeal for Religion any regard for the Publick Good ought we to express our Grief when the Fathers of our Country are by Death taken from us For 1st A Religious Prince is a great Blessing to a Nation a promised Mercy Isaiah 49. v. 23. 'T is said Kings shall be thy nursing Fathers and their Queens thy nursing Mothers A Godly Prince is an unspeakable Blessing such a ray of Divine Love and Favour to a Nation as bespeaks a very peculiar and distinguishing Providence presiding over it Because the Lord loved Israel for ever therefore made he thee King speaking to Solomon to do judgment and justice 1 King 10. v. 9. or to establish them for ever as 't is rendred 2 Chron. 9. v. 8. When Princes are endued with Wisdom Piety and the Fear of God 't is at once the greatest Lustre and Glory to themselves and the greatest Mercy and Blessing which a People can enjoy Blessed be thou O Land when thy King is the son of Nobles and thy Princes eat in due season for strength and not for drunkenness On the other hand An Irreligious Prince is a sure Token of Gods heavy Displeasure against a People and of sore Judgments and Desolations to be poured out upon them Wo unto thee O Land when thy King is a Child and thy Princes eat in the morning Eccl. 10. v. 16. when thy King is a Child that is in Understanding such was Rehoboam in the midst and strength of his Age a Child of one and forty Years old 2dly Princes have a very great Influence upon their People either to diffuse and spread the true Religion or Idolatry and Prophaneness throughout their Territories Thousands nay almost whole Nations and Kingdoms imitating and following their Examples for what Entertainment Religion meets with at Court the like for the most part it finds throughout the Kingdom A Religious King therefore is a mighty Instrument both to establish the true Religion and to engage his Subjects in the ways thereof by setting over them faithful Pastors Men of Learning Integrity and Piety such as shall feed them with the spiritual Food of sound Knowledge and win them by the Prevalency of their own good Examples Jehosophat a Religious Prince sent Princes and with them Levites and Priests to Teach in all the Cities of Judah and Asa his Father a good King commanded Judah to seek the Lord God of their Fathers and to do the Law and the Commandments and what great Influence it had on the People you may find in the 2 Chron. 15.12 13. verses Thus Josiah made all that were present in Israel to serve even to serve the Lord their God and all his days they departed not from following the Lord the God of their Fathers but in his Sons days who did Evil in the sight of the Lord they returned to Idolatry for all the chief of the Priests and the People transgressed very much after all the abomination of the Heathen and Polluted the house of the Lord which he had hallowed in Jerusalem In * Vide Euseb Zozom Theodor. Ecc. Hist et Magdeburg Ecc. Hist the Reign of Constantine the Great the first Christian Emperour what Numbers what Multitudes of Proselytes were daily added to the Church And what effectual Care was there taken to suppress Heresies and to reconcile differences in Opinion but yet in the time of the Arian Emperours the wonderful growth of Arianism gave occasion to that Complaint of St. Hierom that almost the whole World Mourned to see itself become Arian Thus in Julian the Apostates Reign they returned to Idolatry and did with the utmost Zeal espouse it Contending as eargerly for Error as Truth itself 3ly Religious Princes are the Defence of a People they are as the Walls of a Nation as the Chariots and Horse-men thereof The Psalmist Ps 47. v. 9 calls them the Shields of the Earth for by their Prayers they engage the Irresistible Strength of Heaven to be on their Side Whilst the Governours and Princes of Israel and Judah were Religious and kept close to the Service of God they were Victorious and Triumphant as in the Days of Joshua and the Elders who out-liv'd him and as in David's Asa's Jehosaphat's and Hezekiah's Reigns But when they forsook the Lord their God his Word and Ordinances they soon fell as a Prey into the greedy Jaws of the Assyrian Monarchs by whom they were carried away Captive At least good Princes stave and keep off the Execution of Judgments upon a Nation when they cannot by all their Prayers and Tears turn them away Hezekiah when such black Clouds of Wrath did hang over Judah and Jerusalem that Micah Prophesied chap. 3. v. 12. That Zion should be Plowed as a Field and Jerusalem should become heaps and the Mountain of the house as the high places of the Forest did yet so far prevail that Peace and Truth Flourished in his Days And in Josiah's Reign when that Nation was in such deep Arrears to the Almighty that the Execution of all the Threats and Judgments Denounced against them was ready to take place yet by Prayer and Humiliation did this good King so far mitigate the Divine Wrath that it did not lay hold on them during his Life When good Princes are taken away from a People 't is like the breaking down the Bounds of the Sea a passage is thereby laid open for the Divine Wrath to break in upon and overwhelm them Well therefore may the Death of good Princes be thought matter of great Mourning and Lamentation to a Kingdom or People I proceed 2dly To enquire more particularly into the great cause of the Jews Universal Mourning for the Death of Josiah to which Enquiry we shall receive abundant satisfaction if we do but Contemplate the greatness of the Loss they sustained by his Death which I shall endeavour to set forth by describing First His Great and Extraordinary Piety Secondly His Zeal against Idolatry Thirdly His Publick Spirit Fourthly The time of his Death First He was a Prince of most Illustrious Piety one of the brightest
Stars that did ever Shine on the Throne of Israel or Judah There are some special remarks of his Piety In the Eighth Year of his Reign that is the Sixteenth Year of his Age for he was eight years old when he began to Reign whilst he was yet young he began to seek after the Lord Solomon also sought the Lord God of his Fathers whilst he was young but his Piety was strangely Clouded and Eclipsed in his elder years for it came to pass when Solomon was old that his Wives turned away his heart after other Gods 1 Kings 11. v. 4. But Josiah's Seeking of the Lord was as clear as the Morning as bright as the Sun it knew no Declension His Piety did surpass that of all the Kings of Israel and Judah which were before him The Holy Ghost gives this High and Honourable Character of him that like unto him there was no King before him that turned to the Lord with all his Heart and with all his Soul and with all his Might according to all the Law of Moses neither after him arose there any like him Other Kings there were in Israel and Judah of very high Elevations in Gifts and Graces whose Hearts were sincere and perfect with the Lord and lifted up in his Ways yet they had some foiles their Beauty was sullied with some spots and blemishes But this good King was unspotted in his Reputation and so innocent in his Life that we cannot charge him with any thing unbecoming his Profession Secondly He was a very Zealous Prince a Burning Lamp of Zeal for the Glory of God and Purity of his Worship the most Zealous of the Kings that did ever sit on the Throne of Israel or Judah in rooting out Idolatry In the twelfth year of his Reign he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem from the high places and the groves and the carved Images and the molten Images and they brake down the Altars of Baalim in his Presence and the Images that were on high above them he cut down and the Groves and the carved Images and the molten Images he brake in pieces and made dust of them and strewed it upon the Graves of them that had Sacrificed unto them and he burnt the bones of the Priests upon their Altars and cleansed Judah and Jerusalem 2 Chron. 34. v. 3 4 5. Of other Reforming Kings 't is noted That they took away the Altars of the strange Gods the high places brake down the Images and cut down the Groves Howbeit the High Places were not taken away they took away some but not all but this good King destroyed all the Monuments all the Reliques of Idolatry as you may read at large in the 2 Kings chap. 23. from the 4th to the end of the 20th verse Thirdly He was of a very publick Spirit for when he understood by the words of the Law That great was the Wrath of the Lord that was to be poured out upon Judah and Jerusalem because their Fathers kept not the Word of the Lord he commanded Hilkiah the Priest and others saying go enquire of the Lord for me and for them them that are left in Israel and Judah concerning the words of the book that is found And he endeavoured partly by Penitential Tears and deep Humblings of himself to allay the Divine Wrath and Indignation for his heart was tender and he did humble himself before God and partly by entering into a Covenant with God the sum and tenor of which was to walk after the Lord and to keep his Commandments and his Statutes with all his Heart and with all his Soul and to perform the words of the Covenant which are written in the Book of Moses And he caused all that were present in Jerusalem and in Benjamin to enter into the Covenant and to stand to it and the Inhabitants of Jerusalem did according to the Covenant of God the God of their Fathers as you may find it written 2 Cron. 34. verses 31 32. All this did this good King to avert were it possible imminent Judgments and threatned Desolations but he came to the Throne in such an ill time when they had so highly offended the Majesty of Heaven and so increased his Anger through their many Sins and repeated Provocations that notwithstanding all this great Reformation and the keeping of such a Passover as never was kept in Israel since the days of Samuel the Prophet yet the Lord turned not from the fierceness of his great wrath wherewith his anger was kinled against Judah because of all the provocations that Manasses had provoked him withal Fourthly Josiah was taken away when their Hopes and Expectations of some lasting Prosperity both in Church and State were advanced to the highest pitch Therefore Jeremiah thus Laments his Death The breath of our nostrils the anointed of the Lord was taken in their pits of whom we said under his shadow we shall live among the Heathen Lam. 4. v. 20. I am apt to think that this was not spoken of Zedekiah as some would have it for under such a Wicked and Idolatrous Prince they could not promise themselves any safety and when Josiah Dyed all their swelling hopes of future Prosperity expired and dyed with him then the Godly amongst them expected nothing but a Deluge of Sin and Misery to break in upon them For their splendid Reformation was only superficial a meer veil of Hypocrisie as Jeremiah who Prophesied in Josiah's Days complains Her treacherous sister Judah hath not turned to the Lord with her whole heart but feignedly or in falshood Jer. 3. v. 10. Having given some Account of the Jews great and universal Mourning for the Death of Josiah I come Thirdly To set before you the reasons of our Mourning for the Death of our late most Excellent Princess which well weighed are of force to dissolve three Kingdoms into Tears For First She was a Princess of most Illustriand Singular Piety She Sacrificed the Flower of Her Age and Time to the Service of the Great God from whom She had Her Being No Person had a greater sense of Religion or was more sincere in Her Devotions in which she was as constant as the returns of Day and Night the lofty Elevations of her Soul and her daily flights to Heaven did plainly show that Her Conversation was there also and that She had Communion and Fellowship with God the Father and with Jesus the Mediator of the New Covenant Her Life was so exactly Correspondent to Her Profession that She became the greatest Ornament and Example of true Piety that these later Ages have produced That Honourable Character given Josiah that like unto him there was no King before him may in some respect well become Her For She was the first of all the Kings and Queens that sate upon the British Throne who appointed After-noon Sermons to be Preached every Sunday at her Chapel in White-hall which She was pleased to Honour and Countenance with Her Royal Presence