to my selfe in righteousnesse and when the Prophet Joel 2.28 hath it Your Sonnes and your Daughters shall prophesie your Old men shall dreame and your Young men shall see visions and when the Prophet Mal. 4.2 3. To you shall arise the Sun of righteousnesse and ye shall tread downe the wicked as ashes under your feet All these and many more the like they expound and apply as Prophecies spoken of and to themselves alone And that they shall be Independent and free from all Government but their owne they have if you will believe their interpretation a plaine undeniable Text Hos 3.4 where it is said The Children of Israel that is the Faithfull which they say they are shall remaine without King and without Prince many daies and I feare the lying Spirit which put this Exposition in their heads set them the more earnestly on worke to betray and kill Christ their King that they might remaine independent without King or Prince many daies though I am not ignorant that by daies sometime they will understand according to some other Prophesies yeares And they have another Text that gives them the reason from that Prophesie of Hosea Isa 39.14 where it is said Judgment justice and truth and equity are departed that is say they from all but our selves who are all for judgement and justice against all but our selves And if you aske them what then shall become of all their Adversaries and Malignants why for that they have a cleare light from the Prophet Obadiah 3.9 where it is expresly said They shall be cut off by slaughter and this is their usuall justice But if any aske them does God approve such severity yes say they and they give the reason for it Isa 60.12 who will not serve you shall perish and be utterly wasted But then I pray when all your Enemies are thus wasted and destroyed who shall reape and divide the spoile why that say they the Spirit hath revealed Isaiah 61.6 Ye shall eate the riches of the Gentiles and in their glory ye shall boast your selves that is all the honour and wealth shall be taken from all others and shall by you be conferred wholly on your selves And such Saints such Scripturists and such Expounders of Scriptures were these Scribes who are sent by the Councell Mat. 15.1 and these with some Herodians Courtiers so called intangle and draw Christ the King into their net Mat. 22.16 This Sermon would swell to an unnecessary bulke if I should present the severall Traytours Actors in this damnable designe I shall therefore contract my selfe and but point at them as first The People upon whose score all must be layed for as the pretence in all was salus populi that is as the Jewes said ne gens pereat that the Nation the People perish not be not destroyed so these People must be ever ready at hand out of all parts of the Countries as well as of the City Jerusalem to serve turnes but their imployments or services were especially seen in three things 1. That when Christ the King is to be forcibly taken and seised on they must be pressed and sent out with Swords and Weapons to apprehend him and bring him to the Great Councell Marke 14. 2. Another service they were usually imployed in and that was to petition for some base unjust or wicked thing as that Barabbas a Thiefe and a Murderer might be released Mat. 27. 3. They are as occasion serves and the scene is layed they are to come to the Judgment Hall or place of Judicature and there with foule mouthes and loud voices they must crie and bawle for justice and execution Mat. 27.23 25. And these People as commending the times past which they never knew and disallowing the present though it be farre the better are easily up upon any the least Venite or Alarum they love to be doing though it be not good and when they are up they aske not so much quid fecit what he hath done against whom they rise as quid facimus why stand we still let us act and be doing somewhat it is no matter what and yet all this they were to doe and did onely as they were taught and hired not by their owne wills and motions but as Cur-dogs set on by their Masters Elders and Rulers of the People But enough of these People unlesse they were better and yet there were worse then these Actors and they were as before I touched the Authours their Rulers which were either the Heads or Chiefe of the severall Tribes or Families or such as in their severall Countries Cities or Burroughs by their wealth policy or Authority had gained the power in swaying them to chuse and refuse to commend or condemne what they liked or disliked these you may find in the Jewes first notorious Rebellion against the Prince and the Church Numb 16. where the famous men in the Congregation were as those Heads or Rulers of the People and although the Scribes Pharisees Elders bring some fewell and combustible matter yet these Rulers set it all on fire Now if any in favour or praise of their Nobility should tell me that in this Treason there is no mention at all of any Lords to this I must desire such to know that if the Jewes had any other Nobility then such as before I mentioned yet at this time the Jewes were as in our daies under the power of a conquering Army and so were over-awed by Pilat the Governour who ruled and judged all 2. If those Rulers or Princes of the People were as our Lords then they must know that these men were deep in the first plotting carrying on this Treason and were as chief instrumentall meanes in bringing Ch the King to his end though towards the end or last act of the Tragedy his condemnation and execution for feare or policy they appeared not or drew their necks as we say out of the coller or for that they were in this case and at this time declared uselesse and dangerous But besides these Actors and Authours Followers and Leaders all Principalls in Treason there were Elders and if they were Lay-ones then they who would please themselves in the antiquity of their descent may derive themselves from this stocke for these in the Gospel are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which rightly and properly sounds Presbyters though in our English called Elders There is frequent mention of Priests in this Treason and we know of late who are called Priests even the Clergy or preaching Elders Jewish Elders and Romish Priests like Sampson's Foxes though their faces are averse yet they are tied by the tailes and agree 1. That Kings are subject to them at least in Scriptures 2. That Councels may be called without them 3. They have potestatem Juris the King facti 4. They may Excommunicate him And then 5. who kils him merits These both are Anti-Kings and Counter-tenors to Monarchy and if you will not believe or
THE DEVILISH CONSPIRACY HELLISH TREASON HEATHENISH CONDEMNATION AND DAMNABLE MURDER Committed and Executed by the IEWES against the Anointed of the LORD CHRIST their KING And the just Judgment of God severely executed upon those TTAYTORS and MURDERERS As it was delivered in a SERMON on the 4 Feb. 1648. being the Quinquages Sunday Out of some part of the Gospel appointed by the Church of England to be read on that Day LAM 1.12 Is it nothing to you all ye that passe by behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow which is done unto me wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger LAM 5.16 The Crown is fallen from our head woe unto us that we have sinned LAM 3.64 Render unto them a recompence O Lord according to the worke of their hands Vers 65. Give them sorrow of heart thy curse unto them HORAT virtutem Sublatam ex oculis quaerimus invidi London Printed in the Yeare M. DC.XL.VIII LUKE 18. v. 31 The Son of man v. 32. shall be delivered unto the Gentiles and shall be mocked and spitefully entreated and spit on v. 33. And they shall put him to death THe Words contain a Propheticall History of that most lawlesse cruell and hellish murder of Gods Anointed Christ the King of the Jewes and are as Prophetically appointed by our Church to be read on the Quinquagesima Sunday which in this year 1648. fell out to be the 4 of February Now although in these words there are but 3 tragicall Acts 1. Traditio the Treason or Conspiracy 2. Illusio the mocking or spitefull using 3. Occisio the execution or murder of their King Yet to make it a compleat Tragedy two other Acts may be justly added out of other Gospels viz First a precedent Act expressing the double cause of this execrable fact which was partly pretended partly reall And the last subsequent Act as the fruit and effect of all the foregoing treason conspiracy triall condemnation and murder The Sonne of man c. To execute so much vilany and outrage as this and other Texts speake of had it been onely against the bare Sonne of man had been an act to be detested and abominated by all the Sonnes of Men even Heathens to whom he was betrayed but this Sonne of Man is more to these Jewes then the bare Sonne of Man for he was their King not onely prophesied so to be Isa 62.11 Zach. 9.9 but the Wisemen Matth. 2. comming to worship him they enquire after him by this Title Where is he that is King of the Jewes yea and he is so proclaimed Luke 19.38 Blessed be the King that commeth and Pilat not onely knew and confest him so to be by his question Iohn 19.15 Shall I crucifie your King but confirmed and wrote it to be commended to all posterity by that superscription on the Crosse in three Languages JESUS OF NAZARETH KING OF THE JEWES adding What I have written I have written and therefore not to be repealed Yea heare truth it selfe speake though of himselfe Iohn 18.37 when Pilat asked him Art thou a King he plainly and affirmatively answers To this end was I born and for this cause came I into this world to be a King and though not de hinc not from hence as Saint August on the words yet hîc here on earth to be a King And this Sonne of Man the King their King is the man whom ye shall find so betrayed despitefully used and murdered by his owne Subjects the bloudy barbarous and inhumane Jewes The originall in the Text 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is generally rendred in Latine tradetur and Traditor both in Ecclesiasticall and Civil acts and writings signifies in our English a Traytour and this word here used by the Evangelist and Penman of the holy Ghost none except ignorant or Jewes will deny to be the most proper significant word to express the illegal demeanour of Subjects against their King And so onely proper to them that I appeale to all the learned or to the Searchers of the Scriptures whether this or any other the like word was ever affixed or applied to any King for any act whatever of his against his Subjects This Text besides that Luke 6.16 Acts 7.52 proves the Actors against their King to be Traytours wherein Iudas the other Conspirators and the whole People of the Jewes are expresly so called Traytours but not one Text in all the Holy Bible ever called the Prince or King a Traytour for any act were it never so false so foule so bloudy that was committed by the Prince against his Subjects and in this the Laws of our Land follow and accord with that of Gods and for that they may be justly called as they are holy Lawes Now although this Text barely saith He shall be betrayed but saith not by whom and although the Traytours would not willingly be discovered and made knowne to the world for feare of an after-reckoning they knowing that the People loved him yet because other Gospels have both pointed them out and named them by their severall qualifications offices and sects I shall therefore here range and set them downe in some order beginning with the Arch-traytour who by the Psal 41.9 prophetically is thus deciphered Mine owne familiar friend in whom I trusted which did eate of my bread and Psalm 55.12 it was not a professed Enemy then I could have borne it neither he that hated me then I would have hid my selfe and not have imparted my secrets unto him but v. 13. it was thou my guide and mine acquaintance yea more v. 14. thou wert of my secret counsels we tooke counsell together it were lost labour to tell you whom the Prophet means in all this since in one Chap. Mat. 26. Judas is no lesse then twelve times proclaimed to everlasting memory and infamy the Traytour Yet though he were the Ring-leader and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Traytour for that he being a Servant a meniall Servant a Counsellour of the secret Counsell under colour of friendship betrayed him yet because in Scripture sense not onely they are accounted Traytours who are primarily immediate Actors in the condemnation or the execution such as were this ever to be branded Judas nor they who Soldier-like went out with Swords to take hold of and lay him fast nor the Court of Justice or Councell as it is called but who ever joyned in the first second or any other conspiracy plotting counselling assisting consenting against this King were no lesse then Traytours for so Marke 15.1 The Elders Priests Scribes and the whole Councell are involved and named to have delivered him up therefore I shall take the leave and liberty to discover some of these close Traytours who having washed their hands as they thinke from the last execution would therefore perswade the world that they are innocent and free from this loud-crying Treason And of these we shal find in the Gospels specified
for who thirsts for bloud as others for drinke are never at rest till they have it so by the speedinesse of so bloudy an execution you may judge of the unnaturall thirst and unsatiable desire they had to his bloud But they having this in designe before and having for some yeares been working to this end it may be mervailed why before this they had not executed their intention or why they deferred it so long seeing delay might have frustrated all their plots and endeavours and to this you must know that in their putting the execution off to this time there was neither wit wanting nor will on their parts to have done it sooner for the People loved him Luke 22.2 they feared the People but more especially you must consider that it could not be so safely and cunningly done untill upon such occasion as then they tooke when all of them were drawne up to Jerusalem the great City Lastly till then there were some Factions and oppositions betwixt Pilat the Governour or chief Commander for the Roman Conquerour and betwixt Herod the chiefe Ruler of the Jewes and till this were either composed or deaded it had not been safe to have put this designe in execution whereas now this being done this becomes their time for doing that which long before they had designed studied and laboured to bring it to passe And this generall time being come it also seemed good to the Holy Ghost to specifie the more especiall time when this execution was namely on the Eve to the Feast or Holy-day and on that day for two reasons The one exprest John 18.28 lest they should be defiled O hellish Saints they feare not the shedding innocent bloud and that of the Lords Anointed but they feare to doe it on their Holy-day 2. Not on the Feast for this being a day put apart for an holy meeting and all at liberty to go abroad under colour at least of going to the Temple there might on that have hapned some resistance and so St Matthew hath exprest it Mat. 26.5 Not on the Feast-day lest there be an uproare among the People whom they feared and that because they now loved Ch the King And the Evangelists have not omitted to record to Posterity the most speciall time of the day as well as of the day it selfe and that time saith one Marke 15.25 was the third hower which Saint Luke and Saint John say was about the sixt hower and yet Saint Marke 15.34 saith that at the ninth hower he gave up the Ghost which some thus reconcile that the time appointed or the time when they began to prepare for the execution was the third hower at our ninth in the morning but the execution it selfe began about the sixt which is about the time of our high noone and that all was finished and that Chr expired about the ninth hower that is our three in the afternoone I had almost forgot to tell you an especiall piece of observation which to the Holy Ghost seemed good to be recorded that Ch being basely falsly and illegally accused and charged yet he answered not to their charge for so Marke 14.60 61. And if I be asked the reason why he answered not it standing him upon in defence of his innocency and life 1. I must confesse I cannot answer where the Scripture is silent and answers not 2. There was in this that secret will counsell and providence of God which being not revealed to me I may not with reverence or modesty prie into 3. His answering might have administred occasion to their further lying and subordination of false Witnesses 4. Though true it were that at that time the Sword had got a power yet that he held not that power sufficiently lawfull in his case and person to examine trie and condemne him and therefore he answered not But being S. Mat. 26.63 saith he held his peace and S. Luke from the Prophet Isaiah 53. Acts 8.32 say that as a Lambe before the Shearer dumb so opened he not his mouth may we thence conclude that he said nothing at all Resp No for 1. speake he did and answer the Gospels are expresse in the affirmative but 2. in that he was said to hold his peace and to be silent it was in relation to the false charge and illegall authority and to these he opened not his mouth but was silent 3. He spake nothing in Saint Hieron exposition that is nihil durum nihil asperum nothing which might justly provoke the Jewes or offend the Hearers so he spake nothing 4. in that they would not heare him what he would have said for himselfe it may be said and not improperly that he did not or would not answer And that they would not heare him was utterly contrary to all lawes of heaven and earth Chr himselfe at the last generall judgement will admit it to knowne notorious self-condemning Sinners and among the Jewes Nicodemus John 7.51 and for the Romans Festus Acts 25.16 profest that neither People nor Law condemned any before they suffered and heard him to speake for himselfe yet such as this was the justice shewed here to Ch the King And what then died he as he was at the Bar silent not speaking for himselfe or others quite contrary and therefore now I beseech you lift up your hearts and open your eares and heare O earth what the Anointed of the Lord saith before his departure from the earth and his ascent to heaven and a little before his death and departure he spake to God his Father for himselfe as Luke 23.46 Father into thy hands I commend my spirit and yet a little before that he pardoned and prayed for his Enemies and Murderers when he said Luke 23.24 Father forgive them for they know not what they doe some know not what they doe being simply ignorant and seduced others are wilfully blind so that the one knows not what he doth for the present he is ignorant of the wickednesse of the act the other knows not what he doth for the consequent he knows not what will be the punishment of the fact yet Father saith this Lamb even while they are about to slaughter him Father forgive them and whatever he spake after this was no worse then what Saint John hath recorded John 20.19 21. Peace be unto you and would any but Devils take this Ch this King thus dying to be a Wolfe or will not any upright Christian say he was a Lamb and deserved to live as a Shepherd and a Ruler of the flock After the prayer and blessing of Ch the King there is little more to be noted from the Gospels then what the Attendants were at his death and what his buriall was And to the first know that some were present who betrayed him such hearts such foreheads these monsters of men had 2. A Guard of Soldiers and this but necessary to keep Ch the King from rescue and the Traytours from the rage of the
King the Ancestors of these Jewes said to their King 2 Sam. 5.1 we are caro tua thy owne flesh and no man faith Saint Paul Ephes 5.30 I say none but a mad man or a Jew hath this hated his owne flesh But when this King perceived and saw that all their drift was to get his inhoritance 3. had it not been better for him and his people to have parted with that than thus to lose his life no this King inspered from above knew well what he did when he thus suffered for in it he hath proved and declared him selfe to be a King a just King a magnanithous King a religious King and a right good Shepherd who layeth downe his life for his Flocke and will not destroy them by saving his owne life and therefore he resolves rather then I will betray the rights of the Crowne the Lawes and Liberties of the People let them kill me And so being cometo this a cannot but remember a sweet meditation that Saint Bernard used upon the words of Saint Peter when Chr would wash his feet the Apostle in an awfull reverence breaks out O Master Tu mihi pedes thou to wash my feet on which the Father descants thus Quid est Tu quid est mihi quid est pedes and concludes cogitanda sunt non dicenda give me leave in imitation to aske quid est illi quid est occident quid est Illum they the worst to kill him the best of men they the feet to murder him the head they the scumme of the People to slaughter him the Anointed of the Lord they the lowest of Subjects to butcher him their King ô infandum scelus cogitanda non dicenda we cannot expresse the heinousnesse of the fact but they are to be laid up in the closets of our brests and we are to remember and in after better times to thinke on all that hath been done in order to this killing him the King An * Speed English Chronicler in the Life of Henry the 3. saith They that kill a Christian King commit a four-fold murder 1. Homicide killing a man 2. Parricide killing their publich civill Father 3. Christicide killing the Anointed of the Lo Ch 4. Deicide killing as much as in them is God himselfe being the King is Gods Vicegerent and of Kings God himself saith you are Gods livor post fata quiescit was antiently true that men let dead men rest in peace but Devils Beasts and such Iews as these degenerate in this from all mankind and therefore are not alone content to murder Ch their King but that they will crucifie him againe when he is dead and that not onely in his Disciples and Servants but in his never-dying name which like Flies they endeavour to corrupt and to blast suppresse or destroy all the heavenly fruits of his divine soule witnesse Saint Luke throughout the Acts of the Apostles where we find that these miscreant Iewes forbade all to preach or speake and punished all who durst be so justly holy as to publish any thing which might redound to his glory or the good of any who loved or adhered unto him yea if Nicodemus dare but say as he did Iohn 8.51 that by their Law none should be judged before he be heard which was Ch the Kings very case even for this Nicodemus is checked as a Malignant and neer to be made a Delinquent for ver 52. curstly the Iewes reply unto Nicodemus art thou of Galile art thou one of the pack if we find it so look to your selfe for all that adhere to him the King or to the Gospel of peace first or last shal suffer for or with him Oh more then devilish Iews Ye see and observe the wonderfull wisdome and justice of God who in this as in other wicked plots turnes the point upon the Sinners and wounds them with their owne weapons for nothing did or could advantage the propagation and growth of Ch the Kings most glorious name more then their forcible suppression of it S. Luke having finished the Gospel or Chronicle of Ch the King saith c. 24. 46. so it behoved Christ to suffer and if you aske why so 1. Because it was foretold Mat. 21. 2. As S. Paul speaks 1 Cor. 11.19 it behoved that the heresies rebellions wickednesses might be made manifest 3. That for this wicked act God may let the Iewes as the whole world see that he had just cause to destroy them as it is threatned Mat. 21.39 And 4. that Ch the King may rise againe and reigne in everlasting glory with his Father in Heaven as it followes in the words after my Text. And now they have made an end of him I would gladly end here but these Iewes not ending all in killing him they make me to follow them and to observe that in killing him their purpose is to kill more then him and herein to imitate the savage Tartars who when their great Cham dies they cast many of his nearest friends into the grave after him and so this issue here of his the Kings bloud is not stinched in the bloud of him alone I pray remember his words though in a parable Mat. 21. when he speaking of this act of the Iewes he saith these Iewes will have the inheritance and their meanes to have and hold it is by killing the Heire so that as long as there is an Heire the Iews voice is as there Hic Heres est This is the Heire Come let us him that the inheritance may be ours And this very thing Ch the King foresaw and foretold not long before his death when he said Mat. 23.34 Behold I send unto you Prophets and Wise-men and some of them you shall kill and some ye shall persecute from City to City and this Ch the King spake not onely by a prophetick Spirit but out of the consideration of their former actions for Lazarus the Noble-man Iohn 12. who adhered to Ch him they sought to put to death even even in Christs life time and therefore now let all his Friends and Followers look to themselves for when they have digged up the root they will not leave a branch nor a bough not any prop that supported either Peter being but suspected by a Wench to have been a Follower of Ch nay but to have been in his company had he not denied it he had paid dearly for it had he escaped his life and none can expect better now they have killed him Ch the King S. Basil said of Herod 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 His meat was the flesh and his drinke was the bloud of men and as it is said of the Whore Rev. 17.6 so of such they are 1. Unsatiable therefore drunke 2. Unmercifull for drunk with bloud 3. Unjust for with the bloud of Saints men holy in life and Martyrs Witnesses of Gods truth It is recorded Mark 12.8 that these Traytours killed him and cast him forth of the Vineyard whereas had they first