Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n
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A43730
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A sermon preached July 26, 1682, in the Cathedral Church of St. Peter in York at the assizes for that county / by James Hickson ...
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Hickson, James, b. 1650.
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1682
(1682)
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Wing H1930; ESTC R34939
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12,130
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28
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they were even then Obedient when the particular Cruelties against them gave the greatest advantage unto Temptations of Disobedience If we peruse the Acts of the Apostles and the History of the Primitive Christians we may by the perspective of History contemplate their Inprisonment though unjustly Committed but not behold them in the Camp to resist Authority we may behold them drawn before Magistrates not drawing Magistrates before them as the Authour to the Hebrews more fully informs you They were Stoned but we never find them Stoning Stricken with the Sword but we never find them Striking with the Sword We do not find them like our Saints of the late Edition binding their Kings in Chains and their Nobles in Fettors of Iron And though as one says all Christs Subjects are Free yet 't is a Freedom from Spiritual Bondage not from Civil Subjection Christs Free-men are oblig'd to Obedience for Freedom from Rule argues Slaves to Sin True Liberty is a Power to do what we ought not what we will consisting in a Freedom from the Dominion of mens Lusts not from Humane Laws a Freedom from Sin not to Sin In a word it consists in a Liberty to serve God and not in disobeying the Lawful Magistrate And 't were well if all who conceit themselves Saints and Precious ones were really so for then they would be better Christians and better Subjects And granting for suppositions sake that these tender ones were really Saints truly and universally Consciencious yet they are not Angels and consequently as they are but Flesh and Blood they may both do Wrong and suffer Wrong and so stand in need of the Publick Magistrate to keep 'em right and to do 'em right Fourthly If men would enjoy those Properties and Priviledges which they keep such a noise about they must Pray for all who are set in Authority over them that under them we may lead quiet and peaceable Lives Subjects should have their Eyes up to Heaven for those who sit at the Helm of State whilst they are Consulting for our Safety we should be Praying for them And that God requires this Duty from us is plain from St. Paul's command 1 Tim. 2.1 2. I will therefore that first of all Prayers Supplications Intercessions and giving of Thanks be made for all men and then comes to particularize in Kings and all that are in Authority But as if these were no Apostolick Command as if this were no part of Gods revealed Will by which man must be Saved the Generality what by the prejudice of Education and the conduct and advice of some Factious Shebaes are strongly possess'd that those plain Commands of Obedience to Authority are cancell'd and may be dispenc'd with if they be perswaded in their Consciences that the Commands of their Superiors cross and thwart with the Divine Laws they themselves being the Sole Judges and must they not keep their Consciences Now 't is notoriously evident and in all Ages has been demonstrated by woful Experience that the pretences of Conscience have not failed to Patron and abet the greatest Villanies which have ever been practic'd upon the Face of the Earth But the plain truth is When People pretend a tenderness of Conscience in Indifferences before they are Commanded by Authority and in the mean time make no Conscience of Obedience and Subjection to the Lawful Commands of their Lawful Sovereign they mean nothing by their Consciences but themselves the securing and advancing of their Temporal Interest And consequently if you tell People of this Bran and Genius of the practice of the Primitive Church tell 'em of Turtullian's Apology for the Subjection and Obedience of those Christians when at the same time they wanted not Force if they would have turn'd Rebels and you may as well tell 'em a Story out of any ordinary Romance or out of the Legend If you can help such men to Wrest and Misinterpret the Penal Statutes if you can direct 'em how to elude the Penal Laws so as they may continue in the open breach and defiance of the Positive Commands of Lawful Authority then you do something then you shall not want the reward of Divination Give men thus tenderly Conscienc'd a Lawyer better read in Tully's Offices than the Whole duty of Man Give 'em an Attorney of a Dexterous Application which is only a Periphrasis or Modish Synonima for a Knave who can provide for the nicking of a Cause that the Wicked may not triumph over the People of the Lord and then you please them We come now to the Second Observable inferr'd from our Subject which is to shew you that as the King's Throne is Gods so God hath constituted him over his People for the Punishment of Wickedness and Vice to execute Vengeance upon Malefactors as well as for the Praise of the Good That the King's Throne is God's we find demonstrated and plainly evidenc'd by that Quotation out of the first Book of the Chron. Ch. 29. Ver. 23. Solomon sat in the Throne of the Lord as King instead of David his Father The Scepter of the King is Gods Scepter and as 't is given by him none else can take it from him Those men strike at the Center of all Power God himself who assert that the King's Power is of the Peoples Creating As some men have Atheistically Imagined That the Soul of man is nothing else but a resultance of the Temperement and Constitution of the Body of man and not an infussion from God So says one Excellently for men to think and I wish it were no otherwise communicated that that Power by which the World is Govern'd to be but a resultance of the consent and the tacit voice of the People and no particular Ordinance of God is an undervaluing a false conception a misapprehension of those Beams of Power which God from himself derives upon those whom himself calls Gods in this World and thus we find them Styl'd in several Places in Holy Writ I have said ye are Gods c. And 't is well as one Excellently upon the 82. Psalm that Kings are not the Children of the most Voices but of the most High and though says he the Approbation of the People may serve ad Pompaâ—â— yet not ad Necessitatem They may add something to the Solemnity but nothing to the Essence of the Constitution That God hath constituted the Supreme Magistrate over his People for the Punishment of Malefactors is not only discribed at large by St. Paul Rom. 13. but our Lord and Saviour likewise assures us of as much St. Luke Ch. 22. Ver. 25. you read there that the Disciples contending amongst themselves which of them should be accounted the Greatest the ground and bottom of the contest had its rise from that Petition which Zebedee preferr'd to our Saviour at the instance of her two Sons St. James and St. John that the one might sit on his Right hand the other on the Left in his Kingdom i. e. be the