an Absolute freedom with Liberty and Property Words I must confess not expressed but sufficiently implyed in this Chapter as will appear to any who seriously read the same They are made to believe that they shall have a Power in sacred Matters as should both authorize and justifie their approaches to the Holy Altar without the intervention of Priest or Prelate The People being gulled by such Arts as these the Leaders boldly shew themselves against Moses and Aaron and impudently tell them to their faces vers 3. of this Chapter You take too much upon you seeing all the Congregation are Holy even every one of them and the Lord is among them Wherefore then lift ye up your selves above the Congregation of the Lord At the hearing of this Moses falls upon his face vers 4. and tells them that on the morrow the Lord would shew who were his and then gently rebukes these Sons of Levi the true Fathers of our Presbyterians who scorn to acknowledge any Jurisdiction above their own vers 9. Seemeth it but a small thing to you that the God of Israel hath seperated you from the Congregation of Israel to bring you near to himself to do the Service of the Tabernacle of the Lord and to stand before the Congregation to Minister unto them and he hath brought thee near to him and all thy Brethren the Sons of Levi and seek ye the Priest-hood also for which cause both thou and all thy Company are gathered together against the Lord and what is Aaron that ye Murmur against him As if he should have said It is not Aaron that hath thrust himself into or invaded this Office for he was consecrated unto it by God himself After such a gentle Rebuke he condescends to send a Messenger unto them to call Dathan and Abiram who vers 12. impudently return they will not come unto him and not only so but with most upbraiding terms and severest Sarcasms vers 13 14. endeavoured to expose him to the shame and contumely of the People Is it a small thing say they that thou hast brought us up out of a Land that floweth with Milk and Honey to kill us in the Wilderness except thou makest thy self altogether a Prince over us Moreover thou hast not brought us up into a Land that floweth with Milk and Honey or given us Inheritance of Fields and Vineyards wilt thou put out the Eyes of these Men we will not come up Moses though the meekest of men yet as the following Verse tells us was wroth and appeals unto the Lord as a Witness of his Integrity hear himself speaking I have not taken one Ass from them neither have I hurt one of them Thus Beloved you have an Account of their Conspiracy now be pleased to take a view of the end of these wicked Men see whether they are not consumed in their Sins Their Sin was great so likewise was their Punishment too and that all men might be fright'ned and terrified from their levelling Principles from opposing their lawful Magistrate and promoting a Party between the High-Priest and Levite or between the Bishop and Priest now for I cannot but take the latter in the Christian Church to answer the former in the Jewish vers 31. We read That the Ground clave asunder that was under them and the Earth opened her mouth and swallowed them up and their Houses and all the men that appertained unto Korah all their Goods they and all that appertained unto them went down alive into the Pit and the earth closed upon them and they perished from among the Congregation And so I come to my second Proposition viz. 2. That all Rebellion of what kind soever is not only unlawful but destructive likewise to Traytors and that in both Worlds 1. It is unlawful but I shall only speak two or three Words of this as supposing it a Subject that hath been often handled especially at this time by more learned men I shall only say this That to oppose our lawful Magistrates is against the Sense and Practice of Christ's Church in all Ages even under the severest Persecutions I say in all Ages even under the severest Persecutions of Heathen Emperours nay under Julian the Apostate for never never were the Primitive Fathers brought in and wrack'd to patronise Rebellion till these last Years calculated without doubt for the Meridian of this Conspiracy though how much the Fathers were wronged the Confutation of what hath been alledged hath sufficiently declared But then 2. Rebellion is not only unlawful but destructive likewise to Traytors in both Worlds Give me leave to dwell somewhat long upon this Particular I say then Treason is pernicious and destructive to Traytors Good Christians If we shall reflect upon the judicial Proceedings of God Almighty in this kind you will find him so jealous of his own as not to suffer in his Deputy's Honour and therefore by a secret and irresistible Power he hath still countermanded the deepest projects of T raytors he hath split their Councils and struck their most refined Policies with Frustration and a Curse Histories both sacred and profane are full of Instances of this nature You have heard how Korah Dathan and Abiram amongst the Jews suffered both in themselves and Accomplices for their Mutiny against Moses But because people are more won by Examples than any other way of Discourse I shall mention several out of the Sacred Bible and our English Annals 1. Out of the Bible Let Absolom steal the Hearts of Israel from David both his King and Father let ten of the twelve Tribes of Israel acknowledge and proclaim him King in Hebron let him be back'd with all the Policy of Achitophel let the distressed David fly from his Royal Seat and let his ungrateful and rebellious Son possess Jerusalem let a Tent be spread upon the top of the House and Absolom go in unto his Fathers Concubines in the sight of all Israel so that all the Conspirators may know that he never expected to be reconciled to his Father Let Achitopbel give Absolom advice to pursue David and his Followers who were weary and faint and in no likelihood of escaping had not God been on his side when wicked men thus rose up against him A very formidable Conspiracy this you will say but behold the Issue of it the Council of Achitophel is turned into folly insomuch that he is forced to lay violent hands upon himself and though the too indulgent Father gives command to the Army to spare this his unnatural Son yet rather than Absolom shall prosper in his Treason his â—wn beloved Hair shall serve for an Halter to execute him you may read the whole Conspiracy at your leasure in Sam. 2. from Chap. 15. to the 19. Let Sheba the Son of Bichri make aparty in Israel against David let him secure himself in the strong City of Abel a Woman shall perswade his own followers to cut off his Head and present it unto Joab
Prince may be killed this vvay or that vvay but vvhether any vvay at all For it vvas as unlavvful to murther Charles the first by a pretended High Court of Justice as to endeavour the Assassinatiof his Son our gracious Soveraign vvhom God long preserve by a Blunderbuss Neither doth the Jesuit only lye under this Censure of Encouraging disobedience to their supream Governour But likewise their Contemporaries the Presbyterians I shall easily grant that Mr. Calvin the Founder of the last Sect hath in his Institutes as much pressed the Duty of Subjects tovvards their Princes as any Author vvhatsoever yet in the unhappy distinction of a Publick or private Subject and so making of Princes to be accountable to the Three Estates hath been as destructive an opinion as could be broached I am sure this Nation hath had vvoful experience of it But beloved vvho could expect better fruit from Presbytery which was begot by Rebellion and Treason expelling from Geneva their lawful Magistrate And though Mr. Calvin was not then at Geneva when the Prince was excluded by Farellus and Viretus yet his Comprobavi suffragio meo his approving of what was done by them makes him too too guilty Beza his Successor in the same Chair in his 24th Epistle says as much And if he were the Author of the Book called Vindiciae contra Tyrannos as many think there hath been no Rebellion says my Author which may not fairly be supposed to receive encouragement from it Consult Mr. Knox and he will tell you 't is not Birth or propinquity of Blood that makes a King Lawful And what mischief Buchanan's Book De jure Regni apud Scotos hath done will appear when the traiterous pretended High Court of Justice against King Charles the First drew most of their Pleas out of it Paraeus's Comment upon the Romans for encouraging these Doctrines of resisting the lawful Magistrate in King James's his time was publickly and solemnly burnt at Oxon and I cannot but bless God for the same Universities Prudence at this time for condemning several Seditious and Factious Books and prohibiting her Members the reading of such Books But the late Rebellion against the Father and the now designed Assassination of his Sons sufficiently declare their Disobedience to Princes and those that are set in Authority over them And thus my Beloved I have spoken to the particulars I promised to treat of I shall now proceed to Application and I have done First therefore Did these wicked men in my Text after a succession of Miracles in their deliverance from the Egyptian thraldom Did they I say conspire against their lawful Magistrate and that Magistrate too who had been God's great Instrument in rescuing them from the hands of their cruel Task-masters Oh! how may we condole and lament that the greatest Favours and Indulgence of the meekest Princes cannot oblige some ungrateful Subjects Our Israel too is a sufficient Evidence for we likewise groaned under a most severe slavery our King's Father the anointed of the Lord the Breath of our Nostrils vvas taken in the nets of wicked Men and barbarously murdered at his own Palace our Loyal Nobles were either put to death or banished the best reformed Religion in the World discountenanced and cryed down vvhilst the Calves of Dan and Bethel were erected in the Room Our Liberty the Glory of our English Nation was fettered and shackled and instead of one good King we vvere forced to submit to more than 500 Tyrants The Son of this Royal Martyr our novv gracious Soveraign after a miraculous escape from Worcester vvas forced to shelter himself amongst foreign Princes This and more deplorable than this vvas the Condition of our Israel vvhen God pitying our Calamities restored our Moses and in him our Religion and our Liberty and there was this difference between theirs and our Moses that ours did not pass through a Sea of blood to his Kingdoms but came to the Harbour of rest by peaceable Measures His Restauration was as miraculous as his former Deliverances and he that was forced from his home by a whirlwind of Rebellion came back in the still voice of Peace and Mercy an happy Presage how he would Govern And these 23 or 24 years since his Return might sufficiently assure us of his meek Temper by whom his very Enemies as the worst of them once truly said must acknowledge they fall gently How have all his Subjects sate under their own Vines enjoyed peace and quietness whilst all Christendom besides hath been harrass'd with all the plagues of War And now my Beloved one would think nothing but Praises to God for Mercies past and Prayers for the preservation of our gracious King should be heard in this our Sion But instead of Grapes behold nothing in some men but Thornes instead of Figs Thistles and Brambles for Praises to God for Mercies past vve have Murmurers and Repiners instead of Prayers to God for the preservation of this our King Blunderbusses are provided by Men of the old Leven to destroy his Person with his Royal Brother Plenty hath turned men into Wantonness and our Troubles like Jesurun vvhen fat mutiny and raise Forces not to support but to demolish and ruin the Government The Israelites grumbled though fed with the food of Angels and our Malecontents are repining and talk of slavery which cannot be dreaded from any but themselves and are not satisfied in a good Land flowing vvith all Plenty vvhere there is no vvant but of grateful Hearts to acknowledge it Upon this a Conspiracy is formed in our Israel our vvicked men have their Cabals and Associations words indeed not expressed in this 16 Chap. but sufficiently implyed too Our Conspirators follow the same path as their fore-Fathers in this Chap. but there is this difference between this Conspiracy of theirs and our wicked men that of theirs was a Single whilst this of ours is a Complication of many Conspiracies in one you may call it Legion and though there be a manifest Antipathy between the Presbyterian and the Independent with other Sects yet all of them like Herod and Pontius Pilate though at never so great variance before yet when Christ is to be crucified or when Christs Church is to be destroyed and the nursing Father thereof Gods anointed to be assaulted and a Dispute about the Crown to be raised become Friends and are reconciled Ferguson supplies the place of Korah and three Lords with three Commoners serve instead of Dathan and Abiram and On the Conspirators mentioned in vers 1. Nay you may find other Conspirators in our wicked men who are represented by Absolom and Achitophel the most ignorant can tell The People too are to be allured by the same Arts as formerly the Bishops here as Aaron in this Chap. are cried down with Ye take too much upon you seeing all the Congregation is Holy even every one of them The thirty fifth of Elizabeth that strong bulwark of our English Church against all
Core Redivivus IN A SERMON PREACHED At Christ-Church Tabernacle in London upon Sunday September 9. 1683. BEING A Day of Publick Thanksgiving for the Deliverance of His Sacred Majesties Person and Government from the late Treasonable Rebellion and Fanatick Conspiracy By WILLIAM BOLTON one of the School-Masters of the Charter-House LONDON Printed for James Norris at the Kings-Arms without Temple-Bar M.DC.LXXXIV Core Redivivus A Thanksgiving SERMON For a Deliverance from a Fanatick Conspiracy NUMB. 16. ver 26. And he spake unto the Congregation saying Depart I pray you from the Tents of these wicked Men and touch nothing of theirs lest ye be consumed in all their Sins THE Context runs thus And the Lord spake unto Moses saying Speak unto the Congregation saying Get ye up from the Tabernacle of Korah Dathan and Abiram and the Elders of Israel followed him and he spake unto the Congregation c. The Words are an Exhortation of Moses the Supream Magistrate of the Israelites to his Loyal Subjects That they should depart from the Ten 's of those wicked Conspirators Korah Dathan and Abiram with their Associates lest they should be consumed in their Sins What I have to say upon the Words shall be laid out in this following method 1. I shall give you an Historical Narration of this Conspiracy as the Scripture doth afford Light thereto with the Punishment of those wicked Men as the Holy Ghost calls them in my Text which Particular being spoken to I shall for my second Part 2. Draw this natural Proposition That all Rebellion of what kind soever is not only unlawful but destructive likewise to Traytors and that both in this Life and that which is to come 3. I shall reflect upon the sinister Practices and Opinions of the Jesuits and Presbyterians relating to the Matter in hand I name the latter because of their so known Opposition to Prelacy that they seem to draw their Extraction from this famous Triumvirate Korah Dathan and Abiram in this Chapter My last part shall be by way of Application First then that you may the better understand the History of this Chapter be pleased to go back two or three Years and you will find these rebellious Persons with all the Children of Israel groaning under the heavy Oppression of the Egyptians In this their misery they cried unto the Lord who heard their Complaints and by a Succession of Miracles wrought by the hands of Moses and Aaron was pleased to rescue them from their cruel Task-masters Suppose them therefore on the other side of the Red Sea from Aegypt free from their cruel Oppressors whom they had with Joy seen drowned in the Sea but yet these men forgat God at the Sea even at the Red Sea After this we find them often murmuring against God and as often punished though in the midst of Judgment God remembred Mercy nay they so provoked the Almighty at one time that had it not been for the Prayer of this Moses against whom they conspire in this Chapter I say had not this Moses then interceeded for them as ungrateful as they now appear the Lord had utterly rooted them out from the Face of the Earth These men had often rebelled against the Lord but they saw it was to their own Ruine now they will try whether they may not more safely fly out against their Prince and High-Priest whom the Lord had set over them here they think themselves safe and that God was not concerned in the Person of Moses their Supream Magistrate But surely my beloved one would rather expect these men to have been strengthning one another against the many Enemies with whom they were to fight one would have imagined to have heard these men offering up their Praises to God for the great Mercies past and imploring the Continuance of his Favours upon his Servants Moses and Aaron who as they had been God's great Instruments in freeing this People from an horrid Slavery so they might likewise settle them in the Promised Land but instead thereof we read in this Chapter of nothing in some men but Murmurings but Repinings but Rebellion the chief Heads whereof are Korah Dathan and Abiram who had supplanted from their Loyalty no less than two hundred and fifty Princes of the Assembly men of Renown upon whom notwithstanding the Holy Ghost in my Text fastens no other Character than that of Wicked who are here threatned to be consumed Dathan and Abiram were descended from the Line of Reuben the eldest Son of Patriarch Jacob and therefore reckoned themselves more fitting to receive the Supream Authority than Moses who descended from a younger House and Korah thought himself as much slighted and contemned in seeing Elizaphan the Son of Uzziel to have been made the Prince of the Kohathites the principal Family of he Levites next to Gerson when he himself descended of the elder Brother You may fancy them therefore in their Cabals and Association for in vers 2. we are told they had no less than 250 Princes of the Assembly and men too famous in the Congregation men of renown that joyned with them I say you may fancy those men got together in their Tents and Corah Addressing himself to them in this manner I intimate Korah rather than any of the others because the Conspiracy in Scripture is called the Gain-saying of Korah Suppose therefore Korah speaking to his Associates after this manner 'T is true indeed Moses and Aaron have delivered us from the Hands of the Aegyptians but we had better have continued there than basely to submit ourselves to be Vassals to our Fathers Children We do no longer indeed make Brick of Clay but then we were not in Subjection to our fellow-Servants Moses promised that he would bring us into a Land flowing with Milk and Honey and behold he kills us in a Wilderness If we must have Princes you my Lords Dathan and Abiram are more fitting to rule over us as being of an elder House than he and if there be a Necessity of having one Priest above another in place and power without Ostentation the Mitre might sit as well upon my head as that of Aaron In vain in vain we are freed from the Yoke of Aegypt to be Slaves to those whose birth at the best is but equal to our own As for my part I will not bear it neither do I think such generous Spirits as yours can submit to such a Servitude any longer But in this Speech I would not be misunderstood concerning Succession for the Jewish Government was then perfectly Theocatical and God himself was pleased to appoint Governours for his own People to which Theocracy amongst the Jews the next of Kin in Blood answers in other Nations I am sure in this Kingdom and may it always continue After such words as these you may imagine the chief Conspirators confirmed the People now are to beseduced and what measures I beseech you are followed Why They are flattered with the hopes of