person in the day of Battail but managed all his Wars with Abner Absolom and Sheba by the hand of Ioab Which gave him means and opportunity to provide for himself though all his Forces had been routed and their General taken But our great Master put himself into the head of his Army ventured his life for the Redemption of his people charged and recharged through the thickest of his enemies the first that came into the field and the last that left it and thereby gained the honour though he lost the victory of the day By what miraculous means he was preserved from death in that fatal Overthrow and with what Loyal secrecy conveyed from one place to another is not so clearly and distinctly known as the cause deserves therefore to be wished that it may publickly be declared by his Sacred Majesty that God might have the glory of his own great Mercies and all good men the honour of their brave fidelity In the mean time we may with piety believe that he was either carryed off by God on the wings of Angels so that none could reach him or else inveloped round about with a cloud of darkness so that none could see him Cernere ne quis eum ne quis contingere poss it as Virgil telleth us of Aeneas in the last condition 31. And then again the hand of God was far more visible in his Restitution For was it not a marvellous kindness that God was pleased to preserve a strong party for him which had not been infected with the errors and corruptions which then reigned amongst us that in a time of such a general defection from the rules of the Church so many thousands should be found of all sorts and sexes which had not bowed the knee to Baal nor to the golden Calves of Dan and Bethel nor the more guilded Calves that grazed and bleated upon these mountains of the Lord. And that far more should keep their hearts intire and loyal in those times of danger when they could find no means to signifie it by their tongues and hands And this not only was a kindness and a marvellous kindness but misericordia sua the Lords kindness also most properly to be called the work of God who did both bow their Hearts and advance their Hands and use them both for the facilitating of the Kings Reduction 32. In which conjuncture of affairs a little cloud ariseth from the Northern Sea after the heavens had been shut up for some years together Which though it were no bigger then a mans hand in the first appearance yet brought along with it such abundance of rain as did not only comfort and refresh the afflicted Land but forced our politick Ahabs and their followers too to take their Chariots and make haste away to some other place before the storm should overtake them And certainly this must needs be misericordia sua as well Gods mercy in it self as to be reckoned for a mavellous mercy in the eyes of men For neither the Party was so weak nor the Cause so desperate as to be broken by the coming of so small a power as rather seemed to be a Guard to their Generals person then of sufficient force to oppose that Army before which two great Kings were not able to stand And then it is to be observed that such as draw their Swords upon God's Anointed use commonly to throw away the scabbards also and find no way of doing better but by doing worse Nil medium inter summa praecipitia No middle way for them to walke in but either to bear up like Princes or to die like Traytors But it was otherwise in the case which we have before us God so prevailing on the hearts of the men of war that they became no less ready to receive their King then his own party to invite him And they which first ingaged in the War against him expulsed him hence and voted him uncapable of the Regal Dignity are now as zealous as the best to advance him to it Nay they contended eagerly with the rest of the Subjects as once the men of Israel did with the men of Iudah which of the two should shew most zeal for his Restitution and did not only send word to him that he should return both he and his servants with him but some of them passed over the Flood that they might bring him back unto his Countrey with the greater glory Et certant ipsi secum utrùm contumeliosius eum expulerint an honorabilius revocaverint as in the case of Alcibiades is observed by Iustin. 33. But possibly our Gideon with such a handful of men might not have been of power sufficient to effect the enterprise if our great City had not openly appeared in favour of it and thereby given encouragement to the rest of the Subjects whose hearts stood firm unto the King A treble City of three Towns together but all of them united in one common name as Ierusalem was and no less strong then that in regard on the multitude but stronger in respect of the power and riches of the people of it For here it was in this strong City the principal City of our Nation the abstract or Epitomie of all Britain In Britanniarum compendio as my Author cals it that the design was most advanced though not there contrived And here it was in this strong City that this great miracle of mercy did receive accomplishment by opening both their Gates and Hearts and Hands to receive their Soveraign Let them continue in that obedience to our Lord the King they shal wipe away the memory of their former Errors Nay our Posterity shall behold them with a cheerful gratitude as the restorers and preservers of our common happiness by giving good example to the rest of the Kingdom For certainly the practice of great Cities is exemplary not only in their Morals but their Politicks too According to the motion of the Primum mobile the lower Stars and Planets move in their several Spheres and think it no disgrace to be sometimes retrograde or in their motus trepidationis when the first Orbe begins to be irregular or seems to be left destitute of those Intelligences which are said to move it 34. And therefore it concerns great Towns and populous Cities upon whose actions all mens eyes are fixed and busied to be a pattern of good works of Loyalty and of due obedience to the rest of the people Faction and Opposition to Authority are two dangerous plagues more fatal and destructive to the greatest Empire than the Sword Pestilence or Famine Which if they get into a City or a Town of note Non ibi consistunt ubi caeperunt infect not there alone where they first brake out but as the nature of the Plague is observed to be from thence it springs into the Villages adjoyning and in the end to all the quarters of the Kingdom It cannot be denied but that
26. Et De quo loquitur Propheta vel populus fidelis And in this place may be asked in the Eunuch's words Of whom here speaks the Prophet either of himself or of some other Not of himself alone saith Cassianus an old Christian Writer but in behalf of all Gods children of his faithful servants The Books of Psalms is so composed saith Athanasius that every man may read his own Story in them and find therein his own particular concernments and that as punctually as if the purpose of the Psalm had been addressed and fitted only unto his occasions Let it be so and then Who may not find the quality of our late afflictions and our deliverance together in this present Psalm and read the state of our affairs in the Story of David and then draw down an easie and familiar parallel betwixt the Persons and the mercies and the places too A parallel right worthy of the pen of Plutarch if any such were found amongst us but such as seems to have been done in part already by laying before you David's troubles and his great deliverance And therefore passing by those things which apply themselves and those in which the Story of both Princes seems to make but one we will observe the method which is used by Plutarch in laying down the points in which they differ or those wherein one party seems to have preheminence above the other 27. First then It may be truly said of our English David as Commodus not without vain-glory did affirm of himself Quem Primum Sol Principem hominem vidit that he was born a Prince and that the Sun did never otherwise behold him then as Heir to a Kingdom Which cannot be affirmed of David nor of David's Ancestors though all of them might live in expectation of obtaining that Scepter which had been promised to that Tribe in the person of Iudah And as his Birth was higher so his Fall was lower and his afflictions so much greater and the more insupportable because he was more tenderly bred and less able to bear them Nay they were greater in themselves then the heavyest sorrows that ever fell upon David in the time of his troubles who kept himself most commonly unto those retreats which his own Countrey did afford him and when he was compelled to retire to Moab or to sojourn in the Realm of Gath neither Saul's malice nor his power did pursue him there But so it was not in the case of our Royal Exile Driven out of all the Forts and Cities of his own Dominions by the power of his Enemies and by their practises not suffered to remain in France nor to be entertained in Holland compelled to shift from one Imperial City to another from the Higher to the Lower Germany but pursued in all seldom nor never free from their trains and treacheries who would not think themselves secure but in his destruction Sic aquilam fugiunt trepidae Columbae Never was Patridge flown at with a swifter wing by a well-train'd Falcon nor game more hotly followed by the fiercest Hounds than this poor Prince was chased by those mighty Hunters those Nimrods those Robusti Venatores as the Scripture calls them who had the building of that Babel which they raised amongst us They had their cunning Lime-hounds to draw Dry-foot after him and plyed the chase with all the Kennil at his Heels when the Hunt was up not with a purpose to call off when they had breathed their Horses or tryed their Dogs but with a merciless retreat to hunt him down and then to wash their cruel and accursed hands in his precious bloud as is accustomed in the fall of a Buck of Stagg 28. And as the dangers which accompanyed our English David were more transcendent in respect of his Sacred Person so were they far more grievous to him in respect of his party whose tears he put into his bottles whose stripes he bare on his own body and whose calamities did more afflict his righteous Soul then his own misfortunes And if we look upon his Party with an equal eye we shall soon find them to have suffered more and far heavier pressures in his cause and quarrel then all the Hebrew Nations did for the sake of David We read indeed of 85. Priests slaughtered by the cruelty and command of Saul But we may read of more than twenty times that number of our Regular Clergy all the Bishops Deans and Dignitaries and almost all the Heads of Houses imprisoned plundered sequestred ejected their wives and children miserably turn'd out of doors some of them left for dead in the open streets And why all this but for adhering to his Majesty and his Fathers house and to the Laws and the Religion here established and for no crime else But then again we do not read of any man of quality in the Tribes of Israel condemned and executed or otherwise deprived of Lands and Liberties for his well wishing unto David Amongst us nothing was more common than the imprisoning of our choisest and most able Gentry selling the Goods confiscating the Lands and calling those in question for their very lives whose known fidelity was imputed to them for their only crime For now we had attained to that height of wretchedness that Loyalty must pass for Treason and Treason must be Unicum eorum crimen quivacabant crimine as in the worst and most deplorable condition of the Roman Empire And thereupon it was concluded in the School of Tyrannus that they who were so prodigal of their Money Arms and Victuals to another man especially to one marked out for ruine by their mighty Masters should have no bread to feed their Families or money to maintain themselves or other Arms but Prayers and Tears to save them from the violence of unjust Oppression even from Death it self 29. Besides it might be some alleviation unto David's followers to suffer by the hands of a lawful King a King set over them by God by the Lord himself whose Power they were not to resist whose Person was too Sacred and his Authority too transcendent to be called in question But it must be a torment unexpressible to a generous spirit to be trode underfoot by an Adoni-bezek to have their lives and Vineyards taken from them at the will of an Ahab to see the Bramble Reign as King over all the Trees our tallest Oakes felled down by a shrub of yesterday and all the goodly Cedars of the Church grubbed up to make room for a stinking Elder 30. In the next place as the calamities which fell upon our English David and his faithful followers were more in number and more grievous then all those which had been suffered by the other so was the kindness of the Lord more marvellous in his preservation the hand of God more visible in his Restitution And first the kindness was more marvellous in his Preservation because we do not find that David ever hazarded his own
all those Desarts had entertained the like design but were as happily prevented as the treacherous Keylites Nabal the churl whose flocks had been protected by him from all Thieves and Robbers refused to gratifie him with some part of that superfluity which was provided for his Sheerers And though his Brethren and some few of his next Relations had repaired unto him yet generally his friends and kindred look upon him as a man forlorn whom they could neither privately supply without manifest danger nor openly relieve without certain ruine 7. And yet he was not so deserted but that some companies resorted to him from all parts of the Realm either to mend their own condition or to sweeten his Not altogether men of such desperate fortunes as Nabal the old churl reported and perhaps believed Some of them questionless might be persons no less eminent both for place and quality as for their good affections to him though generally they were as the Scripture telleth us either is debt or discontent or some great distress that is to say such as were either discontented with the Tyranny of the present Government or were indebted to some cruel and unmerciful creditors from whom they could expect no favour and as little Justice or in a word were otherwise distressed upon some suspition that they were wedded to the Interest of the son of Iess The taking of these few Volunteers for a guard to his person is publiquely declared to be the Levying of a War against the King and all the Forces of the Realm must be forthwith armed to suppress those men who were not able to withstand the twelfth part of a Tribe This drives him once again to the Court of Akish where he found better entertainment then he did before because he came accompanyed with a Train of couragious followers from whom the Barbarous King assured himself of no mean assistance in his next Wars against his Neighbours without excepting those of the house of Israel 8. But now the Tide begins to turn and a strong floud of mercies of flow in upon him As there is no deep Valley but neer some high Mountain so neer unto this Vale of Misery was a Hill of Mercy and we shall see him climb the top of it without any great difficulty Akish beholds him as a person so depressed and injured by the power of Saul that no reconciliation could be made between them and thereupon bestows upon him the strong Town of Ziglag to serve for him and his adherents as a City of Refuge to which his party might resort upon all occasions And for his better welcome thither the news of Saul's uncomfortable but unpittied death is swiftly posted to him on the wing of Fame which opened the first passage to him for the Crown of Israel For now there dayly came unto him many men of note and merit whose names are on record in the Book of Chronicles affirmed there to be mighty men experienced in the use of Arms Captains of Hundreds and of Thousands and such as seemed to carry Victory in their very countenances And they came thither in such numbers as they made up a great Host like the Host of God as the Scripture calls it that is to say a puissant and mighty Army fit for the undertaking of the noblest actions By whose incouragement but chiefly at the instigation of the men of Iudah who had repaired to Ziglag amongst the rest he goes up to Hebron the Principal City of that Tribe having first taken Gods direction commission with him There he is cheerfully received and anointed King King only over Iudah his own native Tribe the rest of Israel still adhering to the house of Saul For Abner Captain of Saul's Host and one as neer to him in bloud as in place and power had gained so far upon the Military men that they agreed to set the Crown upon the head of Ishbosheth the eldest of Saul's Sons which survived his Father And this he did not on design to divide the Kingdom to break it into two and set up Scepter against Scepter as Ieroboam and on the death of Solomon but with a purpose to compel the men of Iudah by force of Arms to cast off David to unite themselves to the rest of Israel and all together to be subject to a Prince of the house of Saul A Prince indeed of no great parts affirmed to be a person of a dull and unactive spirit more given to ease and pleasures then to deeds of Arms magis extra vitia quam cum virtutibus in the words of Tacitus but fit enough to bear the Title of a King whilest Abner and the Souldiers managed all affairs as to them seems best 9. This brings new troubles upon David though they held not long A breach is made between the new King and that great Commander Who being impatient of rebuke and netled with some words which escaped his Master resolves upon delivering the whose Kingdom to the hands of David to which end he maintains a Treaty with him and concludes the business But before all things could be setled the Titulary King is murthered by the two sons of Rimmon both of them Captains in his Army both Natives of the Tribe of Benjamin his Fathers Tribe and possibly both of them of some kindred and relation to him This puts an end unto the war the west of Israel seconding the Tribe of Iudah and altogether calling upon David to accept the Government To which end they annoynt him the third time and own him by that Sacred Ceremony for their Soveraign Prince And such as Prince as must have somewhat in him of the Priest and the Prophet also For Rex est mixta persona cum Sacerdote as our Lawyers tels us and capable on that account of the Sacred Unction if some of our Masters of the Ceremonies have not been mistaken But so it was that those of Benjamin could not so easily forget their late pretentions to the Crown of Israel which they had held successively under two great Princes and therefore came not up to Hebron with the rest of the Tribes to confer the Kingdom upon David but to obtain it for themselves as Iosephus telleth us A secret not to be concealed from David a discerning Prince and one that was well studied in his own concernments Who therefore to cut off their hopes and prevent their practises resolves to get into his hands the strong City of Sion Which standing in a corner of the Tribe of Benjamin might serve for a sufficient bridle to hold them in if they should practise any thing against his quiet for the time to come And being afterward inlarged at the charge of David by taking in the City of Salim and building all from Millo inward as the Scripture telleth us he caused it to be called Hierusalem peopled it with such Families as he might confide in and made
we found it to be so in the first revolt but then it must be granted also that the Tide never turned in the lesser Rivers until the Thames had made a stand under London-Bridge The noise of which great miracle as it was no other made all the waters clap their hands and the floods rejoyce and even the Ocean to be proud of so rich a burthen as was committed to its trust by the heavenly Pilot. 35. For now the King prepares for his return to the Royal City not with an Army to besiege it to smite it with the edge of the sword and to root out the Iebusites which were planted in it as David did when he first brought Hierusalem under his command Not so but as a Prince of peace as the Son of David to bring the glad tidings of salvation to all his Subjects to put an end to all the miseries of his People and to restore them to that peace and happiness which they had forfeited by pride and wantonness by disobedience to his Person and distrust to his Promises and in a word by doing more then is to be repeated since it hath been pardoned And to this City came the Tribes to receive their King whether in greater numbers or with greedier eyes or with more joyful hearts it is hard to say Of which I shall speak little now because more anon This was the blessing of the day and this conducts me next to the duties of it which we shall take from David's Doctrine and example Benedictus Dominus Blessed be the Lord. 36. Et quemodo dicit Benedictus Dominus Num illi opus est benedictione nostra What means the Prophet saith St. Hierom by this form of speech Hath the Lord need of us that we should bless him No but we say with Vatablus that it is an Hebraism a garb of speech peculiar to the Hebrew Language the meaning this Dignus est omni laude Dominus The Lord is worthy to be praised His mighty Acts to be preserved in perpetual memory What David's practice was we need make no question or if we did we have sufficient evidence for it in the Book of Psalms Most of which were composed to no other purpose but to extol Gods name and set forth his prayses for all the blessings which he had bestowed upon him in his soul and body Among which last there was none more great more marvellous more fit to be ascribed to the Lord alone then the preserving of his Person the raising of him to his Throne and the establishing of that Throne in so strong a City And therefore Benedictus Dominus Let thanks be given unto the Lord saith our old Translation 37. But more particularly we may behold the thankfulness of David in his Works and Actions We may behold it in his Works if we consult that notable passage of Iosephus where it is said that David being delivered from his Wars and troubles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 indited Anthems Psams and Hymnes in the praise of God calling to minde those manifold and great occasions which might induce him to a pious and religious gratitude and more then so he procured many Instruments to be made for God's publick service Organs and Psalteries and Harps and taught the Levites how to praise Gods name upon them saith the same Iosephus not only on the Sabbath but the other Festivals For doing which he had no precept from above or any warrant that we read of but his own authority and that he thought it fit and decent 38. David no question knew as perfectly Gods nature and the true nature of his service as any other man whatsoever he was Yet thought he not that either of them was prophaned or made lesse edifying by the occasion of sweet Musick melodious Harmony Which made him call so often upon all his people not only to set forth Gods praises in their Songs and Hymns but to extol and celebrate his Name with Trumpets and loud sounding Cymbals with Psalteries and Harps Stringed instruments and Organs also and that not in their houses only but in the blessed Sanctuary as appears plainly in the last of the Book of Psal. And he appointed also that the singers and such as played upon the Musical instruments in the performance of this service should be cloathed in white or rather with a linnen vesture over the rest of their garments as it is said expresly in the 1 Chro. ch 15. From whence or from the linnen ephod which was worn by the Priests we have derived the Surplisse now in use amongst us and not from any garment used by the Priests of Isis as some of the preciser sort have most idely fancyed 39. But David was as excellent in paying his thankfulnesse to God in the acts of piety as praising him with songs and hymns and musical Instruments The Ark of God which had been taken by the Philist ms in the time of Eli and kept at Keriath-jearim all the Raign of Saul is now brought back and setled in Hierusalem by the care of David who gave not only order for the doing of it but saw it done and was himself a principal actor in that sacred Ceremony He thought it no way mis-becomming any earthly Majesty to look to all such matters as concerned Religion and appertained unto the service of the most high God Nor is there any thing which makes a King more esteemable in the eies of his subjects then to be active and industrious in the restoring of Gods worship to it's antient purity Ille diis proximus habetur per quem deorum majestas vindicatur are the words of an Heathen yet such as may become the most sober Christian. 40. Follow him yet a little further and we shall see him putting the whole service of God into a better frame and order then it had been formerly To which end he appointed to the priests their several tunes that every man might know the course of his ministration and so distributed and disposed them under several heads that all things might be acted by them without confusion Which Heads or Rulers or chief Captains as the gospel calls them being in number twenty fowr besides the High-priest and his Sagan or the second High-priest twenty six in all make up the just tale of our English Bishops And in regard the Tribe of Levi had remained so faithful to him and done and suffered so much for him in the time of his troubles he is resolved to make a retribution worthy of a Royal spirit Some of them therefore he sets over the treasures of the house of God that is to say such treasures as were dedicated and laied up in the Holy Temple or otherwise offered and designed for Religious uses Others he made officers and Iudges in the Tribes of Israel and that not only in all businesses of the Lord in all sacred matters but in the businesse of the King even in civill concernments as is expressed most plainly