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A47414
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A sermon preached the 30th of January at White-Hall, 1664 being the anniversary commemoration of K. Charls the I, martyr'd on that day / by Henry King ...
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King, Henry, 1592-1669.
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1665
(1665)
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Wing K507; ESTC R3421
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16,534
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49
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A SERMON Preached the 30th of January at White-Hall 1664. Being the Anniversary Commemoration of K. Charls the I Martyr'd on that Day By Henry King Lord Bishop of CHICHESTER Printed by His MAJESTIES Command LONDON Printed for Henry Herringman and are to be Sold at his Shop in the Lower walk of the New-Exchange 1665. A SERMON Preached the 30 th of January at White-Hall 1664. 2 Chron. 35. Vers. 24 25. And all Judah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah And Jeremiah lamented for Josiah and all the Singing-men and the Singing-women spake of Josiah in their Lamentations to this Day and made them an Ordinance in Israel and behold they are written in the Lamentations WE are met in the House of Mourning and I wish that Text of the Preacher It is better to enter into it than the House of Mirth may prove as acceptable to you as it is proper to the occasion In compliance wherewith my Text in every part of it from Top to Bottom is hung about with Blacks to suit the just and solemn Mourning of this Day A Day wherein the Lord hath called for Weeping and Mourning and Girding with Sackcloth Yet not long since This very Day recorded in bloody Letters was reckoned the first Day in our unhappy Kalendar A Day of Liberty and Restauration to the whole Kingdom Behold Joy and Gladness as it follows in the Prophet slaying Oxen and killing Sheep eating Flesh and drinking Wine in their large Thanksgiving Dinners and Solemn Feasts What Liberty no Man could tell unless a Liberty to the Sword to Rapine and to Plunder A liberty to profess all Religions except the Right and exercise any Law but That which was Prescribed May I not too truly apply to This Day the words of Hezekiah This is a Day of Trouble of Rebuke and of Blasphemy Trouble to the whole Nation Eternal Rebuke to the Actors Blasphemy and Reproach to the Protestant Religion so stained by the Fact wrought on it that all the Waters which environ our Island can never wash it out For where was it ever known that such a King was Murthered by the Sword of Justice and Pretence of Religion gave aim to the Assasinates Blow when Those who by their Office were to Preach Peace became the Trumpets of Rebellion when every Pulpit was made a Sconse from whence no Platform shot more frequent Fire than their Tongues did bitter Words against the Church and against Him who was the Nursing Father of It. For this Cause so much of our Sorrow as can be spared from our greater Obsequies may be allowed to lament this Scandal to the best Reformed Church of England when we find those Men acting by their sharp Principles who desir'd to be accounted most opposite to Them Both assuming the Title of Sacerdotes Reformati Reformed and Reforming Priests Yet need we not much wonder since in all Ages no Rebellion brake out which had not the stamp of Religion to make it currant Florus tells us the Civil Disturbances of Rome borrowed from hence their Colour and had their Flamens who were their Priests to blow them up In our own Kingdome Wat Tyler and Jack Straw had one Ball a Priest to plead for their Rising in the Pulpit And Littestar the Dyar of Norwich who took upon Him the Title of King of Commons Supprest and Hang'd by Spenser the noble Bishop there had his Chaplains too The French History tells us the furious Crys of Boucher Guarren Fruardent with others Thirteen in number All Chaplains to the Duke of Guise in all their Pulpits tearmed Charls the Ninth their King a Tyrant and Favourer of Hereticks Insomuch that the seduced Parisians changed their wonted Acclamations of God save the King to God save the Guise Head of the Catholick League and Patron of Religion The Tragical issue whereof was the Massacre of so many Protestants and shortly after the Death of the King A sad Glass to shew the Rise of our late Distempers here where praying for the King was prohibited by Order And I speak upon knowledge in some places none admitted to the Communion but those who fought against Him Not to trouble you further John Knox and others were Chaplains in the Scottish Rebellion in which the Archbishop was murther'd the Churches demolished and the Queen forced to fly And if any doubt who were the Chaplains to make our People stumble in their Duties to sollicit our own and the Churches troubles If nothing appears under Smictymnus his Mask Archer and Lemuel Tuke who acted open faced without their Vizors may sufficiently declare The one whereof Preach'd it lawful to resist the King The other to kill Him These and many more like these were the Prologue to that cruel Tragedy on this Day acted And Chaplains to that general Mischief which the whole Kingdome then groaned under And I dare boldly affirm upon what Clod of Earth in what Field soever the sharp Battels were fought the Sparring Blows were made in the Pulpit If this Repetition be unpleasing I beg pardon it so little pleases me That from my Soul I wish there never had been cause to give it mention or make it any part in the luckless Subject of our History Yet since our Saviour excus'd the Ointment expended on Him by the Woman and would not have it forgot as being done to bury Him I hope I may have leave to reflect a little upon those Dead flies whose onely aim was to corrupt the sweet Ointment of our Josiah's Name which is like Ointment poured out perfuming all places with the Example and Memory of his Virtues For what the Woman did to Christ in Piety they did in Malice to bury Him too at least to Antidate his Funeral by burying His precious Fame his good Name before the fatal Stroak which brought his Body to the Grave Our Text's Subject is Josiah's Funeneral They mourned for Josiah Where you have the general Train of Mourners All Judah and Jerusalem Then the Particular The Prophet Jeremiah lamented for Josiah The Singing-men and Singing-women spake of Josiah in their Lamentations to this Day The perpetuation of this solemn Mourning And made them an Ordinance in Israel The Record kept of Them Behold they are written in the Lamentations When we mention Josiah we mention the best Prince that ever sate upon the Throne of Judah One who did right in the sight of the Lord and walked in all the ways of David his Father One not less zealous for the House of the Lord than for the Service in it For he caused the Temple to be Repaired and the Law of God diligently to be Read in it Yea so great was His desire to restore the Temple to its former Lustre That he took down all those Houses joyning to the House of God which either Defiled or Defamed it by their Neighbourhood But that Josiah is not my scope My Scene must here change from Judaea
to Great Brittain from Judah's King to our Own who fell under worse hands than Pharaoh Necho He fairly warned Josiah and persuaded him to decline the Fight wherein God's Ordinance which sent him against Euphrates made his Arm too strong to be resisted But our Pharaoh Necho and his Complices did all they could by false Oaths and Flatteries to bring their Master within the Reach of their Blow and take the Anointed of the Lord in their Pits A Fact so horrid that it is easier to bewail in Tears than utter in Words Indeed the grateful Duty to a Dead Master and the Allegeance to such a King make all expressions I can use too narrow for the Argument upbraiding my Inabilities with that practical truth Nihil difficilius quam magno dolori paria verba invenire Nothing is more difficult than to match so great a Sorrow with Language equal to it So that with Nazianzen upon an occasion somewhat like this I might wish another Jeremy in my stead 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who onely was able to frame a Lamentation proportionable to the cause and invent a Threne worthy of his excellent Pen and of the Subject The Piety of our Josiah being not Inferiour to that Elder Josiah and his Moral virtues every way equal So great and meritorious a Person as Josiah is not to be narrowed by the common Expressions of a bewailing Tongue nor will any Rhetorick suffice unless assisted and supplied where Words fall short by the number of the Mourners as here it was All Judah Jerusalem c. Nothing is so Natural as to Lament the Dead Man goeth to his long home and the Mourners go about the Streets Moesta phalanx Teucrique sequuntur The Stoicks indeed by their rigid precepts labour'd to seal up the fountains of our Eyes pronouncing it unmanly for our Sex to melt in Tears Ennius was of the same humour Nemo me lachymis decoret nec funera faxit He would have no weeping at his Grave nor Funeral solemnity Nay Ludovicus Cortusius Patavinus by his last Will forbad Mourning for him and because he would have no shew of a Funeral he ordered that the Black Monks habited like Mourners should not be invited to his Burial But Solon wiser than all three thought his Memory disparaged if he deserv'd so little of Lacedaemon that none were found to bewail his Loss His words were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He did expect some Tears dropt over his Hearse and some Train of Mourners to attend him to his Funeral Pile They are miserable Men who go out of the World as it were in the Dark neither miss'd nor bewail'd by any Josiah you see had many All Judah and Jerusalem A less proportion of Mourners would not suit his Funeral When Masters of private Families Dye those in the Houshold are Mourners by Custom But when the Pater Patriae the common Father of the Kingdom the Lord Paramont and Master of us all Dyes the whole Confluence of the People by an universal Summons are call'd together as sharers in the Solemnity When our Saviour was Born there was a general Tax went from Augustus to be levied through the World VVhich Tax was but a concurrent shadow of the universal Homage due to the New Born King whose Empire extended not over Judaea onely but the whole VVorld as King of Kings and Lord of Lords And sure when soever his great Vicegerents leave the VVorld it is fit that their Death which is as one calls it Fatalis Nativitas a Fatal Birth should be Solemnized by a Tribute of Tears levied upon the whole Kingdom If that Tyrant John Basiliwick D. of Muscovy exacted Phialas sudore plenas a Tribute of Sweat wip'd from his Subjects brows and kept in Glasses and Bottles for him to see sure a good Prince dying may expect a Subsidy of Tears Bottl'd up and Sorrow kept in store to weep bitterly for such a Loss It is held an usual Duty at the King's Coronation to bring Contributary wood to make a Bonfire 'T is then Ratione Contrariorum an equal Duty when He is un-crowned by Death to bring some Contributary water falling from our eyes to Quench that fire again Nicephorus Gregoras writes that in their Naemia those mournful Exequies for the Emperour the People wished the whole River of Nilus drawn up into their Eyes that so they might raise a Mourning proportionable to the Loss And at the Burial of Titus the Mourning was so general That omnes tanquam in propriâ doluerunt orbitate as Eutropius expresseth it All sorts of men thought themselves concern'd in that Pretious Loss Lamenting as disconsolate Orphans deprived of their Father Nay Barbarians themselves who had been conquer'd by the Sword of Germanicus did bear their share in the sorrow for his Death I know Buchanan whose study was to diminish Princes and contract their Grandeur tells us that a King though he be better and greater than any particular Subject yet He is less than the whole Aggregate and Multitude of His Subjects But a Text more authentick than his tells us in the Person of King David Thou art better than ten Thousands of us which you must not take for a confin'd number of so many but Indefinite nay Infinite the Originall is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So here you see the King set in skale with the whole Kingdom for All Judah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah Which transcendent Lamentation grew into a Proverb Like the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the vally of Megiddo Where give me leave to tell you Though Abulensis thought this Hadadrimmon a person then King of Syria in whose assistance Josiah engag'd against Pharaoh Necho who therefore in gratitude bewailed his death so excessively that it became Proverbiall Yet Baronius will have Hadadrimmon to be only the place where Josiah fell This Rite of mourning had Josiah And though our own Josiah deserved no less then He and had it from all that understood His value yet at the time of his cutting off it was reputed so great a crime to express any shew of sorrow for Him that a mourning suit was look'd on as the Livery of a Malignant and an affront to the State may Libell upon the Murtherers My selfe knew some assaulted meerly for their Habit and hardly escaping with life By which you see the misery of Judaea under his Captivity translated to England where Ne fletus quidem gratuitus It was dangerous to mourn and men were forc'd to fine for their sorrow expressed at the murder of our unparalleled Josiah The Large and numerous Train which attend the Funeral shew the Greatness of the Person but the Quality of the Mourners speak his Vertue and Merit It did so here when the Prophet Jeremiah lamented for Josiah The better the Persons are that attend the greater is the honour done to the Dead When Christ