A SERMON PREACHED AT THE CATHEDRAL-CHURCH OF HEREFORD On May the 29th 1684. Being the Anniversary Day of His late MAJESTIES Birth and happy Restauration at a Feast then first instituted by some of the Loyal Inhabitants of that County By Richard Bulkeley M. A. and Prebendary of that Church LONDON Printed for William Crook at the Green Dragon without Temple-Bar near Devereux-Court 1685. To the truely Honoured Sir John Morgan Baronet and Sir John Ernle Knight the Stewards of this Loyal Feast Gentlemen NOthing but a deep sense and just consciousness of my own Inabilities could have render'd me so pertinaciously backward even to a rudeness almost unpardonable in no sooner gratifying your repeated Commands for the Publication of this mean but well-intended Discourse which appearing in the World though after his Demise upon the Nativity and happy Restauration of a Prince who can no more dye in his Sacred Memory amongst us than an English Monarch in his Politick State makes it if ever at all now also equally seasonable And since I publish this Performance under your Patronage and with the License of my highly Honoured and Right Reverend Diocesan tho I need as many as any one that ever appeared in Print yet I shall make no Apologies for it God grant that all the Parts and Inhabitants of this Nation may by the knowledge of your most generous Example your most conspicuous steddy and signaliz'd Loyalty to his late be emulously influenc'd to their bounden Duty and Obedience to his present Majesty whom the God by whose especial Providence he rules over us long and happily continue unto us May He never want such Loyal Subjects as your selves nor such Loyal Subjects so Gracious a Prince who has given us his Royal Word to assure us that he will stand by and defend us both in Church and State and who never yet did and indeed which must needs conquer our Fears and remove our Jealousies knows not how and is yet to learn to recede from it may we never forget such unparallell'd Goodness may we in Gratitude comply with Him and readily satisfie him in every Demand we in Conscience can May every Feast celebrated throughout his Dominions like this of ours regularly end with Loyalty to our King with Charity to our Neighbour and with Piety to our God and in a word may every one of us as we are in Conscience bound endeavour to beget and propagate in all men The Fear of God and the Honour of the King on which two Foundations the Happiness and Welfare of our Kingdom is superstructed Which as it is the fervent Prayer so shall it ever be the constant and incessant Endeavour in his Sphere and Station of Gentlemen Your most Devoted most Obedient and Humble Servant Richard Bulkeley PSAL. 126. v. 3. The Lord hath done great things for us whereof we are glad WHen God ever signally appeared in the behalf of his People the Jews to relieve them in their Wants to assist them in the day of their Distress and so exerted his Almighty interposed his own Sovereign Power for their Deliverance when ever he wonderfully preserved them from any Danger that did beset any Calamity that did befall them we still we as constantly find them tho a stubborn and head-strong People making their solemn and grateful Returns paying their most enlarged Thanks and just retribution of Praises Thus when the Depths of the Sea overwhelmed Pharaoh and his whole Host Exod. 1 Ver. 6. so that they sunk into the bottom as a Stone and as Lead into the mighty Waters when the right hand of the Lord became glorious in Power dashed their Enemies into pieces and might have involved them in the same Ruin and fatal overthrow but yet miraculously preserved them Ver. 19. so that they went on dry Land even in the midst of the Sea we have Moses composing his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his triumphant Song of Thanksgiving and in a most devout most dutiful manner landing and praising his God and acknowledging him v. 11. glorious in holiness fearful in praises doing wonders And thus also not to mention any more instances when the Children of Israel were deliver'd and freed from twenty years Slavery and Servitude which they had suffer'd under Jabin King of Canaan we find Deborah and Barach the Son of Abinoam as you may read in the fifth Chapter of Judges magnifying God the Author of their Liberty And as this was their constant their general Practise so likewise in particular this Psalm as a Reverend Divine of our Church in his Argument upon it observes is universally thought to be a joyful Song compos'd by Ezra Dr. Patrick or some such good man wherein he celebrates the Jews happy deliverance out of Babylon a City to which they were carried Captives for their Sins wherein he ascribes the mighty the unexpected great things of their return to their Countrey of their restitution to their Laws Liberty and Worship wholly to the Lord looking upon this happy turn this Revolution of Affairs as well he might as a thing too great to be effected by bare Humane Power so wonderful so incomprehensible that it was judg'd impossible to be performed Insomuch that when the Lord stirred up the Spirit of Cyrus King of Persia to issue out his Royal Proclamation for their Return to Jerusalem Ezra 1. v. 2 3. we read in the first Verse of this Psalm that they were like unto them that dream that they could scarce be wrought into a belief of their Happiness and that they look'd upon themselves under some soft delusion some kinder Deception only in a Dream an imaginary fancy of such unhop'd for unexpected Felicity but then when they met with no obstruction or impediment when they clearly perceived and had sufficient demonstration and Conviction that God had wrought this for them and that the men of the place not only permitted them but also help'd them forwarded them to go when I say the truth and certainty of this appeared beyond denial or contradiction then as became them were their Mouths filled with Laughter and their Countenances with Joy their Tongues employ'd in singing and their Breaths in fashioning Hymns to their God who had magnified his Power in their Deliverance which justly filled them with Joy and Triumph so that they expressed themselves in the words of my Text The Lord hath done great things c. And sure if ever any People under the Copes of Heaven had cause to bless God for any Mercies conferr'd upon them then certainly we of this Nation have for those of this days Commemoration A day whereon we celebrate a double Blessing an Anniversary whereon we repeat our continued Thanks to Almighty God for the Birth and for the Return of our present Sacred Majesty A Birth next to that of our B. Saviour's the most beneficial most advantagious to us being the Nativity of the best of Princes A Return the greatest and most signaliz'd Mercy next
was restored which must needs convince even the Rebels themselves that God was in it without Opposition or Resistance without a Hand lifted up or a Blow struck tho had a thousand Lives been sacrific'd had whole Rivers of Blood been shed it had proved but a small Offering for so great a good but a poor Victim and slender Oblation for so great a Prince To see I say such an Universal Concurrence among so many different Parties and distinct Interests to see such general and united Joyes such miraculous Circumstances attending and waiting upon the Return must make the most bigotted Phanatick either renounce his Reason or else confess that this was the Lord's doing and from hence know and learn that the Lord saveth his Anointed and will hear him from his holy Heaven with the saving strength of his right hand as heretofore when he was driven from his own Kingdom to another People so likewise now being seated on his Fathers Throne For which great and transcendent Mercy let us never cease to bless and praise God and with our purest Acclamations of Joy and Triumph clap our hands and cry God save the King 2 Kin. 11.12 which in the Hebrew Phrase as is observed in the Marginal Note of our Translalation is Let the King live out-live all his Foes let him receive fresh and new accessions of strength and splendour and let him now at the last be amply and largely recompenced for the times wherein he hath suffered Adversity for the times wherein he fled before and was glad to escape his own but rebellious Subjects for the times wherein he was reduced almost to Lazarus his poor and necessitous condition and forced for his own Concealment and Security in an adjacent County and a little Village Madely by name Bak. Chro. p. 609. to take up with no better an Apartment than a Barn for the times wherein like our Blessed Saviour with Reverence and Submission do I speak it He took upon him the form of a Servant nay and was put about Servile and Culinary Emyloys Now let the World judge Was there ever Prince so Great Just and Good exposed to such Hardships put upon such Indignities as these Indignities that he never would have been driven to but by two sorts of men since the beginning of the World namely the Crucifiers of our Lord the Jews and the Murtherers of our late King of blessed Memory the Presbyterians and Independants but I shall forbear entring any farther on this black and dismal scene of Affairs out of the pure respect I have for the Day and not for them because I am not willing to overcast the brighter rayes of it with such thick and Egyptian darkness which many of us have too sadly felt and therefore pass to my second undertaking which is to shew how we may best and most acceptably express our Joys of so comprehensive a Mercy we this day commemorate 2. This I shall perform these two ways First Negatively Secondly Positively First Negatively Not by any sinful Methods of Excess and Intemperance not by any irregular or exorbitant Excursions for these will rather call down than appease God's Judgments these will engage him not for but against us and make us at enmity and variance and set us at distance with Heaven it self nay and will render us which we should be loth to be accounted the worst Subjects and greatest Rebels for every Vice carries something of Treason along with it each fit of Drunkenness especially if a National Sin as in this of ours damms up to deluge the Land and each Lust serves to scorch and fire the place of its Inhabitants and proves the most fatal Conspiracy arming God against it for as Solomon expresses it Prov. 1.32 Even the prosperity of such Fools shall destroy them So that if we should thus sinfully Congratulate the Safety of our King that very act would contribute towards his Ruin and in real truth though we should ever so heartily rejoyce for him in such a manner yet the best that can be said of it would be that it was a Loyal way of destroying him 2 Kin. 9.22 for as Jehu answered Joram What Peace so long as the Whoredoms of thy Mother Jesabel and her Witcherafts are so many So likewise what Protection what Assistance can we expect from the Powers above so long as Vice and Wickedness abounds and is encouraged among us I speak not this for I would not be misunderstood to disrepute our intended Festival I acknowledge with the devout Salvian Salv. de gub l. 6. Rideamus quamlibet immensuratim laetemur quamlibet jugiter dummodo innocenter We may be glad without measure we may rejoyce continually provided it be done innocently and inoffensively nor do I speak it that I in the least doubt or any wayes suspect but that the whole Action will be performed with Sobriety equal to its Loyalty which is primitively pure but only in general because at such times such Sins are too frequently transacted amongst men and withall I affirm that as long as there is such open and unpunished neglect of Gods Worship Word and Sacraments as long as there is such Contempt of his Sacred Laws and holy Institutions such horrid Prophanation of the Lord's Day and such promiscuous Incontinence even from the Cottage to the Palace that unless a more than ordinary Piety stand in the gap the Event and Issue of these things will be desolation and ruine the bane and consumption of our King and our selves it will happen unto us 1 Sam. 12.15 as the Lord spake unto Israel If ye do wickedly ye shall be destroyed both ye and your King If so be therefore we will not conspire against our selves and Prince if we will not put helping and assisting hands to our own Misfortunes and Calamities if we will not be instrumental to effect that which the Papists and Phanaticks are both industriously endeavouring to do for us let us as one expresses it in words to this effect Mistake not Debauchery for Joy and Merriment Dr. Spark 29 May. nor drown our Reason to manifest our Loyalty but pray for the Kings Health and drink only for our own and this will be good and acceptable to God and our King and will bring us under and recommend us to the Divine Favour and Protection Secondly Let us express our Joyes and thankfulness Pofitively by doing those Duties by making such proportionable returns as become good Christrans that have a thorow sense and conviction of so miraculous and stupendious a Providence as ours of this Day which may be best performed First By an utter abhorrence and hearty detestation of all such abominable Practises and Disloyal Anti-monarchical Principles that naturally lead dispose and debauch the minds of men into such bold daring and unlawful Attempts as to fight against and drive out of his own Territories the Lords Anointed which are such as these and the like Namely That Princes for just causes
to that of our Redemption being ransomed thereby from the greatest Tyranny but that of Hell and restored to our Sovereign and in him to the greatest of Earthly and Temporal Blessings and therefore have all the reason imaginable to break forth into this grateful recognition of the Psalmists The Lord hath done great things for us whereof we are glad In the prosecution of which words which I hope may suit with the serious business of the day I shall endeavour these three things 1. I shall observe unto you the great things that God hath done for us the signal Mercies he hath vouchsafed unto us in this days Dispensation Secondly I shall endeavour to shew since there is no good Christian or good Subject which are reciprocal and convertible terms but will one way or other be glad and rejoyce in this day which the Lord hath made which way and by what means we may best and most acceptably express our Joyes of it Thirdly and lastly I shall make some brief Application to the whole with reference to this Solemn this Loyal Appearance First then I shall observe unto you the great things that God hath done for us the signal Mercies he hath vouchsafed unto us in this dayes Dispensation Both which Topicks if taken together will try the utmost stretch of Thought and Contemplation will amount to a Subject that can never be exhausted such that Language it self cannot with all its copiousness sufficiently express So that when we have us'd all our Faculties to utter our Praises and bespeak our Gratitude when we have been swallowed up in the deep contemplation of the Divine Goodness and Protection to which we owe our present Stabiliment and Continuance when we have almost breathed out our very Souls into Ecstasies of Joy and pious Raptures of Thanksgiving and in a word have with the best expressions of exalted Gladness with Acclamations loud as Thunder and Hallelujahs like the roarings of the Sea manifested our deep our profound sense of His Majesties miraculous Restauration from the miseries and hardships of a cruel Exile and unnatural Banishment when we have done this and more we shall still find matter of wonder before us to silently admire when we can no longer express the immense Goodness and stupendious Bounty of Heaven extended unto us in these two instances of the Day the Nativity of our Sovereign and his Accession to the Throne And though we may well expatiate on both and have as great reason to bless and praise God for the one as well as the other to bless God that he who rules over us rules by undoubted Succession that he is our Natural Lord and born Prince that he sways the Sceptre not by Violence and Usurpation as the late infamous Protector not by Adoption as Tiberius not by Election as Vespasian heretofore amongst the Romans but by an uninterrupted Lineal Descent but by an unalterable Right of Inheritance a Right that cannot be alienated without the highest violation of Justice Oaths and Laws National Natural and Sacred tho I say these are Blessings if any can be equal with those of His Majesties happy thrice happy Restauration yet I shall forbear the consideration of them at present and speak to the latter chiefly wherein we have sufficient to exert our wonder and to make us conclude with the Psalmist Psal 59. ver 10. that God hath shewed us his goodness plenteously For when we were void even of all other help and quite destitute of hope from Men from the Arm of Flesh when we groaned sighed and languished and were ready to expire under the heavy Oppressions of Tyrannical and Arbitrary Government when we had utterly lost and were totally depriv'd of that we now to the full enjoy viz. our Liberty Property and Religion when we were consumed even from Morning till Evening all the day long our Houses plundered our Wives violated our Virgins rap't and our Churches too without any respect had to the Sacredness of Temples sacriledg'd and prophaned when All but Rebells and Traytors were reduc'd to Cain's sad Cain's disconsolate condition to dread every one they met to be their Executioners and to consummate our Miseries and compleat our Infelicity that our better Parts might not escape Phanatick Rage and Tyranny when we were deny'd our religious and well-digested Forms of Prayer and our Souls almost poyson'd with the blasphemous and fulsome stench of Extempore Nonsence when the Pulpits were usurp'd by Jeroboam's Priests the Beasts of the People the lowest and vilest and most contemptible Mechanicks and the rever'd Name and Sacred Word of God abus'd and prostituted by Enthusiastick Canting and unintelligible Babble and in a word when all the Miseries that can be thought of by the loss and most savage Murder of the best of Kings and by the outragious cruelty of the worst of Traytors had sadly had lamentably befallen and consumed the Nation then even then did it please Almighty God to come in to our Aid and Succour to free us by this dayes Blessing from all the Insolencies and Spoils and Devastations of an Army from all the direful Issues of a Civil and Intestine War and for nothing else nothing less than our Sovereign's Return would have put the period from all the different Competitions and variety of endless Claims which would have been still started up and so consequently begot and bred everlasting Disturbances circular eternal Fears So that a bare exemption from such a long Train such a complicated Series of Miseries which must have unavoidably ensued such Confusion in the Government had no other Blessings which God be praised we abound with been superadded must have put us upon declaring our grateful Resentments but then if to this we add the miraculous manner of his Majesties Return it must needs excite our wonder and admiration For He was restored to Us after some Men some Potent men had arrived to that Audacious degree that high pitch of Impudence as to form and pass an Illegal and Diabolical Act Sir R. Bakers Chron. pag. 588. for the Exheredation of the Royal Line for the utter Extirpation and Abolishing of Monarchy it self the best of Governments He was restored after a Proclamation issued forth that none should presume not only to declare and publish nay Ibid. p. 587. even to breathe or whisper him or to express it in their own terms any ways to promote him to be King He was restored by General Monk p. 693. to whom they had offered the Government and so one would have thought should not have proved so industriously instrumental in bringing the Lawful Heir to it Nay farther yet to our greater Astonishment He was restored when there was a well formed well disciplin'd Army on foot against him when his own Friends were low and poor harrassed and oppressed but his Enemies strong and powerful when it was their Interest as well as Principles to keep him now they had him out And lastly for all this He
as if there could be any such when they sin only against God may be deprived Psal That the People taken collectively are better than the King and of greater Authority That they may Arraign their Prince and they might with as much Justice and Equity on their sides have said Murder'd him too as they once did that it is not sufficient for Subjects not to obey the wicked Commandments of their Prince which we are like to have none of but they must resest them also and deliver the Children of God which by a strange kind of Baptism they Christen themselves from the hands of their Enemies as we would deliver a Sheep that is in danger to be devoured by a Wolf Which wicked and damnable Doctrines with many more of the same leven and stamp which for the imbittered poyson they carry along with them I shall forbear to mention and are at large recited out of Knox and Buchanan two factious and rebellious Teachers Book 1. Ch. 4. by Bishop Bancroft in his most useful Book of dangerous Positions Now I say if we have a hearty and sincere joy and rejoycing that the King and in him Monarchy is restored we must abhor dread and abominate these and such like pernicious Principles which have seduc'd men from their bounden Duty and Deference to their Prince by which they have endeavoured though with all the Wit and Malice they had they never could to justifie and maintain their rebellious Commotions against him otherwise we can have no share or partnership no communion or fellowship with those that offer up their Hosannas and Hallelujahs to him that sitteth in the Heavens laughs our Enemies to scorn and protects us and our Anointed Next Let this our just Joy suggest unto us an important Duty incumbent upon all good Christians and good Subjects which shall be this Not only to offer up unto God our devoutest Praises for this and all other his Benefits conferred upon us but our earnest our incessant Prayers also that He for unless God keep the City the Watchman waketh but in vain would continue his hedge of Protection about us and defend us and our Religion the best and purest in the World from all the continued Assaults and Batteries that are made and raised against us and this not only by his Universal Power as the common Preserver of men but also by his more immediate and especial Care but by his particular Providence without which like disagreeing Elements we shall prey upon and devour each other Farther let us beseech Almighty God for there never was more need that He would depute a Guard of Holy Angels those ministring Spirits to defend our King and his Royal Brother from all the Plots and Machinations not only that are but also that shall ever be formed or managed against them that he would scatter all their Enemies that delight in Blood as Dust and Chaff before the Wind that he would confound their Counsels and defeat their Stratagems that like the untimely fruit of the Womb they might prove abortive and never see the Sun never behold the Light and in fine that he will suffer no Weapon forged against them to prosper though never so often consecrated to such impious and unhallowed purposes Last of all After we have unanimously sent up our Petitions with all the Purity we are able to Almighty God who is a Defender of All them who repose their trust and confidence in him let us also add our own earnest and honest Endeavours to suppress all malevolent and disaffected Persons and Parties and so bring as much as in us lies all sactious disturbers of the Peace and fomenters of Discord to their condign and deserved punishment let us suffer no reproach we can prevent to befall no Dirt to be cast upon the Government let us suppress all Conventicles and Meeting-houses the very Nurseries and Seminaries of Rebellion and in a word let us put all the wholsom Penal Laws in Execution for nothing less will prevail upon our obstinate Dissenters whose pernicious Doctrines and impious Positions whose Midnight Plots and Noon-tide Contrivances we have good reason not only to dread and fear but also as much as by Law and Honesty we can to provide against especially since we see by their late that they do not repent them of their former Practises especially since we see they are so inured to so fond of their old Forty Eight Republican Principles that we find by their often tho not successful Attempts thanks to Heaven alone not to them for it that no Indulgences will win them nor a thousand Acts of Oblivion make them forget their Villany Villany that caus'd all that did but dare to be more honest than their wicked selves to live such Lives and be subject to such Tyranny that like some of the persecuted Christians of old they would have embraced Death as a kind and friendly deliverer that they complained of Life because of its trouble Ch. 3. v. 10. and might have cried out with Job Wherefore is light given to us that are in misery and life unto the bitter in soul But because by the blessing of God and the endeavours of honest men things are brought to a more promising Crisis and favourable prospect I shall insist no longer on this point but shall conclude it with the ingenious Prefacer to the excellent Treatise of Toleration and Comprehension discussed That it is too sadly apparent from the late Books and Pamphlets of these kind of men speaking of the Dissenters and against the Church and State of England that they endeavour to do that work which Jesuits and Jesuited Papists do most heartily wish were accomplished And I will add that if ever Popery breaks in upon us as a severe Scourge and Judgment for our sins which God avert that notwithstanding their outcries and clamours against it yet they will be in all humane probability the unhappy Instruments to introduce it which I wish they may seriously and in time consider and by an honest Conformity to our Church for there is no other way endeavour to prevent and remedy that our Land may not again be overwhelmed with Cruelty that our Church now purified and refined may not once more be run over with Idolatry and Superstition that our Souls may not be enslaved and our Consciences enthralled and that we may not be brought to this sad Dilemma either to dye barbarously or to live wickedly either to resign up our Lives which is a hard case or else that which is far harder yet to worship a true living God after a dead and false manner which Considerations I leave to them with all the earnestness imaginable begging them to look into the causless grounds of their Separation from us and so weigh these and such like consequences which may fatally ensue and to repent and amend before it be too late which if they will not let me tell them this and many more Discourses extant in