us in the face and mediation of Jesus Christ In our selves we are vile and unlovely but in the beholding of him alone there is aboundant to make us amiable in thine eyes Aboundant in the purity of his incarnation aboundant in his death and passion aboundant in his victorious resurrection and ascention Through these we intreat thee to look upon us through the veil of our nature which he took through the merits of that precious bloud which he shed through the sweet odor of the satisfaction of obedience which he performed through the attonement which he purchased the reconciliation which he wrought and the intercession which he makes at thy right hand And having thus looked upon him look upon us give us grace to look upon our selves to examine our own wayes to try and to search our own hearts to leave no sin unrepented of open our eyes that we may see them open our hearts that we may mourn for them strengthen our endeavours to strive against them Make us truely to consider with our selves and to understand what we have done what adventurous courses we have taken how holy a name it is we have profaned how righteous a law that we have broken how happy a state that we have lost how blessed a recovery that we have neglected how good a spirit that we have grieved how righteous a father that we have provoked And by these considerations weary us and shame us out of our sins into the true trade of piety and love of thy holy name that loving thee we may seek thee and seeking thee find thee and in finding thee hold thee and in holding thee we may apply our selves to walk in those wayes that are approvable in thy sight For the time past of our lives it may suffice for it is enough O Lord it is enough and too too much that we have spent the prime of our years and the first fruits of our time in the vanities of this world and the lusts of the flesh hitherto O give us grace so to order our steps that we may consecrate whatsoever of our future age remains wholly unto thy service hereafter that we growing on forward from grace to grace from virtue to virtue from one degree of righteousnesse to another in the end of our dayes we may enjoy likewise the end of our hopes the salvation of our sinfull souls in Jesus Christ In whose name we are bold to continue these our weak prayers unto thee not onely for our selves but for the estate of thy holy Catholick Church wheresoever dispersed over the face of the whole earth that thine eyes may be alwayes open towards thine inheritance to enlarge her borders to water her growth to gather her dispersions together to make up her breaches to fulfill her moneths of travell to establish her station that howsoever the winds blow and the rain fall and the flouds lift up their voice the house which is built upon thy self may stand and the gates of hell may not prevail against it In this universalitie we humbly beseech thee to pour down thy blessings upon that part of thy fold in this land O let the light of thy countenance still shine upon us in the pardoning our many backslidings in the continuing our peace and plenty and all other benefits we do enjoy by thy Gospel that as thou hast fixed more eminent tokens of thy love among us then among other nations so thou wouldest give us grace also to bring forth fruit proportionable to so plentifull means even worthy amendment of life that thou mayest continue to be unto us a good and a gracious God and we may continue to be also unto thee a chosen Generation a royall priesthood a holy nation a peculiar people even thine own pleasant plant Blesse all estates and conditions herein from the highest to the lowest and more particularly we intreat thee for our gracious sovereign Lord the King's Majesty Charles by thy grace King of Great Britain France and Ireland Defender of the true ancient Catholick and Apostolick faith and over all persons and in all Causes as well Ecclesiasticall as Temporall within these his Majesties Realms and Dominions next and immediately under Christ supream Lord Governour Bless him in his Royall Person establish his Throne in Righteousnesse unto himself set him as a seal upon thy heart and as a signet upon thine arme that as thou hast made him unto us precious as the light of our eyes so let him be tender unto thee as the apple of thine that he may prove an incomparable instrument of thy glory here and a vessel of glory hereafter Blesse him as in his Royall Person so in the comfort of his beloved Consort the fruitfull Vine the most excellent Lady our Gracious Queen Mary and in the hopefull growth of his Royall Posterity the precious Pledges of thy love unto this Land the Noble Prince Charles the Duke of York and the Lady Mary And in the happy reestablishment of those other illustrious Branches of the same Royall Stock beyond the seas the most renounced Lady the Lady Elizabeth and her Princely Issue For the better effecting whereof be pleased to be assistant to all their allies and confederates to prosper their designes to fight their battels to go in and out before their armies to crown thy servants with new victories that yet at length thy poor distressed people may returne with joy to their ancient habitations that peace may be planted upon earth for the further propagating of thy Gospel the advancement of thy truth and the consummation of thy Kingdome Be pleased likewise to be gracious to all the people of this land from the Cedar of Lebanon to the Hysop upon the wall let thy severall graces distill down upon their heads for the discharge of those particular places wherin thou hast set them The spirit of knowledge and piety upon the head of Aaron the Prelacy of the Church the most reverend Arch-bishops and Bishops and from thence to the skirts of his cloathing the inferiour ministers The spirit of wisdome and understanding upon the Lords of His Majesties most Honourable Privy Councell and all the true hearted Nobility The spirit of Justice and integrity upon the Judges and Magistrates of this land The spirit of increase and fructification upon all Schools of learning especially upon those two famous Universities Cambridge and Oxford and in Cambridge upon the good estate of S. Johns Colledge The spirit of obedience and fear of the Lord upon all the commonalty in particular upon the condition of this great and populous City The spirit of patience and consolation upon all thy poor afflicted members especially those commended to thee in our prayers at this time be pleased to compasse them about with thy blessings to establish thy mercies to replenish them with the graces of thy holy spirit to make the light of thy countenance to shine in their hearts to fill them full of heavenly comfort to support
them in all their conflicts to supply them with all those graces needfull to their sick and weak estate Mitigate their pains asswage their grievances make those bones which thou hast broken to rejoyce Work in them true remorse of conscience for their sinnes and seal unto them the pardon of them in Jesus Christ that from thence may arise that peace of conscience and that joy in the Holy Ghost which is so unspeakable and glorious If it be thy blessed will thou canst restore them to their former health that they may praise thy name among much people if otherwise thou hast disposed of any of them prepare and preserve them to thy heavenly Kingdome that they may have a peaceable passage out of these earthly tabernacles into those heavenly mansions which thou hast prepared for those that love thy appearing And give us grace all of us that are here present before thee this day to be warned by the many examples of our mortality that thou dayly settest before our eyes to prepare for the day of ourvisitation whensoever thou shalt send it sooner or later that we may have oyl in our lamps and our lamps always burning and the door of our hearts alwayes open to let thee the King of glory in whensoever thou shalt knock Last of all let thine illuminating and sanctifying spirit descend down upon all congregations assembled as this day in thy fear in particular upon this congregation here present that thy word that is to be sowen among them by me thy unworthy seruant though in great weaknesse by thine enabling Grace may prove thy strong arme of power to salvation to the enlightening of their understandings the sanctifying of their affections the amendment of their lives the comfort of their souls in this world and the salvation of them in the day of the Lord. Annoint our eyes with the blessed eye salve of thy Holy Spirit that the scales and mists of ignorance being removed we may clearly see the wonders of thy law prepare our hearts for the receiving of it set an edge upon our affections that we may hunger and thirst after this heavenly Manna and be alwayes gathering some an Omer some an Ephah every one some and that for his sake who is the Manna that came down from Heaven the eternal Word with thee from the beginning thy Christ our Jesus in whose holy Name we pray unto thee further as he himself hath taught us saying Our Father c. FINIS PSALME 144.15 Happy is that people that is in such a case yea happy is that people whose God is the LORD THe Genius of this Scripture as it is very gracefull and pleasing in it self so it is also very suitable to the respects of this day on which we are met together It presents unto us what we all partake of if we be so well disposed as to see it Felicitie or Happinesse And if a single happinesse be too little behold it is conveyed in two streams the silver stream and the golden It is reached forth as it were in both the hands of Providence There is the happinesse of the left hand which is Civill in the first clause of the words and the happinesse of the right which is Divine and Religious in the second Answerable to these are the two welcome aspects of this day the Civill aspect or reference which ariseth from the annuall revolution as it is Dies Principis a day of solemnitie for the honour of the King and the Religious aspect from the weekly revolution as it is Dies Dominica a day of devotion for the worship of God In these there is so evident a correspondence that I cannot but congratulate both the day to the text and the text to the day in regard of their mutuall complications For we have on the one side both clauses of the text in the day and on the other both references of the day in the text Happinesse is the language of all and that which addes to the contentment it is Happinesse with an Echo or ingemination Happy and Happy From this ingemination arise the parts of the text the same which are the parts both of the greater world and the lesse As the heaven and earth in the one and the body and the soul in the other so are the passages of this Scripture in the two veins of Happinesse We may range them as Isaac doth the two parts of his blessing Gen. 27. The vein of civill happinesse Gen. 27.28 in the fatnesse of the earth and the vein of Divine happinesse in the dew of heaven Or if you will have it out of the Gospel here 's Marthaes portion in the many things of the body Luke 10.41 42. and Maries better part in the Vnum necessarium of the soul To give it yet more concisely here 's the path of Prosperity in Outward comforts Happy is the people that is in such a case and the path of Piety in comforts Spirituall Yea happy is that people which have the LORD for their God In the handling of the first without any further subdivision I will onely shew what it is the Psalmist treats of and that shall be by way of Gradation in these three particulars It is De FELICITATE De Felicitate POPULI De HAC felicitate populi Of happinesse Of the peoples happinesse Of the peoples happinesse as in such a case Happinesse is the generall and the first a noble argument and worthy of an inspired pen especially the Psalmists Of all other there can be none better to speak of popular happinesse then such a King nor of celestiall then such a Prophet Yet I mean not to discourse of it in the full latitude but only as it hath a peculiar positure in this Psalme very various and different from the order of other psalmes In this Psalme it is reserved to the end as the close of the foregoing meditations In other Psalmes it is set in the front or first place of all as in the 32 in the 112 in the 119 and in the 128. Again in this the Psalmist ends with our blessednesse and begins with God's BLESSED BE THE LORD MY STRENGTH In the 41 Psalme contrary he makes his exordium from mans BLESSED IS HE THAT CONSIDERETH THE POOR his conclusion with God's BLESSED BE THE LORD GOD OF ISRAEL I therefore observe these variations because they are helpfull to the understanding both of the essence and splendour of true happinesse To the knowledge of the essence they help because they demonstrate how our own happinesse is enfolded in the glory of God and subordinate unto it As we cannot begin with Beatus unlesse we end with Benedictus so we must begin with Benedictus that we may end with Beatus The reason is this Because the glory of God it is as well the consummation as the introduction to a Christians happinesse Therefore as in the other Psalm he begins below and ends upwards so in this having begun from above with that which
Councell even the second time to prepare with all speed such Acts as shall be for the establishment of their priviledges the free and quiet enjoying their estates and fortunes the liberties of their persons the securitie of the true Religion now professed in the Church of England What now shall we say to these things Is not that of Solomon made good unto us Prov. 16.10 A Divine sentence is in the lips of the King Have we not good cause to take up Ezra's benediction Ezr. 7.27 Blessed be the Lord which hath put such things as these into the Kings heart Such things as these we were not so ambitious as to hope for I trust we shall not be so unworthy as to forget For my self I could wish that according to the dutie of this day I could set them forth as they deserve But they need no varnish of Oratorie neither was it my intendment to use them further then for the proof of the proposition in hand to shew you how this highest excellency of Princes in the care of their peoples happinesse is radiant in our Gracious Sovereign Yet you may remember also that I told you The point needs not so much proofs as retributions It cals aloud upon us for all dutifull returns of honour love obedience loyalty and thankfull acknowledgements into that Royall bosome the first mover and originall under God of our happinesse In the sphere of Nature there is none of us ignorant how willing the members are to make return to the head for the government and influence they receive from thence they will undergo hardship expose themselves to danger recede from things convenient nay necessary they will not grudge at any plentie or honour which is bestowed upon the head knowing by instinct that from the head the benefit of all redounds to them It is likewise obvious in the Regiment of families which are as States epitomized that both honour and dutie belong to the Paterfamiliâs not onely for the right he hath in the house but for the provision and support and comfort which all receive from him Now Kings by way of excellencie are Fathers who look upon all their subjects as so many children and with that noble Emperour account equally as daughters Rempublicam Juliam The very Heathen which saw onely the outside or Civill part reputed them as Fathers but the Prophet Isaiah when he speaks of the Church goes further and calls them Nursing Fathers Isai 49.23 a word which in propriety of speech might seem incoagruous because they have no more of the nurse then the bosome nothing at all of the breasts if what is wanting in the sex were not supplied by their tendernesse Benignitie and clemency and sweetnesse of disposition and facilitie of accesse and compassion toward the distressed these are their breasts more breasts then two the same both their breasts and their bowels which day by day they open to thousands severally and to all at once for the suckling and fostering of the publick Therefore it behoves us to think of returns By this word Christ read us the lesson Matth. 22.21 Render or Return unto Cesar the things which are Cesars or the things which are from Cesar The protection of lives and fortunes and worldly comforts let him have these back again in the honour love fear obedience supplies which belong to the Sovereigne Head and Parent of a beloved people that his throne may be established by your loyalty his reign still prosperous by your prayers blessings his life lenghthened by years taken forth of your own that so he may long rejoyce to say with David Happy are the people So I have done with the second step of the Gradation the speciall part of the argument here handled It is De felicitate Populi The third is yet more speciall It is not onely De felicitate Populi but De felicitate Populari that is De Hac felicitate Populi or De hoc Genere felicitatis Beatus cui SIC Happy they who are in SUCH A CASE or CONDITION What that condition is you may see in the former words in which there are severall blessings mentioned and all of them temporall Plenty is one in those words That our garners may be filled with all manner of store our oxen strong to labour our sheep bring forth thousands Peace is another in these words That there be no leading into captivitie no complaining in our streets Multitude of people especially such as are vertuous a third in those That our sonnes may grow up as the young plants our daughters may be as the polished corners of the temple The safetie and prosperitie of David their King a fourth or rather a first for it is first mentioned He giveth salvation or victorie to Kings and delivereth David his servant from the peril of the sword Of all these civill threeds the Psalmist twists this wreath of Happinesse Happy they who are in such a case Now hence ariseth the scruple Why David a man of so heavenly a temper and of so good a judgement in things which concern salvation that he is said to be A man after Gods own heart 1 Sam. 13.14 should place felicitie in these temporalls Devout S. Paul who of all others came nearest to Davids spirit had these outward things in no better esteem then as drosse Phil. 3.8 or dung and our blessed Saviour in his first Sermon Matth. 5. thought good to begin the chain of happinesse from povertie and to second it from hunger and to continue it from suffering persecution Non dixit BEATI DIVITES sed BEATI PAUPERES as S. Ambrose observeth In this I say is the scruple That Christ should begin blessednesse from povertie and David place it in abundance that things earthly should be as drosse to Paul and as happinesse to David This scruple wrought so farre with some Interpreters that they conceived it to be a defective or imperfect sentence and that the Psalmist uttered it in the person of a worldly man like that of Solomon Eccles 2.24 There is nothing better for a man then to eat and drink c. Therefore to take off the suspicion of a paradox they interpose Dixerunt BEATUM dixerunt POPULUM CUI HAEC SUNT Men usually say HAPPY ARE THE PEOPLE IN SUCH A CASE But we need not flee to this refuge It is neither a defective nor a paradox but a full and true proposition agreeable both to the tenour of other Scriptures and also to the analogie of faith For first the Psalmist speaks not here as in other places of the happinesse of a man but of the happinesse of a people it is not Beatus homo but Beatus populus In some other places where he treats of the happinesse of a man he circumscribes it alwayes with things spirituall a Psal 32.2 Blessed is the man unto whom the LORD imputeth no sinne and in whose spirit there is no guile b Psal 1 12.1 Blessed is the man
that feareth the LORD c Psal 40.4 Blessed is that man that maketh the Lord his trust and the d Psal 65.4 84.5 128.1 like Here otherwise seeing he speaks of the happinesse of a people he might use more libertie to take in these outwardaccomplishments as having a nearer relation to the happinesse of a Nation or Kingdome then abstractively of a Christian Howsoever Aristotle affirms in the 7th of his Politicks that there is the same happinesse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of a single man and of awhole citie Yet there is a great deal of difference which he being not instructed in Christianity could not observe Look as on the one side the being of a State or Nation as a collective bodie is not so ordered to immortalitie nor by consequence to happinesse as the being of a man so on the other the concurrence of temporall good things is in no wise so essentiall or requisite to the happinesse of a man as to the being and well-being and so to the happinesse of a State or people Experience tells us that a man may be happy without children a State cannot be so without people a private man may keep his hold of happinesse though poore and afflicted in the world a State is onely then happy when 't is flourishing and prosperous abounding with peace plentie people and other civill accessions Men are the walls for strength women the nurseries for encrease children the pledges of perpetuity money as the vitall breath peace as the naturall heat plentie as the radicall moisture religious and just government as the form or soul of a bodie politick Upon this ground the Psalmist well knowing how conducing these outward things are to popular happinesse he casts them all into the definition his present argument being the happinesse of a people In the second place admit he had spake here of the happinesse of a man or a Christian yet he mentions not these temporalls either as the all or the onely or the chief of happinesse but as the concomitants and accessories They have not an essentiall influx or ingredience into it but a secondarie and accidentall respect they have in these two considerations First they are ornamenta as garnishings which give a glosse and lustre to virtue and make it more splendid The Moralists say well that they are as shadows to a picture or garments to a comely personage Now as in these the shadowing makes not the colour of a picture truly better but onely seem better and appear more fresh and orient and as garments do indeed adorn the body now in the state of corruption whereas if man had stood in his integritie they had been uselesse for ornament as well as for necessity So likewise these outward things although in themselves they have nothing of true happinesse yet because they render it more beauteous and gracefull as the state of vertue now stands in respect of our converse with men we may well reckon them without prejudice to vertue inter ornamenta Then secondly they are adminicula also helps and adjuments as hand-maids to pietie without which vertue is impotent Were a man all soul vertue alone were sufficient it is enough by it self for the happinesse of the mind but being partly bodie and enjoying corporall societie with others he stands in need of things corporall to keep vertue in exercise Want clippes the wings of vertue that a man cannot feed the hungry or cloth the naked or enlarge himself to the good of others on the other side this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Philosophers term it sets vertue at libertie and gives it scope to be operative As fire the more aire fewell you give it the more it diffuseth it self so the more health peace plentie friends or authoritie we have the more power freedome and advantage we have to do vertuously Put now all these together the reason is evident vvhy the Prophet David here placeth this happinesse in the things vvhich are vvorse because they are serviceable to the things vvhich are better Hovvsoever he reserves the mention of the better till aftervvard Yet he vvould give us to understand that even these inferiour things are the good blenssigs of God and such blessings as being put together make up one part of the happinesse of a people It is true of popular happinesse as well as personall It is not one single good but the aggregation or affluence of many In the twenty eighth of Deuteronomie where Moses describes the blessednesse promised to the Israelites he reckons up all sorts of outward blessings and agreeable to those is the conflux of these in this Psalme The blessing of the house and of the citie That there be no leading into captivitie and no complaining in the streets The blessings of the basket and of the store That the garners may be filled with plentie The blessings of the fruit of the bodie That the children may be as young plants The blessings of the field That the sheep may bring forth thousands and the oxen be strong to labour The blessings of going ou◠and coming in That they may be delivered from the hand of strange children and saved out of great waters Here is briefly the compound of the many simples which make up this case or condition of a peoples happinesse And surely if by these particulars it be defined we may boldly say The condition is our own and men may pronounce of us as truly as of any Nation that we have been for a long time a happy people Our deliverances from strange children have been great and miraculous and our land it hath been a Goshen a lightsome land whereas the darknesse of discomfort hath rested upon other Nations The blessings of the citie and field of the basket and of the store have grown upon us in such abundance that many men have surfetted of plentie Our land hath been as an Eden and garden of the Lord for fruitfulnesse as a Salem for peace whereas other kingdomes do yet grone under the pressures of sword and famine Besides these if there be any blessing which the Scripture mentions in other places Peace in the walls Plentie in the palaces Traffick in the ports or Salvation in the gates if any part of happinesse which it speaks of in this Psalme for plantings or buildings or reapings or storings or peoplings we have had them all in as much fulnesse as any part of the world and in more then most onely there is one particular may be questioned or rather can not be denied That amidst the very throng of all these blessings there are some murmurings and complainings in our streets But it need not seem strange to us because it is not new in the world In the stories of all ages we meet with it That men used to complain of their times to be evil when indeed themselves made them so I may be bold to say There was cause in respect of sinne then as well