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A30420 A sermon preached before the Aldermen of the city of London, at St. Lawrence-church, Jan 30. 1680/1 being the day of the martyrdome of K. Charles I. / by Gilbert Burnet ... Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715. 1681 (1681) Wing B5875; ESTC R14664 19,574 37

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be managed by the better part that is the stronger the Army who assumed to themselves the name of the better and sounder part for I am sure I speak within bounds if I say it was not the Twentieth man and I do not exceed if I say it was not the hundreth man of England that approved of it It is therefore a most unjust blemish cast on the Protestant Religion or the English Nation to accuse either the one or the other for that which was but the crime of a few hot headed Enthusiasts or ambitious Souldiers and those who suffer themselves to be wrought on by so ill grounded a prejudice and to be so far carried by it as to renounce our Communion and go over to the Church of Rome discover plainly that they neither understand their principles nor ours We detest and condemn it and they encourage and approve the like practices and they may as justly accuse the Protestant Religion of Adultery and Theft because some among us have been avowedly guilty of these sins The Church of England hath ever witnessed her detestation of these practices and principles and shared deeply in the sufferings of their King The whole Nation by their Representatives in Parliament has condemned it and appointed this solemn humiliation for expiating the guilt of it And many of the most considerable Dissenters did even then when it was not so safe to do it as it is now openly declare against it both in their Sermons and Writings This is what in Justice cannot be denied them and many of them were no less active and industrious and were indeed highly instrumental in the bringing home of his Majesty that now Reigns If some few have justified the shedding of this blood as their number hath been but inconsiderable so their Maxims have been chiefly borrowed from Popish Writers One great instance of this appeared in many speeches that were printed at that time and were said to be delivered in their Junto which were almost word for word taken out of a book that had been often condemned and was strictly prohibited that went under the name of Dolman but was believed to be written by Parsons the Jesuit who was perhaps one of the greatest men that that order has produced so manifestly did they copy from the Jesuites School and by that great impiety then acted by them they have given some seeming but very false colours for taxing the Reformed Religion by which Popery has had such footing among us By these things it may appear that we are yet under the ill effects of the guilt of this day both in the strength that Atheism received by it and the advantages which the Papists have taken from it The other reason of continuing publick mournings is when we are warned by any sad symptoms to fear the return of the like or of new calamities and that this still presses on us to repeat our solemn humiliations is so evident that I need not stand long to make it out We have been long under fears that it might happen to us as it did to the Jewish Church when it was her lamentation The anointed of the Lord who was Lament 4. 20. the breath of our Nostrils is fallen into their pits Our King is more to us in our circumstances than theirs was to them and we have had more cause to fear that he should fall by the hand of a Clement or a Ravilliac and then what a black prospect have we of most terrible confusions to follow on such a fatal blow or if even that sacred life should in a natural way expire what can we see beyond it but fatal and gloomy days Or if the disorders among our selves should burst out into blood what distractions and miseries are like to follow It is not to be conceived that among them who are so zealous in the opposing of a Plot against His Majesties Person our holy Religion and the peace and safety of the Nation there can be any that dares mock God and Man so audaciously as to be designing any such thing at the same time that they are accusing others for it To suppose it otherwise were to give credit to the false suggestions and base contrivances of those who design nothing more than to take us off from watching over their motions by engaging us one against another and infusing such Jealousies as may effectually divide us among our selves the only way that is now left without a forreign power first to break and then to conquer those in separated parties whose united strength they know they cannot resist I shall therefore rather encourage you to continue in this duty than endeavour to perswade you to it Let us remember that we are commanded to Fear God and next to Honour the King and by well doing to put to silence the 1 Pet. 2. 17 ignorance of foolish men and that every soul ought to be subject to the higher powers for the powers that are are of Rom. 13. 1 2 3 4 5. God and whoso resists them resists the Ordinance of God and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation for they are the Ministers of God wherefore we must needs be subject not only for wrath but for Conscience sake Christ himself taught us to render to Caesar the things that are Caesars and to God the things that are Gods Math. 22. 27. and he being in his state of humiliation but a private subject would not suffer the Sword to be drawn in his Math. 26. 52. defence and expresly said that though he was a King yet his Kingdom was not of this world else his servants Joh. 18. 36 would have fought for him These things are plain and clear and need no Commentary His Apostles also charged those whom they employed in setling the Churches to put them in mind to be subject to Principalities and Titus 3. 1. Powers to obey Magistrates and to pray for Kings and all that are in Authority that under them we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all Godliness and Honesty 1 Tim. 2. 2 And if it is ever seasonable to enlarge on these duties it is most necessary on such a day and that 's a principal reason for the continuance of this Anniversary And thus I hope I have sufficiently vindicated the continuance of our publick humiliation on this and such like solemn days 2. The next thing I proposed to speak to was the duties that belong to such solemn Mournings Great and extream sorrow cannot be expected when so few that were concerned in it are alive or if they are I cannot believe that any such are here in this place And for them that were not so concerned a bare horror at the fact with prayers for averting the Judgments that may be consequent to it is too slight a thing My Text directs us to things of more value and importance We are to love the Truth and Peace By Truth is either to
into joy and gladness We ought to love the Truth and Peace Thirdly That upon our doing this sincerely all the sad effects of that which we now mourn for shall be so entirely removed that our days of Fasting shall be turned into cheerful or solemn Feasts To the First There is a temper to be observed in publique as well as in private mournings that they be neither so short as that it may thence appear we have a slight sense of matters of such great consequence nor so long as that either our sorrows rise out of measure high or by the too frequent returns of those days the object of our griefs grows too flat There is a mean between these extremes There is a time to mourn as well as a time to rejoice and every thing is beautiful in its season I shall therefore offer two rules by which it may be reasonably determined how long such solemn mournings ought to be continued and apply them to the present occasion One is As long as the sad effects of that which originally caused them continue we ought to keep up our Fasts for so long God seems to continue his displeasure against us and therefore we should be still renewing our intercessions to turn it away As long as the Captivity lasted the people of the Iews did not doubt continuing the observation of their Fasts but when they were brought back again to their Land it seemed then more proper to put this Question A second is When the same or the like sins which procured those Judgments that are so much lamented do continue and when the circumstances of a Nation seem to be almost the same that they were on the occasion that at first called for their mourning then it is fit either to continue or to renew their observation of those set Fasts This was the case at this time of the Jews they were beginning to contract alliances with the Idolatrous Heathens round about them which had let in the former Idolatry that had been the cause of their former Captivity they became guilty of the same immoralities and therefore they are commanded to love the Truth and Peace that so they being delivered from the Wrath of God might serve him without fear And now to apply this to our present Occasion There were two very ill effects that followed upon the Crime acted this day which still continue The one was the advantage that many weak and prejudiced persons took against the appearances of Religion Prayer and the motions of Gods Spirit all these having been so much pretended to at that time Many that were assured the fact was Barbarous and against all Law Divine and Humane came upon that to infer that Religion the addressing to God in Prayer and the being guided by the inward motions of Grace and Gods holy Spirit were at best but the illusions of fancy if not the contrivances of designing Men. The Inference was as unjust as could be yet so it was that this falling upon young and raw persons who were by the heat of their tempers much inclined to entertain those prejudices and that being wrought on by so great an Agent of Hell as the Author of Leviathan was many were upon this corrupted in their Principles about Religion in general And for all the sleights of Wit the shews of Reason and softness of Stile that were in that Book it could never have been so mischievously successeful as it then was if it had not been for the scandals which were given by the impudent pretensions of many of that time Their unintelligible way of talking about Religion their crumbling into so many Sects the aspirings of many under all the shews of Humility and Mortification tended to make the Seeds of Atheism grow up plentifully And to this I speak it knowingly we owe the beginnings of all those impious and immoral Maxims which have since overrun the Land And do not these effects continue still Is not Devotion accounted by many to be either a matter of Form or a piece of Enthusiasm for earnestness in Prayer and depending on the inward assistances of Gods holy Spirit how have men who know or value these things little themselves taken occasion from thence to disparage them with much Impudence and Scorn Some have thought they could not be esteemed Loyal if they appeared devout and therefore to purchase the one Character were willing not only to throw off but openly to reproach the other all they could What ill effects this has had how the Nation has been much corrupted by these Maxims and God highly offended is so obvious to every Mans observation that I need dwell no longer on it The other ill effect that still continues is the prejudice that the Enemies of our Church have cast on the Reformed Religion as holding that very Doctrine of killing Kings for which they had been so justly charged And perhaps that which at present is the ground of all our fears had its rise in a great measure from the Jealousies which upon this occasion were infused against the Protestant Religion It will be therefore no improper thing to shew you how justly the Church of Rome is accused of this and how unjustly it is cast on those of the Reformed Religion That this charge is truly fastned on the Church of Rome will appear in these particulars The power of deposing Kings is certainly a Doctrine of their Church as appears in the universal agreement to it and the Tradition of it for above five Ages in a more uninterrupted and uncontroverted series in all that time than can be shewed even for Transubstantiation it self Now if a King is deposed by the Pope and after such deposition if he is not so tame as to lay aside his Regal Dignity which it is very likely few Princes will do then they being lawfully deposed are Kings no more and if they pretend to be Kings still they are Usurpers so he that kills them does not kill a King but an Usurper And if the Pope creates a new Prince which by the same Authority is vested in him and is indeed a branch of the deposing power then the new Prince being lawfully vested with the Regal Authority may as justly authorise any to kill the deposed King as a lawful King may set a price upon any Rebels head This was well observed by those who undertook to defend the deposing power Swarez writing against King Iames tells him in plain terms a In Reg. Majest Brit. Lib. 6. c. 4. Sect. 10 That a King who is canonically deposed may be killed by any private man whatsoever Valentia says b In Thom. Tom. 3. Disp. 151. g. 4. p. 2. That an heretical Prince may be by the Popes sentence deprived of life and Becanus though Confessor to an Emperor Ferdinand the II. says c Cont. Ang. p. 115. No man doubts but if Princes are contumacious the Pope may order their lives to be taken away I might name many more