And if the Fear of God be considered as it is a filial Reverence compounded with Love it will be much more powerful to move and excite Obedience to him Reverence willingly offers readily pays and chearfully performs what was forced and constrained by meer Fear If Awe and Affection be united in a devout Veneration of the God whom we serve his Service which before was a Yoak and a Burden then becomes perfect Freedom so pleasant and so natural to us that to refuse it will be an Extinguishing of our own Joys a Resisting oâ— our own Desires and a Violence to ourselves A man that highly reveres another is as much inclined to please him as he is to please himself and as unwilling to offend him as he is to wound his own Breast Obedience therefore is an Inseparable Effect of filial Fear or Reverence And that which is so is the most certainâ— Mark of the Truth and Reality oâ— our Religion We all profess Religion and the Fear of God we all pretend the highest Awe and Reverence to his divine Majesty But do we sincerely endeavour to serve and please him Are we guilty of no wilful disobedience no chosen and deliberate violations of his holy Laws If we indulge any of these the true Fear of God is not in us For it is fourthly to be noted That these are the Contraries and Opposites unto this Fear All wilful and presumptuous Sins are perfectly repugnant to it These are Affronts and Contempts bold and Impudent Practices which carry the Marks of great Irreverence clearly written upon their Brow When men deliberately chuse to do those things which they plainly see and know to be contrary to the Divine Laws this is a manifest Discovery that there is no Fear of God before their eyes Let us therefore prove the truth of our Religion by the sincerity of our Obedience particularly by our Obedience to those Commands of God which require us to be Loyal to our Prince That we may fully shew what an Awful Sense we have of the Majesty and Soveraignty of the most high God both in our Words and in our Actions let both our Words and Actions declare how much we revere his Power and Authority not onely in himself but in those also whom he hath set over us And so I come to the second part of Solomon's Advice wherein we are admonished unto the Fear of God to subjoyn the Fear of the King who is Gods Vicegerent Of which I shall discourse in the same Method as I have done of the former by considering its Nature Degrees Effects and Contraries First As for the Nature of the Fear which we owe unto the King 't is very much of the same nature with that Fear which is due to God himself onely 't is inferior and subordinate to it For Kings are honoured in holy Scripture with the adorable Name of God And the Laws of England looking upon the King as a God upon Earth do attribute unto him in some Analogy diverse Excellencies that belong properly to God alone such as are a kind of Omnipotency in raising men from Death to life by pardoning whom the Law hath condemned a certain Omnipresency by his numerous Officers who every where represent him and little less than an Infallibility and an absolute Perfection of Wisdom and Righteousness For our Law will have no Error no Injustice no Folly no Imperfection whatsoever to be found in the King The Fear therefore which we owe to our dread Soveraign even like that which we render to the divine Majesty is a most profound Reverence for an high Esteem of and a most humble and dutiful Affection unto his Sacred Person and Authority It is a filial Fear compounded of Dread and Love For the King is the Father of our Country by whose Providence and Protection we are supported and defended by whose vigilant Care and Conduct we quietly enjoy all that we possess Of this as St. Jerom hath observed even the Philistines were so sensible that it was a constant Custom among them to call all their Princes by the name of Abimelech which signifies both Father and King And it was the Promise of God to his Church that in the Times of the Gospel Kings should be her nursing Fathers and Queens her nursing Mothers Which great Blessing hath been and is most visibly enjoyed by us in this Nation as much as by any People under Heaven Since then by being born the Kings Subjects we have the Happiness to be his Children the very law of Nature doth oblige us to pay him all the Awfulness and Affection and Duty of Children If I be a Father saith God where is mine Honour If I be a Master where is my Fear Now the King next and immediately under God is the great and common Father the supreme Lord and Master of us all And therefore secondly The Degrees and Measures of Honour and Fear which are due to the King are the very highest and the greatest next unto those that are due to God himself The supreme Power and Authority under God being lodged in the sacred Person of the Soveraign Prince he may justly demand the supreme Honour Within his own Dominions he is only less and lower than God he is greater and higher than all Ranks and Orders of Men. Yea all the States of the Realm joyned together all the Nobles and Commons and the whole Body of the People have not a Power and Authority equal to his All his Subjects whether Publick Magistrates or private men not only severally and apart but joyntly and together are under his Command For otherwise he would not be the King of a Kingdom or a Political Society united under one Form of Government but only a King of single men separately taken and so he would be a strange kind of Chimerical and imaginary Prince a King of nothing but a Rope of sands In the first Epistle of St. Peter Chap. 2. ver 13 and 14. that great Apostle makes this plain Distinction between our Subjection to the King and to all other Magistrates whether taken collectively or distributively We are to submit to the King as Supreme to all others as his Officers and Delegates Sent and Commissioned by him all of them together as well as each of them apart having received all their Power and Authority from him and he having received his from God alone For the King is no Substitute of the People but the Minister of God and his Power is the Ordinance of God This is the Voice of Scripture and of Reason and this I may with the greatest Confidence because I can with the strongest Evidence affirm it being not only the unanimous Opinion of all the Wisest Politicians and Statesmen in the World but also the Catholick Doctrine of the Christian Church for many hundreds of years together that a Monarch or Soveraign in his own Dominions hath no Superior but God Almighty And indeed it would be
THREE SERMONS Preached at the CATHEDRAL IN NORWICH And a Fourth at a Parochial Church in Norfolk Humbly Recommending I. True Reformation of our Selves II. Pious Reverence towards God and the King III. Just Abhorrence of Usurping Republicans And IV. Due Affection to the Monarchy By John Graile Rector of Blickling in Norfolk LONDON Printed for W. Kettilby at the Bishops Head in St. Paul's Church-yard 1685. To the Most High Puissant and Noble Prince HENRY Duke of Norfolk Earl Marshal of England Earl of Arundel Surry Norfolk and Norwich Lord Howard Mowbray Segrave Brews of Gower Fitz-Alan Warren Clun Oswaldestre Matravers Scales Graystock Furnedal of Sheffeild and Howard of Castle-Rising Constable and Governour of His Majesties Royal Castle and Honour of Windsor Lord Warden of the Forrest of Windsor Lord Lieutenant of Norfolk Surry and Berks and of the City and County of the City of Norwich c. May it please Your Grace AS there is a small Annual Rent payable to one of your Norfolk Mannors from that little Spot of ground which I possess so there is a great and perpetual Tribute of Honour due to your Grace from the Possessor of it And as the holding that Land gives me the Priviledge to be one of the Tenants of a most Just and Generous Lord so the Tenure of my Reason while I shall be Master of any will make it my Duty to be one of the most Humble most Awful and most Obsequious Admirers of such a truly Noble and Puissant Prince as Personal Virtue would have made your Grace if Glory of Ancestors had not This I have been ambitious publickly to acknowledge and I kneel to your Clemency for a Pardon of the bold Product of that Ambition the almost unpardonable Confidence of a Dedicatory Address from so mean to so great a Person and the presuming to offer such imperfect Discourses as these Sermons to your most piercing and discerning Judgment But whatever Defects they may labour under they were Preached with an Honest Design of doing God and the King the most seasonable Service I could in these Licentious and Seditious Times And they are now Published with an encouraging Hope as well as with an humble Desire of receiving the best Advantage they are capable of towards the promoting their well chosen Design if they may be sheltered under the auspicious and favourable Protection of such an Illustrious Patron of Pious Loyalty as the First and Highest Duke in England next to those of the Blood Royal manifesty is I had almost said necessarily must be Your Grace well knoweth that Loyalty is a considerable Part of Christian Religion and that it is no where more strenuously asserted than in the Church of England a Church signally Eminent as upon all other Accounts so particularly for requiring of all her Members the most faithful Allegiance and Subjection to their Lawful Soveraign his Heirs and Successors Hence it was that although the present Age hath afforded but few Proselytes from the Church of Rome to us and too many from us to them neither the Corruption of the Times nor the prejudices of Education nor the powerful Influence of the Neerest and Noblest Relations nor any of those tempting Considerations which bear so great a sway with other Men could keep Your Grace from the Communion of our Church a thing very memorable and worthy to be known by all Posterity both to our Churches eternal Honour and to Your Graces immortal Renown My Lord The very Height of your Dignity inferior only to Sacred Majesty and Royal Highness doth hardly equal the transcendent Height of your Great and Noble Spirit which makes it a Province worthy of an Angel to give a just Character of Your Grace and forbids my weak Pen to attempt it lest I should affront Your Heroick Virtue with a dissonant and deformed Panegyrick But yet as an Echo of publick Fame I shall adventure to repeat what with an unanimous Voice is generally said of Your Grace That none ever more deservedly enjoyed the Favour of his Prince or the love of his Country And long may your Grace live to enjoy more and more of both until you be at last translated from this great Happiness to a far Greater So prays My Lord Your Graces most humbly devoted Servant John Graile An Advertisement THE Author of these Sermons being induced to publish the three former by the Desires and Approbation of some considerable Persons who heard them preached hath chosen himself to add the fourth in which he hath endeavoured to finish what he began in the third He knows they are sent forth into a Learned and Critical and which is more discouraging into a Contentious and Censorious World But he is willing to sacrifice his Name and Reputation and whatever he accounts dear or pretious to the Cause of God and the King and to the Interests of Peace and Truth and Justice He is content to pass thorow evil Report or good Report if by the Divine Favour and Blessing these plain Discourses may be any way beneficial even to the meanest Readers by convincing them whom they are to Reform and whom they are to Obey and how impossible it is to be good Christians if they be not good Subjects that being preserved from the pernicious contagion of Seditious Principles and having a due sense of and a grateful Affection unto the most Ancient and Excellent Constitution of Government which God hath placed over us they may lead under it a quiet and peaceable life in all Godliness and Honesty THE CONTENTS SERMON I. OF true Repentance and Reformation of our Selves our universal Obligation to it the Divine Assistance we may expect therein and the present necessity of it not admitting any delays Preached Jan. 13. 16 77 78. On Jer. 35. 15 Return ye now every man from his evil way and amend your doings SERMON II. Of the Duties of Revering and Honouring God and the King and the danger of Associating with Seditious Innovators Preached Feb. 4. 16 82 83. On Prov. 24. 21 22. My Son fear thou the Lord and the King and meddle not with them that are given to change For their Calamity shall rise suddenly and who knoweth the ruine of them both SERMON III. Of the Inconvenience of Polyarchy and Popular Soveraignty the Plagues and Mischiefs of Vsurpations and the true cause from whence they spring Preached Jan. 30. 16 83 84. On Prov. 28. the former part of the 2 Verse For the Transgression of a Land many are the Princes thereof but by a man c. SERMON IV. Of the Excellency of Monarchy and the great Blessing of a Wise Monarch Preached May 29. 1684. On Prov. 28. the latter part of 2. Verse But by a man of understanding and knowledge the State thereof shall be prolonged TRUE REFORMATION OF Our Selves SERMON I Preached Jan. 13. 16 77 78. Jer. XXXV 15. Return ye now every man from his evil way and amend your doings THIS Admonition how plainly soever it may sound
asserting the Rights and Liberties of the People in Opposition to the arbitrary Government of Moses whom they accused of Tyranny as Josephus expresly saith agreeably to what the Scripture it self doth imply and the freeing themselves from the Incroachments upon their spiritual Priviledges by the Usurpations of Aaron and the Priesthood Which specious Designs drew into the Conspiracy a great Number of Considerable Persons even two hundred and fifty Princes of the Assembly famous in the Congregation Men of Renown But notwithstanding their Popular Pretences which were for substance the very same that gave the first Rise and Birth to our late Confusions and although they acted under some shew of Authority when such an Assembly of Princes and Great Men joyned with them as our Rebels also endeavoured to justifie their Proceedings by the pretended Power of a Parliament although I say they had such fair Colours for what they did and such Eminent Men on their side they were made to suffer the just desert of their Sin Both Earth and Heaven conspired to punish them and their Destruction was no less terrible than sudden They had disturbed the Earth by their Faction and the Earth as it were moved with Indignation against them rent asunder and opened its Mouth to swallow those in its Bowels who were unworthy to live upon the Face of it When they had been dividing the People the very Ground divides it self under their feet and breaks into a Chasm in the Place where they stood that they might go down quick into the Pit of Destruction Death and the Grave both seizing them at once And those two hundred and fifty of the Seditious Incendiaries that offered Incense were as swiftly consumed by Fire from Heaven So suitable were their Punishments both to the Nature and the Degree of their Crimes And when the Israelites instead of learning their Duty by these dreadful Spectacles took upon them the next Day in another Insurrection to justifie the Plea of Corah to own those Rebels as the People of the Lord and to charge Moses and Aaron as being guilty of their Blood the Wrath of God went out against them and consumed them as in a moment with such a quick dispatch that although Aaron with all possible Haste made an Atonement for them there were destroyed by the Plague no less than Fourteen thousand and seven hundred But to come to the Instance nearer home What I pray were the Effects of the late Rebellion in our Native Land Was it not in the Event most pernicious and destructive to the Rebels themselves at least to the Chiefest of them Did not their Calamity arise suddenly so suddenly that themselves scarce sore-saw it Those malignant Comets having blazed a little while quickly expired in Stench Their Rise was sudden and their Fall too Their restless Ambition made them violently introduce a Change of Government but what a Change did themselves meet with when they were thrown down from the Top of all their vain False Glory to be the Hatred and the Hissing of the People They had divided the Kingdom and embroiled it in a Destructive War God therefore divided them among themselves and made them their own Scourges like an Army of Philistines still beating and threshing down one another until the Restauration of his sacred Majesty when the Hand of God was illustriously visible both in bringing him to the Throne of his Father and the principal Rebels and Murderers to Publick Justice Some indeed there were who had no small share in the Guilt and yet escaped the Punishment But they may thank their most Gracious and Merciful Prince whose matchless Clemency hath been greater than the greatest of their Bloody Villanies And after such a Pardon of such Guilt if any Subjects of this Crown have a mind to rebel again let them take heed lest they sin beyond all Possibility of Forgiveness and barr themselves eternally not only from the Mercies of the King but also from the Mercies of God Almighty As for our selves if we suspect or perceive any Factious Men to have designs against the Government let not our Souls come into their Secret Let us not meddle in the least with such Sons of Corah except it be by all lawful means to detect oppose and suppress them Let us no way joyn with them in their Cursed Attempts and Machinations unless we desire to fall with them in their Ruine and Calamity But as it was Prophesied by Hosea of the Children of Israel That after their Captivity they should return and seek the Lord their God and David their King still David their King although it was then some hundreds of years after David's Reign because the Succession was still in the Family of David so God grant that we and our Posterity may fear and honour and obey the Lord our God and our David our most Gracious Soveraign and all his Lawful Successors without any change of our excellently established Religion or our happy Constitution of Government to the End of the World JUST ABHORRENCE OF USURPING REPUBLICANS SERMON III. Preached Jan. 30. 16 83 84. Prov. XXVIII 2. For the transgression of a Land many are the Princes thereof But by a man of understanding and knowledge the State thereof shall be prolonged IF the great Blessings and Calamities of a Nation be not thrown into it at all adventure by the uncertain cast of blind Contingency nor irresistibly thrust upon it by the over-bearing force of inevitable Fate if they proceed not from the confused and forâ—uitous Concourse of various Smooth-shap'd or Ill-figured Atoms nor from the predominant Influences of auspicious or malignant Stars or Planets but are both of them the certain Effects of an intelligent and voluntary Providential Administration a Divine Power Wisdom and Justice ruling in the Kingdoms of Men if the one be the benigne Favours of Almighty God the liberal Emanations of his Immense Goodness wherewith he rewards and encourages Piety and Virtue if the other be his penal Srokes the awakening Thunder-bolts of that Righteous Indignation which Mens Sins have provoked from hence it wil follow that we have most just and real occasions for Solemn Days of publick Thansgiving for the one and Humiliations under the other which sort of Days tho' sometimes illegally consecrated by Factious Powers and hypocritically celebrated with Mock-devotions to sanctifie Treason and Rebellion ought to be so much the more sincerely so much the more religiously observed by us when our lawful Superiors have advisedly appointed them And from hence it will particularly follow that we have still great reason with Weeping Fasting and Prayer thus annually to commemorate the Fatal Period of Time in which our multiplyed Sins and over-flowing Transgressions after they had deprived us of all the Blessings with which a just and peaceful Monarchy could make us happy and introduced the plentiful Calamities of a Civil War together with the numerous Plagues of many Princes many Tyrannical Usurpers of Royal Authority swell'd