one faith one baptisme one religion the sweetest bands And assuredly whosoever should goe about to set up severall Religions should also goe about to sever the Prince and the people Thus have I bin bold this day but it is before the Lord and before his anointed Now for the Vse which belongeth unto my deare Soveraigne I humbly beseech your Majesty and speake it with a kneeling heart as becometh me and in the feare of God to stirre up your owne most noble spirit and to set your heart to seeke the good of your people for the house of God God gave you as this day to be borne for the good I am perswaded of all Christendome God hath brought you to this goodly Kingdome and established you in it with wonderfull peace and acceptance God hath given you goodly knowledge and it appeares in publique how able you are to teach all the duties of all Kings Now I beseech your Majesty remember what great things God hath done for you and answer him in goodnesse and set your heart as I know you doe to seeke the good of his people and specially of the house of God and be assured that so long as you shall maintaine and advance the house of God God will establish your house and your posterity so long as they shall uphold the Lords true service or else assuredly this Word of God hath no truth in it Now for the house of God that which is to be done is first to repaire it well and then to keepe it so The repaire requireth two things first that the people be built up in knowledge I thinke the Kings Majesty knoweth it not would God he did know it that there be very many of his poore subjects wonderfull ignorant the people in many places are naked and Aaron hath made them naked I meane the Ministry a naked Ministry hath made a naked people the Lord helpe them and incline the Kings gracious heart to pity them The other thing for the repair of the house of God is that the inside of the Lords house the gold of the Temple be looked to I meane that with knowledge there be joyned the power and practice of religion in a good conversation And herein beseech the Kings Majesty to give leave unto his poore servant to informe him that which perhaps he knoweth not that from the occasion which some foolish turbulent and proud spirits spirits of separation have given there is a name of common scorne cast upon every man that setteth his face towards the practice of true godlinesse Wherein I beseech your Majesty to consider if the life and soule of Religion be let out what will become of the body of it will it not fall and grow ugly and rot and become a shame unto it selfe Now as the things are to be looked to for the repaire of the house of God so to keepe it in a good repaire two other things are to be cared for First that the common enemy may be suppressed It was a noble speech and blessed be God that put it into the Kings royall heart to say He would shed the last drop of his blood rather then tolerate another Religion But the Lord will not suffer one drop of that precious blood to be shed that is prepared to be shed for him The other thing is to establish peace in the Church it selfe A worthy worke and fit for a King It is true and all men know it that while we have striven which way to entertaine Christ best as the Tribes of Judah and the ten Tribes did about the receiving home of David their King Shebah the Sonne of Brâ—hri hath wickedly blowne the trumpet of seperation and much hurt hath come in the Church of God by our unbrotherly and unfruitfull contentions for which godly men have beene much grieved the division of Ruben were great thoughts of heart But now thanked be God the hearts of men are more moderate and disposed to peace that a very little thing a small matter as I am perswaded would establish this Church of God in so good tearmes of peace as it never saw In which respect I am bold to speake unto your Majesty but I speake unto a most gracious King and to a wise King that can tell how to pardon things somewhat foolishly spoken when they are spoken from a well meaning heart I could speake it upon my knees if the place would beare it but my soule shall kneele before my Soveraine I beseech your Majesty take unto your selfe that Princely worke to strike through a peace in this Church of God I will not direct but pray leave to tell a story It is reported of Augustus the Emperour that supping with one Pollio he was informed that a servant of Pollios had broken a christall glasse of his Masters a foule fault if he had done it willingly if negligently a fault but for this the poore servant was adjudged to be cut in peeces and cast to the fishes a marvailous sore sentence for such a fault The Emperour reversed the sentence and thought it punishment enough to the servant to have bin in feare of such a punishment and after breakes all the glasses that they might not be occasion of like rigorous sentence afterwards I will not apply it but do humbly beseech your Majesty to use your owne most godly wisdome now to make peace in the Church when so small a thing will doe it that so the Bishops may love the poore Ministers as brethren and Ministers reverence the Bishops as fathers in the Lord as Hierom adviseth and every honest man wisheth they should doe The second Vse is to his Majesties servants and attendants to whom I may speake more freely but yet with reverence and as becometh me to beseech them that seeing it is the office and desire of the King to seeke the good of his people and specially of the house of the Lord they doe their faithfull service herein to the King and take heed that they hinder not any of his godly purposes towards his people or the house of God Curse ye Meroâ—h said the Angell of the Lord curse ye the inhabitants thereof because they came not out to helpe the Lord to helpe the Lord against the mighty If they were subject to a curse that came not out to helpe what shall such be as come out to resist to hinder The last Vse is to us all the Kings loyall subjects to stirre us up to be thankfull to God that hath given us a King that seekes our good and the good of Gods house and that we strive to walke worthy of such a blessing in all loyalty and reverence And if any man be otherwise minded let the Lords hand finde him out yea surely it will finde him out and make him an example And secondly this should admonish us to serve God and please him that so we lose not the benefit of a good King which the people sometimes doe for their owne wickednesse
the Subjects is the charge of Princes For to this end hath God ordained them witnesse the Apostle Rom. 13. He is the Minister of God for thy wealth for thy good if then doe well for thy comfort if thou doe ill for thy terrour and yet therein for thy good for it is as good for some to be terrified as for others to be comforted and indeed this is the proper greatnesse of Kings and Princes that God hath made them the great instruments of common good As if no blessing could be passed to his people but under the great seale of their office A wonderfull honour unto them For even as Ioseph in Aegypt was set over the corn so as he might have relieved or starved not the Egyptians onely but the Countries of the World neere unto it in the time of famine and this Ioseph was there for the second man in the Kingdome So Princes are the second to God himselfe in that God hath put into their hands to doe universall good unto their people A goodly honour which as it doth require great residence upon so great a charge so may it much encourage Christian Princes to doe their office the benefit whereof is so universall And if it might please Princes sometimes to looke about them and when they shall see a poore man labouring and toyling all day as a servant in base worke and all for the backe and belly or perhaps for a few poore children at home that cry for bread and then to think good Lord how this man toyles and all his worke is but for himselfe where I labour not as a servant but as a Lord in workes not base but honourable and not onely have the good of it to my selfe but am an universall good as a blessing sent of God to the whole Land Such a meditation shall greatly encourage them to seeke the good of their people I will seeke saith he that is use all diligence and endeavour If Princes seeke not the good of their Subjects it will not be found Great things will not be done without great labour if they seeke not things will be other wayes done then they would and which is the mischiefe other mens faults will be scored upon their accounts It is said of Galba that many things passed under his name of which he was innocent yet because he permitted them whom he ought to have brideled or was ignorant of that which he ought to have knowne he lost reputation and opened the way to his owne overthrow The fault was other mens the blame his If they seeke not they may be abused by such as I spake of before Flatterers and Misinformers such as will alwayes be about Princes to cast shadowes and stand in the light of their best Subjects as Ziba did to Mephibosheth unlesse Princes be wise as an Angell of God to finde out the hand of Ioab in the disguisings of the woman of Tekoah We have heard now what he will doe He will seeke their good but let us also consider Why For the house of the Lord What is that The Tabernacle the Temple being not built as yet But how was that Gods house doth the Lord dwell in houses made of hands or could he be contained in a Tent that filleth heaven and earth Surely no but because he did there reveale himselfe by Sacramentall representations as Princes sometimes marry by their pictures he is said to dwell there and that to be his house The thing is because of Gods true worship and service he will seeke their good Where I beseech you that it may be marked that this should be the speciall end of procuring the wealth of the people for the house of the Lord for the religion sake and the true worship of God Indeed this is the speciall thing to know God and feare God aright And if Princes provide not this for their Subjects peace and traffique and such like makes no better provision for them then is made for oxen in good pasture nay not so good for an oxe therein hath all he needs but a man without this is left unprovided in the farre greater part even in his soule And as Princes without this care provide not well for their people so they provide but ill for themselves for they can have no certaine assurance of their Subjects without it The great bond of Allegiance is an oath of the Lord What if a professed Atheist take an oath is hee bound He is not sui iuris What if he that is an Atheist in effect take an oath one I meane that denies the power of godlinesse that hath a dispensatory conscience and will make licences to his conscience as Roagues doe to themselves under hedges What if a man be a Papist that beleeves as he is bound by their rules to doe that the Pope hath power at his pleasure to dispence with an oath and to dissolve any bonds hath the Prince any assurance of such a Subject which hath his dependency upon the pleasure of a foraigne power It is true then that nothing can cast a sure knot upon the conscience of the Subject but the true knowledge and feare of God So as when Princes doe advance the good of Gods house they establish the good of their owne all in one I adde further in this point that which is to be observed in all the Kings of Israel and Iudah that their Stories begin with this observation as with a thing first worthy to be Chronicled how they dealt in matters of Religion Such a King and such a King and what did he He did that which was right in the sight of the Lord And such a King he walked in the wayes of Ieroboam the Sonne of Nebat which made Israel to sinne I spare to cite places but it is the generall observation of those Bookes of Kings and Chronicles as they that read them know yea farther it may be marked that as generally when Princes have forgotten to seeke the good of their Subjects to which they were ordained of God God hath surely plagued them himselfe perhaps so much the more severely because none may doe it but he and he will doe it throughly when he takes it in hand So yet specially hath God humbled Princes and even povred contempt upon them when they have contemned or forsaken the house of the Lord Of this the Scripture gives us examples as well in such as never advanced the house of God as in those that fell off in part or in whole As we may see in the stories of Iehoram Iehoas and even of Salomon whose fal I cannot name without trembling to thinke that such a man so wise that had spoken with God twice as it were familiarly I meane by vision should in his old dayes be seduced and fall to set up grose idolatry As for Iehoram he refused the house of the Lord God raised him up adversaries and after smote him with a disease in his bowels of which he died
miserably and when he was dead his people made no mourning for him as for other Kings so he was neither happy living nor honoured dead because he sought not the good of his people for the house of the Lord Iehoas also did well as long as Jehoida his good Councellour lived but when Jehoida dyed the Kings goodnesse dyed with him Then the Princes came to the King and spake reverently to him and compasse him with good words as with a net for as Salomon saith He that flattereth a man spreads a net for his steps he yeelds and forsakes the house of the Lord But what became of it First the Aramires came and with a small band they overthrew a great Army and slew the Princes that had misled the King and left the King himselfe in great diseases so that he was spared to live longer to be as it were but longer in dying and yet at last his owne servants slew him and when he was dead they buried him not in the sepulcher of the Kings as not thinking him worthy of a Kings sepulcher that had not done a Kings office for the house of the Lord I might speake of others and all to shew that God hath specially humbled Princes when they have forsaken or impugned his true worship doing executions upon them on as high a stage as they played their parts on that their punishment as their faults might be of speciall height and note I will adde one observation more that through neglect of this care of Religion the power of Christian Princes was lost and while they put off to the Prelates all the care of the house of God God also cast from them their authority and made them vassals So they lost their greatnesse and the Clergy found it and it hurt them both It is as I remember a note of Platina in the life of Adrian the third that after they had fully ingrossed the Emperiall power there was never since Emperour of strength or Pope of vertue so they lost both by it And indeed as the blood if it fall any way out of the veines too much there is some danger but if it fall into the body extra vasa there is more danger for there it will corrupt and putrifie so was it with the supreame authority of Princes when they suffered it to fall unto the Clergy as it were extra vasa And here I desire to informe a mistery a mistery of iniquity to shew how from the authority usurped in Ecclesiasticall causes claime is made to the whole power of Princes Bellarmine saith in his fift Booke of the Roman Bishop a fourth and sixt Chapters that the Pope hath nothing to doe with temporalties of Kings properly nay his word is directly but he hath it indirect indirectly as true as may be indirectly indeed As how He may not saith he depose Princes simply as a Lord but for the safety of soules for the good of the Church so from the care of the Church they challenge power over Princes Good cause have Princes then to maintaine their supremacy in causes Ecclesiasticall and to be jealous of that title as also to use that power for the good of the house of the Lord lest if they cast away one moity God cast away the other And here may come in that last branch of the first part which through haste I forgot which I desire might be of use though it come somewhat out of the proper place I meane that time that Now of which he said I will speake peace Why now ment he that he would doe it out of hand and keepe the word of a Prince which is to them as great a band as an oath of the subjects Nay but by this note of time Now as Illericus well observes in his Clavis Scriptura not so much the time as the circumstance of the time is often noted And so it carrieth a reason why he would now speake peace unto them yea and as I thinke why he would now procure their good for the house of God sake For I see not but that it may be referred to the whole Grant I will now speake peace unto thee I will now procure thy wealth But why Now Because the people were so forward and came thus to the house of God and said Our feet shall stand in thy gates O Jerusalem Therefore in this float of good affections in the Subjects the Kings heart is inlarged and he promiseth now to speak peace and now to seeke their good Wherein it is good to consider that when God disposeth the hearts of the people to goodnesse to Religion Princes should specially cherish them and incourage them It is noted of David in 1 Chron. 29. that when the people offered willingly the King rejoyced Of Hezekiah also in 2 Chron. 20. when he drew the people to Jerusalem to worship and they came and offered that the King rejoyced that God had made the people so ready for the thing was done sodainly And indeed then to use them graciously and then to seeke their good for the house of Gods sake when God hath best disposed their hearts is a speciall meanes to cherish goodnesse it selfe and is the crowne of the benefit We read of Ethelbert that Christian King of Kent that he would compell none to Religion but he drew religious men about him and countenanced them and by that meanes increased them innumerably And surely this is a worthy course to advance godlinesse and vertue as strong as any compulsary meanes Because every man saith Salomon seekes the face of the Ruler which if no man could finde but in the way of godlinesse and honesty none would seeke to finde in the way of vice and flattery To this circumstance I adde that as by the course of the Moone there be spring-tides at the change and at the full so at the change if any man will change a false religion for the truth and at the full if any man be growne to a full measure such as we attaine in this poore life I meane if any man be well thriven in goodnesse it is sit that spring-tides of favour should slow unto such But now to returne to the consideration of the house of God for which he will seeke their good The very words carry their weight and shew why he should specially seeke their good for the house of Gods sake and the good of the house of God It is the house of the Lord of Jehovah Should not that be cared for there is care of provision for the Kings house and good cause there should be so and he is not worthy to be the subject of a good Prince that should grudge it Now should there not be care for the provision of Gods house He addes our God that is his God and their God He must needs seek their good for the house sake of that God which was their God One God to both one house of God to both chara pignora one God
as we read in 2 Chron. 20. The high places were not taken away in good Jehosaphats time who was a godly Prince because the peoples hearts were not prepared to the God of their Fathers Finally seeing the hearts of Kings are in the hands of God as the rivers of waters it is our duty now and alwayes to become humble sutours to almighty God so to guide the heart of our gracious Lord the King as he may ever seeke the good of Gods people and specially of the Church of God to all our comforts and his owne immottall honour and everlasting happinesse through Jesus Christ to whom with the Father and the holy Ghost be honour and glory now and for ever Amen FJNJS The Copy of the Letter presented with the Copy of his Sermon aforesaid by Master Burges to the Lords of his Majesties Privie Councell being convented before them for the same 22. Iune 1604. MOst humbly giving thanks unto your Honors for so gracious usage of me at my late convention before you I now present unto you the copy of my Sermon preached before his excellent Majesty To say that there is no word added abated or altered were a speech not credible of a Sermon penned since and not before the preaching of it But this J professe before the God of truth unto your Honours J know not where J have varied from my selfe in matter or manner of speaking to the benefit of one word And therefore as in the preaching through a slip of memory J lost one whole branch of the first part out of the proper place and recovering it afterward did insert it in a place not so fit so have J willingly misplaced it now as then unwillingly yea for some allegations wherein J missed some words of the Author which J could now by the Authors have supplied J have chosen rather to shew the then failing of memory then now to faile in that which is a point of honesty a just report of my speech as J remember it aecording to my promise to your Honours For the rest J doe upon my knees beseech your Lordships to lay the whole together before you censure the parts of it and to consider the generall doctrines respectively to his Majesty by mine owne particular applications to his royall person As touching the to sparing acknowledgement of his Majesties Princely graces and the unspeakable good we have by him I humbly pray your Lordships to beleeve and I take God to witnesse that I failed mine owne purposes therein a fault in a speech unset to one not acquainted with such a presence contracted by the time much more easie to commit it then excuse because it is as needfull to acknowledge to the full what we have received as to incite unto that which is to be continued or added lest we seeme captious rather then zealous of small things studious of greater unthankefull Farther my most Honourable good Lords perceiving his Majesty out of his apprehensive depth to be jealous of some secret purposes in me to aime undutifull intentions to his Majesty under generall coverts as I cannot deny unto his Highnesse most just cause of indignation at me for ever if I should have intended so to a King a Christian King my King and in his presence and before his servants so I wish the Lord even so to give me favour with your Honours yea with his Majesty nay with Christ at his â—oming as my heart and purposes were upright to God the King and State in that service free from popularity and from all purpose of depressing the glory of so worthy a Prince or depraving personally any of his Highnesse servants I doe also further crave leave to protest that I had therein no intelligence no conference with any man living but ran that course out of opinion that it was my duty to speake before the King and State of such things as the best Kings and States shall have need to consider of while the world standeth As touching mine owne reverent heart and particular opinion of his Majesties gracious disposition if my speeches to that end cleared it not enough yet even that doth which is made to accuse me my freedome to speak of that duty so liberally before his presence an undoubted argument of good times like those of Trajan wherein as it is said one might thinke what he would and speake what he thought Howbeit I am so sensible of his Majesties distaste as I could not out live the discouragement thereof if the integrity of my heart before God in that poore Sermon and his Majesties gracious readinesse to receive satisfaction did not relieve me As for any construction of my speech by his Mnjesties subjects whom I have elsewhere and often taught and incited to be joyfull and thankefull to God for this favour that not being best people we are blessed with the best King under heaven I should mourne not a little if any spiderly minde sucke poyson out of that not flower but pothearbe that had no poyson in it And because it is matter of humbling to be thought casually and unwillingly the instrument of any hurt I doe freely offer that if the honest wise Auditors will say upon their conscience that my Sermon incited them to lesse reverence of his Majesty or joy in him then to silence my selfe from preaching to give up my maintenance and if that be to little to depart my Countrey in which yet I had rather live under his Majesty poore as I am then to abound in any other Kingdome of the world But what meane I to sentence my selfe I am in your Lordships to whom I submit my selfe with all reverence nothing so much fearefull of any punishment as sory to have grieved that royall heart the joy comfort and contentment wherof I wish and pray for more then my life as I am bound to doe ' and shall doe whether his pleasure shall be to pardon or punish his poore servant And thus professing my selfe to have great cause already to thinke the more reverently of your Honors while I live and to pray to God the more earnestly for you I humbly crave leave of you of presenting to your Honours an account of my selfe for my twenty yeeres Ministry which if I shall give untruly in any point I aske no favour of your Honours no mercy of God himselfe And for the rest beseech God to make you as honorable in life happy in death as ever were any in your places Your Honours in all humble duty JOHN BVRGES Master Burges Letter to the KINGS Majesty Most mighty King MY no lesse dear then dread Sovernigne I recount mine owne secret intentions in my Sermon preached before your Majesty the dearnesse and tendernesse of my heart to your Majesties person and honour and the many prayers and teares spent upon it that it might be faithfull and acceptable to God and your Majesty I am amazed at that distaste which your Highnesse hath taken of it and
her owne things And this is trve graciousnesse and like the goodnesse of God himselfe who is good to us for his owne goodnesse sake and for our good not for his He gaines not surely by any match at our hands For my brethren and companions sake These very words have weight and carry a secret reason of that respect for which he will speake peace unto them They are brethren not of the same wombe but of the same nature in common Brethren by the mothers side the common mother Companions for so the word signifies not in the Court but in the same Countrey companions in the house of God and in the Convenant of grace and in that respect brethren by the fathers side partners of that honour which all good Princes take to be and is their greatest honour that they are the children of God Brethren in nature a thing which as no Prince will deny so none need be ashamed of seeing Christ himselfe though he were the sonne of God and thought it no robbery to be equall with God yet in respect of the partnership in the flesh was not ashamed to be called a brother and to call us brethren as the Author to the Hebrewes saith This consideration is a great motive it was so to Iob he durst not contemne the judgement of his servants no not of his maid when they contended with him For saith he what shall I then doe when God standeth up and when he shall visit me What shall I answer Why so He that made me in the wombe hath he not made him that is in effect is he not my brother It yeelds a gracious meditation for Christian Princes as to thinke in time of famine these that dye as starved they are not dogs they are my brethren in the time of Pestilence this is not a murren of cattell they are my brethren that thus perish in the oppression of a poore man this is not an horse overloaden which yet a man should pitie though it were his enemies horse this is my poore brother whom God made whom Christ dyed for So in their lawfull suits and cries these are not the cries of other creatures nor of strangers but of my brethren How will my Father take it at my hands if I the elder brother use not my yonger brethren graciously So we see in the Kings Grant what to whom and for what respect he promiseth Of all which the Vse is first unto Princes then unto their servants about them and lastly to all their Subjects As touching to use to the Lords anointed having dressed these things with so homely cookery it will not become me to be a carver also to my soveraign Lord but humbly and in the feare of God doe beseech your Majesty to give me leave to apply this unto you in Pauls words to Timothy Consider what I say and the Lord give thee understanding in all things yea humbly beseech your Majesty to know your selfe and your owne most gracious disposition of which every man reporteth that speaketh with you in private and still to use it and to speake graciously to your loving Subjects And for the rest it remaines also that your Majesty hunt away two beasts the tame beast and the wilde the flatterer and the false informer which shall attempt to set off your sweet affections from any of your loving Subjects The second Vse is to the servants that attend about the Kings person and to them it is a word of Admonition that seeing it is the office and duty of a King and the desire and disposition of our gracious King to speake peace unto his people they would take heed of doing any evill office betweene the King and his good Subjects by applying unwisely causticks to the sinewes for if it be a cursed thing to set division betweene brethren what is it betweene the Father and the children Assuredly to alienate by any meanes the heart of the Prince from the people or of the people from the Prince is a worke for the Divell and not for any of the Kings good servants And lastly to us all it is a word of incitation that we should know what to be thankfull unto God for that have a gracious Prince to speake unto us and also to pray that God would ever so dispose of the Kings heart unto his people and all his people unto him againe that as he came unto us with the greatest applause that ever Prince entred with all so he may continue with the greatest acceptance that ever Prince had and may make us but one onely mourning day that is the day of separation like the mourning for good Iosiah for whom all Israel lamented when he dyed And secondly how to beare our selves as loyall and dutifull Subjects with all reverence to the Lords anointed that we may be worthy of gracious usage And if perhaps something fall out otherwise let us remember that of Salomon If the spirit of him that ruleth rise up against thee goe not out of thy place take not the sturdy Consider thy selfe if thou be a Master how thou usedsts thy servants if a Father how thou art sometimes passionate to thine owne children and then remember that Princes have greater provocations greater power And if there be something in them which may not be justified yet the reverence and duty of Subjects is to hide it going backward Thus much for the first part of this Charter Now come we to the other wherein he saith I will procure thy wealth The word signifies to seeke but with all endeavours to obtaine and therefore is well translated procure that is I will doe thee good Indeed it is a gracious thing to speake peace unto them but more gracious to doe them good We say in an homely proverbe Better meat without sauce then sauce without meat yet no doubt two good things together are best A childe that is hungry may be stilled a while with dandling and singing but it must have the brest or else it will not be contented long Good and gracious words please well but good deeds doing justice seeking the common good is that which gives the chiefe content unto the Subjects But why saith he I will procure had he not done it yes undoubtedly but he will doe it still he will doe it more as he had also spoken peace unto them before but will speake it still unto them God hath given Princes such power and meanes that they should and might be continuall fountaines of goodnesse unto the people But let us consider now more particularly this part of the Kings promise Wherin first What he would doe and secondly Why. The thing What hath in it two branches First the very object of his care that is their good Secondly the manner of procuring it noted in the word of seeking which is a word of strong signification and importeth all diligence and industry in seeking their good For the former let it be observed that the good of