crave any Tax or Subsidies from his Subjects but upon a very just cause and urgent necessity and that if he did otherwise he would not be reputed a King but a Tyrant What is requisite and necessary upon the former accounts the Apostle calls their due and Christ himself the things that are Caesars and Vlpian that famous Lawyer Nerâ—i Reipublicae sine quibus non potest administrari nec consistere Ulpian the sinews of the Common-wealth without which it cannot be governed nor subsist They are granted to them by the Laws of all Nations and therefore the Duty calls more for practice then for proof For notwithstanding they may challenge these by their Charter granted to them by the great God and K. of heaven and earth Applicat yet many there are that part with what is required of them upon that score as unwillingly as with their bloud yea when they were inevitably necessary and that too by a necessity of their own creating to satisfie those debts which their former Rebellion and the fruit thereof had contracted upon their banished Soveraign yet these were not paid without a great deal of murmuring and repining England in the time of the late Usurpation like Issacher and he like an Ass Time was when England like Issacher was as an Ass couching between two burdens and contentedly bore them plying her provender without noise or groaning and seemed willing to purchase her quiet at any rate under a Tyrant who made his Lust his Law but now snuffs at what is imposed not by a boundless Prerogative but by that very authority which was of their own free election like an ungrateful Beast But now like a proud pampered Horse which being eased of a great part of his burden by the mercy of his owner kicks and lashes to quit himself of the rest being very willing that he should bear it himself All that goes this way is set down upon the account of their losses Good Princes like trusty Factors whereas good Princes are like skilful and trusty Factors for their Subjects expending their moneys to their own best advantage and returning them trebly the worth of it in such commodities which most wise men value Or like the Sun Aptly compared to the Sun which by its attractive heat draws up vapours from the Earth which may well be spared and returns them in fruitful showers Custom Tribute c. to Vapors So the Tribute and Custom the Taxes and Impositions which the Higher Powers exhale as Vapours by the force of urgent necessity are richly exchanged into the sweet refreshing Rains of Peace and Plenty And thus I have given an account of the particular Duties included and implied in this general one of Fear as I found dispersed here and there in the holy Scripture The next piece of work which I have to do is to enquire after the subject by whom it must be paid which is every one that comes under the name of a Subject whom Solomon here calls his son 2. Part of the Text viz. the Subject My son fear thou the Lord and the King who in a political sense is a Father and in the same his Subjects are his children So that every one whom the King in that sense may call his son he may upon that very account call upon him for this fear The Apostles rule is general Rom. 13.1 Qui tentat excipere conatur decipere Origen his strange sense of the word soul For what taken in the Scripture and admits of no exception He that goes about to except endeavours to deceive and where there is none excepted there can be none exempted unless that strange sense which is fathered upon Origen concerning the word Soul be Orthodox namely a fleshly and carnal person which is a sense of which I think I may safely say that is never used in Sacred Writ It is used indeed properly for the noblest part of man which is of a divine extraction and stamped with the glorious image of him that did infuse it Sometimes for the will and affections by a Synecdoche of the whole for a part and by the same figure the Soul which is a principal part is put for the whole man God saith to the Prophet Ezech. 18.4 that the soul that sinneth that is that man or woman whoever it be that sinneth if he repent not shall die which includes all and so it doth here in the Text Carnal and Spiritual Saint and Sinner and never is used to signifie a carnal in opposition to a spiritual person We read in one of the Epistles of St. Peter 1 Pet. 3.20 of eight souls that were saved in the Ark which Noah by Gods direction had provided against that Deluge which he threatned to bring upon the old World for its daring impieties Should we understand by those eight souls eight carnal persons as we may upon as good a ground as in the other place we should make that which was one of the most remarkable pieces of Justice that ever was executed upon the World the greatest example of injustice To destroy all the righteous and let such a number of wicked persons escape to send a Floud to drown the one and to provide an Ark to save the other Some put that sense upon it here and offer their reasons I know there is a generation of men in the World that are very willing to embrace that sense there where subjection is required so universally without exception and offer their ground for the exemption of themselves and others which are at least in their own conceits the holy and redeemed of the Lord. 1. Sublata causa tollitur effectus Subjection say they came in by sin but they are freed from sin and so consequently from subjection take away the cause and the effect must cease Christ having freed them from the one he hath freed them from the other also Disproved By the same Argument they may as well dispute themselves out of the reach of death for by one man sin entered into the World Rom. 5.12 and death by sin so death hath seized on all for that all have sinned Yet let them live as blamelesly and as innocently as they can What man is he that liveth and shall not see death shall he deliver his soul from the hand of the grave No man can attain to a life of sinless perfection till he is dead Velis nolis intra fines tuos habitabit Jebuseus subjugari potest exterminari non potest Willing or nilling this Jebusite will continue within thy borders thou mayest keep it under but canst not root it out We may give sin its mortal wound but its full and final expiration is reserved for the stroke of death Religio peperit divitias fâ—lia devoravit matrem As it was said of Riches the daughter of Religion Religion hath brought forth Riches and the Daughter hath
is charged with it minded of his Treason justly sentenced and deservedly executed and to prevent any future insurrections through his means against himself he confines him upon pain of death to his own house which he was to build in Jerusalem as a suspicious person no further to be trusted then he might be seen and when he had forfeited his life by transgressing his bounds he is not only charged with a clausum fregit a breaking his prison but thou knowest all the wickedness that thine heart is privy to and what thou didst to David my father therefore the Lord shall return thy wickedness upon thine own head and Benaiah by his command went out and fell upon him that he died An act he knew so far from displeasing God that he confidently promiseth himself Gods blessing for such due execution of justice Thirdly God lays a restraint upon the very thoughts of their hearts Eccles 10.20 Curse not the King no not in thy thoughts threatning a strange detection and by consequence a condign punishment This difference we ought to observe between the Laws of God and Men. The difference between the Laws of God and Man The first lays an obligation upon the inward man that hidden man of the heart the other only directly upon the outward man As for instance In two instances Thou shalt not commit adultery is a Law both of God and man but the question is who is an Adulterer The Law of God saith Matth. 5.28 whosoever hath looked upon a woman to lust after hath committed adultery already in his heart so that this brings under the guilt of that sin not onely him that defiles his neighbours bed but him also that hath eyes and an heart full of adultery But the Law of man calls him onely an adulterer that is convicted of the act either by his own confession or other sufficient evidence he may look on whom he will and lust after whomsoever he liketh that reacheth neither the eye nor the heart Touch not mine anointed and thou shalt not revile the Gods these are Laws of Gods own making to secure his Ordinance from injury and contempt The Laws of men have made a like provision though not in those very words that whosoever shall speak such and such words and do so and so is guilty of high Treason and upon conviction by due course of Law shall suffer as a Traitor Men may think what they will notwithstanding these Laws which lay no hold of thoughts as to them they are free enough but the Law of God tells thee thou art a Traitor to thy Prince and a Rebel to thy God if thou cursest his Vicegerent in thine heart The Doctrine applied first to confute the old Proverb and to convince them who think it true that thoughts are free Thou therefore that art resolved to pay it with thinking being confident that these gods by name understand not thy thoughts which is peculiar to him alone who is a God indeed and by nature this God who is the searcher of the heart and the trier of the reins will pay thee one day for thy thinking when he shall bring every work into judgment Eccles 12.14 with every secret thing whether it be good or evil It is an observation of one whose rash zeal for the Geneva Discipline hath kindled such a fire of Contention in the bowels of this Churh and Nation whereof we are members as is not yet and God alone knows when it will be throughly quenched he endeavouring to suppress all extravagancies of this kind and to keep mens thoughts in a due decorum towards those that are set over them Chap. 12.1 Chap. 13.1 Cum de Dei cultu sermonem facit corporis venerationem exigit ad subjectionem Principis delapsus animae submissionem postulat non quod utrique tum Deo tum Principi utriusque tum corporis tum animae subjectio obsequium debitum non sit c. Cartwright in Eccles takes notice of a remarkable passage of St. Pauls Epistle to the Romans compared with another in the very next Chapter of the same When in the first of them he calls for the reverence we owe to himself he bids us offer our bodies to him When for that subjection which is due from us to his substitutes he will have every soul to be subject to them not but that the reverence and subjection of both is due to both that of the soul as well as that of the body to God and that of the body as well as that of the soul to the higher Powers But to meet with that foolish conceit of some who think this a safe Plea when they go into Idol Temples and perform outward acts of worship as others do that when they prostrate their bodies to Idols they reserve their hearts to God and also of those who because they deny not the chief Magistrate the service of their bodies would under that colour exclude him from that reverence and respect that is due to him in their hearts He that hideth hatred with lying lips Prov. 10.18 is a fool And what is he better or how many removes is he from one that honoureth his King with his lips and despiseth him in his heart although he think himself a great deal wiser then those that speak what they think to the hazard of their lives and fortunes whereas he lives without fear of either being taken by those who are strangers to his thoughts for as good a Subject as the best yet he is no better then a fool who in the mean time forgets a God above him who understands the most secret thoughts of his heart and will manifest his folly to his shame and confusion before Men and Angels when he shall be summoned to appear at Gods dreadful Tribunal where if he prevent it not by a true repentance he shall be impleaded convicted sentenced and condemned with all that rout of notorious Rebels and Traitors which have been since the beginning of the World to that day 2. Against those which slip Gods bridle or run away with the bit between their teeth like those Psal 12.4 Quis talia fando temperet à lachrymis And sith I am entered upon the application I shall take leave to prosecute it against those in the next place who in those times wherein mens tongues were lawless took the liberty to spit their venome into the face of Gods Anointed our martyred Soveraign slandering his footsteps and aspersing the best of Princes with the worst of crimes crying out upon him as Shimei did against David for a man of Belial a man of bloud charging all that was shed in our uncivil Civil Wars upon him as the Author this out of the abundance of their mouths have they spoken Cor enim felle livoris amarum per linguam instrumentum spargere nisi amara non potest Bernard For it is impossible their tongues could vent
ye eat thereof ye shall be as Gods knowing good and evil And all that they for the most part get for themselves and the World by them who are infected with this incurable itch is lively represented unto us in their Tragical History of ambitious Phaeton Phaeton the proper emblem of an ambitious person whom nothing would satisfie but to guide the Chariot of the Sun the consequences of whose rash and indiscreet attempt were the turning of his brain the overturning of his Chariot putting the World into a flame and was himself tumbled down headlong by a Thunderbolt into a River to cool his hot head and teach him more wit The common fate of such is that when the wind of their ambition hath mounted them up to the top of Fortunes Wheel they never descend but by a break-neck precipice Haman Haman tried it and found it true to his cost in one Chapter we find him promoted and advanced by his King to great honour who had set his seat above all the Princes that were with him in another he is fallen into his Lord and Masters displeasure and at the end of that we find him at the end of his ambitious race fallen from honour to dishonour from his Princes love into his hatred from glory to shame he lived the life of a Prince but died the death of a Dog being sentenced to be hanged upon that very Gallows which he had prepared for an honester man then himself whom he while he was in his Ruff deigned not to ranke among the number of his Slaves Thus the righteous is delivered Prov. 11.8 and the wicked brought into his stead he dug a Pit for his innocent brother and is fallen into the midst of it himself This is called a righteous thing with God 2 Thess 1.6 7. Nec lex est justior ulla Quam necis artificem lege perire sua and is the same in the apprehensions of all rational men Indeed that attribute of his is in matters of that natute highly concerned and rather then an unnatural aspiring Absolon ambitious Absolon should scape unpunished which his Fathers indulgence might suggest some hopes to him that after he had plaid all his mad pranks he might do so and from the charge which he gave his General concerning him when he marched against him to reduce him deal gently with the lad together with the sad Lamentation he made at the news of his death gives us sufficient cause to think that he would do so the divine Nemesis will it self pursue the guilty Rebel and make a snare with the hair of his own head in stead of an hempen halter to truss him up to the fatal Tree where he paid down his life for his ambition and all its miserable attendants Ambition a strange disease A strange kind of disease surely this must needs be whose malignity in some degree or other is so epidemically infectious and whose cure was thought by no mean or heady Physician Hippocrates to be so difficult that he projected a consultation of all the Physicians in the World to advise upon the means thereof and yet he himself was a man so famous in his generation for his great skill in that noble Science that Artaxerxes hearing of it His fame sent for him and premised him great honours to live with him in the Persian Court. He practised his own skill so successfully upon his own self Lived to a great Age. Could not cure this feaver by his Physick nor all the Philosophers with their Moral Rules that he lived to a great age having passed his hundred and fourth year yet neither this Master of his Art Faculty or Science call it what ye will no nor all the Philosophers 2000 years since him could by all their learning have found out an effectual expedient for this pestilential Feaver in all they prescribed they have but lost their labour Some diseases Medicorum ludibria Some Diseases make mocking-stocks of their Physicians of which sort this is undoubtedly one which encreaseth under its prescribed remedies One would have thought that if Cambyses had studied all his life time Cambyses his project and called in all the learned Counsel of the Sages then living in the World he could never have found by his own reading nor they have suggested by their advice a more effectual means to keep that young President uncorrupt in that very place of Judicature in the which he before had placed his Father which he so lately by his miscarriages had forfeited together with his life then to keep that sad instance always fresh in his memory and for this purpose commanded him to cover his Chair with his Fathers skin who was executed and excoriated or flayed because he was so ill a Judge that being seated in that woful tribunal upon the bloud of his Father might learn more wit and honesty by a dreadful experience What influence this politick more then Christian project had upon him my Author mentions not But this we see too commonly that some mens eys are so blinded and their hearts so hardned through the deceitfulness of their sin Examples of others take so little with some that they look on them as inania puerorum terriculamenta Exemplified in our common Cutpurses that others examples make no impression of terrour upon them Have we not often heard of Cutpurses and Pickpockets that have exercised their Art under the Gallows where some before their eyes are ending their days for as inconsiderable a crime And do we not ever and anon in our reading both in Divine and Humane Story meet with the like who have had items enough by others harms to make them cautious and yet have pursued the same ways without fearing the like event As that in the Book of the Kings The second Captain of 50. 2 Kings 1.10 11. of the second Captain of fifty sent with his Party to apprehend Elijah more impudent and obstinate then the first who he could not but know had a little before perished by a dreadful and miraculous judgment from Heaven by fire consuming him and his to ashes and therefore more deservedly underwent the same fate and made an example because he would take none In the Annals of our own Kingdom we have the History of Richard 3. Richard 3. his Character who by common report was a Monster in Nature born with his teeth and exceedingly deformed in the composure of his body which was a prognostick of what he would prove in his life a monster in wickedness And so he did Into what a Sea of mischiefs did his boundless ambition carry him Vilifying the honour of his own Mother accusing her as unchast and that she prostituted her body to strangers in the conception of his two elder Brothers to make himself more legitimate then they We find him there stand indicted of several Murders Charged with murder taking out of the way