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A35184
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Two sermons preached in the cathedral-church of Bristol, January the 30th 1679/80 and January the 31th 1680/81 being the days of publick humiliation for the execrable murder of King Charles the first / by Samuel Crossman ...
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Crossman, Samuel, 1624?-1684.
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1681
(1681)
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Wing C7271; ESTC R17923
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25,553
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48
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Grievances the onely Salve to every Sore a Kindness that should be with-held from none Yet after all these oily words to please the deluded people we may finde our Soveraign in his Restraint entreating the attendance and comfort of his Chaplains whom for their Function he reverenced and for their Fidelity he was pleased to say he loved them But alas he is churlishly denied He often requested it as himself tells us hoping that by the help of their Learning Piety and Prayers he might the better sustain the want of all other Enjoyments But still he receives no better than harsh Repulses to his most Christian harmless Desires What was so modestly ask'd by so great a person in so distressed a condition might it seems by no means be heard God keep all Princes from lying at such Subjects mercies Nor would they indeed suffer so much as a book of Divine Service to be allowed him for his own private use The Gates were thrown wide open to take in the Trojan Horse the utmost licentiousness to all wilde novel Opinions but no liberty for that Divine Service so advisedly established so often confirmed by fundamental Laws Lord what Monsters are Subjects when once Rebels II. Concerning the Calamity into which Zedekiah fell 't is said he was taken in their pits as the Bird into the Fowlers Snare as the chased Deer into the Hunters Toil. The Hunters were the Babylonians the Game they pursued and sought for was Zedekiah He fell into their hands as into a pit of destruction from whence he never came forth again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so the Septuagint a word which the Grecians use in the immediate sence of the Text 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so Demost. Zedekiah fell into the fatal Slaughter-house where he was dispoil'd of Life and Crown inhumanely butcher'd and made away Several Transactions of Remark passed between Zedekiah and our Prophet during the Siege of Jerusalem by the Babylonians as we finde Jer. 37. but the sad issue prov'd Hostis habet muros the rude Enemy at last entred into the Sanctuary Gods Holy Temple was now defil'd and Jerusalem made an heap of Stones The Prince himself taken and bound in Chains carried Prisoner to Riblah where his Children were first slain before his face then his eyes most barbarously plucked out and after that his royal person drag'd with all circumstances of scorn as an abject Captive to Babylon So true is that ancient Proverb The tenderest Mercies of some men are little better than savage Cruelties Oh what sore and unexpected measures may even Majesty it self meet with from the hands of cruel and blood-thirsty men Heaven onely yields what Earth cannot a perfect Freedom from all Violence Thrones the highest of Seats have their dangers Happy are those Princes who wrapping up themselves in Gods Grace and their own Innocency can say as our late Soveraign They are not sollicitous what wrong they suffer from man while they retain in their own Souls what is right in the sight of God III. The Honourary Character here given him 't is this The Anointed of the Lord. One sever'd from the rest of the people and advanced to Soveraignty 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Lords Messiah the Lord Christ. Such high such honourable Language does our Prophet think meet to mention his Prince in 'T is not the coarse Northern Salute Good morrow King Jeamy for all day nor is it the Southern Quakerism more demurely canted Plain Charles Steward A good Nathan his gestures and words shall freely declare the profound Reverence his very Heart bears to Majesty And Nathan bowed himself before the King with his face to the ground and said My Lord oh King Certainly Rudeness is not Religion The same God that has anointed his own Son as our Spiritual Messiahs for our eternal Salvation in Heaven has likewise anointed Princes as our Civil Messiah for our temporal Preservation here on Earth This divine Unction 't was aromatick and fragrant rich and costly significant and instructive poured forth as a mysterious inauguration in token of those Princely Endowments in testimony of that transcendent Majesty which God herewith convey'd 'T was Armour of proof for Safety a Robe of Honour for Royalty And there needed no more to bespeak the deepest Reverence to attract the highest Love to exact the awfullest Respects or to fix the truest Allegiance than this single consideration Gods Anointed 'T was this that swayed so far with David while Saul was yet alive And David said to Abishai Destroy him not for who can stretch forth his hand against the Lords anointed and be guiltless He speaks as in a holy passion as one greatly mov'd at the hainousness of this bold Sollicitation Nolo hanc mihi extorqueri obedientiam as if David had said No no Abishai thou seemest my friend but art my foe Get thee behinde me Satan I will never suffer my Loyalty to be thus wrested out of my hands This fair advantage before me may serve to cleer my Innocence but it shall never tempt me to Rebellion Saul is the Lords Anointed to me and I must be a true Liege-Subject to him 'T was this that aggravated the case so highly when Saul was soon after slain And David said to him that is to the young man the Amalekite How wast thou not afraid to stretch forth thine hand to destroy the Lords Anointed Saul had fairly spared the Amalekites to his own ruine That very people whom he had so far shelter'd contrary to Gods express command even they can now afford the person that shall destroy him Whoso is wise will consider it prudent and he will lay these weighty Memoires of Holy Scripture seriously to heart The Jewish Writers tell us this young man was the Son of Doeg that cruel wretch who imbrued his hands in the blood of above fourscore Priests the Ministers of the Lord that wore a linen Ephod for no other fault than the innocent discharge of their sacred Function The very Ministry and the faithful Services of it are crime enough in some mens eyes Doeg himself as divers circumstances seem to imply was at this time Saul's Armour-bearer who seeing the issues of that fatal battel on Mount Gilboa and foreseeing how little favour he could expect from David whom he had so highly offended in the depth of despair falls upon his own Sword But before he thus dies with his Master he calls his Son to him he gives him Saul's Crown and Bracelets that by these Presents he might make his peace with David when he himself was dead and gone But now see my Brethren behold and see the wakefulness of divine Vengeance Lo the severe hand of a just God upon the bloody malicious Family That terrible Prediction which had hung for some time as a drawn-sword over Doeg and his House was now visibly fulfill'd God shall destroy thee for ever he shall take thee away and
our Saviour's death Then embracing his Children such as might come to him with the tenderest affections of a most loving Father and yet that Princely spirit of strength which so highly became a Royal Martyr leaving his last Blessing and Counsel with them Fear God love one another forgive my Enemies I my self have done it but trust them not for I have found them most false to me Methinks we may see the butcherly Irons and Ropes fasten'd to the Block and Scaffold to have forc'd and bound down Majesty with the utmost barbarousness in case which they feared he should have resisted who came alas as a Lamb to all this slaughter in the glories of his Saviour's patience no way discompos'd at the Vizar and disguise of the Executioner who sought in the depth of his consciousness to conceal himself and his infamous person if it could be from the knowledge of God and man But lo our Soveraign's serenity and condition every place 't is to him a Theatre for the exercise of his Piety and Vertue In the very Agonies of Death he closes as one already in Heaven He endured the Cross he despised the Shame and through the joy that was set before him leaves these holy dying words behinde him as the Garments that fell from Elijah in his very departing from us I have a good Cause and a gracious God on my side I go from a corruptible to an incorruptible Crown where no disturbances can come Methinks we may without a Prosopopeia hear the deep Groanings of the whole Land without any Hypotyposis we may behold a numerous train of Mourners from all parts attending that Funeral which might then have no solemnity allowed to it Methinks we may see the Royal Family though scatter'd through violence yet upon this sad occasion present as close Mourners with that amazing Scripture dropping from their pale lips As a man falleth before the wicked so fell our Father this day Methinks we may see the Church as Jerusalem with Tears upon her cheeks bitterly crying out that our David who had set his affection so piously upon the House of God another Constantine a truly nursing Father who was never sensible of any loss to himself if thereby gain might redound to God as our Historians so justly acknowledge of him Methinks we cannot but see the Church lamenting that this Royal Patron of Religion and Learning was thus barbarously taken from us Methinks we may see the whole People trembling as at that great Mourning of Hadadrimmon in the Valley of Megiddon when Josiah the desire of their eyes the joy of their hearts was now no longer with them This was that distressed day wherein the beauty of Israel was slain amongst us Ye Daughters of England weep over your murdered Soveraign who clothed you in Scarlet and put upon you Ornaments of Gold who crowned the Land with such Riches and Plenty Oh tell it not in Gath oh publish it not in the streets of Ascalon that other Countries if possible might neither hear nor know what Christians what Protestants this day so prodigiously did before all Israel and before the Sun And that the measures of Inhumanity might be full and running over when it came to our Soveraign's Interment though divers noble Lords entreated the rights of Christian burial for their Royal Master and the then Lord Bishop of London stood ready with tears to have officiated that last service to the remains of Mortality now to be deposited in the joyful hopes of a blessed Resurrection yet neither were able to prevail so that silence and sorrow were the onely circumstance of remark the sad ceremonies of State to so great a Funeral But we must draw the Curtain as in Agamemnon's case Tanto par nulla figura dolori We must greatly blush as persons who stand ashamed yea even confounded that ever so odious an evil was wrought amongst us Were the several sad circumstances of it gathered together laid in order before our eyes we might say as once the Tribes of Israel in another case There hath no such deed been done nor seen from the day that England became a Christian people to this day Consider of it become truly humble under it and lastly watch with all unfeigned sollicitude against whatever might endanger our relapsing into it Which leads to the second particular mentioned at first There are divers things of unhappy tendency this way Give me leave to enter some needful Caveats against them and then I close 1. The first shall be against erratick disloyal opinions The Head usually betrays the Heart and debauches the Life On the one hand when Papists shall grow leven'd with Jesuitical insinuations that 't is a meritorious work to dispatch an excommunicated Prince and that the Assassinate shall forthwith become a Saint when Popes shall proudly tread upon the necks of Kings and take upon them to absolve Subjects from their due Allegiance when they shall exalt themselves above all that is called God setting the Crozier above the Scepter then ' ware Kings and Kingdoms danger is not far off And on the other hand when a Fanatical Vertigo shall creep into the heads of others that the Saints must by all means govern the world which Saints are they the next work is commonly this Let us kill the Heir that the inheritance may be ours The late Rebellions in Scotland scarce yet quietly allayed are too ready an instance of this nature What influence the extravagant Opinions of some of their former great Kirk-men might give to such bad practices I shall not here determine Their Positions have been such as these Kings and Governours have their Authority from the People and upon occasion the People may take it away again So one of them He that by Excommunication is cast into Hell is not worthy to enjoy any life upon Earth So another And when a Party of this humour had taken a very odde way to make the King their own by a forcible detaining his person at Ruthuen 1582. that they might thereby bring him to their own wills though the action were Treason by the Law of Nature and Nations adjudged by the Estates of Scotland as Crimen laesae Majestatis and the insolence so deeply resented by the King himself that he cried out he was a Captive and desired all his good Subjects to procure his liberty yet the Kirk-Assembly stands up to justifie it and ordains all to be excommunicated and subject to further civil punishment that agreed not with them herein There is a full though joyless truth in the common Observation Superstition whether Popish or Fanatick where-ever it takes place introduceth a new Primum Mobile which commits a Rape upon the Spheres of the civil World and puts all into utter Confusion Thus delirous did we also grow in England so far transported with these religious Frenzies that after many lesser Skirmishes against the innocent Rites of the Church men drew up