Selected quad for the lemma: kingdom_n
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A45743
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A sermon preached before the honourable House of Commons, at St. Margaret Westminster, on the thirtieth of January, 1694/5 by John Hartcliffe ...
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Hartcliffe, John, 1651-1712.
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1695
(1695)
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Wing H970; ESTC R9583
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12,292
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31
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Mr. HARTCLIFFE's SERMON Before the House of Commons January 30. 1694 5. Jovis 31. die Januarii 1694. Ordered THat the Thanks of this House be given to Mr. HARTCLIFFE for the SERMON by him Preached yesterday at St. Margaret VVestminster And that he be desired to Print the same and that Mr. Hunt and Mr. Hungerford do acquaint him therewith Paul Jodrell Cler. Dom. Com. A SERMON Preached before the Honourable House of Commons AT St. MARGARET WESTMINSTER ON The Thirtieth of January 1694 5. By John Hartcliffe B. D. CANON of Windsor LONDON Printed for Charles Harper at the Flower-de-luce over-against S. Dunstan's Church in Fleetstreet 1695. A SERMON ON PSALM 90. Verse XV. Make us glad according to the days wherein thou hast afflicted us and the years wherein we have seen evil THIS Psalm is made up of a complaint for the afflictions as well as the shortness of human Life together with an earnest prayer to God for a speedy return of his Mercy it doth particularly reflect on those times in which Moses lived when the Children of Israel suffered great hardships in the Wilderness and numbers of them were cut off for their provocations So that the Author hereof doth in the most passionate manner cry out our Troubles have been very heavy and have lasted very long let us have O Lord some proportion of Joy to so large a share of Sorrow and make us glad according to the days wherein thou hast afflicted us and the years wherein we have seen evil By the Words we are directed First To consider what we have seen of Evil in passed years chiefly that which this day reminds us of Secondly To flie to the God of all consolation for comfort and joy that he would make us glad according to the days wherein he hath afflicted us To look back upon days of adversity and trouble is an unpleasant and melancholly sight however some good use may be made of it for thereby we shall see that a long Sun-shine of God's Mercy hath ripen'd the Sins of a Nation so that it shall be ready for the strokes of his Justice Thereby also we shall perceive with what subtlety the Seeds of Sedition have been sown and how mischievously they have been spread abroad in Libels To what a degree of heat and madness the lust and ambition of some Men hath been raised so that nothing could allay them till they had sull scope to take their revenge and wreak 〈◊〉 their malice both upon Church and State In order to this End we our selves have seen and our Fathers have told us what strange and monstrous Things have been done it being very much so for Subjects to Murder their King without shame and in the face of the Sun for the feet thus unnaturally to trample upon and throw off their Head The meanest indeed of the People must be the most proper and fit Instruments for such a work because low Descent and poor Education do by a natural Power incline the thoughts to an imperious Humour to cruelty and disobedience Now the more effectually to recommend this black Design and to give it a fair Face it was nam'd the Cause of God and the principal Actors therein were stiled God's own Israel Whereupon every Street was filled with their Cryes that all People would come out of Egypt and they had indeed provided them a Red-Sea of Blood for their passage So that in this day of our affliction all the Evil was acted under the vizard of Religion which did much aggravate the guilt of the chief Agents whose hearts were engag'd in the contrivance of the most unwarrantable Deed when their hands and eyes were offering up prayers and tears to Gods Throne nay they seemed to labour under strong Impulses of Spirit till they had brought forth the evil thing they had conceived which they could not have done so easily had they not united Men of different Interests by a Covenant What a Device was this to help forward the birth of the most amazing Wickedness by such an engagement as was never heard of in antient Times any otherwise than as at the making of their Leagues they were wont to kill Beasts and divide them so this also was solemniz'd with division and slaughter These were the years in which peaceable and upright Walking before God and Obedience to lawful Authority were exchang'd for an unusual Mode of Speech only and a formality of Looks The worst actions Men could be guilty of were attributed to the dictates of God's Holy Spirit and they were more busied in finding out some marks of Conversion than about the practise of real Godliness till at length the whole State was overthrown by fictions and lying Words For by these they did blacken and misrepresent the King himself that he might the more plausibly be Sacrificed to the will of his Enemies The horridness of which Fact may be here briefly considered in the fatal Consequences of it for as one absurdity begets many so did this Evil spread itself into many pernicious Evils which may be reduced to these two sorts 1. Such as were of Civil 2. Such as were of a Religious Concern We have felt the Death of the King to be a sore Judgment by the terrible Effects of it which did spead themselves over the Face and thrô the Veins and into the Bowels of the three Kingdoms Many Noble and Antient Families were not only undone but there immediately followed a Change of that Government whose Praise had been proclaimed on the Earth for many Centuries For as soon as the King was gone our Fellow-Subjects took upon them to be our Princes and to govern us at their pleasure in order to satisfie their Avarice or their Ambition and first they called themselves a Council of State but after that and the Nobility was excluded came in the Rule of the Common People by their Representatives only this increased the Number of our Rulers consequently the Burden of our Slavery by being forced to serve so many Masters After these were deprived of the Power they had usurp'd and abused began the Dominion of the Sword then we had as many Princes as there were Major-Generals who perhaps if they had out liv'd their Captain would have canton'd the Kingdom into so many several Principalities as when it was shred into Democracy the Streams of Government ran thin and shallow being cut into many Channels Thus it was when their Leader after the Pattern of Jeroboam who made Priests of the basest of the People set up his Creatures too in the House of Lords and would have all the Tribes come up and worship them After this manner when the King was gone a kind of Giddiness seized those who would be uppermost and usurp his Place insomuch that the state of things was continually toss'd from hand to hand rolling like a Ship in the midst of a tempestuous Sea with all her Rigging Masts and Rudder-Bands broken down and without a Pilot to stee her
Government is deeply rooted in the Foundation of our Religion Insomuch that what human Laws could never effect that the Christian in the true Spirit of it performs to the utmost degree For our Saviour carried himself with Submission to the Powers that then were even to the Sanhedrim and their Delegates and in his Doctrine he hath commanded us to render unto Cesar the things that are Cesars and the Apostles likewise press earnestly for Obedience to them who have the rule over us that we may doe all things without murmuring and pray for all that are in authority But if any object to this that both Christ and his Followers too submitted because they had not Strength nor Force enough to resist we may reply that he could only have spoke the Word and his Father would have sent him Twelve Legions of Angels for his Relief but to this Objection the Behaviour of the Primitive Christians will give a full Answer for Tertullian tells the Emperour in his Apology that his Cities Islands Castles and Armies his Palace Senate and Courts of Judicature were fill'd with Christians who would make no Stirs thô they were oppress'd by the severest Edicts And it is very remarkable that our Saviour did never look into the original Power of the Sanhedrim or what was left them by the Romans but because they sat in Moses his Chair whatsoever they bid you do be charges them to do it and in the Writings of his Apostles not a Word occurs of any enquiry into the Titles or Rights of the Roman Governours but their Pains are spent in fixing all things that relate to the just Measures of Obedience For it had been a very weak Argument for Rulers to become Christians if by yielding to our Faith they must thereby be exposed to the shakings of War upon every breaking out of Religious Melancholy whose untoward Influences were in the late Times of trouble so very powerful as to persuade some over-zealous Persons that they were exempt from the Laws of Men when they were confident enough to call themselves the only Friends of the Kingdom of Christ How far this false Opinion did prevail and how near it came to the digging the Grave of this Kingdom we cannot remember without Consternation but this beneficial Truth we have learnt by it that there is no Cruelty so great as Laxeness of Government nor Tyranny like the Rage of Subjects let loose and unrestrained Hence proceeded such a Deed as was hardly ever seen or heard of before and that will cause the Ears of all future Ages to tingle when the King fell by the Rage of his own mistaken People However it may be God suffered this barbarous Wickedness to succeed that he might shew forth his Wonders in our days and comfort us under the present Reign for all the afflictions that we have smarted under It may be this was done that we might say the Lord liveth who hath delivered us from the Teeth of unnatural Zealots blood thirsty and deceitful Men. Surely all these things have been permitted that the Faith and Patience of good Men might be made bright and shining by the flames they have undergone of Persecution and that in the day when God shall have given the King either the hearts or the necks of his Enemies it may not repent him of the deliverance he hath wrought under God for the State out of the snares of wicked Men or of raising up the afflicted Head of the Church out of the dust of whose Faith his Grandfather lived the most pious Defender and for which he died a Glorious Martyr Which brings me to the second and more delightful part of my Text to consider the comforts we may now hope for when God hath made us glad according to the days wherein we have been afflicted And he hath made us so in that we live First Under a Monarchy not under a multitude of Rulers Secondly Under the Directions of the true Religion not under erroneous Doctrine Thirdly Under the Blessings of Peace not under the Miseries of Civil War The late Troubles were the more heavy and intolerable in that we had many Masters to serve many Taskmasters I mean who did often require brick without affording straw And Solomon observes Prov. 28.2 That for the transgression of a Land many are the Princes thereof but by a man of understanding shall the state of it be prolonged especially where the King Governs his Subjects as a Father doth his Children by equal and just Laws made with their own consent to them And at present we have a particular reason for a more than ordinary joy if we reflect upon the wonderful change from what we were of late to what we are now as S. Paul saith of the calling of the Jews it is like the Resurrection of the dead And we may believe that if the Spirits of just men made perfect know any thing of what is done here below that King CHARLES the First was never so much grieved with the Injuries that were done unto himself as now he may be well pleased with these days of Happiness to his Realms in having a Monarch of his own Blood endow'd with all the Heroical Virtues which may shed a suitable influence upon his Government For he appears to be sent by God himself to build up the Walls of our Jerusalem and to make up the breaches in Sion by restoring whatever we want to complete our good Condition to cure all our Jealousies to banish all our Fears to confirm all our hopes and to remove all our Distractions Now these Blessings can be no more expected from a Multitude of Rulers than order can be kept up in the Universe by a multitude of Gods who will be ever crossing one another But they may be had under a single Person especially from one whom we must own to be designed by Divine Providence to be preserved by Divine Power to be qualified by Divine Wisdom to scatter that cloud which began to gather and look black upon Church and State to establish and prolong our peace plenty wealth strength security reputation and whatsoever other Ingredients there are to render a Nation happy which was so near perishing under the Conduct of many it shall by one man of knowledg and virtue not only be recovered from its former Distempers but be stedfastly settled and the State thereof continued if it be not our own fault for the future whereas the whole Constitution of the Land must needs sink if it should be ever Canton'd into parts or the Sovereignty of the whole be shared among many or among all if it should be divided by Sword-men or by setting up two Chiefs over the same Subjects one in Civil the other in Ecclesiastical Matters whether the conclave or the consistory be the cause of it For Secondly The Confusions of the late Times were the more grievous for the variety of Teachers that sprung up and filled the Heads of their Disciples with