Zerubbabel and his House are brought in as Adam was to govern a World from which Chaos and Confusion were but lately fled and to cultivate that Garden of God whose Fences and Walls were now rebuilt and repaired And this gives us a View of the main Intendment of the words and also of the Interest and Share our selves may challenge in them In that day the Lord shall defend c. In my prosecuting of which and the business of the day I crave leave to insist upon these four following Observables First That it was a Special Act of Providence that brought about this Change in the Jewish and our Affairs In that day the Lord shall defend the Inhabitants of Jerusalem Secondly That thereby the State of a Kingdom and of a Prince from feeble and weak became as David Thirdly That hereby the Government was established not only in a single Prince but in his Lineage and House The House of David shall be as God Fourthly The happy Influences this Government should have upon the Subjects of it and this illustrated by the gracious Conduct of the Angel of old that went before the Camp of Israel First That it was a Special Act of Providence c. Ut supra Providence chiefly exercises it self about Humane Affairs in three ways 1. Permissively 2. Directively 3. By way of Energy and Efficacy 1. In the way of Sufferance and bare Permission This I the rather remark because we have been sadly sensible how perversly and impiously some have alledged the Argument of Providence when God was said to vouch the things which he abhorred and Heaven was forced to father the wicked and the monstrous Brats of Earth when Proceedings were justified as the Great Turk does his purely by the Success As if Crimes ceased to be such when they once grew great prosperous and incorrigible As if Good and Ill Right and Wrong Just and Unjust were to be measured by the length of the Sword or the strength of a Party not by the eternal and unchangeable Standards of Equity and Reason and the Obligation of Divine and Humane Laws As if God's secret Inspirations could whisper Contradictions to his revealed Will and the same pure heavenly Source and Fountain could send forth sweet Waters and Bitter As if God approved every thing which he does not forthwith punish and to suspend his Thunderbolts were a full Evidence of his Love No doubt can be made but that whatever Evil or Calamity there is in a City 't is permitted by the wise Ruler of the World in order to reform the Guilts or improve the Graces of those 't is inflicted on or to revenge God's just Quarrel on an ungrateful Nation But then it would be considered that an Executioner is oft-times not the least of Criminals and that the very Office is so vile and ignoble that generous and good Natures disdain and abhor it Thence it was that God suffered the Venemous Tail of a Nation to lash and scourge the Head and the more noble parts of it and did not forcibly interpose to stop that Malice and Treachery which he grievously hates and has severely forbidden for thus Man in his lower Dominion over the Works of God's Hands admits of the Savage Cruelty or Brutal Rage of one Creature to tame or to subdue another Nor can this in any wise be colourably proved to stamp the Divine Allowance on unrighteous practices though it do demonstrate the Divine Wisdom in making the worst things some way or other subservient to its own holy Purposes and great Designs 2. Again The Providence of God with a watchful Care directs and superintends all Events below and especially with a concerned and jealous Eye applies it self to the Rise and Fall of Kingdoms and Empires the Advancement or Decay of States or Commonwealths Insomuch that they who have been let into the Secrets of God's Counsels as Daniel and the Prophets of old have there seen the exact and fatal Schemes of their flourishing or declining Estate and the most considerable Periods of their Fortune in following Ages and Generations And this is of mighty Use to the great Purposes of Religion for it impresses upon Men awful Apprehensions concerning God it engages them to look up beyond the Sphere and Activity of second Causes which ever moving in a lower and circumscribed Orb must follow the Sway and Revolution of the great first Mover it assures them that they are not abandoned to the Casualties of blind Fortune or the Violences of unreasonable Men but are still in their greatest Extremities under the wise Disposals of a gracious God This finally in the Success even of lawful Enterprizes calls upon Men to give unto God the Honour due to his Name not to sacrifice to their Net or burn Incense to their Dragg or ascribe happy Events wholly to the reach of their Counsels or the puissance of their Arms. 3. But then above and beyond both these there is in some Revolutions a signal and efficacious Interposal of Providence bringing about things in so surprising ways as that they are not only above the visible Power but against the Tendency of lower and second Causes Upon which Score we may warrantably affirm that they bear the Marks and Signatures of a Contrivance and Production Divine and as a Child sometimes challenges the Father by uncommon Features and Resemblances so these speak themselves the Off-spring and Issue of Heavenly Power and Love For thus the Beauty or wonderful Greatness of a Work and the strange way of effecting it the disproportion of it to second Causes or its Contrariety to the Springs and Principles of their accustomed Motions The universal Good it sheds around beyond all humane Hopes and Expectations These and such as these I take to be Characters of Divine Interposals in Energetical Ways or else it seems hard to me to prove that God does specially interest himself in the Management of Humane Affairs since Miracles ceased and Immediate Revelations were of no longer use and necessity Now thus it happened to Judah and to us in our happy Restoration and we as they must own that God himself was on our side and has done great things for us whereof we rejoyce In their Case 't is well known that Cyrus issued out an unaccountable Proclamation for the Jews to return to their own Land and to rebuild their Temple and to fortifie their City and bestowed on them Wealth and enabled them with Commissions to carry on the Work What now would his States-men say What strange Counsel shall we call it or rather What Frenzy is this that now governs the King thus against all Rules of Interest and Honour to dismiss a People inured to his Service by seventy years Captivity A People too of Religion and Rites different from and reproachful to the Persian Worship while many conquered Nations of our own Religion are yet detained in hard Subjection But if the Slaves must go let them first be squeezed of their
Glimpse of Hope appeared from any Quarter or Region round about Even those that were most Loyally inclined found that by strugling in the Toyls they were more fatally entangled and while they played on the Game with an Unfortunate Hand instead of retrieving what was lost they only made new Additions to the Power and Courage of the Adversary All therefore they could do was to sit down and weep by the Waters of their Captivity when they remembred Sion and to joyn with the Guardian-Angel of the Land who doubtless as it is in the 1st Chapter of this Prophecy at the 12th Verse sympathized with the piteous Calamities of its Charge and would sollicite Heaven in some such Pious Expostulation as this How long O Lord of Hosts How long wilt thou not have Mercy on Jerusalem and on the Cities of Judah against which thou hast had Indignation this twenty Years Look down from Heaven and behold thy Church in Ruins and thy Vicegerent hunted as a Partridge on the Mountains and thy Gospel prostituted to the Lusts of Wretched Hypocrites or Ambitious Men and the whole Land over flown with Guilt or Fears or Blood How long wilt thou be wroth with thy People that prays and hide thy Face in an angry Cloud from Judah thy Sanctuary and Israel thy Possession Thou indeed hast been justly displeased at us But what are these Vsurpers that are at Ease that they thus help forward and aggravate our Affliction Vp then Lord and let not Man have the Vpper Hand Let not the Sword devour for ever nor Violence and Confusion be entailed on us and our Heirs for evermore Remember that the Wrongs done to thy Anointed below take Heaven at their Rebound and that he cannot be innocent to his God who is an Offender against his King Pity a Nation that has no Pity upon it self and scatter the People that delight in War and do Thou Lord help in Trouble for Vain is the Help of Man 'T is a Cause now fit for thee to appear in and since all other Medicines fail dispense to us out of the Treasures of Thy own Goodness and Benignity None now can Rival Thee in any Paâ—t of the Glory of the Work and Thou wilt thereby signalize thy Power no less than thy Pity and Compassion Let thy Hand be upon the Man of thy Right Hand and on that Royal Person whom thou so miraculously preservedst for thy own Self Make good the Happy Omens and Glorious Presages at his Birth and convince the World that the Heavens did not then smile on him in vain Settle us again upon the old Foundations and let not a Nation whom thou hast formerly signalized by a Train of Illustrious Mercies and Protections become the Scorn and Derision of our Enemies round about us Such were the sorrowful Accents and pious Breathings of God's Angels and Godly Men and at length to shew the prevalency of those Christian Weapons Prayers and Tears kind Heaven graciously was pleased to hearken and on the sudden removed all our Misery and took away our Reproach and as David by an unexpected Unction was taken from following the Ewes great with Young to feed Jacob God's People and Israel his Inheritance so here a new and far more glorious Scene did presently open and disclose and the Royal Interest from feeble and almost forlorn became as David and God by a mighty but gentle Spirit turned our Captivity as the Rivers in the South And as in the World's first Creation out of a Mass of Matter dark and disorderly blended and confused of jarring and disagreeing Natures he produced a comely and well compacted Fabrick of Government in Church and State which should move orderly and minister to the Good of each particular Being 2. As to the Condition of our Prince None ever so like David as He in Dangers and Deliverances and unexpected Advancement What though he was destined to a Crown by Divine Appointment and Decree who would not yet have preferred any private Station with Security before it rather than for ever on the Account of that Eminence be persecuted by the jealous Rage of Saul and the virulent Calumnies of Doeg and the fierce Insurrections of Sheba and the unnatural Rebellion of Absalom Unravel the History of both those Royal Persons and tell me if any two Characters do so justly agree How were Both couped up one while in such a Cave another in such a Wood forced hastily to flee to Moab and to Gath and thanks to that Providence that takes care of Kings found more Kindness and Shelter among uncircumcised Philistines than their own Subjects in their Rightful Dominions How did both receive in themselves each Moment the Sentence of Death by new Dangers and frightful Alarms And how were both sometimes in the greatest Perplexity and Doubt which they ought most to be jealous of the Violence of implacable Enemies or the Treachery of pretended Friends But why do I thus lay open the Distresses of Sacred Majesty to our own great Dishonour Let dark Shades for ever be drawn over the Visage of those Times let them never see the Light Let us no longer see such Misfortunes display'd as upbraid our Guilts no less than move our Pity but let us turn our Eyes on David Crowned in Hebron from his Exile in Gath. He asked Life of God and He with Life bestowed the Possession of a Crown in Peace He subdued the People under him and the Nations under his Feet and there remained no Strife at all but a Dutiful and Loyal Emulation who should be the First in bringing back the King And now the Daughter of Sion might well rejoyce greatly when her King came in such a meek and peaceful way not in confused Noises of War not in Garments rolled in Blood He came as the Rain into a Fleece of Wool and the Gentleness of his Entrance was at once an Earnest and a Shadow of the future Grace and Goodness of his Government And thus it appears that the State of our Kingdom and the Condition of our Prince From feeble became as David Which was the second Thing Thirdly The next is That hereby the Government was established not only in a Single Person but in his Lineage and House The House of David shall be as God What Aspect this may have upon the Spiritual Kingdom of the Messiah and what the Mystical Intendment and Sense in that regard may be I will not now enquire but with an Eye to the Temporal Government of the House of David I must consider wherein they so resemble God as that it may be accommodated to Soveraign and Hereditary Princes at large Now here I must first premise that Scriptures themselves do ascribe to them some Shadows of Divine Excellencies and Perfections and so also do the Sages of our Municipal Laws lest any should pertly here object that this Divinity is broached only by Court-Chaplains or Pensioners to Prerogative The Inspired Writings say that it is God whom Soveraign
Powers do represent that it is by the Beams of his Majesty they shine that He has said They are Gods that he puts the Sword of Justice in their Hands that 't is his Throne they fill and that Obedience to them is enforc'd upon their Subjects by virtue of a Divine Authority and Command And the Skilful in our Laws say That the Common Law by way of Similitude attributes to the King a Shadow of Divine Excellencies because he represents the Person of God and bears his Image As for instance Soveraignty all Lands being held of him Power he commanding his Subjects to go out of the Realm to War or making Foreign Coin Current by his Proclamation Majesty he neither taking nor parting with any Thing without Matter of Record except Chattels or such like below the Regard of Law Infiniteness after a certain manner being present in all his Courts and as it were in all places of his Dominions Perpetuity having perpetual Succession and being not subject to dye Perfection for no Laches Folly Infancy or Corruption of Blood can be judged in him Truth he cannot be estopped Justice He cannot be a Disseizor or do any Wrong These things I find vouch'd from such Authorities as that they seem to me to be Essential to our Constitution and to be as good a Comment as one would wish on that Branch of the Text now under Consideration that The House of David should be as God intimating many high and excellent Prerogatives they were invested in and encircled withal But I must confine my Discourse to narrower Bounds and therefore shall insist only on these two things 1. That in the Monarchy resembling God the Persons in Power were truly Supream 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unaccountable to any as God can be compelled by none nor be made accountable to them 2. That they resembled him in a kind of Immortality The King never died the Monarchy was Successive and Hereditary 1. They resemble God in being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 truly Supream and Unaccountable Some learned Men will have this to have been the main difference betwixt the Judges that governed Israel and the Kings of the House of David That the former were to render an Account to the State of the Administration of their Government which the latter were not to do but to God only The very nature of the thing indeed proves it self sufficiently For wherever Soveraign Power is once lodged because for the Spartan Shadows of a King and the Dukes of Venice I am not concerned to account here there is evidently vested a Freedom from all forcible Controll or Coertion And if David and his Race were Kings over all Israel they had the eminent controlling Authority over the scattered or united Power of the Body-Politick and so no Sanhedrim no Assembly no Consent of the People no Officers of State can be above them in the way of proper Rule or Jurisdiction and violently to touch them in the very Skirts of their Mantle is hugely culpable and criminal On the account of this Eminence they are fenced and immured by the Laws both of Earth and Heaven from the undutiful Thought and the sawcy Tongue as well as the rebellious and assassinating Hand We are not to curse the King so much as in Thought and we are not to revile the Gods or speak Evil of the Rulers of the People And blaspheming God and the King were Crimes that went coupled and hand in hand and St. Paul recanted a rash Word spoken against a Person in Power though horribly abusing it And 't is supposed that the old War of the Giants against the Gods meant no more than Insurrections of mighty Subjects against their Kings Sure we are that in a Divine Sense 't is no less than Resisting the Ordinance of God to resist them and They that resist shall receive to themselves Damnation And the Christian Duty of Passive Obedience and Non-Resistance has unshaken Foundations and inviolable Grounds in the Eternal Laws of Nature and Equity in the Essential Frame and Subordination of Politick Societies to some Supream in the Inspired Writings of the Old and New Testament in the Examples of the Holy Jesus and his meek Disciples in the Canons of the Church and the Statutes of the Realm in the Monuments of Primitive Christianity and the Sufferings of the most celebrated Martyrs As to this last I confess some have gone about to blast the Martyrs Lawrels and represent them to have undergone their Sufferings because they were weak in their Force or in their Understandings and so they foolishly or helplesly submitted to what could not be redrest And thus their Memories are Martyr'd as their Bodies were before and those illustrious passive Graces of Meekness and Resignation of Christian Patience and Taking up the Cross which are the bright Enamel of their Heavenly Crowns which are the just Imitation of our Suffering Lord which are the Eternal Theme of our Wonder and our Praise which in the Opinion of truly Good Men do embalm their Names below and which above have preferred them to the highest Seats in the Church Triumphant These I say are made to dwindle into mere politick Compliance with a helpless Necessity or are arraigned as Arguments of the Weakness of their Party or their Ignorance of their Rights and Privileges which Modern Professors it seems pretend now far better to understand in these Days of New-Light and by those extraordinary late Discoveries that have been made to the Kingdom of the Saints Suffice it us that we know the ancient Channel wherein Christianity ran how it was propagated and prevailed in the World when it went forth conquering and to conquer and yet knew nothing of making its Way by Violence or Armies by deposing of Kings or fighting for Privileges by Alterations of Governments or Dis-inherison of Princes that is in plain English when it was not acquainted with advancing Christ's Cause by reproaching his Religion or breaking any of his Commandments As for us who adhere to the Establishment in the Church of England It has hitherto been our just Glory of which none hereafter I hope shall deprive us that like the Wisdom from above our Doctrines are pure and our Principles and Practices peaceable opposite to Idolatry against God and Sedition against the King And as this Church has hitherto been so may it for ever stand the just Dread and Envy of our Enemies on either hand and be a lasting Monument of the true Temper and Genius of the Christian Religion till Time shall be no more But now because we have exempted Soveraigns from being justly obnoxious to Outward Force or Violence have we therefore cancell'd all Obligations upon them Have we made mere Power to be Right or Passion to be Law or left Appetite to range without either Rule or Bounds and so put them into such a State as is proper to none but the Great Leviathan who with full and Arbitrary Liberty rowls and sports himself
in his Watry Kingdom and at pleasure Preys upon all the Lesser and Defenceless Fry Surely 't is not reasonable thus to understand us May not their Consciences be bound though their Hands cannot Is not every lower Orb limited and circumscribed by that which is above it and though they be higher than the highest on Earth yet still in Heaven is there not one higher than they Seneca of old hath wisely and gravely told them Quicquid a vobis minor extimescit major hoc vobis Dominus minatur Omne sub Regno graviore Regnum est However they have no Peer on Earth in their own Dominions they are nevertheless Subjects of Heaven and therefore they may on that Score lye under the the Obligation of publick Promises and solemn Acts of Condescension They may be tyed by sacred Vows and Oaths by the Sense of Honour and Religion by the prudent Care of their Temporal and an awful Regard to their Eternal Interests by the Engagements of Justice and Wisdom and Tenderness and Humanity for even God himself the great Potentate of the whole Universe is not Arbitrary in any Exorbitant way but he forms the Awful Decrees and Resolves of his Almighty Will and Pleasure by the Eternal Laws and Measures of Rectitude and Goodness and Holiness and Compassion 2. The House of David resembled God in a kind of Immortality The King never dyed the Monarchy being Successive and Hereditary As Monarchy is the best of Governments for Order Peace Strength Steadiness and Fixation so the Descent of this high Office in the way of an Inheritance is the best of Monarchies And therefore when God established a Government among his own People he setled it in David's House for many future Years and a great while to come he promised that when his own Days were fulfilled and he should sleep with his Fathers yet he would set up of the Royal Progeny and Seed after him and establish the Throne of his Kingdom for ever and this that holy Prince magnifies very much in the Favour of God towards him that he had not only brought him to the Crown that was but a small thing in comparison of establishing the Kingdom in his Line and his House in longinquum for many succeeding Ages and Generations And thence it is that we meet so often with the mention of the Blood-Royal the Seed the Progeny and the Race of Kings in the Historical Books of the Old Testament Hereby God wisely prevents a Vacuum or Gap in Government which in Polities and Societies does oftimes breed as preposterous and violent Changes as it does in Nature and at which much Disorder and Confusion is too apt to enter Which must be confessed by all who remember the many Tumults dangerous Ferments and Convulsions that inseparably wait upon the Intervals of Government in Elective Kingdoms or Principalities So that if on one hand there be a hazard of personal Insufficiency for the high Charge on the other there is almost a Certainty of lasting Mischiefs by the high Animosities of clashing Factions and different Pretenders and the notorious Sway and mighty Ascendant that Interest and partial Affections have in the Management of Elections and free Choices do ballance at least the personal Defects or Inconveniences in the way of Descent and Succession And when the Trees went out to chuse their King the Bramble carried it from the fat Olive the sweet Fig-Tree and the gladsom Vine But further It ought to be considered that if Children and the Fruit of the Womb be in general a Gift and Heritage that cometh of the Lord that then it seems utterly unlikely that God should abandon to Nature and the fickle Laws of Generation the Disposal of and Succession into that high Office which is the Instrument of so many of his Providences to this lower World and of so mighty Importance and Concernment to the Affairs of his Church and his Religion So that if by such special Direction and Superintendence of Providence it may be rationally concluded that the Matter is from God then we may be confident it will be more blessed than the wisest of Men's Expedients or Inventions without or against him And there must surely be somewhat extraordinary in it that when God threatens his severest Vengeance against the Nation of the Philistins one part of it should be to have the King perish from Gaza and a Bastard to dwell in Ashdod They who set up the Spuriout Abimelech rejoyced in him for a while and Abimelech rejoyced in them but this Sun-shine ended in very foul Weather and the Matter had a sad and Tragical Period and Catastrophe for a Fire was enkindled in short time between them and devoured and consumed them both and revenged the Injuries they had done by their wicked Combination against Jerubbaal and his House with whom they had dealt untruly and unsincerely How much better then is it when God takes the Matter into his own Hand and together with Inherent Blood and Birthright conveys and entails the Right to a Crown and the same Providence that designs the Being assigns the Station he must hold and the great Character he must sustain and manage This of old I am sure was frankly owned and recognized by St. Ambrose and St. Augustine Learned as well as Good Men Cujus jussu nascuntur Homines ejus jussu constituuntur Principes inde illis Potestas unde Spiritus They thought that God not only instituted the Office and was the Fountain of the Authority but was interessed too in the Designation of the Person in whom it should be invested Nor did they think it such a horrid Impeachment of a wise and gracious Providence that Princes were sometimes sent to fill the Throne who in Piety or Gentleness or other Princely Vertues fell far short of the Perfections of a Constantine or a Theodosius But the great Iniquity in the canvasing Questions of this sort seems to be That Men consider only the present Advantage or Security they propose not the lasting Settlement or true Right of things for if those were search'd into methinks 't is palpable and plain that Foundations can neither be safely nor justly altered Not Safely because they who new model Kingdoms must first force them and crumble them into pieces ere they can fit and dispose them for a new Fabrick and this will bring in such dreadful Shakings and Convulsions as may endanger the very Being of the Body Politick and raise such violent Fermentations as may go near to dissipate and destroy the whole Not Justly because Fundamental Laws that concern the Rights of Empire and that relate to the Original Constitution of Things and that fix and cut out the Channels wherein for ever they were to run These I say cannot be altered without the Violation of those Grounds and Laws of Reason and Equity and Social Life which support and protect all Publick Establishments and Intercourses of Men. And if this might be attempted at