be said But seeing the pressing of Obedience will avail little with the Rebellious if the fear of Gods judgements and the punishments of him that beareth not the Sword in vain doth not terrisie them from disobedience for such is the frowardness of mans nature that he would never fear God if he thought God consisted all of mercy and were not as just as He is merciful Therefore as you heard how necessary is obedience so I intend by Gods help to shew you the just judgement of God and the punishment of the Rebellious and disobedient upon the words that you shall find in 2 Kings 9.31 Had Zimri peace that slue his Master The last Sermon that I Preached in this City was on the Day of our Humiliation for the unnatural Rebellion and the monstrous Murder of our late most gracious King Charles the First And that work I then told mine Auditors I knew not how to do it in any better way than by paralleling the transcendent murder of Jesus Christ by those wicked Jews that crucified him which was their true and lawful King with that late unnatural murder that our English-Jews have committed upon their own just and lawful King Charles the First and that parallel I then prosecuted à capite ad calcem And this Text that I have now read unto you seems to be a Question demanding What became of one and what should become of all others wicked murderers that like him and like the other two sorts of Jews should kill both their King and their Master And the words are a Speech made at the entrance of a brave Conquerer into a famous City that is of Jehu into Jezreel A custom very often used amongst all Nations to make solemn Speeches at the Inauguration of their Soveraign Kings and Emperours or when any Noble Person cometh to any famous City as the University Orator doth it in the Academy and the Recorder in other Cities And so Jezabel makes this Speech unto Jehu assoon as ever he entred into the Gates of Jezreel Had Zimri peace that slew his Master And we do read of two special Zimries in the Book of God and both of them wicked men Numb 25. The first you may read of in the 25th of Numbers where you may see 1. How that Israel contrary to the Command of God joyned himself to Baal-Peor and that one Zimri a Prince of a chief House among the Simeonites brought unto his brethren a Midianitish woman named Cozbi the daughter of Zur that was Head over a people and of a chief House in Midian 2. How that for this transgression of God's Command the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel so that he said unto Moses Take all the heads of the people and hang them up before the Lord against the Sun that the fierce anger of the Lord may be turned away from Israel And Moses said unto the Judges of Israel Slay ye every one his men that were joyned to Baal-Peor And so they did that there were slain 24. thousand men 3. How that Phineas the son of Eleazar the son of Aaron the Priest according to the Commandment of the Lord and of Moses took a Javelin in his hand and killed both Zâ—mri and Cozbi and that the Lord was so well pleased therewith that he rewarded him with the covenant of an everlasting Priesthood and stayed the plague from the children of Israel And the Prophet David saith that when the plague was so great among them Psal 106.30 then stood up Phinehas and prayed and so the plague ceased And our Presbyterians that find such fault with our Liturgy do say That we corrupt the Text because in the Original it is said That Phinehas stood up and executed judgement and so the plague ceased But their carping at this without cause hath been fully and sufficiently answered and may be easily and briefly done because he both prayed and executed judgement for the Text tells you plainly That the people were weeping before the door of the Congregation Verse 6 and so praying to God to turn away his anger from them and Phinehas rose from amongst the Congregation and killed them and then the plague ceased To teach us that the only sure way to turn away God's anger and the plagues that we deserve is not only to weep and mourn and be sorry for the wickednesse of the people but we must also execute judgement upon the transgressors Deut. 13.8 and as the Lord often sets it down Thine eye shall not pity them neither shalt thou conceal them but thou shalt surely kill them So shall you put away evil from among you and turn away the judgements of God from you which otherwise must still lie upon you because sins and especially great sins such as are Idolatry Rebellions and Murders and their punishments are so indiss lubly linked together that God seldom or never remits the one without inflicting the other And therefore he would not take away the plague from Israel until judgement was executed upon Zimri and Cozbi And this was the first Zimri that we read of and is not meant here in my Text. 2. 1 Kings 16.9 For the other Zimri you may read of him in 1 Kings 16.9 where you may find 1. How this Zimri conspired against his King and his Master and killed him and slew all the House of Baasha and left not one that pisseth against the wall neither of his kinsfolks nor of his friends 2. How that after this murder of their King and Zimri's possessing the Royal Throne all Israel was divided and most miserably embroyled in Civil Wars when some of them were with Zimri in Tyrza others with Tibni and the rest with Omri 3. What became of this Zimri and his conspirators that have wrought all these Wonders and most tragical Acts to kill their King and all the Kings friends how he went into the Palace of the Kings house and burnt the Kings house over him and died burning himself therein A just judgement of Almighty God against such as would conspire to kill their King And of this Zimri Jezabel demands the Question Had Zimri peace As if she should have said Is it possible that either Zimri or any one of them that conspired with Zimri and had any hand with him in the murder of their King and their Master or that very Kingdom that fostereth any of those murderers should have any peace or settlement or any happiness in the world until justice and judgement be executed upon such transcendent Malefactors For she conceived that as the wrath of God and his plagues were not turned away from Israel until Phinehas stood up and executed judgement upon the other Zimri and Cozbi so this Zimri and the Associates of this Zimri and all the kingdom that abetted him should never have peace nor happiness so long as judgement was unexecuted upon them as the example of Achan and abundance more doth make it plain that the
saith he will visit their sins that is to punish them for their transgressions for as God is most merciful in retributione Bonorum Great sins and oâ—â—ences never escape unpunished in blessing them that serve him so he is most just in punitione Malorum in the punishment of evil doers and you shall seldom or never find that prophane men and great sinners did escape their just deserved punishment without great repentance nor so many times for that part of their punishment which concerned this present life And therefore when this people listened to the false Prophets and rejected the right way of Gods service tanght them by the true Prophets and rebelled by their disobedience against their King and his under-Governours and then oppressed robbed and killed their quiet poor and feeble neighbours the Lord saith unto this our Prophet Pray not for this people for their good for though Moses and Samuel stood before me yet my mind could not be towards this people but I will cast them out of my sight Jer. 15.1 23 4. c 19.7 such as are for death to death and such as are for the sword to the sword and such as are for the famine to the famine and such as are for the captivity to the captivity and I will appoint over them four kinds or four families saith the Lord. 1. The Sword to slay 2 King 24.25 Chap. per totum 2 Chron. 36. per totum 2. The Dogs to tear 3. The Fowls of the heaven and 4. The Beasts of the earth to devour and destroy And all this happened unto them according to the Prediction of the Prophet and that because they have not obeyed the voice of the Lord as saith the Prophet And shall we think that people which exceeds them in all transgressions shall be freed from all punishment It is an old Rule and a good counsel Vt quorum vitia imitamur eorum exitum perhorrescamus That we should be afraid of their end and punishment whose wayes and vices we do follow and imitate because the same way will ever bring men to the same end and the like sins without repentance can expect none other than the like punishment And I beseech you mark what the Lord saith to the King of Babylon and to the King of Egypt and to all the Kings of all other Nations Loe I begin to bring evil on the City that is called by my Name Jer. 25.29 and should you be utterly unpunished 1 Pet. 4.17 You shall not be unpunished And consider what S. Peter saith The time is come that judgement must begin at the house of God and if it begin at us What shall be the end of them that obey not the Gospel of God And therefore if this people the Jews that knew not the Gospel of Christ that had not such knowledge of God as we have and at whose hands God required not such piety and so much charity of one towards another as he doth at our hands were thus severely punished for their prophane serving of God their disobedience to their lawful Governours and their injuries oppressions and wrongs done to their poor neighbours and their persecuting of the true Prophets What shall we think of those Nations that profess Christianity and yet do exceed this people in all kind of the like impiety iniquity and wickedness Shall they escape unpunished No no they shall be sure of punishment unless they do speedily repent and restore the King to his Right the Bishops to their Offices the Service of God as it was formerly used and make satisfaction to their poor neighbours whom they have so causelessely and so abundantly wronged Because it cannot stand with the Justice of God to suffer such transcendent sinners to go unrepented and so unpunished And therefore the expectation of peace and prosperity to the unrepentant transgressors is but just like the perswasion of the false Prophets in the time of this our Prophet for they still cryed Peace peace unto this people when the Prophet Jeremy protested from the Lord there could be no peace to such wicked sinners as they were For though they might think quòd illos Defendit numerus junctaeque umbone phalanges Juvenal Satyr 2. their strength and number with their wealth and wit is able to preserve them from all dysaster yet as Jehu answered Joram when he demanded Is it peace What peace so long as the whoredom of thy mother Jezabel and her witchcrafts are so many 2 Kings 9.22 So say the true Prophets unto the wicked What peace or happiness can you look for so long as you continue prophaning Gods Service keeping out your King suppressing your Bishops and abusing your neighbours Prov. 11.29 For as Solomon saith Though hand joyn in hand yet the wicked shall not go unpunished if you still continue to do these things 4. 4 Time when the punishment shall light upon thâ—s people Now presently When this punishment shall light upon them it is expressely set down in the word Now I will now remember their iniquity and visit their sins And this now sheweth the time present not only because as the Philosopher saith There is no time but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that which is present but especially because as the Divines say all times are present with God apud quem nec prius est nec posterius in whose sight nothing is afore or after another as the Schools rightly say but the things that are to come are as present with him as if they were already past Yet the punishment of our sins in respect of the time God heareth not and relieveth not his servants alwayes alike quoad nos is not alwaies the same nor alike but as God doth sometimes presently relieve his distressed children and sometimes deferreth his aid and maketh as though he heareth not their cries that he might trie their faith and their patience and their constancy in his service Et ut diu desiderata dulciùs obtineantur and that being for a long time desired they may seem the sweeter when they are obtained and sometimes heareth them not at all but lets them die in their wants and miseries as he did to poor Lazarus So the punishment of the wicked is not alwaies alike for reasons best known unto himself so the punishment of the wicked which God imposeth upon them in this life is Aut serò aut citius somtimes presently inflicted and sometimes for a long time delayed For as he dealt with Nebuchadnezzar while the word was in his mouth he was Metamorphosed from man to beast so he dealt with the Israelits Psal 78.31 while the meat was in their mouthes The heavy wrath of God came upon them and smote down the chosen men that were in Israel so he did with Zimri and Cozbi with Corah Dathan and Abiram with Vzzah Ananias and Saphira and with abundance more that we read of in Prophane Histories which for
he devised the way to depose her and to set the Crown upon the right Heirs Head whose example we ought all to follow when opportunity serveth Or were I not so that we must renounce usurped power how shall we protect and maintain the just and lawful authority 2 Sam. 15 16. surely the people that followed Abso lon when he had the power to trample Justice under foot to possesse the royal City and to drive the lawful King to flie from place to place and the followers of those perfideous Rebels of Killkenney that so barbarously massacred the poor Protestants and so foully so falsely deluded both the good King and all the Kings friends and have now as themselves pretend the great power in this Kingdom may well be justified not to have offended if this doctrine may be defended that usurped authority is not to be resisted but to be obeyed when its power is most prevalent But the Apostle tells us plainly Rom. 14.2 that whatsoever is not of faith is sin and with what faith I pray you can I obey that power and submit my self to that authority which my conscience tells me to be against truth and without Justice But Tertull. ad Scapulam makes this most clear where he sheweth how tender the Christians were to preserve the right to the lawful Emperours and therefore though Albinus was most powerful in the West and Pisen Niger in the East yet the Christians would be nec Albiniani nec Cassiani nec Nigriani Yet this much I must tell you that where the right heir is not apparent as it was not amongst many of the Primitive Emperours who were often lifted up to that royal dignity by none other right than the Sword of the tumultuous Souldiers and unconstant cohorts and were therefore obeyed by the good Christians because they knew not of any other that had any better right unto the Empire the same as yet being unsetled to continue in any hereditary line or when the just Title to the Crown is not cleered as perhaps it was not to all the Subjects in the time of Hen. 4. Edw. 4. and Rich. 3. and the like doubtful claimes then it is not for every private mechanick or ignorant Rustick to determine the right to the Crown and decide the equity or the iniquity of such powers but as the Apostle saith and as it was most learnedly handled by a most Reverend and a most learned Prelate of our Church not long since in this place they ought to study to be quiet to follow their own Trades 1 Thes 4 11. and to do their own business and not to polupragmatize in matters so transcendent and so metaphysical to their Mechanick and Rustick capacities And in this qualified sence you must understand and not mistake the meaning of the same most Reverend Prelate in this place upon our last Kings day that when it is doubtful to whom the right of the Soveraign Power should belong or who hath right unto the Soveraignty then all ignorant and private men are excused though they resist not the Government that hath the present power over them but do obey the same especially by their passive obedience and likewise by their active obedience in all honest and lawful demands All which with all that I said before I say to clear the integrity of the said Reverend Prelates intention from any sinister apprehension of misunderstanding hearers But where the right is indubitable and the soveraignty not to be questioned whose it is as it is with our most gracious King whom all the Irish Rebels of Kilkenny and all the other Rebels of these three Kingdoms deny not to be their lawful Soveraign I say that what Power soever exalteth it self above him or against him which the Parliament of England doth not when it challengeth only a kind of co-ordination with him we are not to yield any obedience unto the same especially if the same command or require any thing contrary to his commands because as the Son of Syrach saith We are to stand with the right and in the truth and as our Saviour saith To continue faithful therein unto death if we desire to enjoy the Crown of life And therefore though the dumb devil may hold my tongue Rev. 2.10 so that I shall be able to say nothing of what truth should be delivered yet all the power of hell shall never open my mouth and cause me to say that untruth which my conscience telleth me cannot be justified because this love to the truth of Scripture is a singular Testimony of our love to God 3. The next sign of the love of God is to love the honour of God without which we cannot be said to love God 2 To love Gods honour 4. The next sign is to love Gods Image that is Man 5. To observe Gods Precepts 6. To hate Sin 7. A longing desire to be with God to have an Union and Communion with him for it is an impregnable property of a person loving to desire to be united to the person loved and therefore Pyramus loving Thisbe cries out to the wall that hindered them to meet together Invide dicebat paries quid amantibus obstas Many other signs of Gods love I should shew unto you and the impediments that hinders us to love God such as are 1. The ignorance of the incomprehensible sweetness and unspeakable goodness of God 2. The too much love of our selves and of our carnal desires 3. The bewitching allurements of the pleasures profits and other vanities of this present world and the like that do hinder blind and suffocate our love to God And then last of all I should shew unto you the helps and furtherances to beget and to nourish the love of God in us such as are 1. The continual meditation of Gods goodness towards us and his excellencies in himself 2. The daily reading and hearing of Gods Word and the reading of other godly Books that do incite and invite us to love the Lord above all the things of this World 3. Continual Prayers to God for Grace and the assistance of his Holy Spirit to encline our hearts to love him 4. Often discourse and conference with good and holy men about the goodness of God and heavenly things and the like All which I should more fully and amply inlarge unto you but that the time binds me to defer the same to a fitter opportunity and in the interim to pray to God for grace to abandon the love of this World and to love God and to encrease in our love to him more and more through Jesus Christ our Lord To whom be Glory and Honour and Thanks now and for evermore Amen Jehovae Liberatori THE DECLARATION OF THE Just Judgments of GOD. THE Man that was according to God's own heart the best Subject that ever we read of and the greatest Ring that ever Israel saw David the Son of Jesse saith that the LORD is righteous in
that Christ speakes of had shewed him the way before but as after Ages grew more subtle so they became more wicked then the former times even so this unjust and unthankful Servant became more wicked then before for now he layeth up such hatred and malice against his King and sealeth it in the depth of his Heart wherein the same boyled like new Wine that wanted vent so that it was like meat and drink to an hungry Stomach for him to finde any Opportunity to broach the same against the King And the Long Parliament that consisted of very many discontented Persons and men both disaffected to his Majesty and distasting his present Government made him a fair way to lay open all his Malice and what he formerly vented in his private Discourse by retail he doth it publickly now in gross and he doth it to the full and having a tongue apt to speak and not unskilful in the art of Rhetorick he begins first to make his Oration against the Earl of Strafford as knowing that whatsoever evil was proved or conceived against him the same reflected most upon the King then after the taking of this great Earl and prudent Counsellour of the King out of the way making more bitter Invectives against his Majesty then ever Cicero's Philippicks were against Marcus Antoninius or his Actions against Verres he so still passed on till he had poysoned the greater part of that House and the seditious vulgar that understood his Proceedings with an evil conceit against the good King And now seeing himself back'd with the wilde part of the House and the strength of the rude multitude no mean revenge will serve his turn but with his Rhetorical Orations and Speeches filled with Gall against the King though as yet somewhat obliquely he labours to disrobe and rob the King of all his chief Friends under the Notion of evil Counsellours and withall secretly complies with the Scots to assist him and the rest of his seditious Compeers against his Majesty But the King having full intelligence both of his and his partners vile practice against his Majesty laboured to bring them to their Tryal in the usual legal way for their underhand Treachery and Confederacy with the Scots to bring a foreign Army to invade his Dominion and then to save himself and the rest they fly to the City of London and in a short space drew the Citizens and with them the whole Kingdom to engage themselves in a desperate civil War against their lawful Sovereign Then the King found himself too weak to bring this strong Rebel to any trial yet the hand of God was not to short to fetch him out of his guarded Palace for he is the Lord of Hosts and hath as well his great Army of little ones as the Rats and Mice that devoured Popiel the second King of Polonia in anno 830. for his treacherous poysoning of his Unckles the Moales that undermined a City in Thessaly and the Worms that destroyed Herod the King as also his strong Army of great ones as the earth to swallow up Corah Dathan and Abiram the Sea to overwhelm Pharaoh and all his Hoast the Stars in their Order too fight against Sisera and his Angels to be at his Command to overthrow his enemies And therefore he sent his Serjeant to arrest him and to fetch him out of his strong hold that he should do no further Mischief against his Anointed And how he died I leave to the Report of them that knew the manner of his death better then I can set it down I did intend further to shew unto you the just Judgment of God upon Colonel Hamden that for his disloyalty to his King was shot whereof he dyed on the same Plot of ground where he first mustered his Souldiers against his King even as the Lord threatened the like Judgment against Ahab And upon the Mayor of York that on that day twelve-Moneth that our King lost his life made a Bone-fire for joy that the King had so lost his life but on the same day twelve-Moneth after hanged himself And especially upon Colonel Axtel that hath been the ruine of so many Churches and the Suppressour of so many honest conformable Ministers and other good Protestants and plaid so many Tyrannical parts about Kilkenny and in my Diocess of Ossory as I am not able in a short time and with few words to express it and upon divers others but my Occasions at this time will not give me leave to perfect what I have begun And therefore I must now here make an End and commend us all to God through Jesus Christ our Lord to whom be all glory and honour for evermore Amen Jehovae Liberatori The Authour's Prayer after he had finished the Reparation of the Chancel and Quire of the Cathedral Church of Kilkenny OEternal Almighty and most merciful Lord God that hast created all things by thy Power governest them by thy Wisdom and preservest them by thy Goodness and hast disposed all thy Creatures to be for the Service of man the Sun to give him light by day and the Moon by night the Earth to feed him and the Angels of Heaven to attend him that he dash not his foot against a Stone for all which great love and bounty of thine towards man thou requirest no more but that he should be thankful unto thee and praise thee for thy goodness and declare the wonders that thou doest for the Children of men and as Moses saith what doth the Lord our God require of us but to fear the Lord our God to walk in all his ways and to love him and to serve the Lord our God with all our hearts and with all our souls and to keep his Commandments and Statutes which he commanded us for our good for the discharging of which duties and the performance of our Service unto the Lord our God though as Saint Stephen saith the most High dwelleth not in Temples made with hands when as the heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain him which is above the heavens and below the earth and filleth all places and beyond all places with his Presence yet our fore-Fathers most religiously according to the President that King Solomon left us and the good Examples that the Primitive Christians gave us have erected Oratories and built Temples and Churches where the Saints and Servants of God might meet to praise the Lord for his manifold mercies to beg his favour and graces to help and to supply their wants and necessities to understand his Will and to know his Commands and to do all other the best Service that they could do to the Lord their God and to that onely end they have set them apart and alienated them from all secular and prophane uses dedicated them wholly for God's Service and consecrated them by Prayers to be Sanctuaries for them and their Posterities to serve and to honour God in But O Lord our God we confess and
begotten of him And therefore it is the duty of all Fathers Filios colere quasiproprie vitae propaginem proprio exemplo optimè regere tanquam membra saith Marcilius Ficinus To love and to delight in his Children as in the issue and the offspring of his own flesh and the Continuance of his life and to guide them and instruct them by his own proper example as he doth guide the members of his own body And the Poet very divinely saith Nil dictu faedum visuque haec limina tangat Marcil Fic l. 3. Epâ—st Intra quae puer est procul hinc prooul ite puellae Lenonum cantus pernoctantis parasiti Maxima debetur puero reverentia si quid Turpe paras nec tu pueri contempseris annos Sed peccature obsistat tibi filius infans Let no unseemly act or unsavory speech be seen or heard where thy Children are and if thou intendest to do any lewd prank or to speak any immodest thing forget not the years of the young Youths but when thou art about to do it let the consideration of thy Children refrain thee that thou mayst not teach them to be evill and wicked by thine example And it is the duty of Children to love and honor their Fathers as those that gave them their very being and all the things wherein they delight that is themselves as Diogenes said to one that he saw despising his Father And they ought to imitate and to follow their Fathers in all the good things that they see they do But who were those Fathers of those Jews that persecuted the Prophets that we may understand whom this Martyr meaneth For they boasted very much that they were the Children of Abraham and very proud they were that they had Abraham to be their Father because as the Poet saith Vera quidem res est patrem sequitur sua proles Et leviter sequitur filia matris iter The Children are like Apes apt to imitate and to follow their Fathers waies whether they be good or bad and to become like their Fathers both in respect of body and mind because as another saith Scilicet est olion vis rerum in semine certa Martil Poet. Et referunt animos singula quaeque patrum Nec leporem canis Aemathius timidámve columbam Children commonly like their Parents Notus hyperboreo falco sub axe creat There is a certain power and strength left by God in the seed of things and each severall thing doth shew the nature of his begetter as the Aemathian Dog begets not a Hare nor the Northen Hawk a fearfull Dove but as Horatius saith Fortes creantur fortibus bonis Est in juvencis est in equis patrum Horat. 4. Carm. 4. Virtus nec imbecillem feroces Progenerant aequilae columbam The strong creatures beget strong breed as we see in Beasts in Bullocks and in Horses the strength and stature of their Sires and the fierce Eagle begeteth not a silly Pigeon So commonly good and godly Fathers have good and gracious Children and for the most part valiant and heroicall men beget valiant sons as Jupiter begat Hercules Aeacus Achilles and Anchises Aeneas Rom. 11 2â— And the Apostle saith that Children are beloved of God for their Fathers sake and therefore questioniesse à Principibus nasci praeclarum est It is a most excellent grace and honor to be born of honorable parents And S. James saith that Abraham was called the friend of God James 2.23 and God himself giveth this testimony of Abraham that he knoweth Abraham would command his Children and his Houshold after him Genes 17.4 that they should keep the way of the Lord to do justice and judgment And therefore it cannot be otherwise but that this should be a great deale of Honor and Glory unto the Jews that they were of the seed of Abraham and the sons of Israel who wrastled with God and would not let him go untill he blest him But though all good Fathers do take special care to make their Children good and say with the Poet Hen henâ— ut illud dictitant rectè probum Patrem ab improbo non posse nasci filium Euripides Disce puer virtutem exme verumque laborem Learn to be good and to serve God by mine example yet experience sheweth that the best Fathers have not alwaies the best Children for as what Euripides saith is seen commonly true 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That a towardly son doth seldom spring from an untoward father because as the Proverb is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 An evil Crow brings forth an evil Egg and as Theognis saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The rose riseth not from shrimps nor * Mat. 7.16 thorns of thistles So it is often seen that a good and a godly father hath a very lewd and an ungodly son as faithful Abraham had a persecuting Ismael religious Isaac had a prophane Esau dutiful David had an undutiful Absolom zealous Ezechias had an Idolatrous Manasses Children not alwayes like their Parents and the good Prophet Samuel had very bad sons as were the sons of Eli. And the prophane Stories do record the like Progenies For Caius Caligula the worst of that time was the son of Germanicus the best of that Age and Commodus that became a lascivious sword-player was the son of Mar. Antonius that was a Sage Philosopher So Chrysippus was the son of Gabrias the Athenian Carinus was the son of the Emperour Carus Licinius Galienus was the son of Cornelius Licinius Valerianus very bad sons of very good fathers And I believe you may remember some fathers in your own time that were good men and very loyal subjects and their sons proved to be arrant rebels and some godly Bishops that had sons little better than the Rebels And therefore it is most true which Ovid saith Non census nec clarum nomen avorum Ovid. de ponto l. 1. Sed probitas magnos ingeniumque facit It is not our Progenitors To be vertuous is more noble than to be born of Noble Parents nor the having of Abraham to be our father that adds any thing to our felicity or encreases our glory unlesse we approve our selves faithful in our calling and dutiful to our God as Abraham was and our good fathers were Nam genus proavos quae non fecimus ipsi Vix ea nostra voco The famous deeds and the worthy exploits of our Ancestors are none of ours and as the Poet saith Nobilitas sola est atque unica virtus Hae nobilis Hector Alcidesque fuit It is our own vertues and goodness and not the vertues of our Fathers that makes us glorious and acceptable both with God and Men. And therefore seeing it is the imitation of their fathers vertues and religious carriage and not their procreation from their fathers seed that makes the children to be both loved and
the Priests but also to root out Presbyterium Our late persecution worse then Julians persecution the very Priesthood of Jesus Christ and so to extinguish the Christian religion out of the world for these men imitating him sought to supress not the then Bishops that perhaps might be found to have offended though that was never proved but Episcopacie it self and the discentive succession thereof which we received by prayers and the imposition of hands even from the Apostles time from those that are yet unborn and have I am sure done neither good nor evill and yet have received this evill from these men to have the Calling that they were to enjoy supprest their honours buried and their undubitable Rights and Means alienated from them Prohscelus nefandum quod magnum est mirum a most wonderfull thing that wickednesse should have no bounds no stop no reason nor moderation in its progression but like a stone tumbling down a hill never leave tumbling till it comes to the bottome or like a right Apollyon and a blind smiter that will slay the righteous with the wicked or rather destroy the righteous because they will not be wicked And yet this is not all we are not yet come to the height of these persecutors wickednesse Ezek. k. 13 15. or to the depth of their abomination but as the Lord saith unto the Prophet Ezechiel turn thee yet again and thou shalt see greater abominations so from the Lord I will shew to you greater abomination and the greatest that ever was committed here on earth For 3. The 〈…〉 the beâ—â—â—ving and murderring of the first King Touching which three 〈◊〉 are â—â—â—â—trable They have not only persecuted the Prophets and slain the Preachers and foreshewers of the coming of Jesus Christ but they have also saith our Martyr betrayed and murdered that just one For the fuller and more perfect understanding of which point I shall desire you to observe these three things 1. What they are and how they are styled by the holy Ghost that did this deed Traytors and Murderers 2. Of whom they are the Traytors and Murderers which is here exprest by that Just One and we shall find him to be 1. None of the Plebeians or common sort of men but a King the highest and the chiefest man in all the Kingdom 2. Not an alien as were Caesar and Herod but their own King originally and lineally descended from the Jews 3. Not an Vsurper as was Jeroboam and many others of the Kings of Israel and Athalia among the Jewes and Rich. the third and the late Cromwell amongst us but he was their own lawfull King without question lawfully descended from the Royall line 4. Not an unjust or tyrannical King as were Pharaoh Dionysius and Nero nor yet a lascivious King as were Sardanapalus Belshazzar and Heliogabalus but a most just perfect and pious King No better King under heaven 3. Who they were that the holy Martyr meaneth by these Traytors and Murderers of their King and we shall find them to be the Lords and Commons the People the Elders the Scribes and Pharisees and the whole Council of the Jewes 1. Part. 1. Their style and denomination which is twofold â— Traytorss They that have put this just King to death are here styled and shall ever be justly termed Traytors and Murderers 1. Traytors that is to their King for the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Holy Ghost useth in this place and is derived of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies prodo or trado from whence the word Traitor cometh doth properly and most usually signifie both in prophane Authours and in the Ecclesiasticall and Civil writers the illegal and undutiful demeanour and the rebellious behaviour of Subjects toward and against their King and as the most curious criticks and best searchers of the Scriptures do observe this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Traytor is never applyed to any King for any act be it never so illegall so foul so barbarous or so bloudy that the King commits agains his Subjects when as we find not one text in all the book of God the holy Bible that speaks of many wicked idolatrous and tyrannical bloudy Kings where any one of those Princes or Kings is signified by this word or called by this name of Traytor And therefore this word Traytors that the Martyr useth doth sufficiently shew that he meaneth thereby to prove Christ to be King and the Traytors that killed him to be his Subjects as I shall further declare unto you hereafter 2. 2 Murders They are murderers because he was unlawfully put to death for otherwise a lawful Judge may lawfully put a malefactor to death and be no murderer because God commandeth Idolaters and sorcerers and others the like malefactors to be put to death and they that legally put such men to death are never termed murderers but when the party executed is innocent and the Judge condemning him not vested with lawful authority the man so put to death is truly said to be murdered and his executioners murderers And such was the death of Christ because he was most innocent And so was the death of King Charles and the Judge had neither lawful authority nor a just cause to condemn him and therefore they that crucified Christ and put him to death are rightly termed murderers and because Christ was a King as I shewed you from the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 traytors they were no ordinary murderers of plebeians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and of the common sort of men but that which is the highest and the worst of all murders they were the murderers of their King and therefore the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Martyr useth to expresse the death of the fore-shewers of the coming of Christ and the words of the Husbandmen which they said together of the King's Son Marc. 12.7 8. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that comes of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Occido used here to signifie the death of this King ought properly to be translated either by killing or slaying or murdering as our last Translation renders the Martyr's words most rightly that they were his murderers But here it may be the Jews will object and say That Man or that King cannot justly be said to be murdered which is brought to a publick Trial and hath 1. His Charge given him to answer Three things seeming topalliat and to disprove the murdering of this King discussed 2. The Witnesses ready to prove the Charge 3. A Lawful Judge to pronounce sentence against him And all this was used against Christ the King of the Jews and against Charles the King of England saith the long Parliament therefore neither the one nor the other can justly and properly be said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be murdered but they are unjustly taxed and
no Heir by Inheritance to the Crown and was rejected by Gods Spirit and David by Gods own appointment was to Succeed him in that Kingdom 1 Sam. 16.1 13. and was anointed by Samuel to be King in his stead which was very much Yet this Good Subject when Saul was put into his Hands and his servants perswaded him to take the Advantage of that good opportunity 1 Sam. 24 24. and to do justice upon that Wicked King he would by no meanes be advised by them nor suffer them to Rise against his King and when Abishai told him that God had delivered his enemy i.e. Saul into his hands and therefore desired that if David would not do it himself he would suffer Him to smite him David answered No by no means 1 Sam. 26.9 10 11. and he yeelds this reason Who can stretch forth his hand against the Lords anointed and be guiltless And he addeth The Lord shall smite him but God forbid that I should stretch forth mine hand against him Nay more then this when David took the Speare and the cruse of water from Sauls boulster and then went a great way from them he cried unto Abner and said Vers 16. Wherefore hast thou not kept thy lord the King As the Lord liveth ye are worthy to die because you have not kept your Master the Lords anointed Where you see David sweareth a Great oath As the Lord liveth and therefore he jesteth not They are worthy to die not they Alone that Kill their King but they also that hazard not their own lives to Protect and preserve the life of their King be their King never so Wicked I am sure in Davids judgment this is True Divinity Yea more then all this when Saul had fallen upon his own sword because he would not fall into the hands of his uncircumcised enemies and being in extream anguish desired a young Amalekite that was passing by to rid him out of his pain and the young man in favour to him performing his request and out of his respect to David that was to succeed him he brought the Crown that was upon his head and the Bracelet that was upon his arm unto David that the enemies might not have them and to shew that he took no pleasure in the death of Saul he came in a very mournfull manner with his Clâ—athes rent and Earth upon his head and likewise to shew his Loyal respect unto David he fell to the Earth and did Obeysance unto him and though he was a stranger and Subject neither to Saul nor to David therefore owed no service unto either of them yet because he took away the Life of Davids King the anointed of God and his Vicegerent here on earth David caused one of his young men 2 Sam. 1. to fall upon the poor Amalekite and for his mistaken curtesie unto Saul and unwelcome service unto David to smite him that he died So dear was the life of this Wicked King unto this Godly man that was a man according to Gods own heart the best subject that ever we read of and therefore was honored by God to become the best King that ever Israel had So that in the Genealogie of Christ the King of Kings he is preferred before Abraham as S. Matth. 1.1 Matthew sets it down The book of the Generation of Jesus Christ the son of David the son of Abraham And is it not Strange that these Jews that were given so much to read the Scripture and had them more readily then our Puritans have them at their fingers end and could tell how many Affirmative and how many Negative precepts were in all the Bible and how many times every word was therein mentioned and yet that they would not now consider that Job saith Is it fit to say to a King Thou art wicked Job 34.18 Psal 105.15 Eccl. 8.4 Numb 16. Deut. 33.5 Hos 1.4 2 Reg 21.24 and that God himself saith Touch not mine anointed and the wisest amongst the sons of men saith Where the Word of a King is there is power and Who may say unto him What doest thou Or that they could not remember how fearfully God destroyed those Rebels that rose against Moses that was a King in Jesuron and destroyed the posterity of Jehu because he had destroyed his own King Ahab and stirred the people to slay all them that had slain Amon though he was a most wicked King But the truth is that the Old Serpent the Prince of darkness teacheth his Schollers to reject the Old light and now to stand altogether for New lights new Revelations and new Divinity therefore S. Augustine speaks most truely of these Scripturists that they had the Bible In manibus but not In cordibus and they had the truth in Codice but not in Capite for now Caiphas contrary to all the Old Scripture Joh 18.14 hath a New Revelation that it is expedient Pro salute populi that One man should dye for the people therefore Christ their King must needs be Killed and all the people cried out for justice and double their crie Crucify Him Crucify Him Salus Populi doth require it 2 From the Word of God 2. To prove it Lawfull to put any King to death Prosalute Populi he that hath all Scripture ad unguem can furnish you with a Text of S. Peter 1 Pet. 2.13 that affirmeth the Kingly office to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Humane Ordinance or creature therefore the people being the maker of the King Ob. they may destroy their Own creature if he failes in the End for which he was created To this our True Divines have oftentimes most truly answered 1. That the Jews held their Royal Government to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Sol. Immediate from God and to be in force without the Election of Ordination from man and all other dominions and rule to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Humane Ordinance because God had determined and set down the Plat-form of their Government which he had not done to other Nations that as the Prophet saith had not the knowledge of his Laws and therefore S. Peter writing here to the Jews tels them that although the Kingly office should be but as they held an Humane Ordinance and not as theirs was a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Divine Rule yet his Precept was that they should Submit themselves thereunto for the Lords sake i.e. though the Governours were Heathens and their Government Heathenish yet Obedience and not Resistance is due unto them for the Lords sake by whom All Kings both Jews and Gentiles do bear rule 2. That although the Jurisdiction of Kings for Extent in some Part 2 Sol. and in some Degree might be said to be Humane from men yet the power of the Sword which hath Potestatem vitae necis is simply and absolutely Divine from God For who can give power over the Life of man but he that
the seduced followers of the Scribes Pharisees and Presbyters cryed for Justice Justice Crucifie him Crucifie him yet seeing all the rest of the honest people that had well observed his meekness and his sweet carriage amongst them and had received so much justice and so many favours from this good King did exceedingly love him and said He did all things weâ—l and were ready to venture their lives for him the Priests and Presbyters durst not venture to delay his execution till that day were past lest they should attempt to rescue him and so to save his life on that day So you see the subtilty of the crafty foxes and the greediness of these Bloody-hounds to take away the life of their good King and to hinder al others to preserve his life Reason 2 2. They would not have him to suffer on their Feast day lest they should be defiled John 18.28 a most damnable hypocrisie that stumble at a straw and leap over a block that fear to be defiled on their Holy day and yet fear not the shedding of innocent blood the blood of their King and of the Son of God on any other day Just like our hypocritical Saints that cannot endure to misie the hearing of two Sermons on the Lords day and care not to deceive and destroy 200. of their neighbours if they can do it upon any other day And therefore these holy Saints are none of Gods Saints but do belong to that Angel of darkness The great hypocrisie of these holy murderers that can so finely transform himself as these men do into an Angel of Light And so you see how speedily they executed their King and the main Reasons why they did so And this speedy execution of his death doth exceedingly aggravate the heynousness of the action for after they had him in their hands their feet were swift to shed his blood and they ended all proceedings in few dayes their unsatiable thirst for blood can never suffer these Blood-bounds to rest until their thirst be quenched But you will say He was almost four years amongst them after he was Baptized A Question and began to dresse his Vineyard and to sway the Scepter of his Dominion if they were so greedy of his extirpation Why stayed they all this while before they executed their intention I answer Not because they wanted will but by reason of some remora's The Answer for three Reasons Luke 22.2 that hindered their desires and they were especially these three 1. The love of the people who for his justice innocency and fair carriage towards all men and the great good he did to many men did for many years exceedingly love him and apologise for him until these subtile Foxes by their Remonstrances and Aspersions had wrought this unstable multitude that understood nothing right to a jealous and a causeless suspition of this Just King and a wicked compliance with these unjust murderers 2. The want of fit opportunity made that they could not so safely do it until the people at the Passeover were drawn up to the Metropolis Hierusalem where by the Law they were to convene at this Feast and whereby you may see how their subtilty made way for their villany 3. The factions and oppositions that were among themselves and especially betwixt their chief Commanders Pilate the Roman Commander and Herod the head-Ruler of the Jews stayed their purposes till these differences were composed and these two great Opponents made great Friends and this assoon as ever done they presently do what they intended and never rest till all be finished 5. When they had thus devilishly condemned 5 The Attendants that followed Christ to the place of execution Math. 27.33 So was King Charles beheaded in the High-way where they used to bait Bears Bulls and thus speedily resolved to kill their King I pray you mark the place where they carried him to be executedâ—â— and that place where they would have him to be executed I told you before was Golgotha that is to say A place of a skull the most infamous place about Hierusalem where their Malefactors were hanged and their bones were scattered and gnawn of Dogs A fit place think you for a King to end his life And then 6. Consider the attendants that accompanied this great King to this despicable place of Execution and we shall find them to be Either 1. His friends Or 2. His foes And 1. Of his friends I find but very few that durst be seen to follow him 1 How few of his friends Joh. 19.26 Chap. 18.15 not any man that I find recorded but only one and that was the Disciple that our Saviour loved and that Disciple was known unto the High Priest and therefore the bolder to follow him whom he loved The rest I presume loved him well but they saw the malice of his persecutors was so great not only against their King but also against all those that loved him How cruel the enemies of Christ were to all that loved him that if they were seen to follow him or heard to speak a word in his behalf they had presently been taken for Malignants and most severely punished as most haynous Delinquents And therefore all the rest of his Apostles and Disciples and all others that loved him were so mightily terrified that they durst neither be heard nor seen So cruel were these Subjects even unto their King Some Women indeed that loved him well were permitted to be present at his death their Sex was their only warrant but these Women and the rest that knew him were fain to stand afar off and durst not come near him and it seems they durst not speak one word either of him or to him but smote their breasts and returned Luke 23.48 But 2. For his foes we read of enough that followed him 2 How many of his foes a guard of Souldiers for fear he should be rescued and the Rulers that derided him and the foolish people that were the flatterers of those lewd Leaders saying He saved others let him save himself if he be Christ the Son of God Luc. 23.25 and some no doubt were present that betrayed him Such villany and impudence had covered the foreheads of these monsters of men yet one of these bloody Souldiers that were the chief actors in the execution of this King received here the benefit of this Kings prayer and was inlightened by his Spirit to say Math. 27.54 Truly this was the Son of God But for the Priests and Presbyters the Scribes and Rulers of the people they could bring him to his death and mocked him upon the Cross when humanity should have rather taught them to pity him than to scoffe at him not one of them notwithstanding all the wonders that were then shewed as the rising of many that were dead the rending of the vail of the Temple and the great Earth quake that immediately followed his death had the grace
King 21.8 false Prophets at her own Table and she vowed to be the death of Elias 1 King 18.4 and made a wicked King to become far more wicked by her continuall instigation of him to wickedness and therefore she was a very wicked woman vers 19 and the more inabled to be wicked because she was so Noble and so Witty when as there is no wickedness so great and so unavoydable as armed wickedness which is invented by Subtilty perpetrated by Power and defended by Authority for And how inabled to be wicked as Non nisi ex magnis ingeniis magni errores Great Heresies never spring from mean Schollers and great oppressions could never be acted by petty Landlords or mean Gentlemen so Jezabel could never have gotten Naboth's Vineyard if she had not had the wit to device this plot and the learning to write these letters for so the Text saith 1 King 21.8 That she wrote letters in Ahabs name and the power as being King Ahabs wife to seal them with his seal and send them as from him to the Nobles and Elders to execute her wicked will neither could she have maintained 400. false Prophets at her own Table if she had not had the wealth and power for to do it and so if Irene had not been an Empress she had never perswaded a whole Council to set up the worshipping of Images And therefore great Schollers ought earnestly to beg and to pray to God for grace to sanctify their learning that they may be retained within the sphere of truth and not to start aside like Arius Eutyches Nestorius and the like learned Hereticks that thought so well of themselves that they disdained to walk in the troden paths of Orthodoxall Divinity and therefore invented most wicked Heresies and so as the Lord saith of proud Babylon their Wisdom and their knowledge caused them to fall which hath been the practice of our Presbyterians and Jesuits in these very daies And in like manner Kings and Princes Magistrates and Judges Landlords and Great men ought to be very carefull of their actions and more carefull then any other men that are of a lower station because they are more inabled to do more wickedness For if a mean man wrong me I may perchance be able to right my self but if a Judge decree against me or a mighty man oppress me I must with patience be resolved to bear it or by strugling in all likelihood to be much more damnified And the Devill laboureth more to get a subtile Scotus or a learned Origen to become an Heretick a powerfull Nero to become a Tyrant and an Assembly of Senators and a choise Parliament to become Rebels and to bandy against their King as the Senators of Rome conspired the death of Caesar and the Jewish Sanhedrim the death of Christ and the grave Judges to become such Judasses as to sell the Truth or like the Judges of Susanna to condemn the Innocent and the rich Landlords to turn miserable Oppressors I say the Devill laboureth more and rejoyceth more to have one such than twenty other poor Snakes that want the abilities of Wit Learning Power and Authority to become his Instruments of wickedness And therefore I say to all such men of good parts and great power as the Prophet saith Psal 2â— for the same cause Be wise now therefore O ye Kings be Learned all ye that are the Judges of the Earth And do you follow the known common troden path of truth all you that are good Schollers And so much for the speaker Jezabel that was a noble witty and wicked woman 2. For the Speech of this wicked-wicked woman 2 The speech of Jezabel it is a most Excellent Speech worthy to be set in Letters of Gold inter dicta sapientum among the Aphorisms or Parables of the wise As I shall make it manifest unto you when I come to explain the same In the interim you may observe How that many wicked men and wicked women Hereticks and Tyrants have had many times some Excellent sayings and sometimes most worthy Acts have proceeded from them As the Papists and Presbyterians have made many good Sermons and written many Excellent Books and Treatises of Divinity full of Learning and great Piety and who better then Bellarmine his Meditations upon his Gemitus columbae How many wicked men have said and done many things well Soliloquies De ascensione animi in coelum per scalas rerum creatarum Septem verba Christi in cruce And his Comments upon the Psalms and the like And so Ferus Granatensis Drexelius and many more have done the like and we find divers others that have been great Hereticks to have done so likewise And in like manner we do read that many wicked men have done some speciall Acts of Virtue and Piety As Herod that sought the Life of Christ yet did he as Josephus relates it most Magnificently re-edify and beautify the Temple of the Lord in Jerusalem and the other Herod the husband of Herodias hearkened to John Baptist in many things and Pilate that condemned Christ to death did many things exceeding well as in the strict examination of Christ his Cause and justifying his Innocency when he delivered him to be Crucified and Claudius Lisâ—as though he would not release S. Paul from his bands yet he preserved his Life and delivered him out of the hands of his enemies and the unrighteous Judge that as our Saviour saith Luk. 18.5 feared not God neither regarded man yet did he once justice to the importunate Widow and Am. Marcellinus tels us that even fulian the Apostate and the bitterest persecutor of the Christians was adorned with many singular properties as being an Excellent Schollar bred in Athens at the same time with Greg. Nazian and writing many Epistles Orations and Morall sayings and behaving himself most mildly and courteously towards all men but the Christians and so we read that Vespasian Titus Nerva Trajan Antoninus Pius Marcus Aurelius and many others of the Roman Emperors had many good parts in them and did many singular acts of Virtue though they were no Christians but some of them very Evill men and great persecutors of the Christians And I could instance in many Tyrants and other great Oppressors of Gods people and wicked men even in our own Kingdom that have done some Acts of Virtue and Piety And I could name you the men that have been very Turbulent in Gods Church and mis-led abundance of the people and yet have made some good Sermons and written some good Treatises of Divinity And what then Shall we therefore adore them and follow them in their factions and evill waies because they do or have done some good By no means For as thou shouldest not drink the Wine that is mingled with some Poâ—son though the Wine be never so good so it is not safe for thee to hear that Sermon that leads thee to Sedition though
seminando occidit eum Aug. super Johan not because he killeth him with weapons but because he destroyeth man by wicked counsels and by setting on others to destâ—oy him so are they murderers that take away the life of man by any of these ways and therefore proculdubiò decipiuntur saith the same Father they are far deceived that think them only to be murderers which lay violent hands upon their neighbours Idem habetâ—r de poenit dist 1. periculosè The hainousness of a judicial murder and not them also per quorum consilium fraudem hortationem homines extinguuntur by whose wicked counsels and procurements men are brought unto their death And if any other murder be odious and wicked The hainousness of a judicial murder then certainly this Judiciarie murder whereby the innocent person is condemned to death as Naboth was by the High Court of Jezreel and Christ by the Parliament at Jerusalem must needs be most transcendently abominable and wicked above all other kind of murders whatsoever for that this is not a single simple murder but it is morbus complicatus a twisted de-compound maltiplied sin of many-many branches so that neither Cains malicious killing of his brother Abel nor Joabs traiterous murdering of Amasa nor Davids crafty killing of Vrias nor Brutus and Cassius his conspiring the death of Caesar nor any other kind of murder is neer comparably so hainous and so abominable as this which uno ictu by one single sentence doth cast an infinite number of persons into sin and binds them all together to be lyable to the severe judgement of God for hereby 1. 1 In the place The Seat of Judgement is made the stool of wick ednesse the throne of Satan and the shambles and slaughter-house of innocent blood to do the greatest wrong where I should expect the greatest right 2. 2 The persons Witnesses Jury Judge Jerem. 5.7 The persons here offending are many-many persons the witnesses forsworn and perjured the Jury corrupted and the Judge a devill that is a liar and a murderer from the beginning and doth hereby wrong 1. The innocent person that is condemned 2. The place that is abused 3. All good people that are scandalized and offended with this unjust proceeding 4. All Light-headed credulous people that hold and believe that innocent condemned person to be a malefactor justly punished and 5. God himself that is first cast out of his throne and the devil placed in his stead 2. He is made a lyar to pronounce a false sentence 3. A murderer to kill an innocent man and so lastly a very devill for he that doth all this can be none other then the devill and the Judge stands here loco Dei as Gods Vice-gerent in Gods stead and God himself saith dixi Dei estis and commands us to reverence and honour them as Gods and therefore this judiciary condemning of the innocent unto death doth as much as lieth in man make the just God to seem to be an unjust devill And it were a lesse sin to un-god him then to make the just God seem to be so unjust a Judge for as Plutarch saith Satius est nullos Deos credere quà m Deos noxios And may not God much better say to such offendors as he doth in like case unto the Jewes onely for swearing by them that are no gods and assembling themselves in the harâ—ots houses How shall I pardon them for this As if the hainousnesse of this sin of judiciary murder went beyond the understanding of the omniscient and All-knowing God to find out a way and the means to pardon it especially if we consider 1. The persons condemned For 2. The Courts condemning them For 1. The more considerable eminent and excellent the person condemned is in respect of his calling as are Kings Priests and Prophets and the more innocent upright and religious he is in respect of his life and conversation the more odious and the more abominable is the sin 2. The more eminent and high the Court is that condemneth the innocent the more transcendent is the offence And You may more that this Judicial murder may be done either 1. By an inferiour Court of Justice as the Judges of Jezreel condemned Naboth 2. By the High Court of Iustice the highest Court of the kingdom and the Synopsis of the whole Nation as Christ was by the Sanhedrim of the Jews And I cannot remember in all the book of God of any that were thus judiciarily condemned but only two 1. The subject Naboth by the personal procurement and command of his King Ahab and 2. The King Christ Jesus by his subjects and the National malice of the Jewes And what became of these murderers how did God pardon them Elias telleth Ahab the King In the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth shall dogs lick thy blood and the blood of Jezabel and God will bring evill upon thee and will take away thy posterity and will cut off from Ahab him that pisseth against the wall and him that is shut up and left in Israel and so Jehu caused the Rulers of Jezreel the same town and perhaps the same Judges that condemned Naboth to cut off the heads of 70. of Ahabs children and when he came to Samaria he slew all that remained unto Ahab untill he had destroyed him according to the saying of the Lord. And how the Jewes have been destroyed by Titus and afterwards by Adrian and ever since persecuted and plagued in all Countries and by all Nations for killing their King the time would be too short and my papers too scant for me to relate And therefore if any King or Kingdom Nation or City be guilty of such a judiciarie murder as was the subject Naboth or the King Christ Jesus Let them assure themselves the heavie wrath of God like a thick cloud hangs over their heads and is ready to pour down most terrible showrs of vengeance upon them if they do not most speedily repent as I shall by and by more fully shew unto you But whether Zimri did kill his Master with his own hands But we are sure Zimri did not judicially condemn Elab to death yet he had no peaceâ— and what peace shall they have which shall judicially condemn an innocent person unto death which is so compounded a murder and far more abominable then any other sin 1 King 16.29 Acts 25.16 or by some others of his confederates for it is said that he conspired and so plotted with other companions against him or whether he alone did murder him I cannot tell but because he was the primum mobile the first and chief setter on of this murder it is here onely ascribed unto him But afore we do absolutely condemn Zimri for Elah's death we ought to hear what he can say for himself and not as some Judges that will hear no reason but condemn the innocent against all reason for as it was not
they prosper bear rule and raign in a flourishing stare for some years they shall therefore flourish for ever and never be punished because the Lord is flow to anger and cometh to punish on leaden feet using much patience towards the most wicked reprobates to see if his long sufferance can lead them to repentance But if they be such as the wise man speaketh of that Because sentence against an evill work treason Eccles 8.11 or murder or the like is not executed speedily therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evill Te peccare sinit siquidem divina potestas Temporis ad spatium parcit quandoque nocenti Sed gravius tandem tormentum rector Olympi Injungit torquetque magis delicta nocentum Obadiah v. 15.16 Exod. 1.22 15.5 then will God recompence the slownesse of his coming with severity of vengeance and smite then home with iron-hands for this law is irrevocably enacted in heaven that murders adulteries oppressions perjuries and other such wickednesses shall not always prosper but shall undoubtedly be punished though the times and the manner are not by us to be known 2. For the punishment of malefactors it is 1. Sometimes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and they shall suffer the same strokes and receive the same measure as they have measured unto others As thou hast done it shall it be done unto thee Even as Pharaoh drowned all the male-children of the Israelits in the waters of Nilus so was He and all his Host drowned in the red Sea and as the sword of Agag had made many women childless so did the sword of Samuel make Agags mother childless among women and as all the foresaid examples that have proved Traytors and have kil'd their Kings have been kil'd themselves just as the Lord had said Whosoever sheddeth mans blood by man shall his blood be shed 2. Sometimes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they shall suffer some punishment that shall be somewhat like to the sin 2 Chron. 12.5 that they have committed for so the Lord saith You have forsaken me and therefore I have also left you and so it hapned to Solomon that as he divided Gods service betwixt God and the Idols so God divided his Kingdom betwixt Rehoboam his son and Jeroboam his servant And this likeness of the punishment hath a reference sometimes 1. To the Subject 2. To the Place 3. To the Time of our sinning for 1. 1 Kings c. 11. c. 12. As Adam sinned in eating the forbidden fruit so his punishment shall be to eat the fruit of the ground in the sweat of his face and Hezechias for shewing his Treasure was punished with the loss of his treasure 2 King 20. as many other men for being proud of their wealth do lose their wealth some one way and some another 2. The Lord saith that 2 In respect of the place 1 King 21.20 In the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth shall dogs lick thy blood even thine which came to pass accordingly you may see in 1 King 22 38. 3. Sometimes the punishment hath reference to the time of our sinning 3 In respect of the punishment as the spies that searched the land of Canaan 40 daies and sinned by their false report were punished by wandering in the wilderness 40 years and it is observed that Pompey was killed by Septimius and Achillas as upon the same day wherein he had formerly triumphed for the spoile of Jerusalem and the Jews had their City utterly destroyed by Titus at the same time of the year and as some think on the same day of the month wherein they had crucified our Saviour Christ 3. In respect of the persons sinning and punished we are to observe 3 The persons sinning 2 King 14.6 that although the Lord saith The fathers shall not be put to death for the children nor the children be put to death for the fathers but every man shall be put to death for his own sin and the soul that sinneth that soul shall die and God will not have them say The fathers have eaten sower grapes and the childrens teeth are set on edge Yet it is most certain that many times the wickedness of the fathers is remembred in their posterity and the punishment of that wickedness is oftentimes delated and after a sort both deferred and in part transferred as well to the children and to the childrens children of them that walk in the same steps and follow the same courses as their fathers did and sometimes upon the very innocent Infants as upon the wicked fathers that are murderers and malefactors themselves For so the Lord saith that for the sin of Jeroboam therefore behold and mark it well I will bring evil upon the house of Jeroboam 1 King 14.10 11. and will cut off from Jeroboam him that pisseth against the wall and him that is shut up and left in Israel and will take away the remnant of the house of Jeroboam asa man taketh away dung till it be all gone And so Baasha the son of Ahijab smote all the house of Jeroboam 1 King 15.29 he left not to Jeroboam any that breathed untill he had destroyed him 1 King 16.3 4. according to the Word of the Lord and the Lord threatneth the very same punishment and the rooting out of all his posterity to Baasha 1 King 16.11 12. that killed his King Nadab and did other evils in the sight of the Lord and this Zimri the servant of Elab brought to pass according as the Lord had threatned and the very like punishment happened to all the posterity of Ahab even for Naboths murder and other sins of Ahab 2 King 9.9 and c. 10.17 and too many more murderers and wicked men that by their sins and desire to raign and unjust preferring of their children have pulled down vengeance upon themselves and rooted out all their posterity And for Romulus Tarquinius and Nero I say neither of them were either good or honest and yet the holy Scripture doth not allow the killing or sentencing of them to death and the proof of the Senat 's killing Romulus or sentencing Nero to death is not Authenticall nor the examples by any means to be followed when they are so apparantly contrary to the practice and precepts of the holy Apostles and the success which followed Neroes death proved so lamentable Corn. Tacit. l. 20. 21. as the Tragicall butchering of three of their succeeding Emperors Galba Otho and Vitellius that had been three most famous Captains and had done very worthy exploits for their Countrey And therefore whosoever thinketh by murder and slaughter to usurp another mans Kingdom Inheritance or Possession and thereby to raise his house and to advance his children as Zimri Baasha Shallum and others thought to do or thereby to benefit the Common-wealth as they pretend to do he deceives himself because this is the only
death in any other Country where they should be but like Jonas among the Ninivites meer strangers Yet thus was Jeremy used and thus are we 3. This our Prophet was not only a Jew preaching unto the Jews 3 He was a dear lover of them for so many a man as Cateline among the Romans Vortigern among the Britains Speed l. 7. c. 4. and Simon Jason and others among the Jews and some others nearer home have betrayed their own Country 2 Machab. 4. the trust that their Country reposed in them but he was a faithful Patriot a hearty lover and no hater of his people Tertullian noteth how dearly Moses loved this Nation of the Israelites when rather than God should destroy them he earnestly requested that his own name might be blotted out of the Book of Life S. Paul sheweth the like love unto the Jews when he saith he could wish himself accursed from Christ Rom. 9.3 for his brethren and kinsmen according to the flesh And this our Prophet sheweth no lesse love unto them than the other as you may easily see by this his Prophesie and his Preaching to them and his Lamentation for them Yet all the love of these men and put all together was not comparable to the love of Christ who gave himself for them and prayed for them when they Crucified him And therefore well might he say Greater love than this hath no man John 15.13 that a man lay down his life for his friends which none of all the Prophets nor of the Apostles nor of the Martyrs that died all for themselves and suffered death for their own sins did lay down their life for others as our Saviour Christ did lay down his life not for himself but for his enemies and yet they loved them very much and very dear as I shewed to you before And so must all the Messengers of Christ and Preachers of God's Word How the Ministers and Preachers of Gods Word should love their people imitate these holy men to love Gods people for that the people can hardly reap any good from them whom they perceive not to love them but as we suspect the gifts of an enemy to be as the Belt of Ajax was to Hector and Hectors Sword to him in like sort the death of each other So we dis esteem and regard not the words of them that love us not But you see how the true Prophets and Servants of God loved this people and laboured all that ever they could for the good of the people to bring them unto God and to turn away Gods anger from them And what reward did this people render to these and to the rest of Gods Messengers and Teachers for all the love that they shewed unto them and the pains they had undertaken for them The very Heathen tells us that Amor amoris magnes durus est qui amorem non rependit Love is a Loadstone to draw love again and if we will do nothing else yet we can do no lesse than love them that do so dearly love us The very publicans and sinners do the same Yet behold The ingratitude of the Jews O Heavens and wonder O Earth at this ungrateful people who rendered to Gods Messengers evil for good and instead of loving them stoned them For they murmured against Moses rebelled against David persecuted Elias beheaded John the Baptist and as our Saviour saith they killed the Prophets Luke 13.34 and stoned them that were sent unto them And it is no strange thing for us to find many men walking in the same wayes and treading in the same steps as these Jews have done but it were very strange that we should be used any better than those better Messengers that were sent before us Luke 10.3 For our Saviour tells us with an Ecce Behold and consider it well I send you forth as lambs into the midst of wolves And you know the Fable how the silly lamb procul infrà bibens for drinking far enough below the wolfe was notwithstanding torn all to pieces by that cruel wolfe upon pretence that he stopt the current which was impossible for him to do 2. 2 The parties to whom this Message was sent The Parties to whom the Message was sent are shewed in these words this people and that is the people of the Jews that were then flos florum medulla mundi the choisest and the noblest of all the people of the world for You only have I known that is acknowledged for mine own people Amos 3.2 and mine own peculiar inheritance of all the families of the earth saith the Lord. And God shewed his great love towards them by the wonderful works that he had done for them For as the Prophet saith He eased their shoulders from their burdens Psal and their hands from making the pots and he delivered them out of that Egyptian-bondage and from the tyranny of cruel Pharaoh The great favours of God unto the Jews Then he gave them such Laws so holy and so just as neither Solon nor Lycurgus nor any other Nation of the World had the like And he fed them in the Wildernesse 40. years together with Manna that was the bread of Heaven and the Angels food and after that he thrust out 7. other Nations to make room for them and he gave them the labours of the people in possession and planted them in Canaan which was a Land that flowed with milk and honey and there he hedged them about as we were of late hedged here with all kind of blessings beneficia nimis copiosa most ample benefits And as the Schools say Privativa positiva for they had plenty in peace and victory in war and what was it not that this people had not And yet this people this peculiar people of God must hear this hard Message and they must undergo this sharp censure For as the Lord saith of Coniah Jeremy 22.24 were he as the signet upon my right hand yet would I pluck him thence and give him into the hands of those that seek his life So will he do with this people and with any other when they do prevaricate and offend him He will cut them off and cast them from him were they formerly never so precious in his sight How God dealeth with his dearest children when they depart from his service for no priviledge no prerogative no former piety can prevail with God to prevent his judgements when with this people they love to wander and refrain not their feet from their evil wayes But as these his dearly beloved people the Jews were cast off when they did cast off the true service of God and as those seven Churches of Asia Ephesus Smyrna Pergamos Thyatira Sardis Philadelphia and Laodicea that were planted by the Apostles and watered with the blood of Martyrs had their Candlesticks removed and themselves delivered up to groan under the Turkish tyranny
Church Satan hath some of his Emissaries amongst them that come as the Scribes and Pharisees came to hear Christ not to be instructed by him that they might be saved but to catch at some things in his words that they might accuse him 3. 3 Taking away their lives Jer. 19.4 c. 22.17 Jer. 2.34 They filled Jerusalem with the blood of innocents and that which was a great deal worse even the worst of all In their skirts was found the blood of the soules of the poor innocents which I take to be not only an Hebraism but also to shew unto us how they sought to destroy both the bodies and the souls of men and that is as I conceive by forcing them for fear of being undone and to have all their lively-hood taken from them to forswear themselves as the Prophet Hosea sheweth they have spoken words swearing falsely Hosea 10.4 in making a Covenant and shall I not visit for these things saith the Lord For though they pretended this out of zeal to Gods service to compell men to such a Form of Gods worship and to professe such and such a Religion as they conceived best or else to deprive them of their possessions yet I find the best Divines protesting that this is contrary to Gods will that would have faith wrought in us by preaching and not by fighting and Religion settled in us by perswasion and not by compulsion For as Lipsius saith Lipsius polit l. 4. c. 4. The greatest thing that any Prince is able to bring to passe by his terrour is to make that he who doth most of all seem to be obedient doth in outward shew consent but never in his heart for as Lactantius demandeth Who can compel me either to believe what I list not Lactant. l. 5. c. 14. Faith and Religion not to be forced Eccles hist l. or not to believe what I will And therefore constraint bringeth dissimulation and not Religion and maketh Hypocrites and not Saints when the constrained persons do worship the power of the constrainer and not his God which made King Theodorick to say That he could not command Religion because no man could be inforced to believe against his will and there is nothing more free than Religion which the mind no sooner withstandeth but forthwith it vanisheth and is no more Religion saith Lactantius quò suprà Hosea 10.4 And yet these Jews whereof the Prophet Hosea speaketh sought with all rigor to compel men to swear unto their wicked covenant and thereby saith our Prophet Their skirts were filled with the blood of the souls of the poor innocents when to save their estates they believed their faith and became such hypocrites before God for fear of men as made them most liable to Gods heavy judgements which must needs be no small offence in this people and in all those that imitate them herein But let this wickedness and the sin of this people be what it will it proceeded all from the Assembly of their Divines and false Prophets The Assembly of their Divines the chiefest cause of their wickedness Jer. 23.13.14 For they caused my people Israel to erre and they strengthened the hands of the evil doers that none doth return from his wickedness saith the Prophet For indeed we that are the Teachers of the people are just like Jeremy's Figs They that were good were very good and they that were bad were very bad So are we either the best or the worst of men and we either bring men to Christ or send them to the Antichrist either make them Saints or make them Seditious and Hereticks and through our pride covetousness and ambition we lead them like fools as they are that follow falshood into all mischief And therefore from the King to the peasant from the highest to the lowest all men ought to be wary whom they affect and chuse to be their Teachers For it is most true that as the Prophet saith Like Priest like people unless it be as S. Bernard saith That now the Priest is worse than the people For we know the Arian Bishops made Constantius an Arian Emperour and the false Prophets made Ahab and Jezabel so zealously affected to the service of Baal So the Anabaptistical Priests make their followers Anabaptists and the popish Priests make Papists And therefore all great men Kings Princes and Governours ought to have a special care to chuse Orthodoxal men to be their Chaplains and all men ought to have the like care to follow the Doctrine of the true Preachers and to be as willing to hear the Orthodox and true Preachers as the Heterodox and false Prophets For if Ahab and Jezabel would have hearkened to Micaiah as well as they did to the Prophets of Baal it is very likely Baal had not been so much worshipped nor the true Service of God so much neglected But S. Gregory l. 4. Epist 38. saith most truly Rex superbiae prope est quod dici nefas sacerdotum ei praeparatur exercitus And herein this City and this Kingdom is now very happy that God hath sent them so Religious and so Noble a King as doth favour and countenance the true Protestants and is not apt to believe the aspersions that the false brethren are so ready to cast upon them But to proceed to shew to you how this great wickedness of the people proceeded from the Priests our Prophet saith That from the Prophets of Jerusalem which was in Judea as London in England and Dublin in Ireland Lishon in Portugal and Paris in France the chiefest City of the Kingdom is prophaness gone forth into all the land Jer. 23.25 that is they of the Head-City were the cause that all the other Cities of the whole Kingdom do so prephanely The Head-City is the Leader of all the other 〈◊〉 of the Kingdom and so irreverently serve the Lord. And therefore the Prophets of the Metropolis ought to be very careful and circumspect what example they give to other Cities And this our Prophet further sheweth How this great mischief of prophaness covetousness injustice and all other wickedness happened to become so general among this people and that was When the unity of the Clergy and uniformity of Gods service was divided into many Sects and different sorts of serving God Jer. 12.10 for many Pastors have destroyed my vineyard saith the Prophet not because they were many had they been all of one mind but because they were of many different minds as were the Scribes Pharisees Sadduces Herodians Esseni and many other inferiour Sects among the Jews as now Presbyterians Independants Anabaptists Papists Quakers Dippers and many Sects and Factions are among us when the Church of God that should be tanquam Acies ordinata like a well-ordered Army as Solomon saith i.e. governed by the General and his subordinate Officers and not be commanded by a multitude of unequal and all dissenting Commanders shall be instructed by
we while we feared and served God we may easily perceive if we be not wilfully blind how we our selves that live in these Kingdomes while we feared God and observed his service were more happy then any of all our Neighbour-Nations both in regard of those many many deliverances that God hath wonderfully wrought for us far beyond usual favâ—urs both in the dayes of Queen Elizabeth and of King James as that Reverend Bishop Carleton hath collected and compiled them together and also in powring down so many inestimable blessings upon us bâ—â—a si sua norint Agricolae had we but the grace to acknowledge them as I dare confidently affirm it of our selves as Moses doth of the Israelites no Kingdome under heaven had the like as chiefly the purest preachâ—ng of the Gâ—spel the most learned Clergy the gravest and I believe the most uncorrupted Judges the wisest and the meekest Governours and above all the upholder of all the best and most pious Protestant King that ever these Kingdomes enjoyed O that we were wise and would consider these things and would understand these loving kindnesses of the Lord. But when How miserable did we be come when we did cast off the fear of God as Moses said of the Israelites dilectus meus impinguatus we began to surfet of these great blessings to loath Manna and to cast off the fear of God to deem the highest of Gods messengers not worthy to eat with the dogs of our flocks not fit for any thing but to be trodden under feet as mire and clay in the streets when we make our strength to become the Law of Justice when we despise Governours and speak great swelling words against authority yea and raise a Rebellion as odious as I shewed our King is pious then you see and I pray God you do not still feel what mischiefs and miseries do succeed and are like to continue in the chiefest of these three Kingdomes the house of God is made a den of thieves the Priests are made out of the basest of the people the Pulpits are filled with Heresies Treasons and Blasphemies the highest Courts of Justice are turned to be the shops of all oppressions and wrongs and Gods Annointed is persecuted more then any other yea and the whole Kingdome is made the butcherie and slaughter-house of the Kings best subjects and Gods most faithful servants and all this and much more because there is no fear of God before our eyes And therefore let not these holy Rebels under the pretence of their great love to God cast away the fear of God and let them not think they do him service by persecuting his servants or that that is Christian Religion which breaks forth into Rebellion because they cannot obtain their Petition but as Solomon begins his Proverbs with the fear of the Lord and the beginning of wisdom and ends his Ecclesiastes with Fear God and keep his Commandemets so I say that we and they should begin and end all that we take in hand with the fear of God and then all of us shall be blessed and whatsoever we take in hand it shall prosper But as S Gregory saith Probatio dilectionis exhibitio est operis and our love to God must be manifested by our love to our neighbours so our fear of God must be principally proved by that honour which we shew unto the King because as S. John saith it is impossible for us to love God and to hate his Image so it is impossible that any man should fear God which doth not honour the King because the same Spirit that saith fear God saith also honour the King and therefore S. Peter knowing how inseparably these duties go together after he had bidden us to fear God doth immediately adde honour the King which is the fourth branch of this Text. 4. Honour the King where I desire you to observe 4 Branch 1. Point and to observe it carefully when you had never more need to observe it then now 1. Who is to be honoured 2. What is the honour that is due unto him 3. Who are injoyned to honour him And all these are included in these word Honour the King 1. It is the King in the singular number and not Kings Homer Iliad 2. that every man is bound to honour for one man cannot serve two Masters much lesse can he honour two Kings but he must despise the one when he cleaves unto the other And therefore as it was like false Latine when Lamec said Hearken unto me ye wives of Lameâ— so it had been very incongruous for the Apostle to have said to any man honour thy Kings because as the Poet saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Isocrat in Nicol. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nec multos regnare bonam Rex unicus esto And so not only Isocrates Lucan l. 1. after he had disputed much of all sorts of governments concludeth peremptorily 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that no kind of government is better then the Monarchy but also Plato-Aristotle Plutarch Herodotus Philostratus Cassius Patricius Sigonius and all the wisest men that have written of Government have proved Monarchical Government to be the best form agreeable to nature wherein God founded it and is the first Government that ever was most consonant to Gods own Government and the most universally received throughout the whole world even from the beginning of the Creation to this very day C. 3. p. 20. as I have most fully proved in my Treatise of the Rights of Kings Therefore Serâ—nus writeth that when Craesus raigned over the Lydians he would have taken his brother to be his associate in the Government but one of the wisest Lydians rose up and said Or all the good things O King that are in earth there is none greater or better then the Sâ—n without which nothing could be seen nothing could remain on earth yet if there were two Suns periculum immineret ne omnia constagrantia pâ—ssum irent we should find the danger to have all things consumed with too much heat even so the Lydians do most willingly embrace one King and most faithfully believe and acknowledge him to be their Saviour and deliverer duos vero simul tolerare non possunt but they can no wayes endure two at once and Plutarch saith that Alexander gave the like answer unto Darius when he sent word that he should raign with him saying nec terram duos Soles neque A am duos Reges ferre pâ—sse that Asia could no more abide two Kings then the earth could endure two Suns because as Caelius saith Nulla sancia societas nec fides regni est Caelius l. 24. c. 11. Omnisque potestas impatiens consortis erit And I believe this very Kingdome hath found the difference betwixt two Lords-Justices and one Lord Lievtenant even as the Poet saith Tu causa malorum Facta tribus Dominis communis Roma Lucan l. 1. nec unquam In turbam missi
sed hoc solo contentus quia praecipitur he that is truly obedient to him whom God commanded us to obey never regardeth what it is that is commanded so it be not simply and apertly evill but he considereth and is therewith satisfied that it is commanded and therefore doth it because as S Aug. saith The command of the Superiour is a sufficient excuse for the inferiour Mandatum imperantis tollit peccatum obedientis i.e. in all things not apparantly forbidden And therefore as Julians Christian-Souldiers would not sacrifice unto the Idols which was an apparent evil at his command Sed timendo potestatem contemnebant potestatem but in fearing the power of God regarded not the wrath of man yet when he led them against his enemies they never questioned who they were that they went against nor examined the cause of his war but they went freely with him Et subditi erant propter Dominum aeternum etiam Domino temporali and in all such civill commands they obeyed this wicked King for his sake that was the King of kings and it may be fought against their own brethren So did the Jews that followed Saul against David and yet we never read that ever they were blamed for it And so should we do the like if we would do what God commandeth us For it is not in the subject's choice against whom he will fight but he must be obedient to his King if he will be obedient unto God for so the Lord saith I have made the earth the man and the beast Jerem. 27.5 6. that are upon the ground by my great power therefore certainly none should deny his Right to dispose of it and now I have given all these Lands into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar the King of Babylon my servant and yet he was both a Heathen and Idolater and a mighty Tyrant and all nations shall serve him and his son and his sons son and it shall come to passe that the nation and Kingdom which will not serve the same Nâ—buchadnezzar the King of Babylon and that will not put their necks under the oke of the King of Babylon that nation will I punish saith the Lord with the sword and with the famine and with the pestilence until I have consumed them by his hands Therefore hearken not ye unto your Prophets nor to your Divines which speak unto you saying Ye shall not serve the King of Babylon for they prophesie a lye unto you which he repeateth again and again they prophesie a lye unto you that you should perish Which very words I may take up against the Rebels of England Ireland and Scotland God gave these Kingdoms unto King Charles and they cannot deny this nor deny him to be a good man and a most religious King and He hath commanded us to obey him and they that will not serve him he will destroy them by his hand Therefore believe not your false Teachers whether they be the Priests and Jesuits of Ireland or the Brownists and Anabaptists of England for God hath not sent them though they multiply their lyes in his name because God hath so straightly commanded us to obey our King in all civil causes and in all things wherein he giveth not a special charge to do the contrary And therefore that which is most worthy to be observed though God himself for the sin of Solomon declared by his Prophet that he had decreed to cut off ten parts of the Kingdom from Rehoboam yet because the people revolted not to satisfie Gods justiâ—e for the sins of Solomon but out of their own discontents that he would not ease them of their burdens for this revolt from a foolish and an oppressing Prince they are termed Rebels 1 Kings 12.19 and as the Thief to prevent his discovery will commit murder scelus scelere regitur and one great mischief will shelter it self under a greater so their Rebellion corrupted their Religion and made them fall away from God to worship Idols as they had done from their King to serve a Traytor which soon brought them to confusion Because this revolt as it proceeded from them was most abominable unto God And therefore though they were not reduced to Rehoboam because that may pretend some cause as oppression yet this after a plenary disquisition can admit of none excuse and therefore being abominable above measure it cannot expect the least favour from God but they were most severely punished by God because they transgressed his will by thus rebelling against their King contrary to his Commandment 2. The other Caution is That if the King commandeth what the Lord forbiddeth or the contrary then I may disobey but I must not resist for this is the will of God that where my active obedience cannot take place my passive obedience must supply it And though our Kings were as Idolatrous as Manasses as Tyrannical as Nero as wicked as Ahab and as prophane as Julian yet we may not resist we must not Rebel which would overthrow the very order of nature Arnis de autâ—rit princ c. 3. pag. 68. as Arnisaeus proveth by many examples and takes away the glory of martyrdom and makes all the Precepts of the Gospel of none effect And therefore when the Christians in Tertullians time were more in number and of greater strength than their enemies yet being compelled to Idolatry they rather suffered any persecution than admitted of any Rebellion against the most wicked of their persecutors And Juâ—tinian faith Q is est tantae authoritatis ut nolentem principem possit coarctare Who hath so much power as to restrain an unwilling Prince And yet it is very strange to consider what new Divinity hath been taught ex cathedra pestilentiae out of the chair of our new Assembly to raise Rebellion against our King and that which is worse than Rebellion to refuse the grace of Remission The Scribes and Pharisees were most wicked hypocrites and they sate in Moses chair but they never durst teach such tenets as now are published and practised in these Kingdoms And therefore our Saviour saith Math. 23.3 All that they bid you observe that observe and do Indeed there were some Hereticks among them that in the dayes of Theudas and Judas Galilaeus taught That the Jews were not to pray for the life of the Emperour because he was but extraneous an Vsurper and none of their lawful Kings for which errour Pilate mingled their blood with their sacrifice but these never durst avouch they should not pray for their own lawful King much lesse that they might rebel and take up arms against him Joseph Antiq. though he were never so wicked For they knew that the holiest men that ever were among the Hebrews called Essaei or Esseni that is the true Practisers of the Law of God maintained that Soveraign Princes whatsoever they were ought to be inviolable to their subjects as they were in most places among the most
for his flock For the affirmative or positive duties of a good Shepherd what he should do for his sheep never any came neer the goodnesse of this good Shepherd For 1. He provideth for his flock not onely the outward food of their bodies which he doth for all other living creatures when as the Prophet saith He openeth his hands and filleth all things living with plenteousness and as the same Prophet saith He feedeth the young ravens that call upon him and the best of us hath not a crum of bread but what he hath from him but he hath provided also the spiritual food of their souls which is the Word of God and the blessed Sacrament of the Lords Supper for as our Saviour alledged against Satan Mat. 4.4 Man liveth not by bread alone but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God and the blessed Sacraments are Verba visibilia Evangelii the visible and palpable words of the Gospel and are as the celestiall manna the heavenly food that perisheth not but feedeth us to eternall life The errour of the Messalian Hereticks if we strive to receive the same worthily as we ought to do though now we have too too many that are poysoned with the conceit of the Messalian Hereticks that said Baptism and the Lords Supper did neither profit us nor hurt us but that they which were inspired by Gods Spirit were guided by the revelation of that Spirit how to behave themselves in all their wayes which is the readiest way to lead them to the infernal spirits because we are not to be led by the inspiration of any spirit but by those holy directions which the Spirit of God hath left us in the holy Scriptures What is meant to be inspired with Gods spirit and when we pray to be inspired with Gods Spirit we mean no otherwise then that the Spirit of God would guide us to lead our lives and to do all things as we are commanded by the same spirit to do in the word of God that is left unto us by the Prophets and Apostles of Jesus Christ to be the onely Rule of all our actions 2. As he provideth thus both our temporal and our spiritual food 2 Christ ordereth how the food of his should be disposed so he ordereth and disposeth this food unto his sheep not according to their sensual appetite but for the natural good of their bodies and the spiritual health of their souls that it may be unto them the savour of life unto life and not the savour of death unto death As 1. For their natural food 1 Their natural food he would have us with the son of Jakeh to desire neither poverty nor riches neither too much nor too little but to be fed with food convenient lest if we be too full we forget the Lord grow too proud as the great rich men commonly be or if we be too poor we be driven to steal and to lie Prov. 30.8 9. and to take the name of God in vain And What should be convenient for every man because most men are loath to understand what is the mean betwixt too much and too little and what measure is that that is convenient S. Paul tells us That having food and rayment we should therewith be contented for the greatest Monarch in the world can have no more and our Saviour that best knew what is convenient for every man bids us prey to God that he would give us this day our daily bread that is so much as will serve us for our present necessity Luke 12.19 and not with that fool in the Gospel to lay up much goods for many years when he knew not that his soul in that night should be taken from him and then he could not tell who should enjoy those things or how those things should be spent that he had provided And 2. For our spiritual food 2 Their spiritual food this good Shepherd hath commanded us that are his under-Shepherds to give unto his sheep their owne portion in due season 1. Their own portion and that both in quality and quantity 1 Their own portion 1. In quality 1. In Quality what is most proper for every one as all meats serve not for every stomack and every potion serves not for all diseases so it is with our spiritual food and the divine physick of our soules and therefore we are advised to give milk unto the babes and stronger meat to them that are stronger men in Christ that is plain and easie doctrines to the plain and more ignorant people and deeper and more polite discourses to the judicious and those of deeper knowledge because as S. Paul saith we are debtors both to the Greeks and to the Barbaâ—ians to the wise and to the unwise and therefore as Christ biddeth his Apostles so must we sometimes launch forth into the deep both of Divinity and Humanity and as well of Arts as of Languages And so we are to give praises to the good reproofes to the bad but flatteries unto none when we ought no more to flatter the sweet and clement then to fear the cruel tyrant and in like manner we are commanded to apply comfors and consolations to the dejected spirits to pronounce pardon to the penitent sinners and to thunder out the terrors of Gods judgements to none but such as are impenitent and obstinate transgressors 2. In Quantity we are to give our sheep neither too much of this spiritual food 2 In quantity nor yet too little for where prophesie faileth the people perish and the worst famine is the famine not of corn wine and oyl but of the famine of Gods Word and therofere the Apostle saith Wo is me if I preach not the Gospel and wo is them that hinder us to preach it as they have done these many years And yet as we are not to give our sheep too little of this spiritual pasture lest they should want so they should not have too much lest they should loath it for a man may eat too much of the Honey-comb saith Solomon Prov. 25.16 Num. 11.20 and the children of Israel had so much Manna that they loathed it and Quails so plentifully that the flesh came out at their nostrils and so men may have the Word of God so fully that they will despise it or at least neglect it because as Solomon saith Prov. 27.7 the full soul loatheth or treadeth under foot the honey-comb but to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet so is the Word of God precious when it is not so plentiful and despised when we are full of it And truly I do believe Knowledge how more plentiful now then ever it was the Gospel of Christ and the rest of the holy Scriptures were never since Christ his time so fully and so generally and so truly published as of late they were in the reigne of our late King
of it And whereas this day five years past all the Protestants in this Kingdome and we especially of this City were destined to be sacrificed and slaughtered and sent as an Holâ—â—â—st or whole burnt-offering from the holy Father to the infernal God as many thousands of our Brethren were then and since yet by the love of God towards us we are still preserved alive that we might serve him and love him again And what more shall I say but cry out with the Psalmist O how plentiful is thy goodness which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee Psal 31.21 and that thou hast prepared for them that put their trust in thee even before the Sons of men for thou hast shewed us Marvellous great kindness I cannot say in a strong City but I say in a weak City and delivering us from strong Enemies whose Subtilty and Cruelty Treachery and Perfidiousness would require the head of the best experienced converted Jesuite to express it I had rather preach of Gods Love than treat of their Malicâ— and to talk of his Goodness rather than their wickedness and that great goodness The Lord Marquess of Ormond which he hath so lately shewed in delivering our most Excellent Governour so often from that malicious wickedness of the Sons of Belial so perfidiously intended against him is not the least Testimony of Gods Love to us all especially if we consider that what was intended this day 5 years had now questionless been executed if God had not broken the Snare of the Fowler and by delivering him redeemed us all from the Sword of Malice and from the Jawes of death and therefore this ought to be rightly weighed and duly remembred in our Thanksgiving among the many great undeserved and unexpected Preservations that our good God hath wrought for us And because his Excellency trusteth not in Lying Vanities but putteth his Trust in the Lord and in the Mercy of the Most High therefore he shall not miscarry But indeed this Love of God to us hath been so great and his Blessings in our Deliverances have been so many that if I should go about to enumerate them I might as well tell the Stars for as the Prophet saith they are more in number than I am able to expresse and therefore I will now conclude with our hearty thanks and Praise unto our good God for all his Love and Favours and Deliverances that he hath shewed unto us through Jesus Christ our Lord who is blessed for evermore Labilis memoria hominis How easily and how soon men forget good things the memory of man is very frail and slippery especially in the retention of all good things for though as the Poet saith Scribit in marmore laesus we write injuries in marble and never forget nor forgive the least ill turn that is done against us yet we write all benefits and all good instructions in the sands where the waves of forgetfulness do soon wash all away as the children of Israel regarded not the wonders that God wrought in Aegypt neither kept they his great goodness in remembrance Psal 106.7 13 21. but soon forgot his works yea and forgat God their Saviour which had done so great things in Aegypt wondrous works in the Land of Ham and fearful things by the Red Sea therefore lest you should forget the first part of this text before you heard the second I thougt it high time to proceed to those points which the time prevented me to inlarge not the last time I was in this place but the last time I treated of this verse and I hope you do remember that I told you this text was a text of love and of a twofold love 1. The love of God to man And 2. The love of man to God And In the first I noted these four things 1. The lover God 2. The affection Love He loved us first 3. The beloved Us. 4. The time First And I have done with the first three and therefore not to stand upon any further repetition I am now to proceed to shew you the fourth point that is the time when he loved us 4 The time when God loved us first 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he loved us first i.e. before we would or could love him for love is one of the affections and the affections are seated in the heart and the heart is placed in the midst of the body and the body could not contain the heart nor the heart cast forth the affections nor the affections produce love before our loves Jer. 31.3 God loved us from everlasting before our Creation and affections and hearts and bodies had their being But God loved us before we were created and before we could have the least thought of our very being for I have loved thee with an everlasting love therefore with loving kindness have I drawn thee saith the Lord and this love was everlasting as well a parte ante from the time past as a parte post for the time to come and this love will appear the greater if we consider how freely and how undeservedly he hath loved us for the object of love is good either that which is really so indeed or seeming so to be And S. Aug. reasoneth most truly that antequam creati eramus nihil boni merebamur before we were made we could do no good we could merit no reward we could deserve no love And yet before we had received any being the love of God towards us had received a beginning and when our souls were unbreathed our bodies unframed and all this glorious structure laid in the dust before ever we beheld the light or the light was brought out of darkness or the darkness was upon the face of the deep our bodies and our souls were affected by God and we had a deep interest in the love of God when as then the earth was created for our habitation the creatures were produced for our service and the heavens were appointed for our comfort So God loved us before our Generation before we were before we had our being and after our transgression God loved us after our transgression John 8. when as God had made us his sons like himself and we had made our selves like our Father the devil there was cause enough of hate but none of love for then we found a way to run away from God we invented garments to hide our shame and to cover our nakedness from the eyes of men but to make us most loathsome in the eyes of God and we became 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 haters of God that laboured with the old Gyants 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to fight and war with God to unthrone him and to ungod him when we desired to make our selves like Gods nay the only Gods and he should be no God at all unless we might have our wills and not his will to be done in heaven as we do in earth Yet then when
of death for the King then to be perswaded for what pretense of good soever and by whomsoever were it an Angel out of Heaven to consent unto his death is to become guilty of a great fault and to say that he was perswaded thereunto by the Bishops whose fault was therefore greater then his Majestie 's can no more excuse him then for the man of God to say that he was seduced by the old Prophet And therefore this might be a just cause with God to suffer him that to satisfie sinful men would offend his good God by giving way to them to take away the life of an innocent man to have his own life taken from him even by those men to whom he had yielded to take away the life of another man which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a conformity of our punishment to our offence and is nothing else but lex talionis an eye for an eye a tooth for tooth and death for death which was the first Law that God published after the Deluge saying Whosoever sheddeth man's blood that is either per se as Cain did Abel or per alium as David did Vriah's and Ahab Naboth by Act or it may be by consent by man shall his blood be shed Secondly touching the Bishops my self knoweth that he loved them all and honoured their Calling very much being fully satisfied of the truth of their Divine and Apostolical Institution as appeareth by that learned and exquisite defence that himself most graciously made against the Presbyterians of the Episcopal Order and he was indeed a right Constantine to all the Bishops rather hiding their infirmities if he spyed any fault in them with the Lap of his Garment then any ways multiplying or publishing the same unto the People And this was a most Christian course in him for I may justly say Victima sacra Deo res est succurrere Cleris And as our Saviour saith of them He that receiveth you receiveth me And the Bishops of all other his Subjects were his most loyal Servants and most faithful Oratours never thwarting their King nor crossing any of his just Designs but ever cleaving unto his Cause and voting on his side so far as truth and right and a good Conscience would give them leave contrary to which his Majesty never desired any thing And therefore when the King saw the malice of most wicked men qui oderunt eos gratis and did bear an intestine hatred against these true Servants of God and did strive manibus pedibúsque with all their might against all justice to thrust them out of their undoubted Right by the favour we confess of our most pious Princes for him as we conceive against his own mind and to his own prejudice to please and satisfie the implacable hatred of his and their enemies to pass an Act to exclude the Bishops out of his Great Council the Parliament when above thirty Acts of Parliament had confirmed their right Interest therein since the confirmation of Magna Charta was an errour as I conceive not salvable and a fault that cannot be justly excused by his best Friends and therefore God might justly suffer all his Counsels to fail and his Counsellours to become perfidi familiares his familiar Traytours such as the Poet speaks of Saepe sub agnina latet hirtus pelle Lycaon Subque Catone pio perfidus ille Nero. And though I do not nor dare not say it was so yet I may say that for this God might so give way to his Enemies to prevail against him and to thrust him out of his Kingdom when he gave way to thrust his Embassadours out of his house which is but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and even as Solomon divided God's Service betwixt God and the Idols of Zidon Moab and Ammon 1 Reg. 11. c. 12. so God divided his Kingdom betwixt his Son Rehoboam and his Servant Jeroboam so might he deal with King Charles when he yielded to expel the Bishops that were his true Friends and God's Servants out of his Council to suffer his Enemies to exclude him out of his Kingdom and not unjustly or without cause neither as the same proceeds from God whose ways are always just for who could better declare the right and truth of things unto the King then the Expounders of the Book of Truth Who could advise and direct him to make better and juster Laws then the Teachers of the Law of God and who fitter to judge of right and to require Justice to be enjoyned and practised by all People then they whose Calling is continually to call upon all men to live godly and soberly and justly in this present World Why then should they be excluded from the Seat of Justice either in the making of Laws or to see those Laws executed unless it were that the Lay-Justices might do what they would without shame and what they pleased without controul when as heretofore the reverend Presence of the Bishops and grave Divines and their sage Counsel did oftentimes stop the Current of Injustice and made some ashamed of some gross dealings that in their absence they were not ashamed to have effected and therefore I suppose I may justly say that as it was said of the Emperour Justinian when he caused Aetius his brave General to be cut off he had cut off his right Arm with his left Hand so did King Charles when he pâ—ssed that Act that prejudiced himself more then the Bishops Thirdly touching the Parliament we must understand that Parliaments were first instiâ—uted by the Kings of this Nation to inform them of the Abuses Dangers and Defects which the Lords and Peers and the wiser sort of their Subjects which each Countrey had elected and the chief Cities had chosen for that purpose had observed and to advise and consult with their King de arduis rebus Regni of these and all other difficult and great Affairs of the Kingdom as the Writs that call them together do declare and then to consider by what good means the Dangers of the Kingdom might be prevented by what Laws ' the abuses might be redressed and which ways the peace of the People might be preserved and the happiness of all his Subjects continued and enlarged and if they understood of any sorreign dangers invasions or injuries to consult how the same might be prevented and rectified And when the King understood what his Lords and Commons conceived fitting to be done He with the Advice of His Council ratified what he approved and rejected what he disliked with the usual phrase in that kind But in process of time the Parliament-men as I heard wise men say began to incroach more and more upon the Rights of Majesty upon the Power and Authority of the King especially of those Kings that either had no Right or at the best but doubtful Titles unto the Crown or those that were of less Abilities or of an easie and facile disposition and would soon be perswaded
more then thirty three years olde by his malitious enemies so the like enimies have shortened the life of this good King and cut him off at the eight and fourtieth year of his age yet as Esay saith of Christ Generationem ejus quis enarrabit who shall be able to declare his Generation for he shall see his seed and shall prolong his days and as the new heavens and the new earth which I will make shall remain before me saith the Lord so shall his seed and his name remain that is for ever and ever so I doubt not to say of King Charles that howsoever and for what cause soever the wisdom of God hath been pleased to permit his enemies to shorten that life which at the best and to the best is accompanied with abundance of infelicities yet instead of that Crown which was replenished with cares and circumvironed with thorns and which his persecutors have snatched from him God hath now crowned him with eternal felicity and hath set a crown of pure gold upon his head that is as himself said the crown of Martyrdom which is the crown of the greatest glory because none can go higher or do more for Christ then to dy for Christ for the defence of the service and servants of God and the laws of this Kingdom as he testified upon the Scaffold And so the Lord hath dealt with him just as he saith of his chosen people for a small moment have I forsaken thee that is while I suffered thine enemies so furiously to rage against thee and so maliciously to behead thee but with great mercies will I gather thee In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment when in justice I punished thee for thine errors those small things wherein thou hast failed but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee when as now I make thee to be numbred with my Saints in glory everlasting Therefore as Balaam wished that he might dy the death of the righteous and that his last end might be like his Numb 23 10. so from my soul I wish that my soul may rest as I hope it shall when it leaves my body with this righteous King that doth now rest in Abraham's bosome CHAP. II. SEcondly For of his other subjects that were against him I shall speak in an other place touching the King's subjects that honoured loved and served him and were of his party and have been and still were persecuted banished killed and afflicted so long as the Tyrants ruled they are either 1. Clergy or And 2. Laity or And First as for the Clergy that are the other second witness of Jesus Christ they are either 1. the Bishops 2. the Priests And whatsoever hath befallen to these or to either of these I may truly and justly say with Ezra Ezra ix 13. and God hath punished us less then our iniquities deserved First Touching the Bishops that are the prime part of the spiritual Witness of Christ I do cordially love all their persons and honour their calling being all of them very learned and most reverend men and therefore not to discover the nakedness of such worthy Fathers whose imperfections and imbecillities like neves in a fair face I had rather with the good King like the most Christian Constantine cover with the lap of my garment then expose them to the view of the Vulgar but yet to justify the doings of our just God whose Judgments alwaies are according to truth I must say as Christ saith to the Angel that is the Bishop of the Church of Ephesus and to the Angel of the Church of Pergamus that God had somewhat against them and I fear more then he had against those Angels for which he might most justly remove their candlesticks and remove them Two things considerable in all Clergy-men as he did out of their places For there be two things considerable in the calling of all God's Ministers as well those of the highest as the other of the lowest order 1. Their introduction or coming into their places 2. The Execution of their office after they are entred into it For first Their entrance into that holy calling So the Articles of our Church and of our religion testify Whosoever shall not be called by the spirit of God to the great office as Aaron was or shall not enter through the gate that is Christ or the Ordinance of Christ set down by his holy Apostles is a thief and a robber and not the Vicar of Christ but of Judas Iscariot and of Simon the Samaritan but whether all our Bishops came rightly in I cannot judg we cannot search into the testimony of any man's conscience yet for the investigation of the truth and the outward election and approbation of them which Dionysius calleth the Sacrament of Order I am sure the King was so careful that none should be admitted to that high and holy office but such as should be thought worthy both for uprightness of life and soundness of learning of those places whereof most of them The execution of their office if not all of them he knew to be such himself 2. For the execution of their office they were to do it 1. by the example of a good life 2. by the discharging of their Episcopal duties First By a good example of a just and holy conversation because By a good example as the Poët saith Exemplar vitae populis est vita regentis The common people look rather after our example then after our Precept Christs slock to be sed three ways therefore the Expositours do apply the thrice repetition of the same thing to Saint Peter Feed my Sheep to a threefold manner of feeding that is 1. Pasce verbo 2. Pasce cibo 3. Pasce exemplo First Feed them with the word of God and with good instruction With the word of God how they ought to behave themselves as becometh Saints and what to believe like good Christians 2 With Alms-deeds Secondly Feed the poorer sort with food and alms-deeds so far as thy means and ability will give thee leave Thirdly Feed all of them with the good examples of humility meekness With good examples gentleness patience piety contentedness and contempt of these worldly vanities And here I must confess that instead of giving good Example unto the People many of the Bishops that were our Predecessours gave the worst example that could be both to their succeeding Bishops and to all other people whatsoever The evil Example of our Predecessors if the example of covetousness injustice and neglect of God's Service be evil examples for what pious men and good Christians had formerly bestowed upon the Church and Church-men for the honour of God and the promoting of the Christian Faith they either through covetousness for some Fine or affection to their Children Friends or Servants have alienated the same from their Successours in Fee-Farmes or long Leases some for a 1000. some for an 100. years Whereby we
are not able to seed the poor ' nor scarce our selves and some for other longer time reserving onely some small rent for the succeeding Bishops as in my Diocess theat Lordship was set for 10. l. yearly that is well-nigh worth a 200. l. and that was set for 4. l. that is worth a 100. l. and the like And therefore seeing the Bishops themselves did so unjustly destroy their succeeding Bishops what wonder is it that the just God should suffer the haters of the Bishops and the Enemies of all goodness to destroy them And therefore not to do my self what I blame in others lest God should justly condem me out of mine own mouth I have resolved and do pray to God continually to give me the grace to perform it and do hope that God will grant it me That I will take no Fine for any Lands or Lordships belonging to my Bishoprick while I live that I may not wrong any of my succeeding Bishops nor lessen the Revenue of the Church of Christ but to take heed and beware of covetousness which is the cause of much and many evils especially in all Church-men as you see it was the root that sprang to the destruction of Judas and to cause Demas to apostatize from the Ministery of Christ Secondly For the discharging of the Episcâ—pal duties which is a very great charge onus Angelicis humeris formidandum as a Father calls it if Revelat. ii 14. with the Church of Ephesus we have not forsaken our first love and grown cold in our care to promote the gospel of Christ yet I fear the Bishops had amongst them those that held the Doctrine of Balaam who taught Balac to set a stumbling-block before the Children of Israel that is as the Apostle expoundeth it to love the wages of unrighteousness and for the love of worldly honour wealth and other sinister respects to grow cold in the love of truth which made a Preacher at Paul's cross to pray that God would be pleased to make the Lords Temporal more spiritual and the Lords Spiritual less temporal and it grieves me much to set down how the Bishops Courts were generally complained of how justly or how unjustly I cannot tell as the greatest Oprressours of the People and the publique grievance of the Kingdom their delays unsufferable their excommunications unreasonable Corn. Agâ—ippa De vanitâ—ue Scientâ—arum cap. 61. their Fees intolerable and often times their injustice no ways to be excused which made the Lay people to exclaim against the Bishops and their Courts as much and in like manner as Cornelius Agrippa and our Presbyterians do against the Romish Bishops And if they say as they do the Courts belonged to their Chancellours that were learned men Doctours of the Civil and Canon Laws and of honourable repute among all Nations and what they did should not be imputed to the Bishop's fault It may be answered Qui facit per alium idem est quasi faceret per seipsum he that offends by his Proctor shall suffer by himself And we must confess the Courts were the Bishops Courts and the Chancellours were but their Deputies and they should have rectified the Abuses of their own Courts Yet I must ingenuously confess that I can accuse none of the Bishops for this fault but that this is the complaint of the People how truly I know not unless the Chancellour might say to the Bishop as it was said to the Pope of the like Officer Vendere jure potest emerat ille prius He had paid him dear for his place therefore he must take great Fees and sell justice or he shall lose much by the Bargain for indeed he cannot sell cheap that buyeth dear and be a saves thereby nor can he prove but very seldom an upright Judge that hath bought his office and by corruption obtained his place and therefore this selling of the Chancellour's office and other places in the Bishops Courts was the root of all the corruption that were of those Courts and so the Bishops that did this even for these faults besides the neglect to redress their other abuses can not in my judgement be any ways excused But I will shew you yet To ordain unworthy persons to be Priests a great fault to the shame of some greater Abomination which I have often bemoaned when I considered how some of the Bishops not following Saint Paul's counsel in the ordination of Priests and Deacons to lay hands on no man rashly but to see the Persons to be admitted to Holy Orders should be no Novices and no ways unworthy of that high Calling but every way qualified both for life and doctrine so as the word of God doth require have notwithstanding Vide Englands Reprover pag. 67. either by the solicitation of friends or for some other respects and perhaps worser corruption many times made young Novices illiterate men and which is worse men of corrupt minds and bad life the Priests of the most high Gods to wait at his Altar that were not worthy to wait on our Tables and therefore as the Bishops that did this did herein falsifie their faith to God and betrayed his Service to these unworthy men so the just God hath most rightly suffered these perfidious men to betray their Makers to spit in their Father's faces and to combine with the Enemies of God to destroy the Bishops of Christ and so as the Poët saith in another kind Ignavum fucos pecus à praesepibus arcent Neither was this all the Bishops fault to ordain these to drive away themselves but as it was said of old Rector eris praestò Men obtained their livings four manner of ways de sanguine Praesulis esto or as another saith Quattuor Ecclesias portis intratur in omnes Prima patet magnis nummatis altera tertia charis Quarta sed paucis solet patere Dei So to put weapons into their hands to enable them to war with their Bishops it was the practice of some of the Bishops if we may believe the common report of the Country Mercury to bestow Livings Rectories Prebends and other preferments not on such worthy Scholars and Academicks as best deserved them but either upon their own Friends Children Kinsmen or Servants or on such as according to the old riddle could tell them who was Melchisedec's Father and his Mother too and could say Saint Peter's Lesson Aurum argentum non est mihi the clean contrary way And this very practice of those Bishops that did so bred ill blood and many corrupt humours against the Episcopal function as especially First A disdain of them amongst those worthy men that were so carelessly neglected Secondly A neglect of God's People and leaving them untaught and unguided by those unworthy men that were thus promoted Thirdly A general distast of the people against all the Bishops when they resented these distempers that were onely caused by very few And all these things cryed to God for redress and
unsearchable ways to pull down the pride of men and to cross the ambition of aspiring spirits should not rather fear to deal unjustly and be contented with his own unblameable station then seek to raise himself by unwarrantable courses and especially such as are by the downfall of others When as Pliny writeth of the Hart-wolf Quamvis in fame mandens si respexerit aliud oblivionem cibi subrepere aiunt digressumque quaerere illud c. that be he never so hungry and eating yet if he seeth another prey Venator sequitur fugientiae capta relinquit Semper inventis ulteriora petit Ovid. Amor. lib. 2. he forsakes his meat and followeth after the same and thereby doth oftentimes like Aesops Dog lose the morsel in his mouth by snatching at the shadow in the water so the ambitious covetous wretches making no account of what they have but greedily and unjustly hunting after more do by the just judgement of God amittere certa dum incerta petunt as Plautus saith lose what they justly had by their unjust seeking of what they should not look after Secondly The Episcopal Clergy For those Clergy-men that were not the Members of the false Prophet but were Royalists and the approvers of the Episcopal Function and yet have not escaped the fierie tryal but have been driven through fire and water and have suffered many heavy things to be plundered of their Goods deprived of their Livings and often times detained in Bonds or driven to flie from their house and home I say that besides other causes best known to God into whose secrets we dare not dive we know good reasons that they were not thus handled without good cause nor any ways unjustly dealt withall by the just God as specially if there were nothing else but because they were not 1. Either right Royalists or 2. Right Episcopals but as the Poet saith of the Maremaid Desinit in piscem mulier formosa superné or like those half-Christians that begin in the spirit but end in the flesh or those Apostles that would build Tabernacles to remain with Christ on Mount Tabor where he was transfigured in glory but will flinch away and forsake him on Mount Calvary when his face was filled with ignominy so they like the Jews in Elias his time halted betwixt God and Baal were staggering betwixt the King and the Parliament and tottered betwixt the Bishops and the Presbyters as doubtful what would be the event and issue of this debate For 1. Divers indeed loved the King and approved his Cause as most just and right and their Consciences told them how far they were obliged even by God's word to honour and obey him in all his just Commands and to assist him against his unjust enemies but they like Ephraim that was as a Cake baked on the one side or like the Church of Laodicea that of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 were termed a righteous people and yet were neither hot nor could but luke-warm in their Profession so were these men as they pretended for the King but did nothing against the Parliament nor any thing to any purpose for the King for had they all with their tongues and with their pens hi scriptis illi verbis published and thundered it out like Trumpets unto their several Congregations and to all the World how unjustly and how unchristian-like it is for any Subjects to rebel and to warr against their King and how far they and all other true Subjects and good Christians are bound in Conscience and obliged by God's Word to defend him whom they know without question is their undoubted King and had they themselves to give good examples unto their people opened their purses and extended their bounty to the uttermost of their power and sent their Servants and their Children to assist his Majesty I doubt not but am sure of it that they had herein pleased God and in all probability defended the King and freed themselves from that yoak of Tyranny and all those burthens and afflictions that since the Parliament prevailed were imposed upon them and they were necessitated to undergo them but they were such as Pliny speaks of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mouthless men that could not or would not speak a word in the King's cause and they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 men without hands able to do nothing or at least willing to do nothing for him that underwent all his trouble for the Church and Church-men And therefore when they neglected their duty to do what in their Consciences they were perswaded they should do it was most just that they should suffer what they would not suffer because the sins of omission are as punishable as the sins of commission and he that is not with me saith our Saviour is against me and he that gathereth not scattereth abroad and so the Angel cursed Meroz and cursed bitterly the inhabitants thereof because they came not forth to help Israel against Jahin King of Canaan and so they are justly punished that being in their hearts for the King they did not with their tongues hands and purses do the uttermrst of their endeavours to aid and assist the King for as the Poet saith Foederis haec species id habet concordia signum Vt quos jungit amor jungat ipsa manus Our hands should ever go with our hearts and I am confident had all we that in our hearts were for the King given to his Majesty in time the fifth part of that which the Parliament hath since plundered and wrested from us we might by the assistance of God have preserved both our King and our selves from all the miseries and losses that the Parliament hath since brought upon us and what fools were we to save our wealth and shut our purses to enrich our enemies and to impower them to destroy our selves O let ns never do so again Secondly For those that approved of Episcopacy and had subscribed to the Articles and allowed the Liturgy of our Church and were in their Consciences perswaded of the purity and excellency thereof the same being composed by those godly Martyrs that weeded all superstition and superfluities from it and then sealed the rest that was inoffensive and pious with their blood and the same also being justified by all the convocations of all the Bishops and Clergy ever since and accordingly confirmed by acts of Parliament throughout the reign of four most pious Princes for the space of well near one hundred years for them I say through hope to save and to retain their livings and so for the love of the World to comply with the Parliament and to embrace their directory so indirectly to serve God every Presbiter after his own fancy and to omit the whole set form of God's Worship injoyned to be observed in all Churches save onely the reading of a Psalm and two Chapters which notwithstanding they did not according to the Rubrick and to
prophane all Holy-daies even those that are set apart for the Commemoration of the blessed Birth Circumcision and Ascension of our only Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and all other days that the former Saints and the whole Church of Christ had appointed for the children of God to meet to give thanks to God for the great blessings that all we had received from him I demand of any man even themselves being Judges if it be not very just that they should be plundred and pressed and even lose their livings which have so unjustly and so perfidiously done those things in hope to retain their livings for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Non te latuerit O supreme Jupiter horum malorum quisquis autor extitit The Heathen man can tell us God will not be mocked neither can we blinde the all-seeing eyes of God nor hide our selves out of his sight when we do commit such evils and Christ tells us plainly he that saveth his life shall lose it and he that loseth his life for his sake shall finde it And were the Martyrs so ready to lose their lives for his sake and shall we be so unwilling to forgo a little worldly pelf and some small living for his sake that tells us plainly whatsoever we give or lose for his sake we shall be required an hundred-fold and shall receive eternal life Let them therefore that will if not out of faction or ignorance but for the love of their livings reject our inoffensive and divine Liturgy that is so conducing to peace and good order so little obnoxious to any just exception and so exceeding profitable for the instruction of the people for mine own part I know it to be the true service of the true God and the best way that I know to serve God and therefore by God's help I will never omit it nor be guided by their directory for all the livings that they could or can heap upon me and I pray God it be not layd to their charge that to comply with the factious opposers of it or to retain their livings have done it to betray the service of God and to lay aside those heavenly prayers that were made by holy Saints and approved by all the best Doctours of the Church and appointed by authority to be used to help the devotion of God's people and in the stead thereof to authorise or at least by their example to encourage every Ignoramus to prate nonsence and sometimes to belch out blasphemies in his prayers to God and in the face of the Church without shame God forgive them Secondly For the lay-subjects of the King that have had their part in the miseries of these latter days The lay-subjects I speak onely of those that in their Consciences approved of their King's cause for his enemies their portion perhaps is yet unpaid I may divide them into two ranks just as were the followers of Gideon 1. Judges vii 7. Some were faint hearted and they were the greatest part and that by much 2. Others were very faithful and couragious but they were by far the smalest number not above 300. of 32000. so were the following subjects of King Charles First The faint-hearted Royalist the fainthearted subjects that loved the King and wished that he might prosper and prevail against his Adversaries but feared the powerful numerous multitude of the Parliament abettors that were very many and were just like the Inhabitants of Meroz that hated the Cananites but did nothing for the Israelites so did these nothing or so little as nothing for the King and for their fellow-subjects that were with him And yet the Scholes tell us and so do the Heathens also that Qui potest liberare alium non liberat occidit he that can deliver another that is from anundeserved death as in his Conscience he believeth is innocent and delivereth him not killeth him and is thereby guilty of his blood and the Canonists do say Scotus in sent dist 15. decret secunda parte c. usa 23. q. 3. Et Seneca passimâ— qui succurrere perituro potest cum non succurrâ—t occidit And Cicero saith Nâ—l habet fortuna majus quam ut possit nec nâ—turametius quaÌ„ ut velit servare Pro. xxiv 11 12. qui non repellit injuriam à Socio cùm potest tam est in vitio quam qui facit he that hindereth not an injury or a wrong that is done his fellow when it lyeth in his power to do it is as much in fault as he that doth the injury and Solomon saith If thou faint in the day of Adversity thy strength is smal and if thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto death and those that are ready to be slain and sayest behold we knew it not doth not he that pondereth the heart consider it and he that keepeth thy Soul doth not he know it and shall not he render to every man according to his works and the Prophet David biddeth us to defend the Fatherless and the Widdows and to see that such as be oppressed have right which was the practice of Job as himself confesseth and of Moses also when he killed the Aegyptian to deliver the oppressed Israelite out of his hands and the Poet that knew no more then what the dim Light of Nature shewed him saith Turpe erit in miseris veteri tibi rebus amico Auxilium nulla parte tulisse tuum Ovid. lib. 2. De Ponto It is a foul shame for any man to leave an old friend in distress and not to further him with his aid and assistance And if men are thus obliged to assist their Neighbours and their Friends A shameful thing to neglect our Friends in Adversity when they are wronged how much more are they bound to aid and to defend their King when they see him wronged and sought to be murdered or dethroned for these men had sworn Allegiance and fidelity to their King at divers times and many of them if not most of them had their places and offices at least their Protection formerly from him and passing over those that were furthest from my knowledge and to speak of them quorum pars magna fui mine own Country men and Kinsmen with some great I know not how good men had like Aeneas and Vcalegon invited the wily Greeks to enter Troy and to come into our Coasts the chiefest Gentry were all moved and perswaded to swear and to take an Oath so well deviced and penned as the best and most learned Divines in all those parts could do it to be true and faithful unto their King and to the uttermost of their power with the hazard of their lives and the expence of their goods and fortunes to oppose all those Adversaries The inconstancy of many men that then opposed him and the chiefest of them by name And yet behold the Constancy and the Faithfulness of these good Subjects how good Christians I know not before one drop of their blood
of Ormond had resolved to travel in his own person as he did to Kilkenny and Clonmel to cause the concluded Articles of peace to be proclaimed in the chiefest Cities of that Kingdom these wretched men bewitched with the poyson of Rebellion in the pride of their heart which as the Prophet saith of the Edomites hath deceived them instead of a thankful acceptance of so merciful a favour and abundance of graces concluded for them did most desperately reject their own happiness and as not forgetting their usual Treacheries they laid snares and plotted how they might take the noble Marquess and render evil what or how much I know not to him that had with much cost and more paines procured so much good for them To shew unto us that as the Inhabitants of the Isle of Malta unjustly said of Saint Paul so we might justly say of them though the mercifull King desired not their Blood to their ruine yet vengeance would not suffer them to escape Act. 28.4 but as the Lord said of Edom behind they whose judgment was not to drink of the Cup have assuredly drunken and art thou he that shall altogether go unpunished thou shalt not go unpunished but thou shalt surely drink of it for I have sworne by my self saith the Lord that Bozra shall become a desolation a reproach a waste Jerem. xlix 1â— Jerem. xlix v. 37. and a curse and all the cities thereof shall be perpetual wastes and as the Lord said of Elam I will cause it to be dismaid before their enimies and before them that seek their-life and I will bring evill upon them even my fierce anger saith the Lord and I will send the Sword after them till I have consumed them so the very like judgment doth now fall upon the Irish for the Sword is sent after them And yet the last v. of this C. may be a great comfort unto the Irish for it shall come to pass in the latter dayes that I will bring againe the captivity of Elam saith the Lord and so the Irish repenting and reduced to their obedience may be received again into a sociable communion and become a great and a good nation and they are dismaide before their Enemies and they are become a Desolation a reproach a waste and a curse and their cities as they were theirs perpetual wastes and that even in the judgment of man most justly too because as I shewed to you before they have rebelled against the Lord and against a good King and were so cruel against their brethren and have committed such horrible wickedness against innocent persons and yet as blinded in their own malice they have refused their own happiness for now the Lord God that ministreth true judgment unto the people maketh inquisition by his Magistrates for all the Blood that they have spilt and if the Blood of Abell that was but one man cried so loud to God from off the Earth for vengeance against Caine that was likewise but one single murtherer then how much more loud do the Bloods of so many hundreds of men so many women and so many infants as so many thousands of these Irish Rebells have most cruelly spilt crie to God for Vengeance against those wicked murtherers And therefore whatsoever hath befallen them or shall happen unto them God must needs be justified in all the judgments of these rebells and themselves cannot deny but that he which sits in the Throne that judgeth right hath done them right in all that is done unto them And I fear that before God makes an end of their punishment as the Prophet saith I will houle for Moab and I will crie out for all Moab mine heart shall mourne for the men of Kir-heres O vine of Sibmah Jerem xlviii 31. I will weep for thee with the weeping of Jazer so we may weep and lament for the desolation of Ireland and the sad condition of the poor Irish people when they shall find and feel the mighty distance and difference betwixt a mercifull King that they had and merciless enemies and a cruel Tyrant whose little fingers shall be found heavier then the King's loynes and who For these things weâ—e written in the time of the Usurper in stead of those twigs wherewith the King would have most gently whipped them will most severely Scourge them with Scorpions Fourthly touching the Scots I shall as brief as I can speak 1. Of Charles Stuart whom they Crowned to be their King and is both their and our lawfull King 2. Of those perfideous and distressed Subjects that have Crowned him First their Crowned King Charles Stuart as the Son of a good Father and no less Virtuous a mother is in the judgment of all that now know him a verie wise discreet and Prudent Prince and they say as Valiant and Couragious as any Gentleman whatsoever I need not say much of his worth it is so well known to all that know him and his Enemies cannot deny it neither doth the Relation of his worth any ways lessen theirs that have any worth in them but were he as wise as Solomon the mysteries of States and the requisites to govern many people will require many heads and those likewise not of the meanest sort but of the wisest and greatest capacities to assist him for as Xenophon saith Pauca aliqua unus videat unus audiat one man can neither see much nor hear much and therefore Tacitus none of the meanest States-men saith Xenophon Cyr. lib. 8. Non est unius mens tantae molis capax but great affairs such as fall out within the Spheres of Kings and Princes do require many Heads to advise and many hands to effect and manage them How requisite it is for all Kings and Princes to have wise Counsellours to advise them and to be consuited with when as one arm is altogether unsufficient to bear up so unsupportable a Burthen as is the Government of many people and one brain is not capable of such a charge as to be alone sufficient to advise how to discharge so great a business but as Velleius saith Magna negotia magnis adjutoribus egent great businesses do require great assistants and therefore a Princes or King's affairs being great especially to regain such a loss as this Prince received he must not follow his own opinion though grounded upon very probable suppositions but he must yield to his faithful Counsellours when they produce more forcible reasons because he that needeth no Counsel especially in great matters must be more then a man and he that refuseth all Counsel is not much better then a Beast And it was most wisely said of Mar. Antoninus the Philosopher Aequius est ut ego tot taliumque amicorum Consilia sequar quam tot talesque amici mei unius voluntatem Tit. Liv. lib. 44. It was fitter that he should follow the Counsel of such and so many Friends then that such and so many men should follow the mind and will of
the Presbyterian way I am confident and sure that God never approveth of their courses nor for a man to accept of his own right by an indirect way and therefore I finde not that he blessed any of the Scots designs but as Nahum saith of Niniveh Nahum 3.13 so we may say of them thy people in the midest of thee are Women the gates of thy land shall be set wide open unto thine enemies and the fire shall devour thy barrs and I think they have found it true themselves through their Kingdom when the Lion and his Bears the Tyrant and his Whelps came amongst them And therefore this deliverance of the Prince being of the like nature as those wonderful deliverances that God wrought for other good Princes which are set down by Camerar libro secundo capite decimo being such a special act of God's favour and so wonderful in our eyes and as I believe with these former praecedentia fore-passed things will be a warning to him and to all others to amend future things and to detest and abandon this Presbyterian way which I am confident the Lord hateth and do assure my self will never bless it nor them that cordially follow it if they do rightly understand it howsoever he may in his secret Counsel suffer them as he doth many other Sinners and great offendours for a time to tyrannise over his children and to prosper in this World which is but as the Prophet saith a slippery station when as Claudian speaking of Ruffinus and his confederates saith tolluntur in altum Vt lapsu graviori ruant God lifteth them up to throw them down which makes their overthrow the greater by how much their exaltation is the higher for Qui jacet in terra non habet unde cadat He that walketh upon the ground can have no great fall but as Horace saith Saepius ventis agitatur ingens pinus celsae graviori casu decidunt turres feriuntque summos ful◠ura montes And so I believe their fall will be ere long which now ride on other men's palfreys and jet it up and down in pride in their Brethren's garments because as Job saith Job 20.5 27. The triumphing of the Wicked is but short and the joy of the Hypocrite is but for a moment when as the heavens shall reveile his iniquity and the earth shall rise up against him Secondly for the rest of the Scottish nation Mr. Hall a Counsellour for the Common-Wealth of England The trial of Mr. Love pag 76. How the Scots have been always avers and great enemies to the English-Nation in the triall of Mr. Love saieth that Master Love held Intelligence with the Scottish-Nation which truely saith he I do conceive hardly an English man that had the blood of an English man running in his Veins would joyn in confederacy with that Nation of all the Nations in the World against the Common-Wealth a Nation that hath been known to have been a constant enemy to this nation in all ages through the memory of all Histories whereby * If this be true you may guess how worthy they are to have an union with this Nation and how wisely we do to submit our selves by an indissoluble Covenant to their Scottish-discipline and therefore touching the now distressed and subdued subjects of Scotland especially those that Covenanted with the Parliament of England to overthrow the established Government of our Church and to set up the beggerly Presbytery I may most truely say lex non justior ulla Quam Artifices tales arte perire suâ Never Nation was more justly dealt withall then they be by what Crumwell brought upon them for though according to the Apostles warrant saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Cretians are always lyars I might justly say there are national sins as well as personal and you know that punica fides Titus 1.12 grew to be a Proverb among the Romans to note out a perfidions person so I might truely tell you that from Fergusius the renowned King of the Scots that first entred Ireland and afterwards was drowned at Carreg-fergus now corruptly called Knoc-fargus in that Kingdom their own Chronicles do testify how this Nation have been always such as Saint Stephen saith the Jews were a stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears that have allways resisted the Holy Ghost even as their Fathers did so did they so were the Scots a stiff-necked stubborn and rebellious people that have always resisted their own lawful Princes by deposing some and killing others whom they disliked and whom I could easily name if it were not for fear to be too tedious unto you out of their own Chronicles And though they had many brave Commanders and gallant Soldiers amongst them and some great Schollars as furious Knox Antimonarchical Buchanan That the Scots have been ever a most rebellious Nation in his Junius Brutus and De Jure regni apud Scotos and the like not a few yet as a little colloquintida spoileth all the whole pot of pottage so their treachery and Rebellion against their Kings obscureth all the good parts that can be in them It is a rare commendation that Quintus Curtius gives unto the Persians for their love and faithfullness unto Darius their King in his dejected Fortunes when they would rather lose their own lives then betray their King and Damianus a Goes tells us that many Infidels among the Indians were not inferiours to the best nations in their Obedience and Loyalty to their Kings and yet the Scots of all other Nations are as they say clean contrary for to go no further then our times it is not unknown to both Kingdoms how many signal favours were conferred upon men of all sorts both the nobles Gentles and Plebeyans of Scotland by King James that made himself poor How liberal and bountiful King James hath been unto the Scots to make them rich and many times emptied his own Exchequer to fill their purses and how King Charles never imposed any heavy burthen upon them but was no small benefactour to them preferring them in his own house to places of the greatest honour and best profit and those that came with their staff like Jacob over the Tweed and in their blew Bonnets into England they were in a short space enriched Knighted and ennobled in the King 's Court. But least that this Commemoration of benefits should be taken for an exprobration as the Comick speaketh I will not name those great persons that have been made great by this good King and that I could have set down for unthankful retributours of such great favours yet in general I would that all men knew how they have all rewarded their deserving Prince for that blessed man in his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith The Scots are a Nation The King in his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 How lovingly King Charles used the Scots upon whom I have not onely tyes of nature sovereignty and bounty with my Father of blessed
Discovery of Mysteries and the Revelation of the great Anti-Christ And for which doings the Lord God hath if not sufficiently yet apparently shewed his just Wrath and Indignation against them many ways First In the discovery of their secret Hypocritical and hidden under-ground Mysteries of their Iniquitie which could not otherwise be sifted out and manifested but by the omniscient Spirit of the all-seeing-God Secondly In raysing so many godly men though to many with the hazard and to some with the loss of their lives and fortunes to oppose them and with a courage raysed by the divine Spirit to withstand their wicked ways and to uphold the true service of the living God Thirdly In the reducing of their chiefest Plots and Devices to nothing though out of his patience and long-sufferings he suffered them for a while to prosper and to walk on still and to proceed in their wickedness for they intended like those Gyants that built the Tower of Babel to erect such a frame of Government in these Kingdomes that they only and their Posterity and Successours should sit at the Stern to turn and guide the same as the thirty Tyrants did for a while in Athens so long as the Sun and Moon endureth and to that end they destroyed their King they suppressed the Bishops they excluded the Lords and then framed such an Engagement as might infringebly oblige and tie all the inhabitants of these dominions to adore them for their good Masters and Governours for ever But lo he that dwelleth in Heaven laughed them to scorne Psal ii 4. and the Lord had them in derision for as the Spirit of the Lord came upon Othniel and upon Barak and Gedeon to destroy the Aramites Canaanites and Midianites and as the Lord stired up Sampson and David to destroy the Philistines so the same Spirit stirred up one even the Lord General Cromwel a Philistine from among these Philistines and a grand Rebel out of these Rebel's that did first so wisely disannul their brazen Engin the Engagement and then seeing his opportunity and finding how acceptable it would be to God and beneficial to all good men he did with an Heroical courage dissolve that knot and scatter those Parliament-men as the Lord scattered the Jews that were the murderers of his Son and their own King over all the parts of this Kingdom And thus by the just Judgment of God the whol Mass of that long Parliament that thought to remaine as Kings for ever became like the chaff which the winde scattereth away from the face of the earth And therefore Secondly The just Judgment of God upon the dismembred members of the long Paâ—liament I must now proceed to shew you the just Judgments of God upon the dismembred parts of this great body as I finde them driven by the winde of God's wrath here and there throughout all the parts of these Dominions But I must confess that for the particular persons of that Parliament and their adherrents that have in a great measure already felt the heavy hand of God's wrath for their Transgressions in that confederacie it is a work beyond mans reach either to set them down or to shew their punishments and therefore I will confine my self and as the Lord shewed unto Moses the land of Canaan from the top of Mount Nebo afar of which sight must needs be therefore but very partial and imperfect so will I give you a tast and a glimmering light of some judgments of God and the justness thereof upon some particular men and the more noted Members of that Parliament and I will begin with him that was the beginning of our trouble the first disturber of our peace and the General of the late unhappy War the Earl of Essex First It was said as I remember of Dionysius King of Sicily Of the Earl of Essex that he was a Tyrant begot of Tyrants then which a worser Character could not be given and a baser description could not be made of him saith Plutarch But I will not say of this noble Lord who in deed had a great deal of Honour in him and carried himself for ought that ever I heard like a man of Honour and pius inimicus a noble Adversary unto the King that he was a Traytor begot a of Traytor yet I must say that his Father was a favourite of Queen Elizabeth and was arraigned and beheaded for Treason à ainst the Queen whether justly for his deserts or unjustly by the malice of his enemies I will not determine and though her Royal Majesty did Royally and most Graciously restore this man both to his Fathers Lands and Honours and King James confirmed the same and King Charles more then that made him one of his Privy Council and Lord Chamberlain of his House-hold which was for Honour one of the best Offices as I take it in the Court and for profit a place worth viis modis near about 2000. pounds per annum as I heard and conferred many other favours upon him and for all this this Lord as is conceived out of no other cause then ambition of popular praise which greedy desire of popularity hath undone many a noble minde or as others think out of a secret grudg which he bare to this good King and to King James his linage for giving way to his Lady and Wife to be divorced from him onely propter frigiditatem naturae which all Divines and Canonists do not consent to be a sufficient cause of divorce presently and willingly accepted the motion of the House of Commons Plinius lâ—b 8. cap. 23. and commission of the Parliament to become the General of all their Forces against the King wherein as Pliny writeth of the Aspick saying Conjunga ferè vagantur nec nisi cum compare vita est itaque alterutra intercepta incredibilis alteri ultionis curá persequitur interfectorem unúmque eum in quantolibet populi agmine notitia quadam infestat perrupit omnes difficultates ut perdat eum qui comparem perdiderat that he pursueth him which hath hurt or killed his Mate and knows him among a multitude of men and therefore hunteth him still and layeth for him breaking throughout all difficulties to come at him so it may be this Lord was such as Seneca speaks of qui tantùm ut noceat cupit esse potens that accepted of his office that he might be revenged for his disgrace when notwithstanding King Charles was not the Author of his dishonour nor did any wayes further that divorce and therefore should not have been maligned for anothers fault Or if it was not for this cause as I heard some confidently say it was yet for what cause soever this or any other and with what minde soever this Lord accepted that office as being loth to stain his Honour and Ambitious to retain the Fame of an honourable Soldier I never heard the King nor any other of the Nobility accusing him for any base ignoble and perfidious act
with grief and sorrow of heart we do confess that we have sinned with our Fathers and with our Teachers that have mis-taught us to do amiss and to deal wickedly to prophane those thy Sanctuaries to destroy thy Temples and to make those houses of thee our God to become Dens of Thieves Cages of unclean Birds Stables for our Horses and the Receptacles of other bruit and fouler Beasts and as the Prophet saith of the Heathen so we may truly say of our selves Thy holy Temples have we defiled and made thy Churches heaps of Stones the Monuments of thy Martyrs we have thrown down and the dead Bodies of thy Servants we have given to be meat unto the Fowls of the Air and the flesh of thy Saints unto the Beasts of the Field And for this our great Wickedness we are become an open shame to our Enemies and a very scorn and derision unto them that are round about us and we do confess that we have justly and most justly deserved all the evils that are come upon us and we say with Ezra that thou our God hath punished us less then our Iniquities deserve Yet thou O Lord God like a most gracious Father didst not suffer thy wrath to burn like fire to encrease more and more and to continue as our Iniquities continued but in the midst of thy Judgments thou hast remembred thy mercies and commanded thy destroying Angel to put up his Sword and to punish us no more but to turn our heaviness into joy by rooting out our Oppressors and the Depravers of thy Service and restoring to us our most gracious King for which great Blessings and inestimable favours of thine O gracious God we laud and praise thy glorious Name and we will thank thee and magnifie thee for ever And now O Lord seeing we are taught by thy holy Prophet that Holyness becometh thy House for ever and thou hast commanded thy people of Israel that they should keep their Tents and Habitations holy and clean lest thou that can'st abide no impurity in thy sight shouldst depart from them which was a Type to signifie unto us how much more holy and clean thou would'st have us to preserve thy House where thy Service is celebrated thy Name magnified and thy Presence promised to be assistant unto thy Saints we do therefore in all humility beg of thee and from the bottom of our hearts beseech thee to blot out and pardon all the Abuses Prophaneness and Wickedness that hath been done in and against this House and we pray thee to accept of these our Prayers and Supplications unto thee to sanctifie the same and to make it a fit place for thy Service and so to preserve it an holy Tabernacle for thy Majesty to be present with thy Saints to have thy Name magnified thy people instructed and their Petitions presented unto thee and when they do pray unto thee in this place do thou hear them out of thy holy Heaven and let thine Eyes be open towards this House night and day even towards this place of which thou hast said My Name shall be there and thy dear Son and our blessed Saviour Jesus Christ hath said Where two or three are gathered together in my Name I will be there in the midst of them and this House being erected for the gathering together of thy Saints dedicated for thy Service and by our Prayers consecrated for thy Worship we do most humbly beseech thee to be present amongst us to hear our Prayers to grant our Requests and to give us strength and enable us through thy Grace to finish the Reparation of this House with Joy and to thy Glory which with such Alacrity we have begun and we pray thee likewise to guide us by thy blessed Spirit to walk according to thy Will that our sins may not provoke thee to suffer the Sectaries and the Enemies of thy truth and the Depravers of thy divine Service to prophane the same any more grant this O blessed Lord for Jesus Christ his sake to whom be all Glory and Dominion for ever and ever Amen
observe these three things 1. Their renunciation The Lord doth not accept them 2. Their compensation or reward which is two fold 1. Privative in the discussion of their deeds He will remember their iniquity 2. Positive which is an infliction of punishment He will visit their sins 3. The time of their judgement which is very near for he will now remember their iniquities and visit their sins 1. 1 Their Renunciation The not accepting of them is a most fearfull judgement against them and one of the heaviest conditions that can be incident to any man for when the Lord doth not accept the person of any one the actions of that person whatsoever they be can never be acceptable unto God for so the Scripture testifieth that the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering No work is acceptable when the person is not accepted that is the Lord seeing Abel to be just and honest he accepted and approved of his work but to Cain and his offering he had no respect that is seeing he was but an hypocrite and his service was rather to deceive men then to please God the Lord had no regard to any thing that he did nor respected any offering that he brought unto him So he tels the Jews that their incense and their sacrifices their burnt-offerings and the fat of sed beasts Esay 1.13 were an abomination unto him because the doers thereof were abominable and wicked All the best deeds of the wicked are abominable before God which is a very fearful thing that the very prayers and preaching the fasting and the Alms-deeds and all other things that hypocrites oppressors and unjust men do to please God are most hateful in Gods sight And if it be a lamentable thing that God refuseth their prayers and hateth the zeal of the hypocrites and abhorreth their pretences to do Him service O then how doleful a thing is it when God not only refuseth their service but also renounceth their persons For as non datur vacuum in natura there can be no vacuity or emptinesse in Nature but when one body passeth away another presently supplyeth the place so man cannot be without a Master but when God refuseth him the devill presently seizeth upon him Mâ—n cannot be without a Master as you may see in Judas who no sooner parted with Christ but he was immediately possessed by Satan And this is the first part of the Tragedy of this people that for their abuse of Gods service their disobedience unto their Governours and the wrongs they did unto their neighbours one to another the Lord doth not accept them but gives them a Writ De justa abdicatione and a bill of divorcement that he will be their God no longer and they shall be no longer his people And if this were all it were bad enough but here is somewhat more For 2. 2 The remuneration or reward of their wickedness two-fold 1 The deniall of his reward Here is the reward of their wanderings and the wages of their iniquity expressed unto us and that in a double form 1. He will remember their iniquity And 2. He will visit their sins And The first of these I call a Privative punishment because the Lord intimateth hereby the denial of his reward that is the reward that he would have given them if they would have faithfully served him for as he saith unto those hypocrites that fasted and prayed and gave almes and pretended to be the only Saints that so they might be seen and be so taken of men for the only true servers of God Matth. 6. 2. they have their reward that is habent mercedem suam sed amiserunt meam they have the reward which they aimed at the applause of men but they lost that which I intended to bestow on them that is eternal life so here when he saith that he will remember their iniquity he plainly inferreth they shall have none of those good things which he prepared for those that truly serve him though they seem not so among men And what a fearful note of Gods hatred against these men is this that he will remember their iniquity For the first argument that our Church heretofore used to invite sinners to repentance and to return to God is that whensoever a sinner doth repent him of his sins from the bottom of his heart the Lord hath promised to put out all his wickednesse out of his remembrance and howsoever the late wise Reformers of Gods service have now cast off that godly course yet was it the first request that the true Protestant testant Church made to God in their Liturgy saying 〈…〉 stateqâ—ther our Chuâ—ch makes to God Remember not Lord our offences nor the offences of our fore-fathers neither take thou vengeance on our sias because vengeance must then presently light upon us when our sins are called into Gods remembrance and the Lord saith unto us as he doth unto the Israelites Are not these things laid in store with me Deut. 32.34 and sealed up among my treasures And therefore as for God to remember his holy Covenant that he made with Noah and with Abraham and with all his faithful servants that he will be mercifull to them that fear him and blot their sins out of his remembrance is the greatest comfort of the godly The good Thiefs prayer Luke 23.42 Nâ—hem 13.14 which made the good Thief to say no more to Christ but Lord remember me when thou comest into thy Kingdome And N hâ—miah for all the good service that he did to Gods Church to say no more to God but Remember me O my God concerning this so the Lords threatning that He will remember the iniquity of the wicked should be â— mighty terrour unto them for this is the inference that the Prophet Amos maketh of this doctrine when after he had told the Jewes that the Lord had sworn by the excellency of Jacob saying Amos 8.7 8. Surely I will never forget any of their works he presently addeth Shall not the Land tremble for this and every one mourn that dwelleth therein And so I conclude this point against the prephaners of Gods service and the oppressors of their neighbours as Nehemiah doth in the like case saying Remember them O my God because they have defiled the Priest hood and instead of the true Prophets and Reverend Fathers of the Church Nehem. ult 29 and Reverend Fathers of the Church have with Jeroboam entertained Priests without Orders and Prophets without learning which have caused the people to wander out of the way and of whom the Lord professeth They run but he sent them not 2. The Lord saith that he will visit their sins 2 The inslicting their punishment and a visitation is either for the consolation of the distressed as when Zachary saith God hath visited and redeemed his people or for the correction of the delinquents as here when the Lord