Justice and Clemency But Fourthly He was more especially angry with them for rejecting himself For God himselfe was in a peculiar manner King of Israel and by asking a King to go out and in before them they threw off the Government of God himself They have not rejected thee says God to Samuel when he appeared discontented at their Propositions but they have rejected me that I should not reign over them This then was their great Sin and Fault that they asked a King when they had already the best of Kings when the Lord their God was their King They were not culpable because they chose to be under Monarchical Government for they were under that before but because they preferred the Government of a King before the immediate Government of God For during the Times of Moses and Joshuah and the Judges they being inspired Persons who acted by a Divine Impulse the exercise of their Authority was under Gods own immediate direction But when God gave them a King though he himself was in some sense still their King and though the King which he gave them was his Minister and Vicegerent who ruled by and under him and received the Laws of Government from him yet he then in great measure left the Administration of it to the Will and Pleasure of Princes and to the Methods of humane Policy Now I confess indeed the Government of an Earthly King is not so eligible as the Government of God himselfe but it may notwithstanding be much better than any other Form of humane Government and it is manifest God thought it better because when he foresaw that the Israelites would in time be weary of his immediate Government he gave direction in their Law for setting up a King not for erecting a Republick or Popular State As we find in Deut. 17. 14. When thou art come to the Land which the Lord thy God shall give thee and shalt possess it and dwell therein and shalt say I will set a King over me like all the Nations that are about me thou shalt in any wise set him over thee whom the Lord thy God shall chuse And the Hebrews observe that there were three special Precepts given their Fathers which they were obliged to obey after their settled Possession of the Land of Canaan First that they should have a King over them Secondly that they should destroy Amalek Thirdly that they should build a Temple Of which three the first was concerning the setting up a King because the other two were to be performed by him It seems God was so far from being an Enemy to Kings that he designed a perfect Regal Government for his own People as soon as they should be well settled in the promised Land They were then to have a King a King not in any wise to be set up by the Election of the People who have no Power to govern themselves and can transfer none to another but a King of Gods own chusing and a King like those of other Nations with all the external Magnificence of Royal Majesty For so Samuel represents the manner of their King which though look'd upon by some Learned Men as a Description of Arbitrary Tyranny is supposed by others to be only an account of what is necessary to the due support of Regal Power according to the just Grandeur and Dignity thereof He tells them that their King should take their Sons and appoint them for himself for his Chariots and to be his Horsmen c. and to be Captains over Thousands and captains over Fifties c. and take their Daughters to be his Confectionaries and Cooks and take their Fields and Vineyards and Oliveyards that is to say the Tenth of them for so it is expressed in the following words the Tenth of their Seed and of their Vineyards and the Tenth of their Sheep c. All which seems to be absolutely requisite to the Royal State of a Soveraign Prince who cannot subsist without Servants and Officers of all sorts both for his Domestick Affairs and for the Execution of his Government nor maintain his Servants without a sufficient Revenue by Publick Taxes such as the Tenth of their Fields Vineyards and Flocks which was the usual Tribute paid to the Eastern Kings And now it must be acknowledged that Samuel does upon this account dissuade the Israelites from desiring a King because the necessary supports and expences of Royal Power would seem oppressive and burdensome to them who had been hitherto free from such Charges and Exactions For while they were governed by their former Monarchs by the High Priest or the Judge the Government was no charge at all to them The High Priest had no other Maintenance when he was Supreme Governour than when he was only High Priest And the Judge whom God extraordinarily raised up was secured and supported in his Government by the extraordinary Presence of the Divine Power without the Aids of Men or Money without any Mass of Treasure or numerous Guards and Trains of Servants But this is no disparagement at all to the ordinary Kingly Power as if that were more expensive and burdensome than other Forms of humane Government because it was like to be a new Charge to a People whose peculiar Priviledge it was to be free before from all such Services and Tributes The Israelites then were at length by Gods own Wise Institution placed under the Conduct and Dominion of compleat and perfect Kings who had not only the Power and Office but also the very Name and Title with all the Magnificent Appendages of Regal Majesty The first of these Kings was Saul of the Tribe of Benjamin who after God had chosen and exalted him to that high Dignity was received as a great Blessing from Heaven with the most joyful Acclamations of the People And the Holy Ghost hath thought fit to leave it upon Record that they were only the Children of Belial that said how shall this Man save us and that such Miscreants were the only men who despised him and brought him no Presents 1 Sam. 10. 24. 27. The People had desired a King that might go out before them and fight their Battles which desires and expectations Saul at first very well answered For when he took the Kingdom over Israel he fought against all their Enemies on every side against Moab Ammon Edom Zobah and the Philistins and whithersoever he turned himself he vexed them And he gathered an Host and smote the Amalekites and delivered Israel out of the hands of them that hated them 1 Sam. 14. 47 48. And although God was pleased to rend the Kingdom from Saul for sparing some of Amalek contrary to the Divine Command and for invading the Priests Office yet he was so far from abolishing Kingly Power that he carefully appointed a Successor in it and sent Samuel to Anoint him Indeed it was ever his purpose to settle the Kingdom in Judah and therefore he took occasion from Saul's
And if the Fear of God be considered as it is a filial Reverence compounded with Love it will be much more powerful to move and excite Obedience to him Reverence willingly offers readily pays and chearfully performs what was forced and constrained by meer Fear If Awe and Affection be united in a devout Veneration of the God whom we serve his Service which before was a Yoak and a Burden then becomes perfect Freedom so pleasant and so natural to us that to refuse it will be an Extinguishing of our own Joys a Resisting oâ— our own Desires and a Violence to ourselves A man that highly reveres another is as much inclined to please him as he is to please himself and as unwilling to offend him as he is to wound his own Breast Obedience therefore is an Inseparable Effect of filial Fear or Reverence And that which is so is the most certainâ— Mark of the Truth and Reality oâ— our Religion We all profess Religion and the Fear of God we all pretend the highest Awe and Reverence to his divine Majesty But do we sincerely endeavour to serve and please him Are we guilty of no wilful disobedience no chosen and deliberate violations of his holy Laws If we indulge any of these the true Fear of God is not in us For it is fourthly to be noted That these are the Contraries and Opposites unto this Fear All wilful and presumptuous Sins are perfectly repugnant to it These are Affronts and Contempts bold and Impudent Practices which carry the Marks of great Irreverence clearly written upon their Brow When men deliberately chuse to do those things which they plainly see and know to be contrary to the Divine Laws this is a manifest Discovery that there is no Fear of God before their eyes Let us therefore prove the truth of our Religion by the sincerity of our Obedience particularly by our Obedience to those Commands of God which require us to be Loyal to our Prince That we may fully shew what an Awful Sense we have of the Majesty and Soveraignty of the most high God both in our Words and in our Actions let both our Words and Actions declare how much we revere his Power and Authority not onely in himself but in those also whom he hath set over us And so I come to the second part of Solomon's Advice wherein we are admonished unto the Fear of God to subjoyn the Fear of the King who is Gods Vicegerent Of which I shall discourse in the same Method as I have done of the former by considering its Nature Degrees Effects and Contraries First As for the Nature of the Fear which we owe unto the King 't is very much of the same nature with that Fear which is due to God himself onely 't is inferior and subordinate to it For Kings are honoured in holy Scripture with the adorable Name of God And the Laws of England looking upon the King as a God upon Earth do attribute unto him in some Analogy diverse Excellencies that belong properly to God alone such as are a kind of Omnipotency in raising men from Death to life by pardoning whom the Law hath condemned a certain Omnipresency by his numerous Officers who every where represent him and little less than an Infallibility and an absolute Perfection of Wisdom and Righteousness For our Law will have no Error no Injustice no Folly no Imperfection whatsoever to be found in the King The Fear therefore which we owe to our dread Soveraign even like that which we render to the divine Majesty is a most profound Reverence for an high Esteem of and a most humble and dutiful Affection unto his Sacred Person and Authority It is a filial Fear compounded of Dread and Love For the King is the Father of our Country by whose Providence and Protection we are supported and defended by whose vigilant Care and Conduct we quietly enjoy all that we possess Of this as St. Jerom hath observed even the Philistines were so sensible that it was a constant Custom among them to call all their Princes by the name of Abimelech which signifies both Father and King And it was the Promise of God to his Church that in the Times of the Gospel Kings should be her nursing Fathers and Queens her nursing Mothers Which great Blessing hath been and is most visibly enjoyed by us in this Nation as much as by any People under Heaven Since then by being born the Kings Subjects we have the Happiness to be his Children the very law of Nature doth oblige us to pay him all the Awfulness and Affection and Duty of Children If I be a Father saith God where is mine Honour If I be a Master where is my Fear Now the King next and immediately under God is the great and common Father the supreme Lord and Master of us all And therefore secondly The Degrees and Measures of Honour and Fear which are due to the King are the very highest and the greatest next unto those that are due to God himself The supreme Power and Authority under God being lodged in the sacred Person of the Soveraign Prince he may justly demand the supreme Honour Within his own Dominions he is only less and lower than God he is greater and higher than all Ranks and Orders of Men. Yea all the States of the Realm joyned together all the Nobles and Commons and the whole Body of the People have not a Power and Authority equal to his All his Subjects whether Publick Magistrates or private men not only severally and apart but joyntly and together are under his Command For otherwise he would not be the King of a Kingdom or a Political Society united under one Form of Government but only a King of single men separately taken and so he would be a strange kind of Chimerical and imaginary Prince a King of nothing but a Rope of sands In the first Epistle of St. Peter Chap. 2. ver 13 and 14. that great Apostle makes this plain Distinction between our Subjection to the King and to all other Magistrates whether taken collectively or distributively We are to submit to the King as Supreme to all others as his Officers and Delegates Sent and Commissioned by him all of them together as well as each of them apart having received all their Power and Authority from him and he having received his from God alone For the King is no Substitute of the People but the Minister of God and his Power is the Ordinance of God This is the Voice of Scripture and of Reason and this I may with the greatest Confidence because I can with the strongest Evidence affirm it being not only the unanimous Opinion of all the Wisest Politicians and Statesmen in the World but also the Catholick Doctrine of the Christian Church for many hundreds of years together that a Monarch or Soveraign in his own Dominions hath no Superior but God Almighty And indeed it would be
at length into such a Deluge of boundless Wickedness as quite extinguished the Light of our Israel and pulled down upon as so singular an Instance of the Divine Vengeance as no Nation had felt before the most barbarous and unparallel'd Murder of one of the best Kings â—hat ever sat upon a Throne our late most Gracious Soveraign From hence 〈◊〉 say it will appear that this Days humble and mournful Reflection on â—hat blackest of Britain's Tragedies is 〈◊〉 great and common Duty to which â—…ll even the most innocent Natives of his piacular Island are indispensibly obliged These Conclusions I take to be clearly inferred from those Premises and I believe no sober and knowing Man can think otherwise if he seriously and thorowly consider this Royal and Divine Aphorism which came from the Pen of Solomon and the Mouth of God For the transgression of a Land many are the Princes thereof But by a man of understanding and knowledge the State thereof shall be prolonged In which words there lie before us these Four Observables First a publick National Judgment and that is the ill State of a Nation under Polyarchy or Plurality of Supreme Governours when many are the Princes thereof Secondly the notorious Cause of such a Judgment it is expresly ascribed to the Wickedness of a People the transgression of a Land Thirdly the opposite National Mercy or the Happiness of a Nation under a well settled Monarchy when 〈◊〉 a man of understanding and knowledge the State thereof is prolonged A man that is to say one Man one Soveraign Prince in opposition to the many Princes before mentioned Fourthly The principal means whereby so great a Mercy is procured and that is the Wisdom of the Monarch his understanding and knowledge I begin with the first of these the National Judgment many Princes by which it is plain we are to understand Supreme or Soveraign Princes For many inferior Magistrates or subordinate Governours are at all times necessary to every State and Kingdom even in their most peaceful and flourishing Condition It is therefore the multiplication of Soveraigns that Solomon here speakes of by many of whom may be meant either many lawful Soveraigns or many Usurpers both which are publick Evils although the latter be the more signal Judgment First then by Princes in the Text we may understand lawful Soveraigns and of them there may be either many successively or many at once There may be many successively in a Monarchical State sometimes by the very Nature of the Constitution as in an Elective Monarchy where the Crown is not inviolably fixed in one Royal Family and in the one â—ight Line according to Priviledge of â—irth and Proximity of Blood but is conferred on various Persons of divers Families or different Lines according to the Will and Pleasure of the Electors This is an ill State in comparison of Hereditary Monarchy At the Death of every Prince 't is subject to an Interregnum in which the whole Frame of things may be unsettled and every new Election not only commits the Administration of Affairs to untried hands but may also expose the Kingdom to great Chages and dangerous Revolutions arising from the opposite Interests Affections and Inclinations of various Families and consequently of such Persons as are chosen out of them Indeed if it happen that the Elected King be the Son of Nobles as Solomon speaks if he descended from the Sacred Race of Kings and hath been educated among Princes from his Youth iâ— he hath not only the Title Place and Office but the real Majesty and Authority the God-like Spirit the Wisdom Justice and Clemency of a King matters may go well while he Reigneth Blessed art thou O Land when thy King is the Son of Nobles Eccles 10. 17. But if it so fall out as it often may iâ— an Arbitrary Election that the Prince be chosen out of the meanest of the People if he be a Person of low Birth and servile Condition the Kingdom can never be happy under such a Governour For a Servant when he reigneth is one of those three things for which the Earth is disquieted and one of the four which it cannot bear Prov. 30. 21. 22. Sometimes also by the Will and Pleasure of Heaven and by the Visitation of God there may be many Princes successively even in an Hereditary Monarchy when by reason of the frequent Deaths and short Reigns of Kings there is a Succession of divers of them within a few years This is generally disadvantageous to the Happiness of 〈◊〉 Nation if it doth not prove fatal to When there is such a Mortality of Monarchs that the Earthly Gods die â—â—ster than common Men when the children of the most High are brought â—â—w and not one alone but many of â—â—e Princes fall by an untimely Dissolution before they can bring their deâ—…ns and endeavours for the safety and â—elfare of their People to any good â—aturity and when the Crown thus swiftly passing from one to another is devolved upon Infants who are unskilful in the Arts of Empire obnoxious to the unfaithfulness of Tutors and easie to be misled by the treacherous Conduct of ill Ministers this ruffles the publick Affairs and usually causeth great discomposures Wo to thee O Land when thy King is a Child Eccles 10 16. Although this Wo may be in good measure prevented where the Change and the loss of Princes is recompensed by the continuance of the same wise Counsellors and the defect of Age made up by the uncorrupted Innocence and the early Piety of the Crowned Child But as the having many Princes successively is sometimes the misfortune oâ— the best of Monarchies so the having many together and at once is the constant mischief of a Republick when the Soveraignty is actually invested more than one either in a certain number of Select Persons which is incoâ—modious enouh or which is muâ—â— worse in the very Multitude and general Crowd in the whole Body of 〈◊〉 People the Head and the Feet 〈◊〉 Brains and the Heels the Honouraâ—â—â— the Wise the Sober and all the base and blind and boisterous Rabble having their share in the Government I deny not that these Republicks are lawful Powers in those places where by Divine permission they have had a durable continuance and establishment Long Possession may give them a Title and as bad as they are Use and Custom and the Situation of some Countries may make them tolerable in some few particular places Neither will I say that Solomon did expresly and designedly pronounce this Sentence concerning them The truth is they cannot boast of so great Antiquity It doth not appear that any such Forms of Government had ever been heard of in his Days But because many in this Age and in this Nation have been such fond Admirers of Common-Wealths I shall for their sakes enquire whether these rare Models of Government although they do not fall directly under Solomon's Censure be really any better
is thine Thine is the Kingdom O Lord and thou art exalted above all Both Riches and Honour come of thee and thou reignest over all Theocracy or the Government of God himself is most perfectly and necessarily Monarchical which is a clear Indication of the supereminent Excellency of this Form of Government and that the happy Settlement and durable Establishment of a Nation may be most effectually promoted by it Secondly Monarchy is the Government which God hath chosen and appointed among the Children of Men for the good of humane Societies in Nations and Kingdoms As himself by Right of Creation and Conservation hath an immense Monarchy over all the World so he hath ordained finite and limited Monarchies in the several Regions of the Earth in each of which it pleased his Divine Providence always to set up one Deputy or Vicegerent who next and immediately under himself was Supreme Lord and Governor of all until at length Rebellions and Usurpations in some few of them violated the Order of God converted Monarchies into Popular States and advanced the Subjects above the Soveraign As it is in Gods Power alone to appoint Rulers and Magistrates and to confer an Authority to govern the World so his Wisdom is best able to judge what Form of Polity is most conducive to the Welfare of Mankind And therefore such sort of Governours and Governments as by his Providence have been most anciently and universally established ought by infinite Degrees to be preferred before any of the new Models which have been contrived and introduced by those Troublers of the World that are given to Change We justly value things according to their Original and their Antiquity Now if we would know the Original and the Antiquity of Monarchical Government we must look back as far as Adam and look up as high as God Monarchy began in Heaven and to make this lower World happy it was soon after established upon Earth Although the Empire of Nimrod be the first that is expresly mentioned in the Sacred Writings yet the first of Men was undoubtedly a Monarch who during the many hundred years he lived in the World was the only Soveraign under God and all his numerous Posterity were as much his Subjects as they were his Children being obliged by the Law of God and Nature to revere his irresistible Authority and to pay a dutiful Obedience to him After his Death his second Son Abel being slain and Cain the Eldest cursed by God for the Murder of him the Empire descended to Seth his third Son who as it is conceived established Religion and made Laws and Constitutions concerning Divine Worship For in his Days we read that Men began to call on the Name of the Lord After Seth Enosh his Son succeeded in the Government After Enosh the following Patriarchs And so long as the World was but one Nation and of one Language we may rationally suppose that they had but one King But at the Confusion of Languages each Division of People had their Head who undertook to conduct them to some convenient Region where they might dwell together and so he who was their Leader became their Prince as Heber was the King of the Hebrews From hence-forward there were various Kingdoms dispersed over the Face of the Earth which were both distinguished and protected from each other by the separate Rule and Government of their several Princes And such was the firm and stable Foundation which Monarchy had in all the former Ages of the World that the Earth knew no other Power for above three thousand years For the first Republick that History takes notice of was at Athens and it began as some say after the Expiration of the Reign of Eryxias which happened in the thirteenth Olympiad and neer the Year of the World 3275 or at the farthest after the Death of King Codrus who lived somewhat above an hundred years before and is said to be the last King of Athens by Justin and some others Afterwards Sparta Corinth Thebes and other Cities of Greece followed the Example of Athens But those little Common-Wealths were continually plagued either with intestine Broils or Foreign Wars and the Athenians in particular which were the first that changed their Government paid dearly for it when instead of one King they had thirty Tyrants reigning over them And at last when these quarrelsome States had almost ruined one another they were all made to submit to the Macedonian Empire and never suffered to erect that Form of Government again After these I have not read of any Republick of Note in the World besides the Roman until our few Modern Common-wealths were set up whose later Date is easily known Since then it was Monarchy under which the Nations of the world lived and flourished in a settled and uninterrupted course for so many thousand years it is not probable that the happy State of a Land should be so well prolonged under any sort of Popular Government which turbulent Innovations have introduced Thirdly As it is not to be doubted but Monarchy was anciently the Universal Government of the World set up by Divine Order and Approbation so it is particularly most clear and certain from Holy Scripture that it was of Gods own especial Designation and Appointment among his peculiar People the Children of Israel whom he had chosen above all other Nations to be the Objects of his singular Favour Their Government was Monarchical as soon as they became a Nation even from the time of their Deliverance out of the Egyptian Slavery and so it all along continued until after that the Son of God came down from Heaven to be their King their Nation was most justly destroyed for their horrid Impiety in rejecting and crucifying that Prince of Peace The first Governour God placed over them was Moses who was their Lawgiver and Judge and as real a Soveraign as ever raigned He was King in Jeshurun Deut. 33. 5. or according to some Versions King in Israel He was a King as the Learned Grotius saith upon the Place Non quidem Nomine Pompâ sed Jure regio His Power was Supreme Sacred and Inviolable his Will and Command uncontrolable and those that denied or disputed his Authority received the most exemplary Vengeance from Heaven that was ever inflicted upon the worst of Mankind He appointed indeed divers inferior Magistrates and Judges as Jethro advised him he chose able men out of all Israel and made them Heads over the People Rulers of Thousands Hundreds Fifties and Tens but the Supreme Power he wisely reserved in his own Hands and all the most difficult and weighty Causes were brought to him that they might be decided by his final and determinative Sentence from whence there was no Appeal Neither were any Sacred or Ecclesiastical matters exempted from his Regulation and Government The whole Aaronical Ministry which consisted in Typical Rites Ceremonies and Sacrifices was ordered and appointed by him although executed by
than the many Princes in my Text are supposed to be Whether they be not for the most part Judgments and Punishments sent from Heaven for the transgression of a Land That they were generally so in their Original I think is not much to be doubted For what was it that brought Republicks into the World Was it not Faction and Sedition Were they not all at first meer Usurpations Where is then any People Nation or Language which was not anciently subject to Kings We cannot suppose that any was not unless we will take upon us as some of our Republicans have confidently done to question the truth of all ancient History Tully places it inter notiora among the things of known certainty that all were of old under Regal Government Justin begins his Epitome thus Principio Rerum Gentium Nationumque Imperium penes Reges erat To which agrees that of Salust Initio Reges diversi nam in terris nomen Imperii id primum fuit Yea the sacred and infallible Story in the Writings of Moses who had both the Power of a King and the Spirit of a Prophet gives us sufficient poof thereof And if we search after the first Rise and Birth of Aristocratical or Democratical States we shall constantly find upon Record that they were the natural products of Perfidiousness and Rebellion When men shook off their Allegiance to their Prince and revolted from that Establishment to which they were born Subjects then they Erected a Common-Wealth Thus the Roman Republick began by a Regifugium the fickle and inconstant People changing the very Form of their Government because of the particular miscarriages of one of their Governours Thus the united Netherlands upon their Defection from the King of Spain made up a Combination of many Independent Jurisdictions joyning together of meer necessity to keep themselves from being punished for rebelling against and abjuring their rightful Prince Thus the Swiss Cantons revolting from the House of Austria Genoa from the Empire and Geneva from the Duke of Savoy set up for themselves as Common-Wealths or free States as they love to be called casting off their ancient and for the most part easie dependance upon their lawful Soveraigns that they might aspire to the Name and Shadow of a troublesome Freedom And even the so much celebrated Venetians stole their Republick at first taking advantage of the common Fears and Disorders when Italy was alarm'd by the Hunns Neither is there any such Commodiousness in Republicks after they are settled as will make amends for the badness of their Original If we look into their Administration we shall find them attended with so many and so great Inconveniences that the chief end of Government which is the publick Peace and Happiness or the well being of a Community cannot be ordinarily obtained by them Nothing is more pernicious to any Society than Contention and Discord Can two walk together saith God except they be agreed Amos 3. 3. And if Two cannot it is not to be expected that Many should There can be no peace without Agreement and the Agreement of many if there be no Superior to unite them is almost impossible As Anarchy is constantly attended with confusion so is Polyarchy with Division Where there is a considerable number of Men that have an equal share in the Soveraign Power there will be inevitable Discords Jealousies and Emulations issuing from their different Judgments and opposite Counsels as to the Conduct of State Affairs And although their Debates be ended by Majority of Suffrages their Animosities especially in the weaker side will be the more inflamed For since all Men naturally desire to have their own advice followed those that are out-voted will be apt to look upon themselves as both disparaged and disappointed from whence will arise Anger Hatred and Discontent which Passions if there be opportunity will break out into Conspiracies and Insurrections to suppress and ruine those whom they could not counterballance And the Reason why there are no greater Tumults and Seditions in our Modern Republicks is because being almost perpetually engaged either as Principals or Confederates in Forraign Wars the Factious Spirits have not leisure to quarrel at home Pax tibi Marte which is the Motto of Venice may very well suit all the rest of them For when they have no work cut out for their Swords abroad they are always running into Domestick Mutinies and by these the most flourishing of them might long ago have been ruined had it not been for the little mixture of Monarchy with which their Constitutions are compounded such as that of a Duke or a State-holder who reduceth the Factions to some Temper and keeps the State from a Dissolution Neither are Republicks in less danger from Foreign than they are from Intestine Enemies which makes them live in perpetual fears of Invasion and being unable to defend themselves in this case also they are beholden to Monarchy For the usual Asylum where they take shelter is under the Wing of some Potent Neighbouring Prince whom they chuse for their Protector Besides nothing is of greater Moment to the good success of arduous Affairs than Secresie But is there any hope of secresie where there are an hundred Ears to hear the Counsels and fifty Tongues to publish them and where ten or twenty of those fifty as it usually happens dissent from the rest Will not these be hugely tempted to revenge the neglect and refusal of their own Advice by divulging the most important Secrets of the prevailing Faction And tho' there be sometimes a tolerable Acquiescence in the Opinion of the Major part yet the Debates and Consultations among so many different Judgments are commonly so long protracted that before they can arrive at a Resolution many favourable opportunities for Action are irrecoverably lost and their best Designs miscarry for want of timely Execution But beyond all that hath been said there is this great mischief in every Aristocratical or Democratical Common-Wealth that the many Princes or chief Magistrates by which it is governed being only temporary Officers of no long continuance have a separate Interest of their own distinct from that of the Publick by which means they will be very apt to aim chiefly at their own private advantage in all their publick Trusts and may be sometimes so far corrupted as to betray their Country to a Foreign Power when sufficient Assurance is given them that they shall not only survive the Fate of the expiring Government but enlarge their Fortunes by its Dissolution A King and his Kingdom have but one and the same inseparable Interest If the Kingdom be ruined the King perisheth But it is otherwise in a Common-Wealth where some that sit at the Helm of State may have the opportunity both to secure and to enrich their own private Vessel by sinking the publick Bottom Neither will they be at all concerned for the loss of their share in the Government of it
which we shall have many Princes and no Government but all contending for the Supremacy one to obtain his just Right others to acquire or to hold an unjust Possession Is the imitating of the Papists themselves in some of the worst of their wicked Practices a good Expedient to keep out Popery Or can this sinful Nation reasonably hope to prevent those Judgments of Almighty God which may be still hanging over us for the execrable Murder of the Royal Father by another high Injustice in disinheriting the Son And what if it should be granted that the Cause of mens Fears and Jealousies concerning the Future State of a Kingdom is true and real The worst that any good man can fear from any lawful Soveraign whatsoever is suffering under him but it is far better to suffer wrong than to do it And when suffering cannot be avoided as in this World it sometimes cannot 't is far more tolerable to suffer under the severest Government of one rightful Prince than under the illegal Tyranny of numerous Invaders who assume the greatest and most unbounded Power without the least right to any Authority Secondly do we desire never more to behold the infinite Outrages of an Army of Rebels with all the calamitous Appendages of Civil Broyls Are we unwilling to change again the Golden Scepter of our Ancient Monarchy into the Iron Rods of Republican Usurpers Let us then unfeignedly lament and in our Places endeavour to remove the crying Sins of our Land the indubitable Causes of such great and National Plagues And let us not think that Sedition and Treason are the only sins that destroy Kings and Governments and bring Confusions upon a People Although these more immediately do Execution yet there be others that make us liable to Condemnation If Atheism and Profaneness Swearing and Cursing Drunkenness and Debauchery Fraud and Oppression abound among us shall not God visit for such Transgressions as these especially when men glory in them and make them the Marks and Badges of their Loyalty as if they could not be good Subjects without Rioting and Ranting Tearing and Hectoring This Goddamming Tribe whatever their Pretensions or Intentions be are as real Enemies to their Soveraign and their Country as any of the Papists or Phanaticks For men may fight against their Prince though they be not up in Arms and give him a fatal Blow though they never Assassinate him All great and National Vices have Treason in them and are not only levelled against the Honour and Majesty of God Almighty but also against the Crown and Dignitie of the King and the Peace and Safety of the Kingdom Let us not therefore joyn with any Wicked men in their God-provoking and King-killing Sins whereby we shall contract at once the complicated Guilt Infamy and Misery of being Promoters of the Common Ruine But let us all unanimously according to the Station in which God hath placed us avoid discountenance and suppress all manner of Wickedness and Irreligion At least let us abate the Publick Guilt by lessening the Number of our own Sins Lastly since it is by a Wise Monarch by a man of understanding and knowledge that the happy State of a Nation is prolonged let us bless and praise God for remembring Mercy in the midst of Wrath for restoring our Gracious Soveraign after a long Exile to sit upon the Throne of his Father for wonderfully delivering him from all Hellish Plots and Conspiracies and for lengthening out our Tranquility under his most just and gentle and prudent Government humbly imploring the same Divine Protection over him for the future to establish his Throne and strengthen what hath been wrought for him that as our Church prays He may still continue to be a Religious Defender of the true Christian Faith a mighty Protector of his People and a Glorious Conqueror over all his Enemies that when he hath reigned many and many years with all Prosperity and Honour he may receive an immortal Crown and leave Flourishing Kingdoms to his Successor and Peaceful Times to his Subjects DUE AFFECTION TO THE MONARCHY SERMON IV. Preached May 29. 1684. Prov. XXVIII 2. But by a Man of understanding and knowledge the State thereof shall be prolonged ON the last Anniversary of our late Soveraign's Martyrdom the former part of this Verse which begins thus For the Transgression of a Land many are the the Princes thereof gave me occasion to consider the Plagues and Mischiefs of numerous Usurpers and many-headed Republican Factions together with the corrupt Fountain from whence they spring Arguments suitable to that Day of Darkness that Day of trouble and rebuke and blasphemy The latter Part of it will now furnish me with no less suitable matter of Discourse on this Day of Joy and Thanksgiving for the Birth and Happy Return of our present most August Monarch by whom through the great Blessing of Almighty God the flourishing condition of these Kingdoms was most auspiciously restored and hath been hitherto preserved In the whole Verse I noted these four things First the ill State of a Nation under Polyarchy or Plurality of Supreme Governours When many are the Princes thereof Secondly the notorious Cause of such a Judgment 't is expresly ascribed to the Wickedness of a People the Transgression of a Land Thirdly the opposite National Mercy or the Happiness of a Nation under a well settled Monarchy When by a man of understanding and knowledge the State thereof is prolonged Fourthly the principal means whereby so great a Mercy is procured The Wisdom of the Monarch his understanding and knowledge The Two former of these I have already discoursed of and now come to the Third of them The National Mercy or the Happiness of a Nation under a well settled Monarchy when by a man of understanding and knowledge the State thereof is prolonged By a Man that is to say by one Man one Soveraign Prince in opposition to the many Princes before mentioned And how great a Blessing a well settled Monarchy must needs be unto any Nation we may more than conjecture from the following Particulars in which I shall endeavour to give some account of its incomparable Dignity and Excellency beyond all other Models of Government First Monarchy is the Government whereby God himself hath always governed Angels and Men and all Creatures ever since they had a Being and always will govern them so long as any of them shall continue in Being God is a Great Monarch the King of all Kings and Lord of Lords the only absolute illimited and Supreme Potentate the one Almighty independent and eternal Rector of the Universe who ever did doth and shall rule and command all other Beings who alone hath all Power of himself and is the Fountain from whence all Dominion in any other is derived Thine O Lord saith David is the Greatness and the Power and the Glory and the Victory and the Majesty for all that is in the Heaven and the Earth
the Ordinance of God persecuted his Vicegerent with Fire and Sword and ingulphed the Nation in a Sea of Blood Which perfidious and inhumane Enterprises that they might the better carry on and justifie they pretended to aim at nothing more than the Honour and Happiness of the King in delivering him from evil Counsellors the security of the Subjects in their Rights and Liberties and the Glory of God in the Purity of Religion By these Artifices they strangely â—rought upon the cheated People yea upon divers of the better sort of men â—hose Wisdom and Virtue might have â—ade them eminent if they had not â—…en unhappily infected with some particular Errors destructive of Government By these Methods I say they obtained large Contributions from Persons of all Conditions and all Sexes who freely sacrificed their Moneys to the Treasury for the promoting so specious Designs And besides these voluntary Offerings they seized the Revenues of the King Queen Prince Deans and Chapters and Plundered the Houses of the Nobility and Gentry whom they knew or suspected to be true and faithful to their Soveraign Hence it came to pass that a formidable strength was gathered to them and great Multitudes amassed in such considerable Bodies that they confidently promised themselves an easie Triumph over Captive Majesty And then after various Skirmishes and Battels Sieges and Storms after innumerable Butcheries and boundless Outrages of Violence and Cruelty Spoil and Rapine and Devastation in which many Thousands and Ten Thousand of Brave Men and Loyal Subjects were either Murdered or Maimed oâ— Imprisoned or Impoverished by the Permission of Heaven Villany and Treason was Crowned with succesâ— the Friends of Loyalty were scattered and the Combination of Wicked Usurpers prevailed over the most Just and Gracious Prince But how did they now manage their Victory and what was the blessed Reformation they purchased at the expense of so much Blood and Treasure They reformed the Church by pulling down her Walls and Pillars by devouring her Lands destroying her Ornaments Vestments and Utensils defacing her Beauty sequestring her regular Ministry extirpating her Primitive and Apostolick Government abolishing her excellent Liturgy throwing away all Forms of Publick Worship and tolerating all Religions or rather Irreligions Schisms and Heresies They reformed the State by the oppression of the People the invading and exhausting the Wealth of the Kingdom the Subversion of the Fundamental Laws the Violating those before accounted so sacred Priviledges of Parliament for which they pretended to have taken Arms the Cashiering the Peers of the Realm and the Ruine of the Monarchy They brought us to a glorious Liberty indeed when the King and the Lords being laid aside as useless the Nations Ears were nailed to the Door-posts of the House of Commons and when that House too having Imprisoned or Excluded the far greater and sounder part of her own Members acted all things according to the meer Will and Pleasure of a whole Legion of Arbitrary Princes an Insolent Imperious and Tyrannical Army These things happened to us before the horrid Fact of this Black and Guilty Day these made way for it But then at the Perpetration of that incomparable and unexampled Wickedness all manner of Sins and Mischiefs seemed to be as it were concentred in one Point That execrable Murder and Martyrdom of the most Sacred British Monarch Charles the First of Glorious Memory taking it with all its Circumstances was perhaps the greatest and most comprehensive Sin next to the Crucifixion of the Son of God and the Sin against the Holy Ghost that any of Adam's Degenerate Race was ever guilty of since the Creation of the World Was perhaps the greatest Judgment that the inflamed Wrath of Heaven did ever inflict on these sinful Nations since they were Nations was such a Sin of this then Barbarous Island and such a Judgment upon it as the wide Ocean with which it is environed could hardly afford us briny Tears enough to lament and deplore That a King should be Tryed and Sentenced in a Judicial manner with ceremonious Pomp as a Capital Criminal by the meanest of his own Subjects against all Laws Divine and Humane and contrary to their own publick Remonstrances Declarations Promises Vows and Covenants That a Protestant King should be Murdered not secretly in a Corner by the Dagger or Pistol or Poison of a bigotted Jesuit a Clement a Raviliac or some such Roman Assassin but openly upon a Scaffold neer the Gates of his own Palace by a bold barefac'd Protestant Execution before the Sun at Noon Day before thousands of his own Subjects before divers Foreigners of all Neighbouring Countries this is such a monstrous Parricide as hath been an astonishing Spectacle to the present Age and will be an incredible History in the future In short that a King so Wise and Just so Pious and Virtuous One whose Life was the visible Transcript of the excellent Religion he profess'd whose Government by a Redundancy of Goodness made his Subjects seem to Reign with him one who was so great a Patren of the Church so tender a Father of his Country should be persecuted and driven out of the World by his own rebellious Children with all this hellish Insolency and Indignity after they had most solemnly professed that they would make him a Glorious King after he had most sincerely endeavoured to make them a Happy People and after they had obtained from him so large Concessions as no King granted before as no Subjects before demanded I say that men should ever be so wicked as to act such an ingrateful Villany among us that God should ever be so angry as to permit such an over-whelming Calamity to befall us this is a strange and a new thing in the Earth such as our Ancestors never heard of such as I wish Posterity may never imitate Thus they made their Soveraign a Glorious King indeed when they would not have him to Reign over them when they would not suffer him to be any longer Rex Diabolorum as the King of England hath been sometimes called and then truly was but furiously removed him to a Celestial Throne among the blessed Saints and Angels Thus they effectually separated him from ill Counsellors when they sent him to that High and Holy Place where 't is impossible there should be any But that Angelical advancement which made his Martyrdom a Royal Triumph was the greater aggravation of the Regicides Diabolical Guilt And that far more exceeding and eternal weight of Glory which turned his Loss of three Temporal Crowns into a light Affliction to himself made his three Kingdoms Loss of so Glorious a Prince the heavier Judgment upon them Had our many Usurpers been only the Authors of this one Mischief this alone would have abundantly proved them the great Plague of Heaven for the Transgression of our Land But after and besides this behold a long Train of direful Consequences The King being Murdered his only lawful Successor the
Heir apparent both of his Virtues and his Kingdoms was forced to be an Exile for his own safety and all lawful Government was banished with him Those who had the boldness to Arraign sacred and inviolable Majesty made no scruple to pass their unrighteous Sentence on the most Innocent of the People The Ax which had tasted Royal Blood could not afterwards be satisfied without frequent Sacrifices of the most Dutiful Subjects whom the devouring Sword had spared And the truly Keepers of our Liberties took care to secure them by making the whole Nation but one great Prison and themselves the Jaylors These Birds of Prey began now to divide the Spoil bestowing upon one another the Lands of the Crown the Revenues of the Church and the Estates of Delinquents as the Rewards of their great Service in delivering their Country from one pretended Tyrant and setting up forty or fifty real ones in his room For we were now governed by a vile Remnant of Representatives who justly deserved the Infamous Name that was generally given them And when these upstart Mushrom Princes of the New Common-wealth had pretty well blooded and fleeced the Nation when they had Condemned without any Law Executed without any Crime and sequestered without any Mercy until like the Locusts and Caterpillars they hardly left any thing green and flourishing among us in a word when they had done every thing that was good in their own Eyes and bad in the Eyes of all the World besides at length a leading Member of their Tyrannical Juncto who also bore the greatest sway in their Murdering Army being a more cunning Impostor than the rest out-wits them all pulls them down and Rules by himself with as absolute a Power as was ever assumed by the most Arbitrary Monarch This English Grand Seignior set over the Land a company of Bashaws under the Title of Major-Generals who in their respective Provinces according to the Command of their Imperious Master insolently domineered over the Nobility and Gentry disarming decimating and banishing several miles from London all whom they pleased to call Malignants that is to say all the Kings Friends that had survived the soregoing Miseries The Power he gave to these Decimators was great and boundless and their Proceedings were purely Arbitrary in Oppressing Robbing and Spoiling wheresoever they suspected any to be guilty of Loyalty taking from them yearly the Tenth Penny unless they bought off that annual vexation with a valuable Composition So that the Free People of England were become as very Slaves as any that live under the Turkish Government And after this great Usurper was called into another World to give an account of the cruel and bloody Tyranny he exercised in this we were under perpetual Confusions and various Changes of Government and Governours Britain seemed then no fixed Island but as it were a rolling Ship in the boistrous Ocean steered by no Pilots but the mutable and alternate blasts of contrary Winds tost up and down from one Wave to another and made the sport of the proud insulting Billows until the miraculous Goodness of Heaven settled us again upon our Ancient Foundations restored our Rightful Monarch and Excellent Monarchy of which our great sins had so long deprived us And so I come to the Second Observable in the Text the cause of this National Judgement which is the same that is the cause of all other Publick Judgments even the publick Guilt the Transgression of a Land It is the multitude of National Sins that introduceth the multitude of Governours If a People suffer under the successive Invasions numerous Oppressions and unbounded Tyranny of many Princes all this mischief whoever are the Instruments in bringing it upon them is the just Punishment and genuine Product of their own Iniquities God often permits the Hands of Sinners to execute his Wrath upon Sinners and makes the Wickedness of some the Chastisement of others When his Indignation is moved by the provok-Impieties of a sinful Kingdom and when the time for Judgment is fully come he will no longer shelter it by his Providence from the Sons of Violence and Blood no longer restrain the Tumults of the Rabble and the Madness of the Crowd no longer obstruct and defeat the mischievous Designs of turbulent Male-contents who hope to raise themselves by the publick distractions In such a Kingdom he often suffers a fawning Absolom to steal away the Hearts of the People or a cursed Sheba to blow a Trumpet and cry To your Tents O Israel As God turneth a Fruitful Land into Barrenness for the Wickedness of them that dwell therein so he many times permits the best of Governments to be subverted because Men will not lead under it a quiet and peaceable life in all Godliness and Honesty If a Nation happy in their full Possession of their Rights and Liberties in the most excellent Laws for their security and in a Wise and Gentle Prince to rule over them have no due sense of their own happiness but shall grow discontented and clamorous and affect a Change when they know not what to wish it is just with Heaven to plague such a froward and ungrateful People with Changes enough with all the various Miseries and Confusions with which prosperous Rebellions and Usurpations are constantly attended The Life and Safety of the King is the Life and Safety of the People their Welfare depends upon his And therefore one usual Method which God takes to punish the Sins of Subjects is to deprive them of their Lawful Soveraign of him who is the Breath of their Nostrils the very Soul of the Body Politick and to give them up to the cruel and killing Mercies of all that by Fraud or Violence can invade the Government Samuel plainly told the Israelites that if they should do wickedly they should be destroyed both they and their King 1 Sam. 12. 25. This was verified in good King Josiah He must fall When God would remove Judah out of his sight He who did that which was right in the sight of the Lord and walked in all the ways of David his Father and turned not aside to the right hand or to the left He who was so great an Enemy to Idolatry so Eminent a restorer of the Law so munificent a Repairer of the Temple like unto whom 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 like unto whom there arose none after him even he must be cut off in the Prime of his Days when the Wrath of Heaven was kindled against the Sins and Provocations not of himself but of his Subjects And it hath been the Fate of divers excellent Princes to be snatched away from a People unworthy of them when God hath determined to visit the Transgressions of such a People with Rods and their Iniquities with Stripes with the worst