A SERMON Preached in the CHURCH of PVTNEY IN THE COUNTY of SVRREY Upon the 24th of April 1681. HIS Majesty's Declaration Being Read that day By EDWARD SCLATER M. A. Minister there From all Sedition Privy Conspiracy and Rebellion Good Lord deliver us LONDON Printed for R. Horne at the South Entrance of the Royal Exchange in Cornhill 1681. PSALM 106.16 They envied Moses in the Camp and Aaron the Saint of the Lord. 'T IS a strange powerfull charm their Rhetorick works by who undertake to perswade a People there are Distempers in their Government they never want Multitudes of credulous Auditors who as in the Affairs of the Body Natural they lend their Ears to those Mountebanks who make glorious promises of curing either their Diseases or their Fears so in the Body Politick they as easily follow the sly allurements of those who promise to make the yoke of Government more easie and pleasant These Undertakers shall not fail to gain all those to be their Proselytes who think their Native Liberty is imposed upon and unjustly restrain'd by whatsoever Positive Laws and Constitutions and may be able to apprehend those defects whereunto every Government is subject for none can be absolutely without on this side Heaven but cannot judge of or discern those lets and impediments those insuperable difficulties and invincible oppositions with which even the best of Governments is visited These are easily perswaded to take Physick from any hand either such as their ill chosen Physicians having cheated them into the belief they are Diseased tell them is proper for the cure or if they cannot work this belief in them prescribe for the prevention One way or other the less discerning multitude become their Patients either to cure their Imaginary Diseases or their Infused Jealousies Absolom is thronged with attentive Proselytes in the Gate whilst David is almost solitary and alone upon the Seat of Judgment His Insinuations whose especial business it was slily to publish the Defects of his Royal Father there is no man deputed of the King to hear thee 2 Sam. 15.3 and to hide those infinite impediments and difficulties that were the invincible causes of whatsoever the People suffered if they suffered any thing at all His Insinuations I say of his Royal Father's neglect in doing Justice and glorious promises of what he would do if he were made a Judge in Israel together with his flattering Kisses and treacherously courteous Deportment and Affability have a most miraculous power and operation upon the easie and unstable Multitude David their King chosen by God and anointed by Samuel with God's Holy Oyl and therefore his Majesty cannot be less then Sacred is forc'd to flie from Jerusalem and desert his Royal Palace because of their Rebellious Tumults and Threatnings And Absolom the fair spoken Hypocrite 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 stole away says our English makes his own proper goods says the Septuagint the Heart of the Men of Israel vers 6. In which expression of theirs 't is easie to discern these three things First That his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his making of them his own or stealing of them supposes they were the Proper Goods of another man and 't is God that gives all Propriety So that Absolom's stealing them away was a Rebellion as well against God who was the fountain of that Propriety as against his King in whom it was so settled Secondly That Absolom's treacherous heart had so powerfull an Instrument of his Tongue as to steal away almost the whole People for the Septuagint express it by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Singular number the Heart of the Men of Israel Lastly That the Hearts of Men towards their David the Anointed of the Lord should be all cemented together by Loyalty and Allegeance that they should become as one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Heart of the Men of Israel Offences will come says our Saviour but woe be to him through whom they do come This Heart has several times been divided and God has often shew'd his infinite Displeasure and burning Indignation against them by whose hands or tongues this Division has been made Had Zimri peace who slew his Master Had Absolom who rebelled against his Royal Father and stole away the Heart of the People from him Had Corah Dathan and Abiram the persons in my Text had they peace who envied Moses in the Camp and Aaron the Saint of the Lord No you know they had not Zimri burns himself to death 1 King 16.18 God burns the Remnant the Complices of Corah Dathan and Abiram by a miraculous Fire from Heaven Numb 16. Absolom is hanged in an Oak 2 Sam. 18. Sad and direfull Judgments all and therefore it should seem the Crime was heynous For to divide the Heart of the People from their Moses or their David what is it but to divide the Heart of the People from their God for they have not rejected Thee says God but they have rejected Me that I should not reign over them 1 Sam. 8.7 For what is a Moses or a David nay a Saul or a Cyrus or a Nebuchadnezzar but the Breath of our Nostrils that God has breathed into his People the Anointed of the Lord Lam. 4.20 And is not this the reason why Solomon joyns God and the King together and makes them as it were the one object of his Peoples Fear Prov. 24.21 and a greater then Solomon Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and unto God the things that are Gods ' Matth. 22.11 The Holy Spirit of God the Spirit of Peace has made them both the one object of our Obedience and must not that Hand or Tongue be highly impious that shall divide those whom the whole Blessed Trinity have thus signally united and made one No marvel if he who has set his King upon his Holy Hill of Sion not onely have them in Derision but break them with a Rod of Iron and dash them in pieces like a Potter's Vessel Psal 2.4.9 But Rebellion were not as the sin of Witchcraft if those who engage in it were not bewitcht by it if it would suffer them without a mist before their Eyes to behold the goodly work they are going about For if this mist take away from their sight the Fear of the King so it does the Fear of God too so says Xenophon if the subjects were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 true Servants of God and not Hypocrites calling themselves Saints and the Godly and making onely a specious shew of Godliness if they did not deny the power of it they would give the King his Honour seeing they are in so close a conjunction Fear God and Honour the King 1 Pet. 2.17 Samuel you see has rankt this sin of Disobedience in its due order 1 Sam. 15.22 and given it its right name it works powerfully as by charms and spells and the instance in my Text will give it its best Description They envied Moses also in the Camp and
Aaron the Saint of the Lord. In the words consider these particulars I. The Parties rebelled against Moses and Aaron II. The Parties rebelling Corah Dathan and Abiram and 250 Princes of the Assembly III. What they did or wherein their Rebellion manifested it self and broke out they Envied Lastly The Place were they did it in the Camp Of these in their Order I begin with the first the Parties rebelled against who they were Moses and Aaron the Prince and the Priest and first Moses They envied Moses also in the Camp c. Moses That he had Regal Power is attested by Holy Scripture Deut. 33.5 where we are told that he was King in Jesurun when the Heads of the People and the Tribes of Israel were gathered together And if King then their Judge too Deut. 17.9 and in the singular number and that must intimate that he was the Judge of all other Judges in Israel and had the Supreme Power in his hand that he was not onely a Minister of the Law but a Law-giver Moses commanded us a Law Deut. 33.4 And that he was not a Titular Prince but invested with the Supreme Power is plainly read in that God committed to him the two Trumpets of Silver and in them the Power to convocate the Assembly Num. 10.1 2. a work of the highest consequence of all in whatsoever Kingdom and seated onely in the Supreme Power of it A Power formerly onely in the hands of God himself Num. 9.18 20 23. till now he pleases to transmit it to Moses his Vicegerent for he is made as well the keeper of the two Trumpets as of the Tables of the Law There are two parts of Moses his Power intimated fairly enough in the Delegation of these silver Trumpets both Regal The first was their use ad Castra movenda for the pitching of their Tents and their marching to the places appointed So he had by this the power of the Militia he was the Generalissimo of all the Hoast Secondly ad comitia Convocanda to call their Assemblies to summon and convene the Princes of the Tribes to come together to consult de rebus quibusdam arduis of some hard and difficult Questions and Affairs of and concerning the weal of the People and the service of their God For by this Power does he gather together the Heads of the People and the Tribes of Israel Deut. 33.5 I stand not to tell you that he was faithfull in all God's House and by that gained that honourable appellation of the Man of God or that he was a very Meek man above all the men that were upon the face of the Earth how zealous he was for God's Honour and how severe in punishing the worshippers of the Golden Calf that he was exactly just and wronged no man and for his Learning that he was learned in all the Learning of the Egyptians excellent Accomplishments all able you 'l easily acknowledge to make his bad Subjects blush at their Rebellion if they had had any shame left in them But the true Israelites in whose mouths there is no Guile much less Rebellion in their hands or hearts let their King be what he will a Moses or a Manasses a David or a Jeroboam had fully learnt non tangere Christos Dei not so much as to Touch the Lord 's Anointed nor to Revile the Gods or Curse the Ruler of the People Exod. 22.28 Not to wound him with their tongues they can smite too Jer. 18.18 much less kill him with the sword Who ever looks upon Moses his Power and Prerogative will easily find that he was the life of Religion and Law Indeed it 's hard to imagine any People that in their right minds have not thought their King so or that have not found Religion degenerate every day and decline still more and more into Atheism and Prophaneness or crumble into multiplicity of Opinions and their Law to want its strength as if its Sinews were cut in pieces in his Absence So that when Corah and his Complices rebell against Moses they cannot aim more at his life then at the life of these Religion must bleed and Law expire in him who is the life of both And this was fairly intimated in that Miracle by which God was pleased to attest the Mission and Commission of Moses His Rod or Scepter is thrown upon the Ground and turned into a Serpent but when taken by the Tail it turned into a Scepter again When his Regal Power lies under the peoples Feet there 's no restraining them from poysonous Practices the Scepter is not onely accounted a Serpent a fellow Creature with them and therefore shall have no more power over them who are themselves a brood of Serpents and a generation of Vipers perhaps by subtlety one Basilisk or Cockatrice domineers over the rest but they will all agree to bruise this Serpent's Head if Moses take it not into his hand again And when he does you see they become a glorious Nation a Royal Priesthood Exod. 19.5 Every man of them a King when the Scepter was again taken by him that had the just right to it Well God has made Moses the Ruler of his People and therefore whosoever resisteth his Power resisteth the Ordinance of God And would you think that men who are forbid to speak evil of him no not in their thoughts Eccles 10.20 and assured that it shall come to light for a Bird of the air shall carry the voice and that which hath wings shall tell the matter would you think these should rise up in open Rebellion against him that they should list Armies and gather themselves together against Moses the servant of the Lord No reason can be given for it but that of Samuel Rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft as well in its fascination as its guilt none but men bewitcht could be guilty of so grievous an Impiety For judge you did they observe that counsel that was written in the Hearts of every Loyal Israelite by the Hand and Pen of Wisedom it self before it was written in their Books by the Wise man I counsel thee to keep the King's commandment and that in regard of the oath of God Eccles 8.2 Did not the same Wisedom tell them that against a King there was no rising up Prov. 30.31 and that in the word of a King there is Power and who may say unto him what dost thou Eccles 8.4 And had they not forgot it And could such Lessons as these be unlearn'd but by some strange fascination could men in their wits recede from them Let St. Peter speak they which despise Government and are not afraid to speak evil of Dignities are as natural brute beasts 2 Pet. 2.12 And you know if it be not witchcraft 't is something as bad that turns men into beasts Thus you have the first Object of their Envy Moses They envied Moses in the Camp and Aaron c. Solomon built the Temple and the King's Palace together which
own Houses in corners and private Conventicles it is otherwise those often prove the Schools of Rebellion But is it not a matter of sad consideration that when the Temples of God are those stately Edifices that make Civitatem Dei a whole Land the City of God our own Houses should be that Babylon or City of Satan inhabited by Fiends raising Rebellion against and designing the ruine of it And yet you see Corah and his Complices have their Seditious Meetings in the Tents in which the Conspiracy is hatcht against Moses God's Vicegerent and Aaron the Saint of the Lord. Veritas non quaerit Angulos Truth and Honest dealing dares stare the Sun in the face onely Treachery and Rebellion have their lurking holes and secret places till they are hatcht up and grown big enough to break forth These are the fittest places for such Children of the Prince of disorder and darkness for he that doth evil saith our Saviour hateth the light If Thoodosius the Emperour be in a fault never was there Prince without but the Prince of Peace St. Ambrose does in the spirit of meekness admonish him of it Nathan a Prophet of the Lord reproves David Saint John Baptist tells Herod his duty Nor these nor any Saint of God did ever creep into corners and secret holes to lay their heads together with the discontented spirits of the Times to raise a Rebellion against a Moses or a David or a Manasses c. to bring them to their demands by open violence and those that did received to themselves damnation Corah if Rebellion be but as the sin of Witchcraft will not have wrong done him if he be call'd the Conjurer that raised those evil spirits the Ground opens in his own Circle and devours him and his Complices Saint Jude tells us there were them in his time that perish'd in the gainsaying of Corah and then it seems that sin of his may be acted over again And therefore having as well as I could describ'd the sin and shew'd its punishment I shall keep you no longer from your Prayers that God would please to make your own Houses partake of the service and blessings of his That as you ought to learn Obedience here you may practise it at home and as you pray for all men especially for Kings and all in authority in the Temple you may frequently and honestly repeat the same Petitions in your private Closets To encourage you to Obedience the most thank-worthy Duty that man can pay unto his God the onely quality that is Sacred in man consider they are the words of God Obedience is better then Sacrifice and in the performing this most acceptable Service assure your selves Our God who is the King of Kings who has deliver'd our Moses our David The Breath of our Nostrils the Anointed of the Lord so often from the peril of the Sword and so miraculously and peaceably a Blessing never to be forgotten but by wicked men brought him again to his People and set him on the Throne of his Forefathers will make him a Patron of his People a Nursing Father to his long-afflicted Handmaid the Church of God amongst us And he that has preserved us formerly from the gathering together of the froward and the insurrections of those wicked doers that were confederate against God and his Anointed will still defend us from all evils they shall contrive against us and make us hereafter Kings and Priests to live with him for ever through Jesus Christ our Lord To whom with the Father and the Blessed Spirit be ascribed as is due All Honour Glory Praise and Dominion now and ever Amen THE END