ridiculous distinctions by which they would make the case of the Primitive Christians in not resisting Authority so much different from theirs who have not only done it but in spight of Christianity have pleaded for it Either they said they wanted strength or courage or the countenance of the Senate or did not understand their own Liberty when all their obedience was only due to those precepts of the Gospel which make it so great a part of Christianity to be subject to Principalities and Powers and which the Teachers of the Gospel had particularly given them in charge to put the people in mind of And happy had it been for us if this Doctrine had been more sincerely preached and duly practised in this Nation for we should then never have seen those sad times which we can now no otherwiâ—e think of than of the devouring Fire and raging Pestilence i. e. of such dreadful judgments which we have smarted so much by that we heartily pray we may never feel them again For then fears and jealousies began our miseries and the curse so often denounced against Meroz fell upon the whole Nation When the Sons of Corah managed their own ambitious designs against Moses and Aaron the King and the Church under the same pretences of Religion and Liberty And when the pretence of Religion was broken into Schisms and Liberty into oppression of the people it pleased God out of his secret and unsearchable judgments to suffer the Sons of Violence to prevail against the Lord 's Anointed and then they would know no difference between his being conquered and guilty They could find no way to justifie their former wickedness but by adding more The consciousness of their own guilt and the fears of the punishment due to it made them unquiet and thoughtful as long as his life and presence did upbraid them with the one and made them fearful of the other And when they found the greatness and constancy of his mind the firmness of his piety the zeal he had for the true interest of the people would not suffer him to betray his Trust for the saving of his life they charge him with their own guilt and make him suffer because they had deserved to do it And as if it had not been enough to have abused the names of Religion and Liberty before they resolve to make the very name of Iustice to suffer together with their King by calling that infamous company who condemned their Soveraign A High Court of Iustice which trampled under foot the Laws both of God and men But lest the world should imagine they had any shame left in their sins they make the people witnesses of his Murther and pretend the Power of the People for doing that which they did detest and abhor Thus fell our Royal Martyr a sacrifice to the fury of unreasonable men who either were so blind as not to see his worth or rather so bad as to hate him for it And as God gave once to the people of the Iews a King in his Anger being provoked to it by their sins we have cause to say that upon the same account he took away one of the best of Kings from us in his wrath But blessed be that God who in the midst of judgment was pleased to remember mercy in the miraculous preservation and glorious restauration of our Gracious Sovereign let us have a care then of abusing the mercies of so great a deliverance to quite other ends than God intended it for lest he be provoked to say to us as he did of old to the Iews But if ye shall still do wickedly ye shall be consumed both ye and your King And if we look on this as a dreadful judgment let us endeavour to prevent it by a timely and sincere reformation of our lives and by our hearty supplications to God that he would preserve the person of our Soveraign from all the attempts of violence that he would so direct his counsels and prosper his affairs that His Government may be a long and publick Blessing to these Nations SERMON VIII Preached at Guild Hall Chappel JUNE 9 th 1671. Matthew XXI 43. Therefore say I unto you the Kingdom of God shall be taken from you and given to a Nation bringing forth the fruits thereof THE time was now very near approaching wherein the Son of God was to suffer an accursed death by the hands of ungrateful men and to let them see that he laid no impossible command upon men when he bid them love their enemies he expresses the truest kindness himselâ— towards those who designed his destruction For what can be imagined greater towards such whose malice was like to end in nothing short of their own ruine than by representing to them the evils they must suffer to disswade them from that which they intended to do But if neither the sense of their future miseries nor their present sins will at all abate their fury or asswage their malice nothing is then lest for kindness to shew it self by but by lamenting their folly bemoaning their obstinacy and praying God to have pity upon them who have so little upon themselves And all these were very remarkable in the carriage of our Blessed Saviour towards his most implacable enemies he had taken care to instruct them by his doctrine to convince them by his miracles to oblige them by the first offers of the greatest mercy but all these things had no other effect upon them than to heighten their malice increase their rage and make them more impatient till they had destroyed him But their stupidity made him more sensible of their folly and their obstinacy stirred up his compassion towards them insomuch that the nearer he approached to his own sufferings the greater sense he expressed of theirs For he was no sooner come within view of that bloody City wherein he was within few days to suffer by as well as for the sins of men but his compassion breaks forth not only by his weeping over it but by that passionate expression which is abrupt only by the force of his grief If thou hadst known even thou at least in this thy day the things which belong unto thy peace but now they are hid from thine eyes And when he was within the City he could not mention the desolation which was to come upon it for all the righteous blood which had been spilt there but he presently subjoyns O Hierusalem Hierusalem thou that killest the Prophets and stonest them which are sent unto thee how often would I have gathered thy Childreâ— together as a Hen gathereth her Chickens under her wings and ye would not what words could more emphatically expresâ— the love and tenderness of Christ towards his greatest enemies than these do especially considering that he knew how busie they were in contriving his sufferings while he was so passionately lameâ—ting theirs And when their malice haâ— done its utmost upon
but an Ordinance of God and they who do so shall in the mildest sense receive a severe punishment from him Let the pretences be never so popular the persons never so great and famous nay though they were of the great Council of the Nation yet we see God doth not abate of his severity upon any of these considerations This was the first formed sedition that we read of against Moses the people had been murmuring before but they wanted heads to manage them Now all things concur to a most dangerous Rebellion upon the most popular pretences of Religion and Liberty and now God takes the first opportunity of declaring his hatred of such actions that others might hear and fear and do no more so presumptuously This hath been the usual method of divine Judgments the first of the kind hath been most remarkably punished in this life that by it they may see how hateful such things are to God but if Men will venture upon them notwithstanding God doth not always punish them so much in this world though he sometimes doth but reserves them without repentance to his Justice in the world to come The first man that sinned was made an example of God's Justice The first world the first publick attempt against Heaven at Babel after the plantation of the world again the first Cities which were so generally corrupted after the flood the first breaker of the Sabbath after the Law the first oâ—â—erers with strange fire the first lookers into the Ark and here the first popular Rebellion and Usurpers of the office of Priesthood God doth hereby intend to preserve the honour of his Laws he gives men warning enough by ore exemplary punishment and if notwithstanding that they will commit the same sin they may thank themselves if they suffer for it if not in this life yet in that to come And that good effect this Judgment had upon that people that although the next day 14000 suffered for murmuring at the destruction of these men yet we do not find that any Rebellion was raised among them afterwards upon these popular pretences of Religion and the Power of the People While their Judges continued who were Kings without the state and title of Kings they were observed with reverence and obeyed with diligence When afterwards they desired a King with all the Pomp and Grandeur which other Nations had which Samuel acquaints them with viz. the Officers and Souldiers the large Revenues he must have though their King was disowned by God yet the people held firm in their obedience to him and David himself though anointed to be King persecuted by Saul and though he might have pleaded Necessity and Providence as much as any ever could when Saul was strangely delivered into his hands yet we see what an opinion he had of the person of a bad King The Lord forbid that I should do this thing against my Master the Lord 's Anointed to stretch forth my hand against him seeing he is the Anointed of the Lord. And lest we should think it was only his Modesty or his Policy which kept him from doing it he afterwards upon a like occasion declares it was only the sin of doing it which kept him from it For who can stretch forth his hand against the Lords Anointed and be guiltless Not as though David could not do it without the power of the Sanhedrin as it hath been pretended by the Sons of Corah in our age for he excepts none he never seizes upon him to carry him prisoner to be tryed by the Sanhedrin nor is there any foundation for any such power in the Sanhedrin over the persons of their Soveraigns It neither being contained in the grounds of its institution nor any precedent occurring in the whole story of the Bible which gives the least countenance to it Nay several passages of Scripture utterly overthrow it for how could Solomon have said Where the word of a King is there is power and who may say unto him what dost thou If by the constitution of their Government the Sanhedrin might have controlled him in what he said or did But have not several of the modern Iews said so Granting that some have yet so they have spoken many unreasonable and foolish things besides but yet none of these have said that it was in the power of the Sanhedrin to depose their Kings or put them to death all that they say is that in the cases expressed by the Law if the Kings do transgress the Sanhedrin had the power of inflicting the penalty of scourging which yet they deny to have had any infamy in it among them But did not David transgress the Law in his murder and adultery did not Solomon in the multitude of his wives and Idolatry yet where do we read that the Sanhedrin ever took cognizance of these things And the more ancient Iews do say That the King was not to be judged as is plain in the Text of the Misna however the Expositors have taken a liberty to contradict it but as far as we can find without any foundation of reason and R. Ieremiah in Nachmanides saith expresly That no creature may judge the King but the holy and blessed God alone But we have an Authority far greater than his viz. of David's in this case who after he hath denied that any man can stretch forth his hand against the Lord 's Anointed and be guiltless in the very next words he submits the judgment of him only to God himself saying As the Lord liveth the Lord shall smite him or his day shall come to die or he shall descend into battle and perish He thought it sufficient to leave the judgment of those things to God whose power over Princes he knew was enough if well considered by them to keep them in awe We have now dispatched the first consideration of the words of the Text as they relate to the fact of Corah and his company 2. We ought now to enquire whether the Christian Doctrine hath made any alteration in these things or whether that gives any greater encouragement to faction and sedition than the Law did when it is masked under a pretence of zeal for Religion and Liberty But it is so far from it that what God then declared to be displeasing to him by such remarkable judgments hath been now more fully manifested by frequent precepts and vehement exhortations by the most weighty arguments and the constant practice of the first and the best of Christians and by the black character which is set upon those who under a pretence of Christian Liberty did despise dominion and speak evil of dignities and follow Corah in his Rebellion however they may please themselves with greater light than former ages had in this matter they are said to be such for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever It would take up too much time to examine the frivolous evasions and
and the Sea to boyl and swell and froth like water in a seething pot but to hear nothing but perpetual claps of thunder and to see no light in the Heavens but what the flashings of lightning give Could we imagine our selves at a convenient distance to behold the eruption of a burning mountain such as Aetna and Vesuvius are when the Earth about it trembles and groans the Sea foams and rages and the bowels of the Mountain roar through impatience of casting forth its burden and at last gives it self ease by sending up a mixture of flames and ashes and smoak and a flood of fire spreading far and destroying where-ever it runs yet even this though it be very apt to put men in apprehensions and fears of this great day falls very far short of the terrour of it Could we yet farther suppose that at the same time we could see fire and brimstone raining from Heaven on Sodom and Gomorrah the earth opening to devour Corah and his company Belshazzar trembling at the hand-writing against the wall and the Jews destroying themselves in the fire of their Temple and City this may somewhat higher advance our imaginations of the horror of the World's conflagration but yet we cannot reach the greatness of it in as much as the Heavens and the Earth which are now are kept in store saith the Apostle reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men even those heavens whose beauty and order and motion and influence we now admire and that earth whose fruitful womb and richly adorned surface affords all the conveniencies of the life of man must either be destroyed or at least purged and refined by this last and dreadful Fire The expressions of which in Scripture being so frequent so particular so plain in Writers not affecting the losty Prophetical stile wherein fire is often used only to express the wrath of God make it evident that their meaning is not barely that the world shall be destroyed by the anger of God but that this destruction shall be by real fire which adds more to the sensible terrour of it to all that shall behold it 2. The terrour of Christ's appearance in that day The design of the Scripture in setting forth the coming of Christ to judgment is to represent it in such a manner to us as is most apt to strike us with awe and terrour at the apprehension of it Now the greatest appearance of Majesty among men is either when a mighty Prince marches triumphantly in the midst of a Royal Army with all the splendor of a Court and the discipline of a Camp having his greatest attendants about him and sending his Officers before him who with the sound of Trumpets give notice of his approach and is every-where received with the shouts and acclamations of the people or else of a Prince sitting upon his Throne of Majesty set forth with all the Ornaments of State and Greatness with all his Nobles and Courtiers standing about his Throne and in his own Person calling Malefactors to account and both these ways the appearance of Christ upon his second coming is represented to us first as coming in the clouds of Heaven i. e. riding triumphantly as it were upon a Chariot on a body of light brighter than the Son having all the Heavenly host attending upon him and therefore he is said to come with power and great glory and sending his Angels with a great sound of a trumpet before him after whom the Lord himself shall descend from Heaven with a shout with the vioce of the Archangel and with the trump of God Not as though we were to imagine any material trumpet as some have grossly done whose sound could reach over the whole earth but the sound of the last trumpet seems to be the same with the voice of the Son of God which the dead are said to hear and live i. e. it shall be an effectual power for raising the dead which may be therefore called the sound of the Trumpet because it supplies the use of one in calling all people together and doth more lively represent to our capacities the Majesty of Christ's appearance with all the Heavenly host of Angels and Saints Thus when God appeared upon Mount Sinai with his Holy Angels about him we there read of the noise of the trumpet and when God shewed his glorious presence in the temple he is said to go up with a shout and the Lord with the sound of a trumpet and when he sets himself against his enemies God himself is said to blow the trumpet and to go with the whirlwinds of the South But besides this we find Christ upon his second coming described as sitting on the throne of his glory and all the Holy Angels about him and all nations gathered before him to receive their sentence from him His Throne is said to be great and white i. e. most magnificent and glorious and to make it the more dreadful from it are said to proceed lightnings and thundrings and voices and so terrible is the Majesty of him that sits upon the throne that the Heaven and Earth are said to fly away from his face but the dead small and great are to stand before him and to be judged according to their works And if the appearance of a common Judge be so dreadful to a guilty prisoner if the Majesty of an earthly Prince begets an awe and reverence where there is no fear of punishment what may we then imagine when Justice and Majesty both meet in the person of the Judge and fear and guilt in the Conscience of Offenders Therefore it is said Behold he cometh with clouds and every eye shall see him and they also which pierced him and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him We find the best of men in Scripture seized on with a very unusal consternation at any extraordinary divine appearance The sight upon Mount Sinai was so terrible even to Moses that he did exceedingly fear and quake the vision which Isaiah had of the glory of God made him cry out Wo is me for I am undone for mine eyes have seen the King the Lord of Hosts When Daniel saw his vision all his strength and vigour was gone and though an Angel raised him from the ground yet he saith of himself that he stood trembling If these whom God appeared to in a way of kindness were so possessed with fear what horror must needs seize upon the minds of the wicked when the Lord Iesus shall be revealed from Heaven in flaming fire on purpose to take vengeance upon them If in the days of his flesh there appeared so much Majesty in his Countenance that when the Officers came to apprehend him they went backward and fell to the ground how unconceivably greater must it be when his deâ—ign shall be to manifest that