all no not so much as by ambitious seeking Neither am I now upon a precise point except the prodigious iniquity of the times in this kinde represent it so thorow the false glasse of commonnesse and custome to the covetous and carnall eye be but honest Heathens but ingenious Turkes and that is not much I require of those who professe Christianity and you will be on my side â— witnesse See Peter Mar. Common places pag. 2â—7 Iust intan Iust. and Pacius Annot at p. 4â—3 That famous Iulian-law De ambitu amongst the ancient Romanes whereby it was enacted that if any man should attaine honour or magistracy by money he should both be punished with a great pecuniary mulct and also made infamous That right noble carriage of mighty Tamerlane a Scythian and commander of the Tarrars who is reported in the Turkish Story never to have bestowed his preferments upon such as ambitiously sought them as deeming them in so doing unworthy thereof but upon such as whose modesty or desert he thought worthy of those his great favours We are come unto a strange passe that it should be holden a Puritanicall point to condemne all corrupt comming into places of preferment and publicke charge sith even politicke Pagans and barbarous Nations out of light of reason and ordinary notions of nature did abhorre it And no marvell for besides motives of piety and the feare of GOD which they wanted even grounds of policy give us to understand that this base and accursed course was able to become the bane and breake-necke of the strongest States upon earth in short time I leave it to your wisdomes to weigh well in your owne bosomes what strange degenerations from worth and honour what fearefull Apostasie from orthodoxenesse and zeale it may bring upon a Common-weale in few yeares If the world once take notice Reason 1. that money doth the deed men to make way for preferment will seeke more to get money then merit Those who should rise into high roomes in the Common-wealth will labour rather to furnish themselves with heavy purses then noble parts Ministers will study more to become pragmaticall Traders about Benefices and other Ecclesiasticall promotions then compleat Divines and powerfull Preachers and having learned the Trade they would heape living upon living cry downe preaching plunge into the world and secular employments gather a hoard hoping thereby at length to be hoisted into some higher place c. which you know were a very horrible thing would marre all and undoe us quite Againe Reason 2. it is a common saying in this case what we buy by grosse we must sell by retaile He that buyeth saith Mornay is shrowdly provoked nay is after a sort openly dispensed withall to sell againe And what wofull worke and intollerable misery that brings upon a people you may easily guesse These two Reasons I have insinuated unto me in the French Story where the Authour gives this excellent eulogy of Lewis the ninth Pag. 153. The Realme was corrupted with the unjustice and extortion of former raignes by the sale of Offices being most certaine that what we buy in grosse we must sell by retaile He did therefore expresly prohibit these sales supplyed such places as were void according to the merit of persons after due examination to draw good men and of understanding to apply themselves to study otherwise they would have beene shrowdly tempted rather to have stored themselves with money then merite with gold then goodnesse Wise and gracious then is the counsell which the fore-named noble and learned * pag. 135. Mornay gave unto another French King in his Meditation upon Psalme 101. The Princes eye saith he and care should be upon the best sort of people to set them in offices and bestow charges upon them He should take this course Those that shall affect such places he should alwayes suspect them their persons and practises for certaine it is that he that very earnestly aimeth at an office or living hath laid his plot already and without doubt he desireth it for the profit and not for the charge Sermon 5. before King Edwad the 6. Heare also what old reverend Latimer said to this purpose in Edward the sixts time and the Saint GOD defend saith he that ever any such enormity take notice he takes it for an enormous sin should be in England that civill offices should be bought and sold whereas men should have them given for their worthinesse And a little after the holy Scripture qualifieth the Officers and sheweth what manner of men they should be men of courage wise fearing GOD c. Oh if Latimer had lived in our times I am sure if he had he would have beene a great honour and ornament to our Church Nay Anno 12. R. 2. cap. 2. heare your owne Law and Fer legem quam ipse tuleris The title is None shall obtaine offices by suite or for reward but upon desert The Chancelour Treasurer or Keeper of the privy Seale Steward of the Kings house the Kings Chamberlane Clarke of the Roles the Iustices of the one Bench and of the other Barons of the Exchequer and all other that shall be called to ordaine name or make Iustices of Peace c. nor other officer or Minister of the King shall be straightly sworne for any gift nor brocage savour nor affection nor that any which pursueth by himselfe or by other privily or openly to be in any manner of office shall be put in the same office or any other but that they make all such officers and Ministers of the best and lawfullest men and most sufficient to their judgement and knowledge Now blessed be GOD for this blessed law holding such a comfortable conformity to GODS holy Word complying so exactly with the grave counsels of all truely learned and godly Divines the auncient uprightnesse of morall Puritanes reason honesty common sence rules of naturall equity and necessity of holding up States Kingdomes and humane society for the contrary overthrowes them all and crossing directly the mighty torrent of the times corruptions You see here as in the former passages not onely the viler and baser and more grosse wayes of getting into places of preferment and rising as by gifts brocage affection favour c. are forbidden and condemned but even ambitious seeking also For howsoever it may seeme a strange paradoxe compared with the strong corruptions of the times yet notwithstanding it is a true principle in godly policy that he which ambitiously seekes a place even in so doing makes himselfe most unworthy of it An excellent Interpretour of Ioshuah intimating that GODS extraordinary earnestnesse and iteration of encouragements to Ioshuah implyed his lothnesse and backwardnesse to be advanced into Moses roome though he was a man of invincible spirit and incomparable wisdome le ts fall upon consideration thereof this conclusion Qui Magistratum ambiunt eorum unt indignissimi That none are lesse
of all professions and stations as for depth and variety of learning gravity and unswendnesse upon Seates of Iustice height of military valour largest comprehensions of State-wisedome excellency in all other kindes of worth as admirable and renowned as ever trod upon English mould Onely take an estimate and scantling of spirituall happinesse more properly incident to religious governments by that speech of a great man in our State 2. lib. pag. 116. of advancement of learning to the King If the choise and best saith he of those observations upon Texts of Scripture which have beene made dispersedly in Sermons within this your Majesties Iland of great Britaine by the space of these forty yeares and more had beene set downe in a continuance it had beene the best worke in Divinity which had beene written since the Apostles time And thence conclude that happy consequent the crowne and excellency of all trully worthy States How many blessed soules have beene sent to heaven and what a number of crowned Saints have beene created by such a conscionable ministry in all that time and of both temporall and spirituall felicity from King Iames his noble pen Greater blessings of GOD saith he greater outward peace and plenty greater inward peace with spirituall and celestiall treasures were never heaped upon my grea Britaine then have beene since my greate Britaine beame great in the greatest and chiefest respect of all to wit since my great Britaine hath shaken off the Popes yoke Against Person pag. 282. c. You see in short what a goodly thing Government is Now let us come to the Vses of this Doctrine and in the first place it serves for confuration Vse 1. First Confutation and confusion of all opposites to government especially the underminers and under prizers of Regall Authority the fountaine of subordinate and inferiour Magistracy Now to nullifie the nothingnesse of the phranticke bedlam Anabaptists Arguments they are fitter to be out of the number of men and driven out of the border of humane nature then to be disputed with for abolishing Magistracy under I know not what Christian perfection as a transient Mosaicall ceremony would not be worth the while I rather choose at this time to deale with the Papist a more subtile and plausible adversary in the point and in that regard more pestilent And here in the first place let me point you to the fountaine of those Popish fulminations and fire workes See Sâ—lateâ—â— Assize Sermon pag. 30. which have most unworthily beaten upon and blasted the Imperiall and Regall Throne of Christendome and the first mover as it were of that bloody Sphere See Bellarmine lib. â— de 〈◊〉 cap 1 c. 〈…〉 art Praeâ—eâ—ea Prinâ—ipatus 〈◊〉 ris institut usest â—b hominibus est q de jure gentium which the man of sinne hath turned upon the face of Europe and torne and rent it in a rufull maner It is this That the power of Kings Princes and Magistrates is not ordained by the divine Law of GOD but an humane ordinance This teacheth Bellarmine And they all hand over head And in his booke against Barkly Arnoux upon the 30. Article of the French Confession calls the power of Magistrates an humane law Greg de Valendisp 1. â— 10 de infidelitate p. 8. art Si autem Namut rectè ratiocinatur hic D Thomas jus Dominij vet prelatoinis introductiiest jure humano gentium Bell. lib. 1. de Clericis cap. 28. art ad confirmationem draw this cunning and cut-throate conclusion for so it proves in the consequents out of the empoysoned fountaine of * In his 22. â— 10. art 1. Dominium prelatio sunt introductaeâ—â—urchumano â— 12 art 2. DominiuÌ„ introducâ—um de jure gentium quodest est ius humanum Aquinas Their reasons for this point are as weake as water and flie but with one wing Those of best shew are these which I refute in a word First He that was first King in the world to wit Nimrod made himselfe King by force not by the ordinance of GOD. Ergo c. So. The Antecedent is false before Nimrod fathers and heads of families were Kings Priests and soveraigne Princes of their families For after the floud men lived five or six hundred yeares Then it was an easie matter for a man to see fifty yea a hundred thousand persons of his posterity over whom he exercised paternall power and by consequence soveraigne power then when there was no other forme of a Realme upon the earth to which children their servants being added one family alone made a great Common-wealth Likewise in Abrahams time when mans life was much shortened he was called by the Hethites a mighty Prince Gen. 23.6 and he tooke out of his family 318. Souldiers to the warre Gen. 14.14 Againe how could mankind be maintained and the world stand for 1656. yeares without Soveraignty and Authority of the Magistrate Then to the consequent I say thus much if a strange Prince should invade a Kingdome they doe well to defend themselves and if the usurper be slaine he is justly punished but if he conquer and the ancient professours be quite extinguished and then the whole State concurre upon him and sweare fidelity to the new King then we must thinke that GOD hath established such a Prince in that Kingdome Then I say that the people ought to yeeld to the will of GOD who for the sinnes of Kings and of their people transposeth Kingdomes and disposeth of the issues of warre Object 2. Secondly But Saint Peter calls obedience to Kings an humane ordinance 1 Pet. 2.13 Ergo c. Sol. Sol. It is so called not in respect of â—he substance of government and institution and Causaliter as the Schooles speake but in respect of first the subject wherein it is seated secondly or the object whereupon it is seated thirdly to the end to which it is directed or fourthly the severall formes or meanes by which it is attained The question is not by what meanes whether by hereditary succession or election or any other humane forme a Prince comes into his Kingdome but whether by the ordinance of GOD we ought to obey him when he is established I hope the Pope is hoisted into his chaire of pestilence by the election of the Cardinals or worse meanes See Azorius 2. col pag. 1551 and yet that hinders not our adversaries from holding it a divine ordinance Object 3. Thirdly Yea but there is no expresse commandement set downe by GOD to obey Henry or Lewis or Iames or Charles or to acknowledge this or that man more then another to be King Sol. Most besotted and infatuated Sophistry By the same reason Bellarmine is not bound to be an honest man because there is no particular and expresse commandement in GODs Booke that R. B. ought to be an honest man Neither is there any speciall charge from GOD that Bellarmine must obey Paul the
blood which she hath furiously spilt in her drunken humour and powred upon the face of Europe almost all in our remembrance I might I say enlarge those points but I will at this time onely hold me to the present and deliver my selfe in a word In the first place that they kill Kings it is cleare in the eye of all Christendome I will goe no further then the presentage and the fresh bleeding memory of such dolefull acts Two of the last Kings of France Henry the third and the fourth fell from their Imperiall Thrones by the bloody knives of two Popish villaines See Moulins book of Faith pa. 544 545. Kings Answer to Perron pag. 284. pa. 4. Sixtus the fifth excommunicated and deposed Henry the third and then Iames Clement Iacobin committed that horrible Parricide upon his Royall person Ravillacke was the other Assasin who rendred this reason for his monstrous and horrible attempt That King Henry had a designe to warre with GOD because he had a designe to take armes against his Holinesse who is God Now besides how greatly did they thirst after the virgin blood of the late Princely Elizabeth with a prodigious variety of murderous complotments had not the silver line of her much honoured life beene hid in the endlesse maze of GODs bottomelesse mercy those bloody Romish hunters had many and many a time laid her honour in the dust Nay but for a miracle of the same infinite mercy they had torne King Iames in pieces his noble Queene the Royall limbes of those two sweet and orient Princes and that princely starre that now shines so faire in Bohemia by their powder-mine There was no want at all of Popish malice purpose utmost endeavour to have spilt all this Royall blood as water upon the ground and therefore I also take all these noble Princes as direct and proper Instances for Popish King-killing Yea Object but those may some say were but onely some discontented persons which out of some desperate pang acted these bloody Assasinates Profession it selfe and Popish religion is not to be charged with such exorbitant out-rages Nay Sol. but they have mard all for that and left no roome for any such reply 2. And therefore I must tell you in the second place that their learnedest Professours and greatest Doctors blurre their bookes with these bloody lines and teach this most abhorred Trade of King-killing See the Kings Answer to Perron pag. 5. and Moulins book of Faith p. 546. and murdering Princes Bellarmine Becanus Suarez Eudaemon Ioannes with other like monsters c. are such bloody Doctors of the scarlet Whore But above all me-thinks * Francis de Verona in his Apology for Iohn Chastell Francis de Verrona and Mariana * Mariana de Rege Regis Institutione li. 1. cap 6. are the most mercilesse Masters of this execrable Art as I shall shew you in another Treatise Yea but yet for all this these are but private Doctors and may erre 3. Well therefore Object in the third place for I charged them with that also I must tell you that King-killing is approved and applauded by their transcendent Doctour which is virtually and eminently all the Popish Doctours in the world ever assisted with the unfallible spirit of deceiving and being deceived the Pope himselfe Sixtus the fifth gave thankes unto God in open Consistory for the horrible assasinate perpetrated by Iames Clement upon Henry the third of France Object But was not that Oration published by the Protestants purposely to cast such a bloody aspersion upon his holinesse I tell you no it was put out by the Papists and printed at Paris See Moulins of Faith 546. See the Popes approbation of King-killing further proved by K. Iames in his Answer to Person pag. 122 123. by Nicholas Nivelle and Rollin Thierry with approbation of their Doctors Boucher de Creil and Ancelin and doe you thinke he would not have approved Faux his fire-worke if it had blowne up the Parliament if not why suffers he Garnet and Oldcorne powder-miners both by bookes and pictures saleable under his nose in Rome to be enrolled in the Canon of holy Martyrs but the old Fox is wily enough not so directly and heartily to commend a mischiefe untill it be done The Powder-plot was of the nature of those Acts Quae nunquam laudantur nisi per-acta as Tacitus speakes You see then at length by what degrees these Romish Locusts are fallen soule upon Government upon all Imperiall Regall Princely power So that at this day to the inexpiable shame and dis honour of the whole Christian world they teach act and approve the bloody killing of crowned Potentates Which things sith they are thus you are an honourable wise and worthy Auditory I say no more but this Me-thinkes it is an astonishment beyond the comprehensions of nature reason Religion Policies of State that such an intollerable generation so odious both to heaven and earth for abominable Idolatry so visibly infamous both to this and the other world with many capitall characters of blood so endlesse and implacable in their ragefull designements against the crowned Majesty of the Kings Throne so prodigious in their plots that they have cast an inexpiable and everlasting aspersion upon the innocency of Christian Religion such furious Assasins and Incendiaries for murdering of Princes butcheries of people and fiering of States so inraged even like Woolves in the evening to swallow us up quicke if the time did serve I say that such in so Orthodox a Church and noble a State should by allowance toleration connivence or remissenesse be suffered to receive increasement and multiplication both in number and insolency to the great dis-honour of GOD Almighty the continuall vexation of GODs Children and good subjects and the most certaine hazzard of the whole Estate and the peaceable succession of the Kings posterity And the more strange it is for these three reasons First What conceit doe you thinke out of the congruity of Popish principles is it likely they hold of this forbearance and what thankes doe they returne to the State undoubtedly to thinke that it is infatuated for their sakes and that the hands of Iustice are manacled by GODs over-ruling providence that it cannot be executed so fully and freely upon such a loving holy and unbloody generation Secondly They daily doe their utmost at home a broade to crosse King Iames his princely Admonition unto them in his first speech in the Parliament wherein he admonished the Papists that they would not so farre presume upon his lenity as thereupon to thinke it lawfull for them to increase their number strength in his Kingdome whereby if not in his time yet at least in time of his Posterity they might be in hope to erect their religion againe Thirdly If the day should come they have so long looked for but I hope in the LORD all their eyes shall drop out of their
for his owne sinnes or the abominations of the Kingdome in any day of humiliation Give me an Angell upon earth and an incarnate Devill a faire coole shaddow under a goodly tree in a sweltring heate and a scurvy thorny-bush to which the poore sheepe never flies for succour in a storme but looseth some of her fleece a showre of raine in a great drought upon the new Moone-grasse and the scorching Sunne upon a dry parched heath an Obadiah and a Shebna GODs dearling and the Devils drudge and you have made the difference Secondly Consider the difference of the Kings eye I meane in respect of anger and amiablenesse cast upon a desperate Traitour and his nearest Favourite proportionably but with infinit more loathing or liking the aspect of GODs pure eye is diuersified looking upon an enemy to the power of Godlinesse and profession of the Saints and that happy one who hath made his peace with him and is cloathed with the righteousnesse of his Sonne that glorious eye of his which is ten thousand times brighter then the Sunne and cannot looke on iniquity doth cast downe a direct perpendicular raye as it were upon every wicked man without any diversion or retraction that I may so speak of its fierce edge and fiery pointednesse and therefore sees him in his colours a very vile sinnefull cursed loathsome beast though he seem to himself and the great of the world a brave and jolly fellow abhorred of GOD and man heaven and earth and by consequent as an object of infinite indignation and hatred But he ever lookes upon his owne Child through the meritorious sufferings and satisfactions of the Sonne of his love in whome all his discontents against him are done away and drowned for ever and so beholds him such and so lovely as the blood and righteousnesse of IESVS CHRIST hath made him Even as to a man looking through a red glasse all the world appeares red and orient in his eye So to the eye of GOD the Father looking from his throne of mercy upon a godly man through the bleeding wounds of his blessed Saviour he is rendered and represented right faire and ruddy deeeply impressioned with an heavenly dye of acceptation and grace Now tell me whether a people be liker to prosper under him upon whom the mighty LORD of heaven lookes amiably or angrily 2. By morall righteousnesse I meane all those perfections and possibilities of civill honesty and upright dealing attaineable by the light of naturall understanding generall notions of right and wrong and practice of morall precepts inlarged improoved and husbanded to the height hereby many ancient Heathens went farre and did many admirable and excellent things even such and so worthy that may justly make the best of our meere civill honest men hang downe their heads and be horribly ashamed For instance Fabricius that famous Roman was so precise that as it is reported of him it was easier to turn the Sunne from his course then to draw Fabricius from just and honest dealing King Pyrrhus could with no gold or gifts no not with promise of the fourth part of his Kingdome possibly corrupt this man And yet how many miserable men in this very mid-day of the Gospell will be easily drawn by a secret bribe office honour preferment some earthly favour to doe villanously to betray a good cause a good man and a good conscience to shame himselfe for ever grow odious to GOD and man and goe to hell In these dissolute and formall times would it not be deemed to draw towards too much strictnesse if a Minister should presse this duty upon Lawyers that every time before they goe out of their doores to plead at the Barre they should prostrate themselves in private and besides other passages pray unto GOD that he would so guide their tongues that day that they may speake nothing but advisedly and to the purpose And yet Pericles that famous Oratour of Greece who for the excellency of his eloquency and mightinesse of his speech was said to thunder and lighten at the Barre out of the very principles of nature and naturall sense of of a Deity ever before he went to plead a cause as Plutarch tells us in his life intreated his GODs that not a word should fall from him besides his purpose which he practised no doubt out of conscience of Platoes principle in Tim. See Hooker pa. 63. That in all things we goe about GODs helpe by prayer is to be craved In the administration and execution of Iustice many of them though led onely and inlightned by the conduct of reason were extraordinarily exact and of admirable integrity See sir Walter Rauleigh lib. 2. pag. 549. Tit. A. C. ad Leg. Ful. Repetund Carion Chron. pag. 89. Zaleneus made a law that every adulterer should loose his eyes his sonne was first taken in the fact least that law should be violated he was content to part with one of his owne eyes and his sonne was punished with the losse of another Cambyses King of Persia having detected the corruption of a Iudge in his Kingdome commands him to be put to death his skin to be plucked off and spread upon the Iudgement Seate as a Carpet his sonne to sit in the fathers throne so adorned that he and all posterity might feare for ever to pervert Iustice and to deale untruly in judgement Mount Essa pag. 479. The Egyptian Kings solemnely and usually presented this oath to their Iudges Not to swarve from their consciences what cōmand soever they should receive from themselves to the contrary The Roman lawes called the lawes of the twelve Tables See Vol. lib. 2. pag. 668. Aemilius Paulus his love to the publicke and Hannibals also D.p. 570. And also that of Canutus See Drexel Infernus Rogus Epi. Dedicur so often magnified by Tully appoints That if a Iudge or any other in Authority for that purpose should take money in the point of administring Iustice he should die for it If any should beare false witnesse hee should be throwne downe from the Tarpeian rocke Thus you heare in a few particulars that Morall righteousnesse guided onely by the light of naturall conscience goes farre and yet it comes farre short of that righteousnesse required by my Text and in Christian rules it is many wayes defective First There wants a right roote Faith in IESUS CHRIST and therefore all its productions famous atchievements and excellencies were stiled by the Fathers but beautifull abominations having no better grounds then selfe-love vaine glory rules of policy naturall notions at the best they all withered and came to nothing Secondly There wants speciall grace as the soule and life to quicken and sanctifie it in every passage and particular circumstance to Christianize it that I may so speake and crowne it Thirdly There wants supernaturall principles and divine light to irradiate enlarge and fortifie it Fourthly There wants the right end GODs glory Liberty and immortall