the Hand of Aaron And after the Death of Moses the Supreme Authority of the Jewish Nation was still in a single Person being committed by God either to the High Priest or to some Eminent Man whom he was pleased to raise up such as Joshuah and the several Judges For that the High Priest or the Judge when there was one in those days had the Soveraign Power invested in him is evident from that Command of God Deut. 17. 12. And the man that will do presumptuously and will not hearken unto the Priest that standeth to minister there before the Lord viz. to the High Priest as the scope of the place plainly shews or unto the Judge even that man shal die and thou shalt put away the evil from Israel and all the People shall hear and fear and do no more presumptuously Is not this as great an Authority as any Monarch in the World can desire thus to have all Persons obliged to acquiesce in his determinative Sentence and final Decree and to have a Power to punish all wilful and presumptuous disobedience with Death Josephus expresly calls their Judges Monarchs and Grotius supposeth them to have all things belonging to Kings except their pompous Train and external Grandeur Isti verò Judices planè similes erant Romanis Interregibus nisi quòd Satellitium Pompam Regiam non habebant ac propterea nec Vectigalia exigebant If it be objected That in those days as some Texts speak there was no King in Israel The meaning of those places is not that the Judges were not real Monarchs but that at some certain times there was no particular Judge who sat as their Supreme Dictator and exercised regal Authority among them as also that the High Priest whose Office it was to govern when there was no Judge was negligent and careless of the publick Affairs And the great Blessings of Kings and Monarchs may be understood even by the horrid Impieties and Disorders that happened in those Days when there was no King in Israel such as was the detestable Idolatry of Micha in making himself Gods and consecrating one of his Sons to be his Priest the Sacrilegious Theft of the Danites who stole Micha's Gods and his Priest too the monstrous wickedness of the Benjamites of Gibeah towards the travelling Levite and his Concubine the dire effusions of Blood in the Civil War that ensued the extinction of the whole Tribe of Benjamin except six hundred Men the Destruction of forty thousand Men of Israel and the allowed Rape of six hundred young Women against their wills without the consent of their Parents and contrary to a publick and solemn Oath These and no better than these were the unhappy concomitants and consequents of having no King in Israel that is to say of having no Supreme Ruler who exercised a Soveraign Power among them as the Judge and when there was no Judge the High Priest ordinarily did The last of their Judges was Samuel and when he had governed many years the Infirmities of his Age and the Iniquities of his Sons whom he placed over them gave them occasion to desire a King that they also might be like all the other Nations and that their King might go our before them and fight their Battels Hereupon the Soveraign Power was translated from Judges to Kings and so it still was lodged in the Hands of a single Person Neither had their Kings any more Power than their High Priests and Judges had For Samuel and his Predecessors had as ample Authority as any Soveraign Princes although they were not called Kings But now like all other Nations their Governour was not only a King by the Supremacy of his Power but had the very Name and Title with all the pompous Magnificence and Ensigns of Royalty But here in the History of the Jewish State we meet with a remarkable Passage which deserves to be the more considered because divers have thought it a great Objection against Kingly Government The sum of it is this That God was extreamly angry with the Israelites for desiring a King and proclaimed his Indignation by loud Thunder-claps and a violent tempestuous Rain in Wheat-Harvest which made them confess that they had added to all their Sins this evil in asking a King From whence some of our Republicans conclude That Regal Power and Authority is so far from being of Divine Appointment that it is such a humane Invention as is displeasing unto God To this I answer That although God was angry with them for asking a King it was not for this Reason because he hath any dislike of Kingly Government He was not offended at the Act it self of desiring a King which is in it self very innocent and may often be most just and necessary but he was displeased at the manner and circumstances of it In desiring a King they asked a good yea an excellent Thing and a great Blessing from Heaven But God was angry because they asked this good Thing with an ill mind and at a time when they ought not to have desired it For First It may be conceived that they asked a King out of the Pride of their Hearts They thought it a disparagement to be subject to a Judge who â—ived among them without any great Pomp or State And although his divinely inspired Wisdom and immediate direction from Heaven abundantly comâ—â—ensated all the defects of External Magnificence they were unwilling to be under such a Governour but being ambitious of worldly Glory they would have such a Soveraign Prince as the other Nations had they would have a King to go out and in before them with all the visible Splendor of Royal Majesty Secondly Their desiring a King was accompanied with Infidelity and Distrust of Gods Providence and Protection For it was when they were in fear of an Invasion by Nahash King of Ammon And that it was this Diffidence of theirs rather than the Form of Kingly Government that God was displeased at is evident from Samuels Expostulation with them in which he briefly recounts Gods constant care for their Preservation in all their former Dangers and how by the Hands of Moses and Aaron and Jerubbaal and Jeptha and Samuel he had delivered them from all their Enemies on every side Thirdly They desired a King without any just Cause or legal Warrant or due Advice in a rash Tumultuous and Seditious manner at such a time when they had a Supreme Judge who was a Lawful Soveraign of Gods own Appointment Even in his Life and Reign they desired a King They had not the Patience to expect his natural Exit by Death but they would have this excellent Governour who deserved so well of their Nation Deposed and some other Advanced in his place God might therefore very justly be angry with them for rejecting so worthy and eminent a Person who was not only their rightful Prince but one who had Ruled with great Prudence
is thine Thine is the Kingdom O Lord and thou art exalted above all Both Riches and Honour come of thee and thou reignest over all Theocracy or the Government of God himself is most perfectly and necessarily Monarchical which is a clear Indication of the supereminent Excellency of this Form of Government and that the happy Settlement and durable Establishment of a Nation may be most effectually promoted by it Secondly Monarchy is the Government which God hath chosen and appointed among the Children of Men for the good of humane Societies in Nations and Kingdoms As himself by Right of Creation and Conservation hath an immense Monarchy over all the World so he hath ordained finite and limited Monarchies in the several Regions of the Earth in each of which it pleased his Divine Providence always to set up one Deputy or Vicegerent who next and immediately under himself was Supreme Lord and Governor of all until at length Rebellions and Usurpations in some few of them violated the Order of God converted Monarchies into Popular States and advanced the Subjects above the Soveraign As it is in Gods Power alone to appoint Rulers and Magistrates and to confer an Authority to govern the World so his Wisdom is best able to judge what Form of Polity is most conducive to the Welfare of Mankind And therefore such sort of Governours and Governments as by his Providence have been most anciently and universally established ought by infinite Degrees to be preferred before any of the new Models which have been contrived and introduced by those Troublers of the World that are given to Change We justly value things according to their Original and their Antiquity Now if we would know the Original and the Antiquity of Monarchical Government we must look back as far as Adam and look up as high as God Monarchy began in Heaven and to make this lower World happy it was soon after established upon Earth Although the Empire of Nimrod be the first that is expresly mentioned in the Sacred Writings yet the first of Men was undoubtedly a Monarch who during the many hundred years he lived in the World was the only Soveraign under God and all his numerous Posterity were as much his Subjects as they were his Children being obliged by the Law of God and Nature to revere his irresistible Authority and to pay a dutiful Obedience to him After his Death his second Son Abel being slain and Cain the Eldest cursed by God for the Murder of him the Empire descended to Seth his third Son who as it is conceived established Religion and made Laws and Constitutions concerning Divine Worship For in his Days we read that Men began to call on the Name of the Lord After Seth Enosh his Son succeeded in the Government After Enosh the following Patriarchs And so long as the World was but one Nation and of one Language we may rationally suppose that they had but one King But at the Confusion of Languages each Division of People had their Head who undertook to conduct them to some convenient Region where they might dwell together and so he who was their Leader became their Prince as Heber was the King of the Hebrews From hence-forward there were various Kingdoms dispersed over the Face of the Earth which were both distinguished and protected from each other by the separate Rule and Government of their several Princes And such was the firm and stable Foundation which Monarchy had in all the former Ages of the World that the Earth knew no other Power for above three thousand years For the first Republick that History takes notice of was at Athens and it began as some say after the Expiration of the Reign of Eryxias which happened in the thirteenth Olympiad and neer the Year of the World 3275 or at the farthest after the Death of King Codrus who lived somewhat above an hundred years before and is said to be the last King of Athens by Justin and some others Afterwards Sparta Corinth Thebes and other Cities of Greece followed the Example of Athens But those little Common-Wealths were continually plagued either with intestine Broils or Foreign Wars and the Athenians in particular which were the first that changed their Government paid dearly for it when instead of one King they had thirty Tyrants reigning over them And at last when these quarrelsome States had almost ruined one another they were all made to submit to the Macedonian Empire and never suffered to erect that Form of Government again After these I have not read of any Republick of Note in the World besides the Roman until our few Modern Common-wealths were set up whose later Date is easily known Since then it was Monarchy under which the Nations of the world lived and flourished in a settled and uninterrupted course for so many thousand years it is not probable that the happy State of a Land should be so well prolonged under any sort of Popular Government which turbulent Innovations have introduced Thirdly As it is not to be doubted but Monarchy was anciently the Universal Government of the World set up by Divine Order and Approbation so it is particularly most clear and certain from Holy Scripture that it was of Gods own especial Designation and Appointment among his peculiar People the Children of Israel whom he had chosen above all other Nations to be the Objects of his singular Favour Their Government was Monarchical as soon as they became a Nation even from the time of their Deliverance out of the Egyptian Slavery and so it all along continued until after that the Son of God came down from Heaven to be their King their Nation was most justly destroyed for their horrid Impiety in rejecting and crucifying that Prince of Peace The first Governour God placed over them was Moses who was their Lawgiver and Judge and as real a Soveraign as ever raigned He was King in Jeshurun Deut. 33. 5. or according to some Versions King in Israel He was a King as the Learned Grotius saith upon the Place Non quidem Nomine Pompâ sed Jure regio His Power was Supreme Sacred and Inviolable his Will and Command uncontrolable and those that denied or disputed his Authority received the most exemplary Vengeance from Heaven that was ever inflicted upon the worst of Mankind He appointed indeed divers inferior Magistrates and Judges as Jethro advised him he chose able men out of all Israel and made them Heads over the People Rulers of Thousands Hundreds Fifties and Tens but the Supreme Power he wisely reserved in his own Hands and all the most difficult and weighty Causes were brought to him that they might be decided by his final and determinative Sentence from whence there was no Appeal Neither were any Sacred or Ecclesiastical matters exempted from his Regulation and Government The whole Aaronical Ministry which consisted in Typical Rites Ceremonies and Sacrifices was ordered and appointed by him although executed by
perhaps the next Step be beyond all possibility of Retreat He that adjourns the Amendment of his Doings to another Day may within a few Moments be cut off from all further acting in this Life And yet how securely do men defer their Repentance and Reformation from Time to Time as if they were the absolute Lords and Masters of Time to recall it or prolong it as they please Of these Persons we may observe three Sorts Some put off this Work to the very End of their Days walking in the Counsel of the Ungodly all their lives and yet hoping to die the Death of the righteous Others think their old Age will be soon enough to become serious and penitent wise and religious Others design to defer their Repentance only to the next more convenient Opportunity when they hope to have better Leisure for it I wish it were as easie effectually to dissuade these Persons from such Delays as it is to discover the great and present Danger of the least of them As for the first The putting off Repentance to the Time of Sickness and the Approaches of Death this is a most unreasonable Presumption and hardly differs from perfect Madness For a Death-bed Repentance is a Thing so very uncertain whether it will prove Sincere and acceptable to God that there cannot be a more prodigious Folly than to commit an Eternal Concern to such an infinite Hazard What Assurance can there be of any ones Sincerity who delays his Return to God till at the very last he be forced to it by the Exigence of his dying Condition 'T is to be feared he is not a free and ingenious but a necessitated and very like to prove a fatally wretched and eternal Penitent who with much Grief and Sadness forsakes his evil Ways when he can walk in them no longer who begins to amend when the Season of Sinning is over and to cast out his â—…usts when Nature it self doth it whether he will or no For although he love his Sin never so passionately he must now leave them and although he hath hated God and Goodness all his days he must now fly to them or else be dashed upon everlasting Misery When a man is tumbling off from the World and sinking towards the Bottomless Pit it is no wonder he should catch at God Being arrived at the Non Vltra of his Evil Ways at the Chambers of Death and the Suburbs of Hell it is no strange thing that he should stop his carreer and begin to give back When he stands upon the Brink of the deep and devouring Gulph of Tophet sees the Mouth of the Infernal Furnace opened to receive him smells the Brimstone hears the noise of the Damned and begins to be singed with the Flames it cannot be supposed that he should leap in without any Reluctancy No no having so near a Prospect of immediate Ruine the natural Desire of Self-preservation will cause him to try his utmost whether there be any possibility of Escape Now he will cry aloud to God for Mercy make great Acknowledgments of the Evil of his former Ways high Professions of his desires to return from them and strong Resolutions to devote unto God a Thousand Lives if he had them to give But it is a great Question whether there be any thing of Grace or Goodness in all this Repentance which is extorted from the dying Sinner by such a pressing Necessity This Repentance so hastily brought forth in the very last Extremity must needs without a Miracle prove an Abortion and wither before it grows up Most even of its fairest Appearances do undoubtedly miscarry and tho' in regard of their Vehemency they are called Early seekings of God yet being so late in respect of the Time when they commence they are as it were prepared for the Triumphs of the Justice and Indignation of God who laughs at the Calamity of those who in their Health and Prosperity have set at nought all his Counsel and would none of his Reproof And what if there be some Hopes that this late Repentance may sometimes prove to be of the right Kind and Effectual to Salvation Let us suppose it possible that the dying Sinner who hath spent his Days in the broad way to Ruin and just finished his Journey thither may in his last minutes retract all his former Course and draw within the hollow of that little Span the vastness of that Action which is necessary to remove the Sins of a whole Life And let us grant it posâ—ible that the holy and righteous God may so far even prostitute his Grace â—s to receive to Favour one who hath â—tood out in Rebellion against him to â—he very utmost so long as he was able yet seeing this is only possible and no more will any Wise Man exâ—ose himself to such Extremity of Danger because there is not an absolute â—mpossibility of Deliverance Indeed the deferring our Repentance and Amendment of Life until we are â—ust ready to dye is so irrational â—n Act that although very many as â—t sadly falls out through continual Deâ—ays have this great Work to do at that Time yet I suppose there are out few who in their serious Thoughts do really design and forecast a dying Repentance No although men will not yet return from their evil ways they intend not to run on so far until they come to the very Brink of Destruction They resolve to stop in good time as they think and while they may retreat with Safety When the young Man hath rejoyced a little longer in his Youth and walked in the ways of his heart and in the sight of his Eyes he fully intends to return and amend in his old Age soon enough to prevent his being brought to Judgment for these Things But art thou sure O foolish Sinner that thou shalt live to Old Age Alas how suddenly mayst thou be arrested by the cold Hands of Death even in the Heat of thy Youth when thou least thinkest of such a Thing The most flourishing Vigour and Strength is liable to innumerable Dangers and may be consumed in a Moment Somtimes men are taken away without any Warning in the midst of their Pleasures and Enjoyments so that none can be certain of long Life and none are more unlikely to attain it than those who most expect it especially when such Expectation is used as an Encouragement to delay Repentance Such Presumptuous Sinners may very justly provoke God to blast their vain Hopes with a sudden Disappointment When the Rich man in the Gospel having laid up much Goods promised himself many years to enjoy them how sharply and suddenly was he both confuted and confounded with that bitter and surprizing Rebuke Thou Fool this night shall thy Soul be required of thee But suppose men escape the various Accidents of an untimely Death and have their Lives prolonged to many years yet if they run thorow all the Stages of their youth in a Wicked
asserting the Rights and Liberties of the People in Opposition to the arbitrary Government of Moses whom they accused of Tyranny as Josephus expresly saith agreeably to what the Scripture it self doth imply and the freeing themselves from the Incroachments upon their spiritual Priviledges by the Usurpations of Aaron and the Priesthood Which specious Designs drew into the Conspiracy a great Number of Considerable Persons even two hundred and fifty Princes of the Assembly famous in the Congregation Men of Renown But notwithstanding their Popular Pretences which were for substance the very same that gave the first Rise and Birth to our late Confusions and although they acted under some shew of Authority when such an Assembly of Princes and Great Men joyned with them as our Rebels also endeavoured to justifie their Proceedings by the pretended Power of a Parliament although I say they had such fair Colours for what they did and such Eminent Men on their side they were made to suffer the just desert of their Sin Both Earth and Heaven conspired to punish them and their Destruction was no less terrible than sudden They had disturbed the Earth by their Faction and the Earth as it were moved with Indignation against them rent asunder and opened its Mouth to swallow those in its Bowels who were unworthy to live upon the Face of it When they had been dividing the People the very Ground divides it self under their feet and breaks into a Chasm in the Place where they stood that they might go down quick into the Pit of Destruction Death and the Grave both seizing them at once And those two hundred and fifty of the Seditious Incendiaries that offered Incense were as swiftly consumed by Fire from Heaven So suitable were their Punishments both to the Nature and the Degree of their Crimes And when the Israelites instead of learning their Duty by these dreadful Spectacles took upon them the next Day in another Insurrection to justifie the Plea of Corah to own those Rebels as the People of the Lord and to charge Moses and Aaron as being guilty of their Blood the Wrath of God went out against them and consumed them as in a moment with such a quick dispatch that although Aaron with all possible Haste made an Atonement for them there were destroyed by the Plague no less than Fourteen thousand and seven hundred But to come to the Instance nearer home What I pray were the Effects of the late Rebellion in our Native Land Was it not in the Event most pernicious and destructive to the Rebels themselves at least to the Chiefest of them Did not their Calamity arise suddenly so suddenly that themselves scarce sore-saw it Those malignant Comets having blazed a little while quickly expired in Stench Their Rise was sudden and their Fall too Their restless Ambition made them violently introduce a Change of Government but what a Change did themselves meet with when they were thrown down from the Top of all their vain False Glory to be the Hatred and the Hissing of the People They had divided the Kingdom and embroiled it in a Destructive War God therefore divided them among themselves and made them their own Scourges like an Army of Philistines still beating and threshing down one another until the Restauration of his sacred Majesty when the Hand of God was illustriously visible both in bringing him to the Throne of his Father and the principal Rebels and Murderers to Publick Justice Some indeed there were who had no small share in the Guilt and yet escaped the Punishment But they may thank their most Gracious and Merciful Prince whose matchless Clemency hath been greater than the greatest of their Bloody Villanies And after such a Pardon of such Guilt if any Subjects of this Crown have a mind to rebel again let them take heed lest they sin beyond all Possibility of Forgiveness and barr themselves eternally not only from the Mercies of the King but also from the Mercies of God Almighty As for our selves if we suspect or perceive any Factious Men to have designs against the Government let not our Souls come into their Secret Let us not meddle in the least with such Sons of Corah except it be by all lawful means to detect oppose and suppress them Let us no way joyn with them in their Cursed Attempts and Machinations unless we desire to fall with them in their Ruine and Calamity But as it was Prophesied by Hosea of the Children of Israel That after their Captivity they should return and seek the Lord their God and David their King still David their King although it was then some hundreds of years after David's Reign because the Succession was still in the Family of David so God grant that we and our Posterity may fear and honour and obey the Lord our God and our David our most Gracious Soveraign and all his Lawful Successors without any change of our excellently established Religion or our happy Constitution of Government to the End of the World JUST ABHORRENCE OF USURPING REPUBLICANS SERMON III. Preached Jan. 30. 16 83 84. Prov. XXVIII 2. For the transgression of a Land many are the Princes thereof But by a man of understanding and knowledge the State thereof shall be prolonged IF the great Blessings and Calamities of a Nation be not thrown into it at all adventure by the uncertain cast of blind Contingency nor irresistibly thrust upon it by the over-bearing force of inevitable Fate if they proceed not from the confused and forâ—uitous Concourse of various Smooth-shap'd or Ill-figured Atoms nor from the predominant Influences of auspicious or malignant Stars or Planets but are both of them the certain Effects of an intelligent and voluntary Providential Administration a Divine Power Wisdom and Justice ruling in the Kingdoms of Men if the one be the benigne Favours of Almighty God the liberal Emanations of his Immense Goodness wherewith he rewards and encourages Piety and Virtue if the other be his penal Srokes the awakening Thunder-bolts of that Righteous Indignation which Mens Sins have provoked from hence it wil follow that we have most just and real occasions for Solemn Days of publick Thansgiving for the one and Humiliations under the other which sort of Days tho' sometimes illegally consecrated by Factious Powers and hypocritically celebrated with Mock-devotions to sanctifie Treason and Rebellion ought to be so much the more sincerely so much the more religiously observed by us when our lawful Superiors have advisedly appointed them And from hence it will particularly follow that we have still great reason with Weeping Fasting and Prayer thus annually to commemorate the Fatal Period of Time in which our multiplyed Sins and over-flowing Transgressions after they had deprived us of all the Blessings with which a just and peaceful Monarchy could make us happy and introduced the plentiful Calamities of a Civil War together with the numerous Plagues of many Princes many Tyrannical Usurpers of Royal Authority swell'd