censured by Aristotle as Tyrannical and not to be endured in a Free-born Nation It has also been the almost constant practice of our noble Progenitors to assert their Rights and account with their Kings for subverting the Legislature and were never Condemn'd by any but the Asserters of a Compleat Imperial and Independent Sovereign 3. Their Third Assertion is That the King is irresistable and unopposeable In Answering of this I would by no means be thought to open a Gap to Rebellion and expose Crowned Heads to the Danger of Mutinies and Insurrections no I would have the King have all the Security that either the Law or the Hearts and Hands of his Subjects can give him for Government and Subjection are the Ordinances of God and as by him Kings reign and Princes decree Justice so ought the People to Obey not only for wrath but also for Conscience sake Yet there are many Cases as the Learned Grotius shews wherein Resistance is Lawfull As when a King Abdicates the Government or Alienates the Kingdom or makes War upon his People or invades their Property and if we go to Scripture we shall meet with divers Examples of Resistance and all uncondemn'd Thus the People rescued Jonathan from the Sword of Saul who had sworn to put him to Death For the People said unto Saul shall Jonathan dye who hath wrought this great Salvation in Israel God forbid as the Lord liveth there shall not one hair of his Head fall to the ground for he hath wrought with God this day So the People rescued Jonathan that he dyed not And David's Question Will the Men of Keilah deliver me and my men into the hands of Saul implys he would have defended that Place against him if he could have been sure of the Inhabitants Was the Doctrine of Non-resistance practised by Elijah when he destroyed Two Captains and their Companies with Fire from Heaven which King Ahaziah sent with Orders to bring him to him the manner indeed was extraordinary by Miracle but the Matter the destroying the King's Messengers was as much done by his voluntary Resistance and the same as if the Sword had cut them off Nor understood Azariah and the Fourscore valiant Priests that were with him the modern Notion of Passive Obedience for when Vzziah the King went into the Temple to burn Incense 't is said they withstood him and bid him go out of the Temple and when he refused they were so ignorant of Vzziah's being irresistable that they thrust him out thence Nor doth the Gospel destroy the great Principle of Self-Preservation but support and encourage it those Places that enjoin Obedience to the Higher Powers condemn not Self-Defence from impending Ruine Whilst Christianity was under Heathen Governours and all the Laws of the Empire were against it Christians were obliged to the Duties of Non-resistance but since all the Laws are made in Favour of our Religion we may lawfully maintain it against Arbitrary Oppressions and Illegal Violence 4. Whereas they say the Old Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy are indissoluble it is Answered they were Protestant Oaths and ought not to be expounded to the prejudice of the Protestant Religion When therefore a Prince shall go about to subvert the Protestant Religion which those Oaths were design'd to preserve both the Matter it self and formal Reason of the Obligation are taken away and the Oaths cease to be of Force The Coronation-Oath is made a meer Complement when they tell us it imports only a Moral Obligation a mutual Stipulation is a tie upon both parties and one would think the Prince's Oath should as much bind him to govern according to Law as the Oaths of the People determine their subjection to the Government In all Contracts each party is conditionally oblig'd and we are bound to him on condition he be true to us If then one party shall remain bound when the other hath broken his Faith Covenants are insignificant and yield no security at all If Kings could derive their Pedigrees in a Right Line from Adam or produce a personal Commission from Heaven the foremention'd Assertions might have some pretence which now have none 2. We may be cautioned from hence that seeing God is for us not to prove Rebells and by our Sins fight against him The extraordinary things he hath done for us as they should never be forgot so the sense of his present Protection should engage us to Obedience The Israelites were brought out of Aegypt through a Wilderness into Canaan by a Mighty Hand and stretched out Arm Psal 105. 45. but it was for this end That they might observe God's Statutes keep his Laws Joh. 5. 14. And our Saviour made the impotent Man whole with an express Charge to sin no more A serious Thought of what Mercies we have undeservedly received and what we may in all likelihood expect should be a double enforcement to Renovation of Life The Riches of God's Goodness should not harden our Hearts but lead us to Repentance Do we enjoy the Free Exercise of our Religion whereof our Sins might have deprived us Remember it is our duty to walk worthy of it and to Adorn it by an Holy Conversation Are our Properties secured to us beyond our Hopes Let us then be content every one with his own and not invade his Neighbours Are our Liberties and Immunities restored Let us enjoy them without an invidious look upon our Brethren and grudging at that Freedom which they as Fellow-Protestants ought to have in common with us Do the Blessings of Peace and Plenty flow in upon us from every quarter of our Island Let us not surfeit our selves with Fullness by making Provisions for the Flesh to fulfill the Lusts thereof Let us live in Christian Unity and Friendship in our respective Stations and use our Plenty with Thankfulness and Moderation with Acts of readiness to supply the Wants and Exigencies of the State and of Charity to relieve the necessities of the Poor By the one shewing our selves Loyal Subjects and by the other Compassionate Samaritans by both Good Christians Let us put on the Lord Jesus Christ and honour his Precepts by dutifully conforming to his Example Let us put on his Sobriety and Temperance his Chastity and Purity his Bowels and Mercy his Meekness and Patience in opposition to Riot and Drunkenness to Chambering and Wantonness to Strife and Envy to Wrath and Anger Let the same Mind be in us which was in him and for demonstration thereof let us Love as Brethren be Pitiful be Courteous no longer wrangling about the Accidents while we agree in the Substance of Divine Worship 'T is far more honourable for Christians to be led by God's Goodness than to be forc'd and driven by his severity The sinning away his Graces and Mercies to us does make them serve the more to incense his Justice The greater Obligations he lays upon us the heavier will be the Punishments of
Cause which he most commonly does by Instruments unthought of or perhaps despised by the Enemy but specially Commission'd by God to accomplish their Deliverance in the others overthrow Now the Providence of God may be considered either more largely which I call his general or in the former Restriction which may be termed his particular Providence To his general Providence are subject all things in the World the smallest and most inconsiderable in our Esteem are not excluded The very hairs of our head are all numbred Mat. 10. 29 30. and two Sparrows sold for a Farthing fall not on the ground without it They that have excepted Inferiour Matters from it as being in their Opinion derogatory to God's transcendent Majesty to stoop so low have instead of magnifying lessen'd his Royal Prerogative his Providence being as uncircumscrib'd as his Essence and Dominion It was therefore a gross Error in Aristotle to confine it to the Moon by shutting out all things below as Athenagoras Clemens Alexandrinus Epiphanius and Thedoret testifie but far more palpable in St. Hierom a Learned Father of the Church who in his Commentary upon Habak cap. 1. makes it an Absurdity Ad hoc Dei deducere Majestatem To bring down the Divine Greatness to such small things as the Flies Gnats and Fishes he there speaks of For we are not says he such foolish Flatterers of God to be injurious to our selves by granting to Irrational Creatures the same Providence with us When both Reason and Revelation teach us to believe the Universality of its Extent Reason informs us that God is the first Mover and the first Cause and therefore all inferiour Movers and secondary Agents must depend upon him and that no Creature is absolute and self-sufficient but would instantly dissubsist without his Concurrence The Scriptures ascribe even the most despicable things to him such as Frogs Lice Flys and Locusts Exod. 8. 10. cap. and bring within the Line of his Providence not only intellectual and sensitive Beings but Plants Meteors and all things Psal 147. 8 16. But of all sublunary Things Man made after the Image of God falls more expresly under his Care For as he made him a little lower than the Angels so he hath exalted him above the other Creatures and crown'd him with Glory and Honour Psal 8. 5. And if Man singly considered be so near unto him then much more Man in Society Bodies and Communities of Men. His Particular Providence is conversant about Good Men and especially about a People or Nation professing and practising his Holy and Eternal Truth for 't is not a bare and abstract Profession 't is not the Pomp and Splendour of our Devotions nor the crying out with those Jews in the Prophet The Temple of the Lord Jer. 7. 4. but plainness and sincerity of Heart and a truly vertuous Uniform Life that will entitle us to his Gracious Favour And for a People thus Evangelically qualified the Right Hand of the Lord bringeth mighty things to pass And as in Common Calamities the Good oft-times suffer with the Bad though with this difference the Good are better'd and refin'd thereby and the Bad become much worse so in Publick Mercies the Evil participate with the Righteous and are preserved for their Sakes Thus the Prayers of Moses prevailed for the Idolatrous Israelites Exod. 31. 7. to 15. and the Peoples requesting Samuel to pray to God for them that they died not 1 Sam. 12. 19. intimates their Safety lay in his Intercession And this shews though the Wicked are by far the major part what exceeding Love God hath for his People when his Mercy shall preserve the very Tares for the Wheat sake But now though the Wicked share with the Godly in Publick and National Mercies yet the uses are vastly different which they draw therefrom the Godly are excited to Humility Thankfulness and Obedience to closer Communion with God and warmer Resentments of his Love whereas the Wicked suck Poison out of his Goodness by unthankfully abusing it to Luxury Wantonness and taking occasion thereby to sin more confidently and securely I wish besides that other of murmuring and censuring grown too common among us the sin of prophane Ingratitude be not laid to our Charge For since our late Great Deliverance how few with the one Leper return Glory to God Luke 17. but how many with the other Nine forget him Nay do we not rather seem to have an Inclination to our former Slavery than any true Affection to our present Freedom as though to walk at large were less desireable than Chains and Confinement The old Romans were so foolishly superstitious as to build an Altar to a Feaver and so become Worshippers of their Diseafe and is not our Folly altogether as great to Idolize our Enemy and make inevitable Ruine our Sanctuary To put the Sword which we ought to keep for our Defence into an Adversary's Hand to protect us is as unpardonable a Weakness as to throw our selves into the Fire in hopes of being saved by a Miracle When God prescribes Means and secondary Helps we must obey his Order and implore his Blessing in the use of them Though God be pleased sometimes to Act extraordinarily not only without but contrary to means yet we must not leave the usual way of Providence and presently expect Wonders We know who hath said That man liveth not by bread alone but by every word which proceedeth out of the mouth of God Mat. 4. 4. and yet that word is annex'd to Bread and not to Stones and 't is not Trusting but Mocking and Tempting of God to fast till Stones should be converted into Bread. Nothing is impossible to God but what implies Weakness or Contradiction he can as easily defeat our Enemies without Fleets and Armies as he smote Sennacherib's Camp and made them in one night all dead Corps 2 Kings 19 35. But as the Sword of Gideon was to go along with the Sword of the Lord as a Testimony of Obedience not an Addition of Strength Judg. 7. 18. and as David though he confess'd The Lord saveth not with Sword and Spear yet took a Sling and a Stone for his Weapon 1 Sam. 17. 47 49. So must we depend upon God in the use of his appointed Means not in Confidence of their Help but in Obedience to his Divine Order And thus trusting in him in a dutiful Subordination to his Providence we may be sure of his Gracious Protection Then will he be with us as he was with Moses and Joshua He will not fail us nor forsake us Josh 1. 5. And in this Confidence we may safely acquiesce if II. In the second place we consider wherein God hath manifested himself for us already and in what Particulars we have tasted of his Goodness As the Mariner after a long and difficult Voyage being at last safe come Home looks back with wonder at those Rocks and Shelves those Storms and Pyrats
he escaped So the Ship of our Church and State having been long toss'd in a Sea of Misery and every moment was in danger of being sunk being now arriv'd by the Blessing of God and the Diligence of her Pilot at the Haven where she would be we may with Admiration reflect upon the many imminent Dangers she hath past To make which Reflection work the more kindly give me leave to remember you of what Almighty God hath so lately done for us by removing the Invasions made upon our Civil and Religious Rights and frustrating the grand Design upon the Reformation 1. For our Civil Rights what Invasions were made upon them the History of the late Arbitrary Reign is so well known that 't is impossible to be mistaken Liberty and Property the Birth-right of every English Man were rendered meer Titulary things and Parliamentary Law by which we ought to be govern'd was laid aside as useless while the Will and Pleasure of the Prince usurped the Legislature For the Dispensing Power the most exorbitant thing that ever could be advanc'd being set up above known Established Laws and made the sole Standard of Government brought both our Lives Liberties Honours and Estates entirely under it By vertue of this Dispensing Power we saw Popish Judges and Justices sit in Courts of Judicature the Militia was put into the hands of unqualified Officers and a standing Army kept up contrary to Law. The liberty of choosing Members of Parliament was wholy taken away by serving Corporations with Quo Warranto's and forcing them to surrender their Charters and to receive them again with such Alterations that might make room for Roman-Catholick Magistrates or at best such indifferent Protestants as were prepared not to hinder the great Intriegue The Violence done to Magdalen-Colledge in Oxford in outing the President and Fellows of their Freeholds by an illegal High-Commission-Court for their ever memorable steddiness to their Consciences and Statutes of their Founder and the imprisoning the Bishops and trying them as Criminals for presenting a most humble Petition that they might be excus'd distributing a Declaration grounded upon the Dispensing Power were but the beginning of our Sorrows the severe Prologue to a dismal Tragedy So that being invaded daily in our Civil Rights we had nothing left us but a fearful Expectation of merciless Oppression had not God sent us seasonable succour by his Present Majesty's means to whom under God we owe the rescuing our Lives and Liberties out of our Enemies hands Let this consideration be well weigh'd and unless Slavery be more eligible than Freedom and Tyranny than the Blessing of an easie Government as the Invasions made upon our Civil Rights were actually many and the subsequent justly dreaded dangers more so the Deliverance must be acknowledged to be extraordinary 2. As God has done great things for us in regard of our Civil Rights so has he done no less in defending our Religion which was the mark our Enemies chiefly shot at as is obvious from the Methods they indefatigably pursued to overthrow it Popish Chappels and Schools were erected throughout the whole Kingdom and Popery it self which is downright Idolatry condemn'd by Scripture and justly banish'd by our Laws was publickly tolerated against both Priests and Jesuits who were wont to walk in disguise put off their Vizards and as ambitious of being known appear'd openly at Mass They Married Baptized Consecrated made solemn Processions Proselyted the Loose Ignorant and Debauch'd and bid defiance to our Laws Statutes made against Correspondence with the Bishop and Court of Rome were suspended and Ambassadours were sent and Nuncio's received by none other Authority but the Omnipotent Dispensing Power The Declaration for Liberty of Conscience pretended a favourable Design but was soon discovered to be all sham for Liberty and Infallibility being utterly inconsistent it was quickly found out even by those they thought to have gain'd by it notwithstanding its specious pretexts of Conscience and Moderation to be a trick to engage Protestants whose strength lies in their Vnion into mutual Quarrels and Contentions that the Contrivers might thereby the more successfully have ruin'd us By these and such like Methods they vigorously proceeded and thought themselves so certain of Re-establishing their Apostolical Church that they ridicul'd our Religion call'd us Hereticks to our Faces and threatned us not only with the Writ De Haeretico comburendo but to sacrifice our Bibles to their Rage And had they prospered in their Counsels as God might justly have permitted them for our Sins this flourishing Kingdom had soon been turn'd into an Aceldama a Field of Bloud and the Marian Racks Stakes and Gibbets would have been acted over again I tremble to think what the French and Irish Protestants have suffered and what we might have lookt for from Men of the same bloudy Principles here I need not tell you that Cruelty is one principal part of their Religion that Transubstantiation has made more Martyrs than the Ten Persecutions Histories are so full of their Massacres and Murthers that 't is no Hyperbole to say the Butcheries of Christians have exceeded those of Pagan Rome and Christ's Pretended Vicar out-done the utmost Rage and Inhumanity of all the Heathen Emperours But this is not all for if they had succeeded according to their Hopes or rather Confidences How had this Kingdom of Christ become the Kingdom of Antichrist How had the goodly Vine of the Reformation which the Lord of the Vine-yard had planted made to take deep root in our Land pruned and cultivated and caus'd to spread out her Branches like the Cedars of Lebanon been rooted up and devoured by the Italian Boars and Wild-Beasts of Doway and St. Omers Psal 80. 8 9 10 13. In these very Houses set apart for the true Worship of God how should we have seen the Abomination of Desolation standing in the Holy Place How should we have heard the Legends of Imaginary Saints read instead of the four Evangelists have had the Lyes and Fictions of Idle Monks and Fryars impos'd upon us for Gospel-Verities and have been constrained as far as in them lay to go to Hell by an implicit Obedience But for ever Blessed be the Lord God of Israel who hath visited and redeemed his People and sent us by his Chosen Servants a Deliverance which had in all the Circumstances so eminently the Divine Hand in it that I admire any save Epicures and Romanists should deny it to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Lord 's doing and marvelous in our Eyes Psal 118. 23. If Physicians meeting with Distempers incureable by ordinary Medicines are driven to acknowledge that there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 something Divine in them and Politicians from the Changes and Alterations in Common-wealths are forc'd to confess there is some Superiour Cause called Fate by Machiavel instead of Providence which superintends Humane Affairs How can we but own the extraordinary Hand of God in our Revolution
is parallel to our case we may apply it to our selves and it does as truly belong to us as to whom it was made if we are under equal Circumstances and Qualifications For whether things present or things to come they all pertain to Believers because they are Christ's and Christ is God's 1 Cor. 3. 22 23. All our Title to the Promises depends upon our Covenant-Relation Now the Covenant consists of Mercies promised on God's part and Duties commanded on ours which are so inseparably connected that the latter must of necessity be done to give us any rational inducements to hope the former For God doth not fulfill his Promises in us only but by us too and those things which in regard of his Word are his Promises are also in regard of his Command our Duties 3. From the Examples of the Faithfull who all along proceed upon this Topick and have left their Experiences of God's Deliverances for Documents to us we may draw the like comfortable inferences that they did Thus when the Israelites were afraid of the Giants of the Land Moses encouraged them with this Argument Dread not neither be afraid of them the Lord your God which goeth before you he shall sight for you according to all that he did for you in Aegypt before your Eyes And in the Wilderness where thou hast seen how the Lord thy God bare thee as a man doth bear his Son in all the way that ye went until ye came into this Place Deut. 1. 29 30. 31. And again I commanded Joshua saith he at that time saying Thine eyes have seen all that the Lord your God hath done unto these two Kings So shall the Lord do unto all the Kingdoms whither thou passest ye shall not fear them for the Lord your God he shall sight for you Deut. 3. 21 22. So David argued when he was to fight Goliah The Lord that delivered me out of the Paw of the Lyon and out of the Paw of the Bear he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine 1 Sam. 17. 37. And so the Faithful in the Prophet Art not thou he that didst cut Rahab and wound the Dragon Art not thou he that didst dry the Sea the waters of the great deep that madest the depths of the Sea a way for the ransomed to pass over Therefore the redeemed of the Lord shall return and come with singing unto Zion and everlasting joy shall be upon their head Isa 51. 9 10 11. To these and the like Examples which are written for our Learning that we through comfort of the Scriptures might have hope we may subjoyn our own Experience of God's goodness whereof no Nation ever had more and which the Apostle saith worketh hope Rom. 5. 4. and learn from the Passages of God's Providence to Dr. Reynolds cod loc our selves or others to treasure them up that they may be for Rules and Precedents to us for after-times Let us then though we are too apt to doubtfulness and diffidence look forward with Faith and Confidence banishing all despairing and uncomfortable thoughts to those Halcion-days that are coming on And resting intirely on him who hath promised not to turn away from his People to do them good that he will Ordain in his own good time that long wished for Peace in Church and Common-wealth which seems to be a work reserv'd for the WORTHY PATRIOTS of this Age and unto which appears a general Inclination in Protestants of every denomination The uses of this Discourse may serve 1. For Reproof 2. For Caution and 3. For Encouragement 4. For Reproof and that of two sorts of Persons The Bigotted Papist and The Titulary Protestant 1. The Bigotted Papist who obstinately shuts his Eyes and will not see the wonderful Hand of God in our Deliverance who turns all into Ridicule and chooses rather to attribute his disappointments to Cross-Accidents Perfidious Souldiers a Poyson'd Nation mistaken Counsels and the like than to that Eternal Mercy Wisdom and Justice which deny'd success to him and gave it to us Who continues in the Communion of that Apostatical Church which God hath visibly cast off and forsaken for her spiritual Adulteries and other detestable Crimes Whereas he should endeavour by Humiliation Fasting and Prayer to come to a right understanding of God in his Judgments and his in them that they are the fruits of Sin and should lead him to Repentance and teach him Righteousness There is a twofold use of God's Judgments the one sensual and the other spiritual the first is that which hardned Impenitents make of them but the second is appropriate to the truly Faithful These hear the Rod and who hath appointed it Mic. 6. 9. but they draw Judiciary upon their wilful Obduration St. Augustin saith of Pharaoh Deus induravit per justum judicium Pharao per Liberum Arbitrium He hardned himself Voluntarily and God Judicially Exod 7. 13 10 1 20 27. For God is often said in Scripture to harden the Heart but he doth it not by infusing any Evil Qualities but sometimes by forsaking and not hindering the Sinner and sometimes by delivering him over to vile affections and a reprobate Mind Rom. 1. 26 28. This distinction is sound but the Blasphemy of Florinus and the Heresy of Pelagius must be carefully avoided It is one of the saddest Symptoms in the World when the Sinner is not softened under the mighty hand of God but Anvile-like grows harder under Blows and a most infallible sign that God will not desist but proceed in his Judgments against the Incorrigible because he will overcome when he judges and for that reason will judge till he overcomes If therefore the Papist will stop his Ears closeh is Eyes that he may neither hear with the one nor see with the other his Resolution is desperate and madness incureable and God will leave him to himself as he did Ephraim because he is joyned to Idols let him alone Hosea 4. 17. But as he is not Spiritually wrought upon so neither is he to any degree of Common Civility for he is so very ingrateful to those that give him his Life that were it in his Power he would requite their Clemency with a barbarous Assassination And this he gives us occasion to believe not only by his unquiet deportment and inveterate Rancour which expresses it self in Groundless Calumnies False Reports Seditious Libels Bitter Invectives and Perpetual Plotting against the Government But also by the avow'd Doctrines and Authentick Principles of his Church for having implicitly resign'd his Soul to the Paternal Conduct of those Holy Fathers the Priests and Jesuits our Sacramentally-sworn Enemies he is under a Filial Obligation to destroy us as oft as those Blessed Guides shall see it good for the Catholick-Cause 2. The Titulary Protestant falls next under Reproof and deserves to be reprehended as publickly as he privately attacks us 'T is true he pretends to be of our Communion but seeing