Apostles are most punctual and past all contradiction in that averment And therefore whosoever resisteth or confronteth that Power 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 13.2 that sets himself in array against it or would set up another in diametrical opposition to it the sole Soveraign singular Power which there those and here this Apostle do so very particularly fix upon does as particularly rebel against the Ordinance of God so the Apostle does persist and they that are resolv'd to do so in their resistance he is as positively resolv'd against them that they shall receive to themselves Damnation not only judgment in this World for then it would be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 down right Damnation in that to come They that will not believe it now shall feel it then for ever in the most exquisite of sensible experiments Therefore is it that he urges that Universal Reverence and Veneration due to them from us all so smartly and severely for no less than Wrath if we will not render it for Conscience sake Ay and farther still than so Rom. 13.4,6 For for this Cause pay you Tribute also as there he does proceed gives the reason of the thing as to these Persons past all dispute and that because they are Gods Ministers to us for good set over us so to be And certainly the least and cheapest Tribute we can offer or he require is that of Honour to these Dignities subjection to this Dominion That costs us nothing is a very light and easie Rom. 12.1 a most reasonable and acceptable piece of service Hard case that men cannot give good words when no more at present is expected thence whence we can hardly ever hope for any thing of good action but must still be prompted to perpetuate their wonted ways of Disobedience and Despite to inflame all to provoke still daily more and more as if they had not done more than enough already sad resolution to be impregnable and everlasting in their impenetrably obdurate humour Certainly there are softer smoother and far more decent ways the Scripture does direct them to if they would observe them as that which every Christian man ought to know and believe to his Souls health as duly as his Creed and the Commandments But they err they and their Misleaders too not knowing or as if they did not or else would not know the Scriptures where it stands written in fair and legible Characters so that he that runs may read them thus upon Sacred Record for ever Act. 21.5 Exod. 22.28 Thou shalt not speak evil of the Ruler of thy People quoted by St. Paul in Gospel times from that of the Law Thou shalt not revile or Blaspheme the Gods so they are in his account whatever they are in ours Psal 82.6 we have an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for it I have said you are Gods and all of you Children of the Most High so that he must needs be the Father and Original of them The word there in the Hebrew is still as consonant as ever to this in the Greek where we are forbid to revile those Gods or curse these Rulers an inseparable Curse does every where attend it Let him that likes it take it to himself and see how well he can digest it when he comes once deliberately to ruminate upon it 'T is hard digesting Poyson such especially as has been so epidemical in this unexemplar'd Age of ours wherein the vilest of men have made so little of it to cast the greatest and soulest of aspersions upon them that bear Divinity about them Wherein the meanest of Mechanicks turn Censors of their Soveraigns actions so Critical That as in Pompey the Great 't was thought a crime because he scratch'd his head with one finger so they are ready through their malicious ignorance to make every mole a scar every Infirmity a gross Enormity And accordingly to pass their Censures nay sadder still than so their sentence too and that perhaps a very black and bloody one upon the greatest and the best of men Psal 105.15 their Princes Prophets Priests on Gods anointed whom he has so strictly prohibited us to touch with our impure unhallowed Hands Tongues Pens under a weighty Penalty for he that toucheth them toucheth the Apple of his own eye Deut. 32 10. Psal 17.8 Zach. 2.8 and that is a very dear and tender part indeed Whatever is design'd or effected against them he takes it all as offer'd directly at himself Luk. 10.16 He that despiseth you despiseth me believe it they bid as high as possibly they can they that despise them and their Government despise the Regiment of Heaven nay clearly do defiance to God himself when they attempt to have to do with them they shall find at last they have to deal with him impar congressus For by me Kings reign Prov. 8.15,16 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hagg. 2.23 Jer. 22.24 't is God that upholds Kings not that Golden Scepter as Xenophon says They are the Signets of his right hand as himself calls them which doubtless the great Poet had some sense of when he stiles Kings 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 bred up in the bosom of Jove or rather Jehovah the same word Once again they err not knowing the Scripture which muzzles the mouths of all such Bruits and ties them up not only from acting but speaking against Kings it will allow of no such thing at all Job 34.18 Is it fit to say to a King thou art Wicked or to Princes you are ungodly Suppose they were suppose they did so yet the Scripture tells us it is not fit that we should say so Nay from so much as thinking evil of them 'T is worth the repetition Curse not the King no not in thy thought He that knows the secrets of all Hearts will not suffer us to harbour so much as one single thought against them Not only the Overt Act but the very thought is Treason by the Laws of Heaven that are indisputable that are altogether indispensible Holy David wise Salomon and other Kings whose uncontroulable authority the most Holy Scriptures give us so ample an account of did things not to be done and withal not spoken of They are not blaz'd and blown up and down in the World Nothing at all spoke or thought of tending to their defamation or disiparagement No libelling of Kings then none that durst to speak evil of Dignities in a single Syllable all husht still and quiet serene according to that Majesty they had so much then as we have little regard and reverence now for Which should teach us to do as they did to hold our Peace whilest we have it to sit down in silence sobriety and humility and if we cannot or which is worse will not act the Christians part let us learn at least the Pythagoreons go to their School of silence seal up our mouths
tantum non done it again past all retrieve They love to lye in the shade under any sort of Umbrage though it be but a very thin and sleighty one when such Umbrella's would become a Bantamite better than a Christian And they that are decoy'd by them into the greatest of indignities they can devise to do to these Dominions the most unnatural as well as disingenuous not only of defiance but despight against their genuine Liege Lord do therefore as the Light himself hath told us love the darkness rather than the light because their deeds are so superlatively evil John 3.19,20 that so they may be beyond all capacity not only of an Evangelical Conversion which is so great a rarity with them but so much as a Legal Conviction which some 't is to be fear'd dread more than damnation Xerxes as Herodotus reports had so strange and unaccountable an affection for the Plane-tree which is significant for nothing at all but shade that he was very curious and enormously extravagant in his expences for beautifying and adorning of it Which fond fancy in so great a Person does hugely well resemble that fonder one in those who of later days have been seduced from and against that as sacred as it is solemn thing call'd Allegiance Eccles 8.2,3,4 Which the Oath of God is upon them for and that not only singly but it may be more than doubly and trebly so And believe it such a Bond it is as the wisest of men thought could not be easily broken Eccl 4.12 'T is not a tye of Law alone but one of the greatest Gospel-Obligations that can be quoted And yet how unconcernedly we see men drawn from that by the Spirit of errour and prophaneness and withal which is the worst of the two evils this being Prompter and Promoter unto that the prophanity ignorance and errour of their own Spirits As if they were resolv'd to anticipate their damnation could not be at it soon enough and so must ride Post upon this and such like Errands to meet it in that way which most infallibly will lead to that very fatal end at last of those who will not fear the Lord and the King but meddle with them that are given to change Prov. 24.21,22 No time or pains cost or care but they will as adventurously as carelesly expend upon the forbidden Tree not of Knowledge and Life but of ignorance and death that has neither Fruit nor Flower only 't is hugely grown very spaciously spread casts I cannot say a good shadow so properly as the inversion for 't is only the shadow of good like that of the Cypress said to be Gravis Umbra a Doleful Shade nay worse and sadder still than so 't is Umbra Mortis a Deadly One Yet they as those that Pliny has told us of Tributum pro umbrâ pendent Nat. Hist lib 12. That they will purchase at any sort of rate with the utmost hazzard of their lives and fortunes which brings them to and keeps them in the Valley of the shadow of Death for ever after And they shall be lustily paid for their pains that hold them in invincible ignorance and as insuperable obstinacy as to all Duty which they cannot but own themselves to stand so strictly and unacquittably indebted in to their superiours by all bonds of Nature Conscience Law Gospel Reason and Religion which is the highest the most refin'd and sublimated reason I mean as here and elsewhere 1 Tim. 2.1,2,3 Tit. 3.1,2 1 Pet. 2.13,14 to ver 18. the Apostle does so frequently and as fervently inculcate viz. their duty towards these Soveraign Dominions and Honour to these sublimest of Dignities Which shall never can never be discounted but will be reckon'd at the dearest rate imaginable and paid for too to the very utmost Doit in that woful place 2 Pet. 2.4 Jud. v. 6. where there will be no liberty but what Eternal Chains shall afford nor property but only indignation and wrath Rom. 2.8,9 Tribulation and Anguish to them that are everlastingly contentious as are the Troublers of our Israel and do not will not obey either for Wrath or Conscience sake but are desperately bent to run the Eternal hazzard as well as Temporal Our Saviour tells their Brethren the Sadduces for these act as if they did disbelieve a Resurrection as did those who were as notorious and recorded Rebels as they were Schismaticks so we find from several Authors and Josephus himself who being a Jew would not be too severe upon them Truth it self tells them plainly You do err not knowing the Scriptures Mat. 22.29 their ignorance in the Scriptures in that sober sense which they ought duly to be rendred in is that which renders them so obnoxious to this worst of errours despising Dominion and defaming Dignities Not knowing the Scriptures and the Power of God in that Power and Dignity which himself in his all-wise Soveraignty has conferr'd upon Kings and Princes by instances that are no less than innumerable in the Old Testament From the Patriarchs and Prophets and in the New from our Blessed Lord and his Apostles Not knowing the purport of that Promise made personally by God himself Gen. 17.1,2,3 so early in the World to Abraham the Grandfather of the faithful as the highest honour and happiness that could possibly attend him and his Family viz. That Kings should come out of him out of his Loins or Thigh as the Holy Ghost has seen good to phrase it that is descend lineally from him by the unalterable and indefeatable right of Inheritance till it reach even to the King of Kings himself This was part of that Sacred Covenant which God Almighty did then so solemnly stipulate between himself and him And that for an Everlasting Covenant Gen. 17.6,7 as there he sets that peculiar remark upon it in perpetuam rei memoriam not only as to his Person but Posterity to stand upon record for them that great and numerous Train that should issue from him as the greatest security as well as reputation they could have which primely did consist in this namely That the Scepter should not depart from Judah as that Covenant is afterward re-ratified with Jacob Gen. 49.10 nor a Law-giver for so is a King you see clearly in Gods own Estimate and Ordination untill Shilo the great Soveraign come And unto him shall the Collection and Submison of the People be and that for ever no intercision is allow'd of 'T is an Eternal Law from the first to the last Suprema Lex that of the Legislative Power wholly and solely to have its resiance there where the Scepter is like that of the Medes and Persians never to admit a repeal Dan. 6.8,15 And the Salus Populi only too consists in that if they could once arrive to so much sense to see it then seeing might be believing with them Not knowing the Scriptures what vast affluences of Dignity
Estius flies higher Est in loc and would transfer it to Angels the heavenly Powers the better to evade all earthly wherein Enthusiast-like Papist and Schismatick the Foxes and Firebrands are well link'd together The vulgar of the Romanists reads that of St. Peter one would bless himself how Sectas non metuunt introducere Strange sort of introduction so construing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 merely according to their own opiniatriment And thus the Rhemists that they may turn all upon the Protestants For so I find in their Notes upon these words Despise Dominion such be Hereticks and we know who are so in their Kalendar that will not be subject to any Superiour of which kind in blaspheming the supreme spiritual Magistrate are the Protestants Fulk in loc There they think they come home to us and I think Dr. Fulke comes home to them in this return Such an Heretick nay worse than Heretick is Antichrist the Pope which will not be subject to any Superior no not the Decrees of a General Council though himself has own'd its authority As Martin the V. that of Constance and Eugenius the IV. that of Basil yet both of them refused to conform themselves to their Decrees when they came to determine that such a Council should supersede his Holiness Such an Heretick is he that advanceth himself above all that is called God as St. Paul averrs 2 Thess 2.4 and so does perfectly despise all Dominion besides his own insufferable usurpation And blaspheme Majesty with the vilest of all indignities when he arrogates to himself to deprive Kings of that Dominion which they have and ever had by inviolable succession and so imperiously to discharge Subjects of all loyalty and homage to their Sovereigns As says Beza did Julius the IV. to a Neighbouring King then meaning doubtless King Henry the VIII and Pius the V. to our Sovereign Lady Queen Elizabeth In short such Hereticks are all now with us that would take the Monopoly out of his hand that do as did the Gnosticks and before them the Simonians as the Apostle here has so significantly phras'd it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is says Estius in their own imagination In imaginatione sua Est in loc That are transported with delusive Dreams so Clemens Alexandrinus as well as after him Epiphanius and Oecumenius refer it to their absurd blasphemous phantasms That have all their senses seal'd in profoundest slumber as Beza does express it Sensus omnes altissimo veterno sopitos Beza in loc According to that of the Prophet Isaiah upon whom the Lord has made a full effusion of the Spirit but 't is the Spirit of slumber nay worse than so of deep sleep Which he threatens as the greatest of Judgments that can befall any person or people in the World Isai 29.10 To rouse such then a little who are but too numerous in this Lethargick Age of ours and that I may the better do it I shall thus endeavour to demonstrate viz. That the two great things which are the true Original of this so grand despite and defamation in them that contemn Dominion and in the Apostles sense as well as word blaspheme Dignities are Ignorance and Atheism there 's the source of all First Ignorance So our Apostle has here affured us These speak evil of the things they know not Jude 10. that are beyond that are above them clear out of their Sphere and Orb. And so St. Peter in the same awakening word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They speak evil of the things they understand not 2 Pet. 2.12 which they do not cannot ken that are preterpluperfectly past their intelligence And this makes them go on in the way of Cain that murtherous one for there is worse murther of the tongue and Pen than any of the hand Dei Episcopos linguae gladio jugulastis fundentes sanguinem non corporis sed honoris Optatus contra Parmenianum l. 2. p. 72. and run on so rashly and precipitantly as if they would outrun their Coryphaeus Corah in that contradiction which shall be as if not more fatal to them without repentance in a deeper absorption than it was to him This is that which makes them to espouse so many mean and inferior apprehensions of those Dominions that are so very high 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 elevated above all on Earth Rom. 13.3 1 Pet. 2.12 the Dignities that are so sacred high as Heaven The Case is so plain that nothing can be more The main and as to most the only cause why the feculent part of Mankind amongst us do so much sleight and thwart the Sovereign Powers is their egregious and as to some stupendous ignorance if they would but be so ingenuous nay commonly honest as to acknowledge it 'T is chiefly if not only because they do not or which is infinitely more for their disparagement will not know what indeed and truth they are in themselves and ought to be in our repute When the Old Roman Antony as if the fatality of an awkard humour did attend that Name squibb'd at the Study of the Civil Law withal acknowledging his own no great accuracy in it the then Oracle of that and all Eloquence said That by the one he had made some satisfaction for the other 'T was Cicero as himself has told us De Orat. lib. 1. Well if such would learn at last before it be too late to make some though such Heaven knows is small reparation for those otherwise irreparable injuries they have done there where their ALL cannot make restitution No wonder in the least if a bright and piercing Ray affect a weak and waterish eye Urit enim fulgore suo as the Naturalist says Still in reference to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here and in St Peter And because these Dignities and Dominions bear such beams of brightness in themselves this makes them such motes as they are in the eyes of others those Birds of Night though scarce Athenian ones that can't endure the splendour of this Day The Rays of Majesty which is so Divine a thing in it self cannot but dazzle such ill-affected eyes as theirs and that makes it so troublesome to them and them to it as of late they have been And therefore what fair Masquerade soever men have now to put upon the foulest of facts the secret undermining and withal too open scandalizing of our Governours and Government both in Church and State which have been ever since the gracious Reformation so glorious in all the Christian World and begin now to be so amongst the remoter Infidels and Pagans doubtless the design of such infamous Persons is chiefly if not only this That amongst the blind Mobile they may seem to be something when really they are nothing but in their own too great and others as little estimate According to that Adage Inter caecos luscum A purblind Person though a Cypher in himself may make a considerable
Not these if they would speak out not these Dominions only that they so much strike at in all those unheard of and unparallel'd affronts they have lately met withal which Heaven and Earth may justly stand astonished at Jer. 2.11,12 and blush for them that will not cannot do it for themselves no they arrive higher yet in this their flight take up the gantlet against Heaven it self These these are the bold and daring off-spring that past a fiction too truly do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 bid battle against Heaven in the great sense of that greater word a word by it self when they are told to their teeth by one of their own Orators Act. 5.39 That they fight against God How highly is the Holy one of Heaven pleased to shew himself concern'd in this contrast He takes it wholly solely to himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the very word that we have here in the Text 1 Thes 4.8 He that despiseth despiseth not man but God it reflects all at last directly upon him They do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 spurn against heaven and him that hath his Throne situate there when thus they attaque Thrones and Dominions here as they will find in his own vindication of them So that well might the blest Ignatius thus say that whoever any ways attempts to extenuate the Sacred Order in Church as well as State he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one that directly does defiance unto Christ flies in his face in one word to answer his an Atheist Cap-a-pe Ignatius is much most upon this in all his Epistles that are accounted and proved by the incomparable Bishop of Chester to be genuine Which that none of them might ever be that holy and truly Apostolical person beseeches God it might never come within the compass of his hearing or their receiving such a black infection into their souls For prevention of which disease that Plaguy one as there he calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the factious and seditious are habitually so very much dispos'd to he gives them a Soveraign antidote and does 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he was their Taster as he tells them and they as they valued the health of their souls to pledge him in it He is very sedulous in such prescripts as are these cautions them to whom he writes Ad Tralliar not to offer by any means to contradict or any ways oppose the Authority that Heaven had set over them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for it is says he a dreadful thing to do it reaches very high as high as God himself as in that apt instance that there he gives of Moses in that ingrateful Peoples murmurings Exod. 16.7,8 which himself in his appeal to God says plainly were not against him and Aaron but against the Lord. And withal observes that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 none ever past without vengeance that rose up in resistance against their Superiours whether Moses in the Civil or Aaron in the Ecclesiastical State but came to some formidable end Nay farther still that none such either are or can be truly conscientious in themselves whatsoever their pretensions are to others 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but only such as have all formality and nothing of the Power and Energy of Godliness in them For then they would not dare to blaspheme the Gods and indeavour to render those Powers so impotent and insignificant which the hand of Omnipotency it self has industriously set up amongst them In pursuance of which he shews how they should ever have them in the greatest and most valuable estimation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. as having the express image and representation of the great Deity upon them as they govern us from him that governs all 1 Sam. 2.30 And applies that peculiar of Gods own to them Heb. 10.28,29 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He that honours them he will honour but who despiseth them shall be rendred as despicable himself Such God will not let pass always with impunity for if they that despised Moses Law died without mercy then says He in the Apostles words of how much sorer punishment shall they be thought worthy that despise Dominion now They that thus smear and bespatter Gods Anointed that do any thing in derision and disesteem to them whom he has taken so near to himself into his particular care and conduct they fall foul upon God himself as Shimei did in his accost to David 2 Sam. 16.5.7 who was the first the Scripture gives us notice of that ever did or durst attempt such a horrid and before unheard of villany as to affront a King though he did it but at a distance neither not directly to his face as to cast dirt upon the Robes of Royalty 2 Sam. 16.13 to bemire and vilifie nay to prophane that Person Power which in Gods own estimate ever was and still is no less at all than Sacred that he himself has stampt Divinity upon But now to see how docible some Creatures are the meanest and vilest Peasant can outdo him though in what he did he gave too clear an evidence that there was no fear of God at all before his eyes When he was so foolishly as well as wickedly extravagant Psal 14.1,2 For the same fool that says in his heart there is no King says also there is no God And they that will not allow us to honour the King would not leave us at last a King to honour And they that in honouring and obeying the King will not admit us to fear God would if they could not leave us a God to fear And yet withal to shew how dastardly the most daring and audacious Atheists are and such are those degenerate Hectors of our age who are valiant in nought but fighting against their God and King you find him Shimei I mean afterwards in another posture he comes submissively to wipe nay sneakingly to lick off that dirt again is not more hasty before in cursing 2 Sam. 19.18,19.20 than he is after that in caressing and complementing the King when the rising Sun was set praecocious Absolom under a sad and sable Cloud quickly up and as quickly down again no more to be admir'd to be ador'd And he whose proper sphere it was breaks out afresh after all Eclipses which the interposition of their malice had made to darken him more bright and glorious than ever The Race of true and real not affected Majesty that 's but a Stage or rather Puppet-play at best are pure and piercing dazzle the eyes of him and all such invidious ones as his Who in the most virulent of all their despight shall find at last they do but play at small game I once heard as great a reputed Atheist as he was Commonwealths man and they are usually Twins who durst not speak in the disparagement of his Majesties Person or Power 't was too early then not long after his Triumphant