for the Prince of Darkness hath borrowed from him and made use of it upon the like account viz. If the Christians of old did not depose Nero Dioclesian and others like to them it is because they wanted power And this that Author calls a sufficient answer It is a thing more facile then proper for this my purpose to discover more then this one flaw in that Politick Engine which some have chosen rather to part with their livelihoods then renounce though enjoyned to do it by a more lawful Authority and upon far better grounds then that by which and those upon which it was first imposed It is the joint resolution of all sound Casuists The resolution of the best Casuists concerning unlawful Vows c. that sinful vows are more safely broken then kept and being rashly and unadvisedly made they bind to repentance not to performance which if our dissenting Brethren of the Clergy had well well weighed and considered the Church might have received more benefit by their labours and themselves more comfort by their obedience For how much soever they seem by their selected Texts for their Farewel Sermons to please and solace themselves in their sufferings upon such and such accounts as if they had left all to follow Christ yet they cannot but know that such Texts have no more of comfort in them at least will yield no more unto them then their sufferings have of compliance with their Texts What a sad mistake will it be if it should prove in the winding up that in stead of leaving all to follow Christ they have left Christ to follow their fansies or the dictates of an erroneous Conscience and have opposed yea preferred their own private reputations to the publick peace of the Church For mine own part I do much more commend the prudence of those Noble Senators who in regard it had bewitched so many Subjects into a Rebellion against their Soveraign have passed upon it its proper doom to be burned to ashes But I leave them and come to our selves This applied to rectifie our judgments who are instructed from this part of the Text that all the fore-mentioned Duties which Subjects owe to their Princes are due and payable to them as they are so A Lesson very necessary for us all to learn exactly to remember it carefully and to practise it conscionably Many are throughly convinced that they are justly due to and highly deserved by good Princes that are tender Fathers of their Country indulgent Nurses of the Church faithful Shepherds of the People vigilant Keepers of the Peace careful defenders of Justice and impartial protectors of innocency They readily pay them to the fruitful Vine that delights them with her lovely clusters Arbor honoretur cujus nos umbra tuetur to the benefical Olive that enricheth them with its pleasing fatness to the spreading Tree that yields them shadow from the heat and fruit for their hunger but to do it to the scratching Bramble that fleeces and draws bloud from them to a Tyrant that turns Justice into Wormwood that persecutes and dismembers that pulls down and destroys at pleasure that makes a Land an Acheldama a Field of Bloud This is a hard saying who can bear it Malis dominandi potestas non datur nisi summi Dei providentia quando subditos judicat talibus Dominis dignos De Civit. Dei lib. 5. c. 21. But what saith St. Austin Government is not put into such mens hands but by the providence of the most high God when he judgeth them for their great impieties to deserve such Governours God hath an especial providence in appointing Kings and disposing of Kingdoms Promotion is neither from the East nor from the West nor yet from the South but God pulleth down one and setteth up another Psal 75.6 The God of Heaven gave Nebuchadnezzar a Kingdom Dan. 2.37 Power and Glory And what a King that was I think none can be ignorant that are not strangers to the holy Scriptures which describe him to be a cruel enemy to Gods people spoiling them of their substance plucking them out of their habitations and carrying them into a miserable and tedious captivity He was the rod of Gods anger wherewith he scourged that sinful People the Jews together with their Kings and Princes commanding them that they should serve him and pray for him and if they did not so Jer. 27.6.29.7 he would visite them with Sword Famine and Pestilence He gives good ones in love evil ones in anger they all come under that distinction if they are of the first sort we must honour and obey them chearfully if of the worser sort we must endure them patiently Per loci desertionem ab officio defectionem intelligit Cartwright in locum If the spirit of him that ruleth rise up against thee whether thou give him any just cause for it or not leave not thy place By which Phrase we are to understand defection from the duties of our place meaning that Subjects may not for any injuries received from him with-hold any thing that is due unto him though he should cease to do the duty of a King they must not cease to do the duty of Subjects This what I have here imparted with a great deal of weakness as to the managing of it is with as much sincerity as to the truth of it The conclusion of the Treatise Neither have I herein designed any secular advantage to my self but have faithfully revealed what hath been taught by Solomon yea by Christ a greater then Solomon viva voce when he was on Earth and by his Apostles since his ascension into Heaven I know there have been some who have perverted this piece of Gospel Doctrine which St. Paul so clearly taught not dreading in the least his Apostolical Anathema I have a great deal of confidence that this may come into the hands of some that are not otherwise minded And for those that are and seek to pervert others Gal. 5.10 they shall bear their judgment whoever they be And so I shall close with that caution which the Author gives in the latter part of this and in the ensuing Verse to avoid familiarity with but more especially seduction by the seditious that are given to change for so they are described by their levity that makes them so and with his argument drawn à malo poenae from the evil of punishment which usually attends both the seducers and the seduced which is both sudden and severe it begins in calamity and ends in the ruine of both My son fear thou the Lord and the King and meddle not with them that are given to change for their calamity shall rise suddenly and who knoweth the ruine of them both FINIS
inconsiderable Topick Jobs Argument argues himself into a posture of humility towards the meanest of his menial servants If I did despise the cause of my man-servant Chap. 31.13 14 15. or of my maid-servant when they did contend with me what then shall I do when God riseth up and when he visiteth what shall I answer him Sol. 2. By negation Theirs unsound ad dangerous did not he that made me in the womb make him and did not one fashion us in the womb But because Believers are all one in Christ therefore either all must be Kings or none must be Kings is a plain wresting St. Pauls words wrested himself grosly abused and not the proper meaning of the Apostles words in that place and a sense that makes him most absurdly contradict himself in that precept of his now under consideration put them in mind that they be subject to principalities and powers Indeed it could amount to no less then a very great absurdity to press that as a duty in one place if before he took away that distinction that made it so in another One thing more I have yet to offer from the words of the same Apostle in another place upon the same Subject A further consideration offered for our vindication though written to another people and whatsoever was written to either of them was written for our learning Rom. 15.4 Chap. 13.1 2. Let every soul be subject to the higher Powers for there is no Power but of God the Powers that be are ordained of God whosoever therefore resisteth the Power resisteth the Ordinance of God and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation From whence I inferr by the rule of contraries One inference A sufficient warrant for us to preach and as great a danger to them if they do not practise it that Doctrine cannot but tend to edification whose contrary tends so certainly to destruction A sad judgment it draws upon the guilty in their temporal in their spiritual and in their eternal concerns First In their temporal 1. In their temporal concerns Ezra 7.26 c. Their calamity shall arise suddenly in the very next Verse to the Text and whosoever will not do the Law of God and the King let judgment be executed speedily upon him whether it be unto death or to banishment or unto confiscation of goods or to imprisonment A Law not peculiar to the Persians but common to all other Nations that are under Kings whether Christians or Heathens without which indeed it were impossible to preserve their Authority inviolable How many in our own time and of our own Nation have been deservedly ruined imprisoned executed upon this very account And in the Scripture besides particular persons that were contrivers of the Rebellion against Moses and Aaron Numb 16.32 which with their Families and goods were swallowed up of a miraculous and most remarkable judgment to the horrour and astonishment of all that beheld it they and all that appertained to them went down alive into the Pit and the earth closed upon them Verse 35. two hundred and fifty Princes of the Assembly are consumed by a fire from the Lord as they were offering incense Verse 49. and fourteen thousand and seven hundred were swept away with the Plague 2. In their spiritual E. g. David Secondly In their spiritual When David that man after Gods own heart had but cut off the skirt of Sauls garment his Conscience flies in his face and his heart smote him for that he shewed so little reverence and respect to the Lords Anointed though he did it not with the least intent to injure his person but to testifie his own innocency and to convince him of his errour in causlesly pursuing him from place to place that he aimed not at his life nor kingdom but that notwithstanding God who is the great disposer both of Kings and Kingdoms had rejected him and anointed himself he had been and was resolved to be his most loyal Subject 1 Sam. 24.5 In clearing his innocency he drew a guilt upon his Conscience which once wounded denied him all peace till he had first made his peace with God How many have we read and heard of whose troubled Consciences have been instrumental to the discovery of those treasons wherein both themselves and others have been concerned either as principals or accessaries Thirdly In their eternal concerns 3. In eternal They that resist shall receive to themselves damnation which some understand of the temporal punishment inflicted by the Magistrate Peter Martyr Junius and Tremel or by God himself punishing the contempt of his own Ordinance on the contemners thereof Some of eternal damnation not excluding the other some judgment in the general without specification of any particular kind or sort leaving the Reader to his liberty to chuse which he pleaseth because indeed this sin exposeth those that are guilty of it to all sorts of judgments both corporal spiritual and eternal The Apostles reason acquits Gods justice And the Apostle gives a reason sufficient enough to acquit the justice of God in the severest punishment he can inflict upon them because they resist the Ordinance of God He that resists the King resists God 1 Sam. 8.9 As those that rejected Samuel are said to reject him and so consequently God himself As God sometime told Samuel much troubled at and grieved with the peoples base ingratitude They have not rejected thee but they have rejected me that I should not reign over them Calvin though different in point of Church Government yet sides with us in this point to clear us and to confute our Adversaries Calvin whose authority with some is very great in the point of Church Government to the disquiet both of Church and State in his Book of Institutions placeth Magistracy under the general head of external means necessary to salvation ranking it with the doctrine of the Church of the Sacraments of the Ministery c. intimating that it is as necessary in its kind or way as any of the other and by putting it in the last place as it were to bring up the Reer he seems to me to hint thus much to his Readers that they cannot be compleat Christians though they are Members of the Church by outward profession though admitted her Members by the Sacrament of Initiation and may seem to have attained some strength by the often hearing of the Word and receiving the Lords Supper which is the Sacrament of Confirmation yet if they fail in their duty to the Magistrate Simile they are but like the sullen Cow that yields a considerable quantity of Milk into the Pale but as if the unthankfully grudged it to her deserving owner kicks it all down with her unlucky heels and this one ill Weed like those wild Gourds 2 Kings 4.39 spoils the whole Pot of Pottage And thus I have with as much
with the sacred bond of an Oath which is at this day in use both in our own and other Nations which was thought a sufficient security when Oaths were made more conscience of Ferrum tuetur Principem Some have thought potent Arms the best as Nero in Seneca's Tragedies But 't is not with men as among Beasts where the strongest head the Herd and bear the sway 't is Vertue not Violence establisheth a Princes authority whose best and most faithful Guard are his own Innocence and his Subjects Benevolence without which the greatest they can place about their persons will hardly exempt them from perpetual fears and renders them more like Prisoners then like Princes As Plato sometime said of Dionisius the Tyrant Quid tantum mali fecisti ut ità à multis custodiaris when he saw him environed with his What evil hast thou done that thou hast so many Keepers He that is truly Loyal will not stick to hazard his own if that he can preserve his Soveraigns life Like that noble Hubert of St. Clare mentioned in our English Chronicles Hubert of St. Clare who at a Siege interposed his own person between his King and danger and lodged that deadly Arrow in his own breast which was levelled at that Royal mark It was our Saviours inference upon that supposition which both were occasioned by Pilates question Art thou the King of the Jews John 18.33 V. 35. This nulls the pretended Commission of those Millenaries of the last Edition who have listed themselves of his Life-guard under pretence of setting him on his Throne who professeth himself no temporal Prince and disclaims all title to an earthly Kingdom My Kingdom is not of this World if it were then would my servants fight that I should not be delivered to mine enemies which if well weighed would stop the mouths and tie up the hands of those who are so apt to rebel against the Kings of this World under pretence of enlarging the Kingdom of Christ which is not of this World and therefore needs none of its weapons either to support it or to augment it God would not allow David because a Souldier a man of bloud though all that he shed was by virtue of Gods Commission and in fighting his battels except that of Vriah which he before repented of and had received his pardon for it to build him a Temple which was but a type of that spiritual Kingdom That was a work reserved for Solomon that peaceable King and so the fitter to typifie the Prince of Peace Christ had an Army What Army this King had but it was made up of Martyrs Subjects that did strive to defend him and his Kingdom but they did this by laying down their own lives not by taking away the lives of others who fought with weapons not carnal What weapons they fought with but spiritual such as were mighty through God for the pulling down the strong holds that Sin and Satan had erected in the hearts of men His Conquest great and yet without Sword or bloud It was the singular glory of that Kingdom of his that it planted it self without a Sword and made a conquest of the World without bloud It was his Fathers promise that upon his Sons as king he would give him the Heathen for his inheritance and the uttermost parts for his possession A large proffer of vast Territories of a Crown and Kingdom worth the having but he must win them before he can wear and enjoy them How unlikely when so many opposers When he came into the World to take possession of this gift he found all its inhabitants ranked under two heads of distinction Jews and Gentiles The first refused him owning no King but Caesaer Joh. 19.15 Joh. 19.15 The other storm and rage at him The Kings of the Earth set themselves together Psal 2.2 and the Rulers take Council together against his anointed and it was almost the general cry We will not have this man to reign over us So that in the judgments of men it was a thing impossible for him to erect such an universal Monarchy when there were on all sides such great oppositions what were his first followers and afterward co-workers A short Character of his Life-guard Potius Aratores quam Oratores but poor simple illiterate men fitter for Plough-men then Orators When Absolon sought to wrest the Scepter out of his Fathers hands he depraved and maligned his Government Absolons fawning policy and with subtil promises and courteous deportment insinuated himself into the affections of his Subjects O that I were made Judge over Israel that every man which hath any suit or cause 2 Sam. 15.3 4 5 6. might come unto me and I would do him justice and when any man came nigh unto him to do his obeysance he put forth his hand took him and kissed him so Absalon stole the hearts of the children of Israel And when Cyrus the Persian designed to subdue the Lacedemonians Cyrus his large promises to his Souldiers he promised large rewards to his Souldiers He that will serve me in this expedition Quicumque mihi militabit si pedes est faciam equitem c. if he were a Footman I will make him an Horseman and he that had an Horse shall have a Chariot if he were owner of a Village I will give him a Town if of a Town I will give him a City yea a whole Country besides Gold in abundance Plutarchs Apotheg Christs to his Cujus pollicitationes minae cujus suasiones dissuasiones But what were the Arguments that this King gives to his They must forsake Parents and Children Lands and Livings Life and all Who could expect that ever he should gain a Subject whose promises were threatnings and his perswasions disswasions What Arguments can we use more effectually terrifying to a person that values his Friends his Livelihood or Life Or what could he have threatned worse to his greatest enemies Yet notwithstanding their zeal was strangely fired by a kind of Antiperistasis and they boldly set upon the work and after they had made some small beginning their King is betrayed into the hands of his mortal enemies arraigned condemned crucified and themselves dispersed and hid and scarce any one of his Subjects durst to own him so that in all outward appearance his life and kingdom had both the same period Vincendo moriantur moriendo vicit Du. Plessis Some pay dear for their Victories purchasing them with the loss of their lives but this King conquered by dying who maugre the malice of his adversaries raiseth himself from the dead according to his promise rallies his routed Disciples gives them a new Commission and within the space of a few years extends his Dominion from Sea to Sea He conquered by dying and from one end of the Earth unto the other He did doth and shall reign till he have
not to be our own carvers or to fly to the use of unlawful means but to wait upon God by faith and ply him with our Prayers who hath the hearts of Kings in his hands and will order and dispose them so as shall make most for his own glory and our good An example that will one day rise up in judgment against the men of this Generation and condemn it What to be expected by them that refuse to learn it who like Gunpowder are ready to take fire from every little spark of discontent that falls upon their spirits and to flame out into open Rebellion Which it seems hath been for many Years if not Ages the customary sin of this Nation Maximilians censure Insomuch that Maximilian the Emperour passing his censure upon four great Kingdoms Germany Spain France and England Rex Regum Rex Hominum Rex Asinorum Rex Diabolorum he stiled himself a King of Kings the King of Spain a King of Men the King of France a King of Asses and the King of England a King of Devils because of their readiness to rebel upon the least occasion which they learned from the Devil who was the first Rebel in the World and the father of all the rest which have been since the beginning of it to this very day The last which concerns ours the worst but too true to be denied So that were it only to avoid the scandal and to prevent the dishonour and to escape the curse which Rebellion bringeth with it and draws after it an ingenious people would rather suffer any hardship then take up Arms against their King Prov. 18.10 The name of the Lord is a strong Tower the righteous runneth to it and is safe whereas they that stand upon their own guard and are resolved to make their own Swords the only remedy of their conceited grievances Timidis ignavis opus esse auxilio divino saying with the Heathen Cowards and slothful people only need Gods assistance may justly expect to perish in their unwarrantable ingagements especially against such a Prince who was so far from passing a decree for their ruine that he gave all the security they could desire yea much more then what many of them did deserve to ensure them the free enjoyment of their Religion Lives Liberties and Estates Besides the ground before mentioned and upon which the persons aforesaid acted this duty and by its Virtue and prevalency so happily succeeded and prospered there are several other very material and weighty considerations which call upon us for the constant and conscionable practice of this duty as 2. Reason Secondly The burden that lies upon them in respect of their Calling and Office A burthen which Jethro saw lay too heavy upon Moses his shoulders Exod. 18.18 Thou wilt saith he surely wear away for this thing is too heavy for thee thou art not able to perform it thy self alone Therefore adviseth to chuse such and such persons so and so qualified V. 20.21 and place them to be Rulers over thousands and Rulers of hundreds and Rulers of fifties and Rulers of tens that they may judge smaller matters and so bear the burden with thee Magnae vires gloriae decorique sunt si illis salutaris potentia est nam pestifera vis est valere ad nocendum Senec. de Clementia c. A great power and command they have indeed which is honourable and glorious but it is so only and then and no otherwise makes them which have that power so when they use it to the benefit safety and welfare of those for whom they have received it That is a pernicious power that is only used or rather abused for the injury of others I say abused 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Aristot ad Alexand. M. for as the Philosopher hath it Government was not ordained for injury but for benefit The cares of Government are so many great and weighty that many have voluntarily sequestred themselves from those publick imployments to enjoy the quiet of a private life Pericles the Athenian after he had governed forty years exchanged his Court for a Cottage and having obtained his quietus est he wrote over his Portal this Distich in the Margine Inveni portum spes fortuna valete nil mihi vobiscum ludite nunc alios which sounds thus much in our Language I have found an harbour adieu hope and fortune I le have no more to do with you make your sport now of whom you please Their Titles speak their Cares viz. Fathers Shepherds Their very Titles hint unto them what they must expect and what will be expected from them Fathers of their Country which calls upon them for care as well as upon their Subjects for respect Shepherds to feed defend watch over their Subjects for these are proper actions that have such under their charge In the day the drought consumed me Gen. 31.40 in the night the frost and my sleep departed from mine eyes so said Jacob when he kept the sheep of Laban Agamemnons vigilancy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Homer Iliad Io. The very same commendation that Homer gave to Agamemnon for his care of those rational sheep which he governed that his sleep was never sweet pleasant nor quiet They are Heads and we know that the head as it is the emblem of Government so it is the seat of care Heads of the People Watchmen Keepers c. They are Watchmen Keepers c. all importing the very same their care therefore being so great and their burden so ponderous they have need of other shoulders then their own to bear it yea all must some way or other put to their helping hand Judges and inferiour Magistrates by way of participation upon their authoritative delegation and every one by way of sympathy and by the united strength of their fervent Prayers And methinks the common interest that their Subjects have in that care Subjects have the benefit of their cares and are concerned in all those things which they take the care of should enforce this as a common duty incumbent on all who are concerned as all are in those things which they are chiefly to take care of As first of Religion that we may lead godly lives 1 Tim. 2.3 As first Religion Solomons Vineyard a type of the Church Cant. 8.11 this is a chief part of the Magistrates care Solomon had a Vineyard in Baal-Hamon which he hath let out to husbandmen among which Kings are the chief 'T is hedged about by their authority and power and the strength of their wholsom Laws whereby the Evil are awed the good encouraged and the interest of the true Religion promoted The sad influence our confusions had upon our Religion represented by way of allusion which suffered sadly in the times of our Confusions fell into so many pieces and those pieces into so much dirt and rubbish that
was generally conceived to be put to those Civil Wars which owed its rise and original to the stout Spirit of the one and the haughty Courage of the other or rather to the boundless ambition of both the one brooking no Superior the other no Equal The Senate at his return the better to express their gratitude for their deliverance from the miseries of that War welcomed him home with new invented Titles of Honour stiling him among others The Father of his Country Pater Patriae and the same was afterwards conferred upon many that succeeded him yea Roma Patrem Patriae Ciceronem libera dixit Juvenal Sat. 8. the Romans thought they could not give an higher to those who deserved the highest for their care of the Commonwealth Several hundreds of years before this we find it in use in other Nations Orus Orus the third of the Pharaohs or Kings of the Egyptian Rule who swayed the Scepter of that Kingdom about two thousand and two hundred years after the Worlds Creation was that Pharaoh which advanced Joseph to be his Vice Roy changing his Iron Fetters into a Chain of Gold his Rags into Robes and his Stocks into a Chariot wherein he rid in State with a multitude of Attendants and an Herald proclaimed before him Abrech Gen. 41.43 that is say some the Kings Father An interpretation that sutes exactly with his own expression Gen. 45.8 when he made himself known to his brethren God hath made me a Father to Pharaoh Lord of all his house and Ruler throughout all the Land of Egypt But whether it agrees so well with the Original I have not skill enough in that Language to determine According to St. Jeroms translation St. Jerom. it sounds as much as a tender Father as having a tender care both of his and his Subjects weal contriving and advising an effectual way in a tedious Famine to supply them with necessaries for the support of their lives and when the management of it was committed to his trust he discharged it with that prudence and integrity that he gained the love both of Prince and People What respect the first had to him we may gather from the name which he imposed on him viz. Saviour of the World Zaphnathpaâ—neah Gen. 41.45 Julius Firmicus And what an high veneration the other had for him an ancient Ecclesiastical Author informs us that the Egyptians finding themselves infinitely obliged for his care and providence consecrated him under the name of Serapis that carried a measure of Corn upon his head to signifie that he was the god who had given them bread Once more This Title applied as aforesaid pleads a longer prescription yet among the Philistines who were governed at first by one King sometimes by five according to the number of their principal Cities but always united in the time of any approaching danger and whatever was the name of the King his title was Abimelech The King of Gerar when Abraham went to sojourn there Gen. 21.1 2. is called Abimelech Chap. 26.26 So likewise is he that came to Beersheba desiring a League with Isaac supposed by the distance of time to be another of the same name it being by computation fourscore years between his first sojourning there with his Father and this which was after his Fathers death and questionless they kept the same so long as it was a Kingdom till they lost both their power and their reputation too For that King before whom David many hundred of years after that feigned himself mad is in the Inscription of that Psalm Psal 34. which he penned upon that occasion in testimony of gratitude to the Author of his deliverance called Abimelech 1 Sam. 21. it is confest in the History of it to which that refers us we find his name to be Achish and the reason why Achish in the one should be Abimelech in the other is not because he was binominis Aben Ezra as one would have it but because the first was his Name the other his Title of Honour which was common to all the Philistin Kings as Pharaoh was to the Egyptian and Caesar to the Roman Quod Achish hoc loco dicitur Abimelech Basilius ex traditione majorum alii existimant nomen illud Regibus Palaestinae fuisse commune c. Mollerus in loc 1 Sam. 24.11 2 Chron. 29.11 Job 29.16 and this in the true signification of it is neither more nor less then My Father the King And that they may not think this a Title given only to Heathen Governours by their Subjects out of a blind devotion or that it is a stranger as to this sense in the Sacred Dialect unless when they are mentioned let them consult these Quotations in the Margent and that promise made by God himself to his Church which hath respect to the times of the Gospel and tends very much to its propagation and advancement in the accomplishing and fulfilling thereof viz. Kings shall be thy Nursing Fathers Isa 49.23 Quest and Queens shall be thy Nursing Mothers If they desire to be satisfied why God useth the names of Father and Mother to signifie the rest Answ It is because that Government justly challengeth the precedency in respect of Antiquity that of Father and Mother over their Children taking place so soon as they had Children to govern at least so soon as they were in a capacity to be governed And it is from this that all others are to take their rule and direction And it is no difficult matter to give a satisfactory answer to them who will submit their judgments to Reason Quest why all the above named particular Callings are comprehended under this as the general And that is Answ Because they perform such duties as belong to Parents It belongs to them to instruct their Children therefore Pastors and Teachers are our Fathers who do that good Office for us in their stead in a better manner possibly then they can do it in their own persons many Parents being so ignorant that they have need to be taught themselves The Father is to provide for his Child therefore Patrons and Benefactors are our Fathers who take that Fatherly care of us which the other would willingly do but cannot having it may be no more Water then what will serve to drive their own Mill. It belongs to them to procure the good of their Children therefore Kings are called Fathers because they mind and endeavour the good of their People And although the duty owing to each of these in their respective capacities are comprised under one and the same word Honour yet the plus or minus of that honour must be according to the degree and measure of those benefits that their Relations reap by them Pharisees The Pharisees preferring their spiritual before their natural Parents had been the more justifiable had they not made their pretended respect to the one a
brevity as well I might The Text cleared of its Rubbish cleared the Text of that rubbish which hath been cast upon it keeping my self as close as I could to the matter in hand neither runing into extravagances nor cloying the Reader with impertinencies to fill up Paper or spin out a Discourse but have offered what I conceive is very useful and necessary both to convince the gainsayers and to prepare attention to what I have further to impart upon the several parts of the Text in the method before proposed and that first of the duty Fear Of the Duty Fear as it relates to the second Object with the reason why the first is not insisted on seperatim per se but as implied in the other which I shall handle both in its strictest and largest acceptation as a particular duty and as comprehending under it all those other which every man owes to God and the King upon the same account And here I shall bend my discourse chiefly to the last of these not because the other is less necessary but because this is most opposed and their interests are so conjunct Neither will God accept of that Subjects fear as a discharge of his duty which doth not proceed from the fear of himself or that doth not fear the King for the Lords sake That person lies under the repute of a practical Atheist that professeth there is a God with his lips and yet will shew no reverence to him in his life But those have passed in these late Times for the best of Christians which have shewn none to their King who with their specious pretences of Piety and Religion have staggered some and made others afraid to fear their King fearing if they should fear him they should not fear their God 1. Of Fear as a particular duty Gods Image 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gave his name to them In iis relucet Majestas ejus cujus nomen vicem gerunt c. The honour of his own Laws to theirs This Fear in its first acceptation is that free and voluntary reverence and respect which Subjects shew to their Princes for the Lords sake as being the lively Images of his Power and Soveraignty over mankind therefore he hath put his own name upon them I said ye are Gods his Majesty shines forth in them whose name and office they bear and execute and in that so many millions of men are subjected to the Power and Government of one and the good estate of all his Subjects depends upon him Yea he hath communicated part of the honour of his own Divine Law to their Civil Laws in that they do though not directly yet indirectly bind their Subjects consciences that is to say so far as theirs are agreable or not repugnant to his Who requires them to be subject Rom. 13.5 Hath anointed them Oleo sanctitatis suae ad designationem qualificationem denotat Mollerus Put his Spirit into them not only for wrath but also for conscience sake he hath anointed them with his holy oil or the oil of his holiness signifying thereby their designation to and qualification for their Office As it is said of Saul when God made him a King he turned him into another man and gave him another heart 1 Sam. 10.6 9. And when upon Moses his complaint God divided his burden among the seventy Elders he tells him withal Numb 11.17 that he would take of the spirit which was upon him and put it upon them Crowns on their heads Robes on their backs Scepters in their hands Cultus magnificus addit hominibus authoritatem Quintil. he hath set Crowns of gold upon their heads put Royal Robes upon their backs and placed Scepters in their hands to draw a reverence to their persons and to daunt offenders Magnificent attire works a kind of awe in the heart of the inferiour towards his superiour and adds in the estimation of the people both glory and honour and majesty to their persons Dr. Prideaux in orat inaugural de vestibus Aaronis Which is one reason of the High Priests costly garments that they might draw the greater reverence both to his person and to his Ministry To this purpose it is storied of Alexander the Great Josephus that when the High Priest met him in his Pontificalibus he reverenced him and adored the God of Heaven in him whose Priest he was Given them Thrones for judgment and sits in the Congregation among these Gods Psal 82.1 He hath given them Thrones for judgment and though he hath Heaven for his Throne and Earth for his Footstool yet he vouchsafeth to stand in the Congregation of the mighty and to judge among these earthly Gods This representation of him standing in such a place among such persons Sundry instructions from it admonisheth us of sundry things worthy of our observation 1. That Empires and Kingdoms were not constituted at the first neither are they since gotten or kept by the strength prudence or craft of men but by his divine wisdom and almighty power who said of himself Prov. 8.15 Psal 82.6 By me Kings raign and of them Ye are Gods 2. Secondly That he so judgeth among these Gods that if they either through negligence or out of favour and affection do not execute justice in the relieving the oppressed and in punishing offenders he himself will undertake the execution of it And when he remembers the guilty Malefactors he will hardly forget their corrupt and partial Judges 3. Thirdly This well weighed and throughly considered would make even Princes themselves afraid to abuse their power and authority to tyranny and oppression sith they were set in those places for other ends by that God of Gods to whom they are accountable and 4. Fourthly Did their Subjects believe this to be a truth they would not dare to judge those Gods whom the Great God vouchsafeth to judge among and to whom alone if belongs to be their Judge It is furthermore well worth our notice what course he hath taken to secure Magistracy from contempt As The means which God hath used to keep them from contempt 1. First By prohibiting such things in them which may occasion it not allowing in their Election any thing which might bring the least blemish upon it He that was wounded in his stones Deut. 23.2 3. Ne venito i. e. ne administrato q.d. munus publicum in populo Dei ne geâ—ito Junius in locum or had his privy members cut off was not to enter into the Congregation of the Lord such an one was not to be admitted into the place of Government And why not The same Author tells us such for the most part are slothful and of too low a spirit for so high a place which requires men of courage and resolution and such as fear not the face of any Hi fere ignavi fracto animo esse solent Also a Bastard
Dog then an ordinary Man Come out come out being himself more like one in his deportment who mad with malice flies in Davids face and as mad dogs fall upon all in their way and convey their venome where ever they fasten their infectious teeth so he by his mischievous tongue the poison of his malice fetching every word as far as Hell from whence 't was fired 2 Sam. 16.5 6. He came forth and cursed still as he came and cast stones at him and that which was worse then stones An high affront bitter words more piercing then the sharpest pointed arrows Thou bloudy man thou man of Belial such an affront as might well provoke the greatest Saint try the patience of the meekest man upon earth and exasperate him to take the next opportunity of revenge And how easily might he have done it it had been but one word speaking How resented by Abishai Go and Abishai whose fingers itched to be doing would in a trice have taken his head from off his shoulders Verse 9. Why should this dead dog curse my Lord the King let me go over I pray thee and take off his head Had David been of a revengeful spirit he would have readily embraced the motion and seconded the offer with his Fiat A matchless meekness But behold in stead of a Command a severe check and a strict prohibition What have I to do with you ye sons of Zerviah uttering words sounding rather of encouragement then of punishment as if he had been pleased with it rather then provoked to the least displeasure by it Let him alone let him curse O altitudo prudentiae O altitudo patientiae O devorandae contumeliae grande inventum Ambros St. Ambrose pondering upon this answer after a little silence breaks out into these words of admiration O the height and depth of his prudence and of his patience what a grand matchless invention is here to swallow contumely and to turn hurtful poison into wholesome nourishment this is far beyond the invention of Mithridates from whom came that Confection that bears his name This Ex Vipera Theriacam Piscator this is the best receipt to make a sovereign Treacle of this Venomous Viper The Lord either by the secret impulse of some evil spirit saith one or by a secret command of his most wise providence hath bid him curse David say others who shall say then why doest thou so bid him he might without any impeachment of his justice sith his will is the rule of right and his judgments though they may be sometimes secret are always just Yet this not so secret neither but that himself and others might by the punishment easily discern his sin that caused it That sin which in the prohibition before quoted goes under the name of Reviling and speaking evil in another place is called blaspheming and as David confesseth it came from the Lord so he might well think God permitted Shimei to blaspheme him because he by committing those great and scandalous sins of Adultery and Murder gave an occasion to others to blaspheme his God A Copy for the best of men to write after A Copy this is yea such a Copy that I may safely commend to the greatest and best of men to write after which would calm their spirits and preserve them in a smooth and even temper and they would not as too too many do when afronted by the brawling of these dogs in the Metaphor imitate that foolish custom of these dogs in the Letter Vent their anger at the sensless stone never regarding the hand that sent it Shimeis sin no whit extenuated either by what David discreetly said or meekly suffered But was Davids patience or that consideration that caused it any extenuation of Shimei's sin No certainly his malice was no whit the less against him for the one nor his sin against God for the other He himself not long after confesseth upon his knees His politick confession and feigned sorrow that he had done wickedly yea very wickedly and fearing justly his deserved vengeance for those monstrous excesses of his intemperate tongue deprecates the imputing his iniquity unto him His Petition was as well timed as worded which was a hopeful Omen of a happy success It was just upon the time of his new election and inauguration into the Kingdom which he auspicates with an Act of Oblivion of which he as well as others reaped the benefit which secured them from the punishment of their former Treasons There shall not any man be put to death this day for do not I know that I am this day King over Israel Yes I do and am resolved to exercise my kingly Prerogative in pardoning whom I please and thee in particular Thou shalt not die He is pardoned 2 Sam. 19.22 23. A pardon to any mans thinking as full as free And yet there are some that do limit and qualifie it in their Paraphrases upon it thereby signifying he intended no more then thus I pardon thee for my part Quod me attingit tibi condono facti judicium aliis relinquo c. Piscator and leave others to deal with thee as is meet for thy future offences thou shalt not die by my command at this time A sense I cannot disapprove considering a passage that fell from his own mouth a little before his death who apprehending as I conceive the ill use that might be made of such presidents by men of rugged and perverse dispositions who presuming of the like lenity might when occasion was offered David on his Death-bed troubled at it and the supposed reason of it ease their spleen by the like scurrilities expresseth somewhat of trouble and pressure of spirit not for his own sins mentioned before for he had made his peace with God for those in his life time and received his pardon from Heaven by the hand of Nathan his Seer It was the Cases of those two Capital Delinquents whose indempnity lay upon his Conscience Joab and himei the first for the murther of Abner and Amasa 1 Kings 2.8 Giveth his son Solomon a charge concerning him He is jealous of him the other for cursing himself Thou hast with thee saith he to his son Solomon that was to succeed him Shimei the son of Gerah which cursed me with a grievous curse and I sware unto him by the Lord saying I will not put thee to death by the sword now therefore thou art a wise man and knowest what to do unto him hold him not guiltless but bring thou his hoar head to the grave with bloud i. e. when he shall have added iniquity to iniquity pay him home for new and old together This item made him look more narrowly to his water Commands him from Bahurim to Jerusalem and there to build a house alias a Kings Bench and confines him to it engageth his life for his true imprisonment forfeits his bond
enforced by the hand of Justice to lay down or rather pay down their own this therefore must be a very great sin 4. In the Object and aggravated by his innocency Exod. 22.2 c. Killing in some cases and of some persons permitted yea commanded and the reason why And yet to shed the bloud of an innocent person is of the two a far greater and cries louder in the ears of God for vengeance then the former For though God doth prohibit killing yet in some cases he doth permit it and in others doth command it Witches Conjurers Inchanters Idolaters false Prophets Sabbath-breakers disobedient Children Adulterers all these have been sentenced to death by Gods own mouth And how many have been sent out of the World before their time according to the course of Nature and have come to an untimely end guilty of such crimes which makes them liable to death by the Laws of men Every part was ordained for the good of the whole and though God doth not allow any man to macerate or mutilate his body out of humour or superstition yet if any part be mortally infected which threatens the endangering of the whole it is then both lawful and a piece of discretion to take our Saviours advice according to the letter of it which he intended in another sense If thy right hand offend thee cut it off with which agreeth that of the Poet. sin immedicabile vulnus Ense recidendum ni pars sincera trahatur What this or that member is to the body natural that is such and such a person to the body politick Josh 7. Achans sin troubled all Israel so that they could not stand before their enemies He was by Gods own direction first discovered and after executed and cut off like a gangrened member to prevent the ruine of all the rest And without the execution of such severe Laws no man could be secure either in his goods or life But God doth no where allow the slaying of an innocent person But of innocent persons never allowed to any Arguments to prove the exceeding sinfulness of it sins more against Charity because such an one hath more of the image of God in him which is the chiefest motive to it against community to which he is most profitable either for his presence the Sun would not shine so merrily on the High-way were it not for the bordering Fields sake neither would God have so prospered Laban and Potipher but for good Jacob and Josephs sake Or for his Piety in which respect he is very beneficial not onely to that Family or to that City wherein he lives but to that whole Kingdom whereof he is a member The whole Kingdom at a great loss by it Job 22.30 The innocent shall deliver the Island and it shall be preserved by the pureness of his hand The Kings of Persia and of other Nations had their Mazkirim Remembrancers They are Gods remembrancers as the Persian Mazkirim were to their Kings to mind them of those matters that concerned the Weal publick Such are these to God and blessed are the people that have such friends of God to befriend them but wo be to those that injure them for he that toucheth them toucheth the apple of his own eye Argumentum à minori Among those many qualifications required of those who desire to dwell in Gods holy Mountain Psal 15.5 this is one he must not take a reward against the innocent whether it be by the way of bribery as Tertullus did against St. Paul Acts 24. or to give in false evidence as those suborned witnesses did against Naboth or by way of treachery to betray innocent bloud as Dalilah did her own husband for an hundred shekels of silver Judas his Lord and Master for thirty pieces of the same metal and the Scottish Army their King for two hundred thousand pound thinking themselves by so much the wiser Merchants Dr. Heylyn's Aerius rediv. p. 468. by how much more they had made the better Market Which several sums were the price of innocent bloud and pity it is that all those purchases which such Merchants make of all such money are not called by their proper names Acheldama's Fields or Purchases of Bloud We may read Gods displeasure against this bloudy Sin written in letters of Bloud Argumentum ab Exemplis in those severe judgments recorded in Sacred Writ to have been most impartially executed even upon Kings themselves Exemplified upon Kings punished for killing their guiltless Subjects when they have practised the like upon the lives of their guiltless Subjects Two of this nature we find in the Old Testament The first is the avenging the innocent bloud of Nabaoth On Ahab for Nabaoth when Ahab was going to take possession of his Vineyard God sent Elijah to him with this Message Hast thou killed and also taken possession 1 Kings 21.18 19 c. In the place where the Dogs licked the bloud of Nabaoth shall the Dogs lick thy bloud even thine I will bring evil upon thee and will take away thy posterity and will cut off from Ahab him that pisseth against the wall as well him that is shut up as him that is left in Israel And also of Jezebel the contriver of his death spake he saying On Jezebel the contriver The Dogs shall eat Jezebel by the Walls of Jezreel And although God did not bring all this to effect in Ahabs time because he had humbled himself yet if we compare the several Executions with their Sentences we shall find them to accord very exactly In the very next Chapter Ahab himself is slain as he fought against the King of Syria and his bloud ran out of his wound into the Chariot Chap. 22. which when one washed in the Pool of Samaria the Dogs licked his bloud Jehoram his son was slain by Jehu On Jehoram 2 Kings 9.24 and his body cast out in the open Field And in the self-same Chapter Jezabel was cast out of a Window V. 32 33. and her Carcass devoured by Dogs excepting onely her scul her Feet and the Palms of her hands Chap. 10.10 And the rest of the children for their Parents sake The next gives you a sad account of the rest so that there fell nothing to the earth of the Word of the Lord spoken concerning Ahab and his house by his servant Elijah 2. On David for Uriah 2 Sam. 12. The other concerns that of Vriah whom David is said to have slain with the Sword of the Children of Ammon because the design which brought him to his end was laid by him to cover his Adultery committed before with his wife Whereupon it follows immediately Now therefore the Sword shall never depart from thine house I will raise up evil against thee out of thine house Vers 10. He is severely punished in his children c. How God punished him in his children the following
this one circumstance falls short that those that were the Contrivers and Promoters of his death never did But in one circumstance falls short and that a very material one too nor never would from first to last own him for their King but when Pilate asked that question Shall I crucifie your King they returned this answer We have no King but Caesar and when he had caused this Superscription to be written in three several Languages which sounds thus much in ours Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jews they abhorring to own the crucifying him under that title desire him to alter it Joh. 19.19 20 21. Write not the King of the Jews but that he said I am the King of the Jews Obj. The greatest part of the Nation plead Not Guilty to the Indictment It may be some will object in the words of the Disciples to the Woman in the Gospel pouring that costly ointment upon our Saviours head What needed this waste of words sith the greatest part of the Kingdom had neither hands nor hearts engaged in it Sol. Those were guilty that ingaged not for him though not in so high a degree as they that fought against him Hinc illae lachrymae He that fights against him with his purse if a Volunteer is as bad as he that fights against him Our Laws say Rex non moritur which is always true quoad jus not so always quoad potestatem exemplified in our late Interregnum To these I have to answer that David was at a great distance from Vriah when he received his deaths wound and yet he prays apparently in reference unto that Deliver me from bloud-guiltiness O God Whence I infer that a man may be guilty of anothers bloud never shed if so though but few principals in the shedding of this there were very many accessaries either by actually opposing or not personally assisting him according to our bounden duty either by their persons or by their purses Moneys are the sinews of War and had not they so readily sacrificed their Wealth to the pleasure of their Grandees their design must have been nipt in the Bud and proved rotten ere it had been ripe This this is that that suborned the Witnesses that feed the Counsel that bribed the Judge that paid the Executioner for striking that fatal stroke which made the body both of our King and Kingdom headless All this that I have said to aggravate the crime The Authors Apology for his severe application is not God knows out of any delight I take to rake in those rotten Ulcers and festered Sores but in order to that which follows and which our sin calls upon us loudly for out great humiliation To which purpose our Anniversary Fast enacted on that sad occasion renews the memory of our guilt Infandum jubes renovare dolorem and directs us with renewed Repentance to deprecate the punishment lest we forgeting it to God God should remember it to us in such a way as we would not willingly hear of it The Prophet Jeremiah hath written a whole Book of Lamentations for the death of good Josiah Judah had great reason to lament the loss of their good Josiah but we greater for the death of ours which was the fore-runner of those many miseries to the Jewish Church and his Subjects expressed the sense of their loss by his fall so deeply and pathetically that it was made for an Ordinance unto Israel and proposed as a Pattern for future times in their most important occasions Zech. 12.11 In that day there shall be a great mourning in Jerusalem as the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the Valley of Megiddon Surely it behoves us in our mourning if possible to exceed them Their King Josiahs fall was an effect of his own rashness and folly but the fall of ours was both by and for our sins This in short I commend as reflecting upon what is past Wholsome advice and propose this as a proper expedient for the time to come to break off our Sins by Righteousness our former Rebellion by our future Fidelity And sith all our tears were every one of our Eyes Fountains would prove ineffectual to restore to life him whom some have been so eminently instrumental and all have been one way or other accessary to bring him to his end what we fell short in duty to the dead Father let us make up in love and loyalty to his living Son his rightful Heir and Successor whose unparallel'd act of Grace when we lay under the danger of so great a forfeiture cannot but indear him to all his rational Subjects The benefit whereof I envy to none but do heartily wish that some would study better to deserve it And so I pass from this fear here strictly taken as it signifies a particular duty which every individual Subject ows to his Prince and come to consider it in its latitude as more comprehensive including all other duties payable to him upon the same account It is not unknown to any that study the Sense as well as the Letter of the Scripture that Fear Fear a very comprehensive Duty when it relates to God as its Object as it doth here in the first place oftentimes signifies his whole Worship Deut. 6.13 Psal 112.1 128.1 Acts 10.35 Qui timet Deum nihil negligit timere Deum est nulla quae facienda sunt bona praeterire Greg. Moral as it doth in all those places in the Margine The Fear of the Lord makes a man very diligent and careful that he leaves no good duty undone which God would have him do and it is as common in the Scripture when he intends to press the whole duty of Inferiors to their Superiors to name onely some one leading duty which being expressed the rest which are as it were under its command must be understood as honour to Parents submission to Husbands obedience to Masters as here Fear to Kings and Princes This whether ye refer it to God or the King is to all other Duties It is like the Heart as the Heart is to all the other parts of a man and when God calls for that Prov. 23.26 My Son give me thine heart he leaves not the rest to our own disposing He made man that is the whole man and every part of man for himself 1 Cor. 6.20 and purchased both body and Soul at a price there is great reason that the Workmanship should serve to the use of the Workman and that which was bought at so dear a rate should be serviceable to him that bought it in calling for that he calls for all and he that in answer to that call of his presents him with that gift he together with that gives him all Like the Centurion in the Gospel Like the Centurion Matth. 8.8 it is in great Authority it hath all the rest as Servants at its beck it saith to one go and it goes to
force of this instance One indeed that sided with the same Party is of that mind with himself but then he is so far from approving it that he dislikes and condemns it They should not have done it by force but by humble supplication Trapp in locum à facto ad jus non valet argumentum no more in that case then this J. G. was a Rebel therefore J. H. might be so too And if he blame those for doing that he could not commend these for doing this And for the other viz. David's raising an Army in his own defence is no argument for Subjects to take up Arms against their King to pursue him from place to place to sequester plunder imprison arraign sentence and in fine to murther him As these were the steps of their March The second urged to as little purpose or of the March of their Army which were raised as he pretends for the defence of their Country If he call this a defensive I confess I am yet to learn what an offensive War is In a sense indeed it may be called so Scelera sceleribus tuenda Tacit. Catalines and their War alike defensive as Cataline so famous in History for Treason and Conspiracie proceeded still further heaping up Treason upon Treason the last to defend and secure himself from the deserved vengeance of the first whose saying it was The mischiefs I have done cannot be safe but by attempting greater so these by the Conscience of their guilt which in their conceit was beyond all hope of pardon were hurried on from bad to worse conceiving themselves still unsafe so long as there was one alive of that Royal Race that might bring them to an account and adjudg them the reward of their Treason and Rebellion One example of more force then all his allegations had he made use of a thousand more To these examples which I may justly except against as to the purpose for which they are brought I shall purpose one which is beyond all exceptions our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ blessed for ever who submitted to the execution of a most unjust sentence without the least opposition or resistance whereas he might have commanded more then twelve Legions of Angels for his rescue Mat. 26.53 who was oppressed and afflicted yet he opened not his mouth he is brought as a Lamb to the slaughter Isay 53.7 and as a Sheep before the sharer is dumb so he opened not his mouth c. whose sufferings were not only meritorious but also exemplary leaving us an example thereby that we that bear his name should tread in his steps and suffer any thing rather then resist Authority In imitation of whom and for whose sake those good Christians of old were killed all the day long Occidebantur sine reluctatione and were accounted as sheep for the slaughter as sheep indeed they were because slain without resistance whose examples if we oppose in our practice Mat. 16.25 in seeking to save our lives by such unwarrantable ways we may well expect to lose them He that resisteth Rom. 13.2 resisteth the Ordinance of God and shall receive to himself damnation Whereas if we lose our lives for his sake we shall save them if our temporal lives we shall be savers yea great gainers we shall have eternal life for them which is so far from being a loss that it will prove an happy exchange Where there is this fear 2. Duty comprehended in this of Fear Fidelity there will be also fidelity in defending and maintaining the life state dignity and honour of the King and in discovering Treasons and Conspiracies against him Mordecai a Loyal Subject Mordecai was a true pattern of Loyalty who over-hearing Bigthan and Teresh muttering out some treasonable intentions against Ahasuerus their Liege Lord and King incontinently made a discovery of it Delay he knew well in a business of that nature might prove very dangerous and every minute it had been concealed would have administred to the ripening of their design and the endangering the Kings life The thing being known to Mordecai he told it to Hester the Queen and she certified the King Hester 2.22 c. who making inquisition found it to be true and gave them the proper reward of Traitors hanged them both on a Tree So was Abishai when Shemei affronted David This made Abishai so ready to revenge Shimei his reproachful language against his Lord and Master King David Suffer me to go and take off the head of that dead dog And the men of Judah in Sheba's insurrection against him listing themselves under Joah and adventuring their lives to bring that Traitor to Justice This made the men of Judah cleave so fast to him when Sheba the son of Bichri made an insurrection headed a Party and at length drew all Israel after him these willingly offer themselves and are listed under the conduct of Joah his General who by their help pursued the Traitor to Abel sets before it batters the Walls and denies all peace to the Inhabitants till they had taken off his head and sent it by him to David for a Present A man of Mount Ephraim hath lifted up his hand against the King deliver him only and I will depart from the City c. 2 Sam. 20. Jehosheba in securing Joash from that Athalian Massacre This made Jehosheba to secure Joash the son of King Ahaziah when Athaliah to make way to and confirm her self in the Throne made away all the rest of his off-spring This heir apparent he hides six years in the House of the Lord at the end of which time when that she Tyrant thought all had been her own he assembles the Governours and Captains acquaints them with the unexpected news of a young King preserved by a strange kind of providence placed a strong guard about his person set the Crown upon his head and secured him in his Throne which when that bloudy Hell-hag and Fury saw she cries out Treason Treason he well knew who was the Traitor and accordingly gave order to the Captains and Officers for her execution who soon put a period both to her claim and life Chrysostom sends Rebels to the Bees to learn Loyalty Chrysostome tells us no Nation is so careful of their King as are the Bees if he be safe they all agree but if he miscarry they fall all into confusion and devour their honey when either Age or Accident hath taken him from his wings he is carried up by the crowd and when he dies his Subjects die also Fidelity is a duty of that consequence to the safety of a King A Duty necessary to the Kings safety and so consequently of his whole Kingdom which is at a great loss in the loss of a good King that to ensure it they used in the times of the Old Testament Oath of Allegiance no late invention to tie their Subjects
for want of money to pay his Army Petrus de Vineis his Counsel to Frederick the Emperour who thereupon sends for Petrus de Vineis an able Statesman to advise with him about an expedient to recruit his Treasury Who counselled him to seize into his possession the Plate belonging to the Churches and Religious Houses to melt it down and coin it into moneys This he did accordingly but it proved very fatal answerable both to the subtle design and hearty desire of him that gave it who studied more his own revenge then his Princes good as appeared clearly by his own confession It seems that this person had been formerly his Secretary and for some misdemeanour had his eyes bored out by his command This he resolved with himself Revenge witty so soon as opportunity should offer it self to be his Second effectually to requite and meeting with this so fit for his purpose makes this Devillish use of it and returning home to his Wife with a great deal of joy told her now I am even with the Emperour for putting out mine eyes having put him upon such a project which I hope he will pursue to his own destruction he hath made me a spectacle unto men The fruit of Sacriledge but I have made him a Monster unto God The Treasures of such sacrilegious wickedness profit nothing Prov. 10.2 C. 20.25 Dan. 5.25 30. Acts 5.5 10 1 Machab. 9. 2 Machab. 3. c. and holy things greedily devoured will prove a snare and those that have made trial of it have to their cost found all the properties of a snare in it It hath surprized suddenly held them surely and destroyed them certainly The Magistrates I mean inferiour ones Magistrates must execute Justice impartially lest he that is the chief suffer through their corruptions Prov. 16.12 For the Kings throne is established by righteousness The Minister must be a publisher of Peace and not a Trumpet of Sedition Ministers a Repairer not a Promoter of the Breaches in his Native Kingdom a Restorer of Apostates to not a Seducer of Loyal Subjects from their Allegiance And all his Liege People All good Subjects Ittais must resolve with faithful Ittai in what place their Lord and King shall be whether in life or death 2 Sam. 15.21 there to be also This is to discharge the duty of faithful Subjects and no more then what the Text in effect enjoyns when it calls upon us to fear the Lord and the King where there is fear there will be fidelity Secondly There will also be Charity The second Duty Charity Christian and Charitable are termini convertibiles Other Duties compared with it but fall short of it An upper garment for largeness in extenuating hiding and covering their faults and infirmities And this is a Duty so essential to Christianity that a Christian and Charitable are termini convertibiles And whereas all other Vertues are compared unto clothing this is resembled to the upper garment for its largeness For others are not so ample some concern only our selves as Faith c. The just shall live by his Faith i. e. his own not by anothers they may possibly fare the better in externals for the righteous mans sake Christ in his Form of Prayer hath taught us to pray for others His Apostles in their Symbol or Creed that each man must believe for himself There are some of a larger extent as Patience and Long-suffering c. but these relate only to persons injuring and provoking this to all persons of all conditions ranks qualities and qualifications whatsoever For Ornament Other Garments are used for necessity to secure the body from parching heat and piercing cold some for decency and ornament to cover the shame of our nakedness For distinction but oftentimes the uppermost is used for distinction so this of all other Graces distinguisheth a Christian from him that is nothing so or from him that is so only in profession Joh. 13.35 By this shall all men know that ye are my Disciples if ye love one another Multa miranda possunt in homine reperiri quae sine charitate similitudinem pietatis habent sed non veritatem Prosper in Epist lib. de lib. Arbit Many admirable things may be found in a man which without this have only the shadow not the substance of Vertue and make them that have them only nominally not really such and so consequently nothing worth in themselves nor to them O how great a Vertue is Charity whose absence frustrates the presence of all others and from whose presence it is that they have the proof of their truths and substance as St. Austin excellently It is that which sets the rest a working as the Spring of a Watch sets all the Wheels a going it will make men patient and bountiful 1 Cor. 13. Ut multi arboris rami ab una radice prodeunt sic multae virtutes ex una charitate generantur Greg. Hom. to bear all things believe all things hope all things and as many branches proceed from one root so many Vertues from this one of Charity A Garment of that largeness as that it will cover a multitude of sins and makes the strong to tolerate the infirmities of the weak and to bear one anothers burdens Certainly he that laid this precept of Charity upon all God hath allowed Kings their share of it as men and their condition requires a very large one as Kings they have more temptations Simil. with directions to practise it towards all without either exception or distinction would have them to be free towards those whose conditions require the greatest share such as have most temptations and fewest restraints When our Saviour was upon the Pinacle of the Temple the Devil tempted him to cast himself down headlong and the higher a mans standing is as to Power and Authority the more earnest is that subtil enemy to procure his fall The Rich live in continual danger of the Spoiler whereas the Poor sleep securely Princes and Commanders are chiefly aimed at in the Battle because they yield the higher ransom and the loftiest Mountains are most exposed to the violence of boisterous Winds and Storms The old Serpents subtilty Satan that envious man as he is stiled in the Scripture lays closest Siege there where his hoped for success will yield him the greatest advantage Regis ad Exemplum c. The example of a King is of great force to work his Subjects into a compliance with his practices Such lofty Cedars fall not usually alone but drive down before them such lower lesser and weaker Trees as grow up under them If he be any ways noted for Vice they will look upon his example as a licence to do the like 1 Kings 14.16 It is said of Jeroboam that he made Israel to sin and yet we read of no Furnace erected nor of any affrighting torments
all that opposed his desires either by death or safe and severe imprisonments Of Fratricide With Fratricide consenting at least to the death of his elder Brother Of Regicide George D. of Clarence With Regicide stabbing K. Henry 6. when a Prisoner in the Tower Besides the bastarding deposing murdering his two innocent Nephews whose Guardian by wicked Policy he had made himself by the enforced consent of those who were concerned in the choice they being in their minority but durst not oppose him I call this Regicide because the elder was a King in re the younger in spe as being heir apparent to the Crown had his Brother died without issue male before him But this Monster of men had usurped the throne in their life time and conceiving he could never be reputed nor truly honoured as a King so long as these were in his way he sent them out of this Kingdom into a better Conceits himself firmly established But is much mistaken Haunted with the terrours of an accusing Conscience And now he thinks himself firmly seated but he reckons without his host and whoever peruseth the latter part of his History will find his sin lying at his dore yea following him at his heels his Conscience facing him with a fresh representation of his guilt at every turn and his disturbed fansie with terrifying visions and apparitions so that while he lived he was as it were in Hell upon Earth He had shed much bloud and at last his bloud was shed in that Battle fought between him and his Successor who had more right to the Crown then himself wherein he fell a sad victim to his ambition and a monument of Gods impartial justice to the World Slain and his dead Carkass slighted and dishonourably interred whose Carkass being found naked in the Field wounded and filthily polluted with gory bloud was cast upon a horse-back behind a Pursuivant at Arms with his hands hanging down on the one side and his legs on the other like a Calf and interred with as base a Funeral as he had bestowed upon his Nephews Martins History Yet for all this I suppose none capable to read that History can be so great strangers to the late transactions in our Israel Rich. matched with an Oliv. both Protectors and both Usurpers but may find his parallel in the bloudy Chronicle of our late Usurper who though he drank not so large a draught of Royal bloud no thanks to his want of will but opportunity yet what he fell short in that he made up as near as he could in noble and loyal bloud Whom I cannot more fitly compare then to our desperate Hectors who meeting with a rich booty A fit comparison resolve to make a ful prey and finding a ring that is unwilling to part with its right owner cut off finger and all So this bloudy miscreant aiming at the Crown and supposing it impossible by any other means to make a Divorce between it and its Royal Master traiterously took off that head that wore it That bramble kingdom which he was about to erect could not as he supposed thrive unless watered with the Kings bloud He that sometime used that expression was not only so but a Prophet also And blessed be God that we have lived to that day to see that those his following words have proved him so The Kings Meditations God will not suffer those men long to prosper in their Babel who build it with the bones and cement it with the bloud of their Kings How many upon this very account have been hurried out of the World by stabbings poisonings and other arts of Murder both in our own and other Nations besides those many Plots and Conspiracies by the divine providence strangely discovered and through his blessing happily prevented and made abortive and that against such a Prince whom God hath so manifestly owned so miraculously preserved and to the admiration of his Friends and the envy of his Enemies setled in the Throne of his Fathers This was the Lords doing and it is marvellous in our eyes It is he that giveth salvation unto Kings and hath delivered his anointed from the hurtful Sword Therefore not unto us O Lord not unto us but to thine own most glorious Name be all the thanks and praise ascribed This very consideration now in hand Tiberius refused the stile of Pater Patriae upon this very account made Tiberius the Emperour refuse the stile of Pater Patriae saying all mortal mens estates are uncertain and the higher their standings are the more slippery and dangerous are their conditions Infer Therefore being so invironed and surrounded with dangers they have the more need of their Subjects prayers that God would protect their persons blast the designs discover the Plots and defeat the attempts of theirs and therein their own enemies The fourth Duty comprehended in this of fear Rom. 13.7 Pay him his due There is yet a fourth Duty remaining namely this To pay readily and chearfully what they are legally charged with rendring tribute to whom tribute custom to whom custom is due These are ordinary Some are called extraordinary required upon urgent and pressing necessity I say necessity for good Princes will not impose unnecessary payments upon their Subjects but delight to have them rich and wealthy rather then poor and needy The Soveraignty of all appertains to Kings Distinction but the propriety to private men So that they have no power in justice and equity to take away or to seize any of their Estates unless justly forfeited by their Delinquency Nabaoths case As appears clearly in the case of Nabaoth who refused to part with his Vineyard What arts were used to possess Ahab with it are not unknown to any that have read the Scriptures but when God called him to an account he reckoned with him not only for a bloudy Murder but also for an unjust possession Hast thou killed 1 Kings 21.19 and also taken possession Their right of Soveraignty gives them a claim to so much as will supply their ordinary and extraordinary occasions what they require more is not equity but exaction And as on the one side God will not allow the Subjects upon such occasions to rebel against their Prince so on the other Deut. 17.17 he forbids them to enrich themselves by impoverishing their Subjects Let it suffice O Princes Ezech. 45.9 remove violence and spoil take away your exactions from the people This hath proved the root and fountain of many inconveniences This made that rent in Rehoboams Kingdom which all his policy and strength could never heal again God hath made them Shepherds not Butchers and allows them for their care over his flock to fleece but not to flay them St. Lewis his prudent advice to his son St. Lewis that good K. among other grave exhortations to his son a little before his death chargeth him never to
yea to depose and damn them to the pit of Hell for pretended heresie Who sees not how dissonant their Doctrines and Practices of this kind are to those Apostolical rules which were the undoubted off-spring of divine inspiration which tell us in effect that no violence is to be used against the Supream Power and that evil Princes are not to be curbed and restrained by Arms taken up against them but by Prayers offered up to God for them And their Subjects in such cases should arm themselves not with weapons to oppose them but with Arguments if the will of God be so to suffer by them of which there is a great plenty in the Scripture which might have been very well spared if God had allowed them any other remedies That tells us if we suffer in a good cause we suffer for a Kingdom And although all the afflictions of this present life are not worthy of that glory which shall be revealed it were high pride and presumption to lay claim to it upon that account yet God is pleased to account such sufferers worthy of that Kingdom for which they suffer which is such a Kingdom as will sufficiently countervail all the losses that we can possibly undergo it Hic ure hic seca ut in aeternum parcas Let me be hackt and hewed to pieces burned and consumed to ashes so that I may escape suffering hereafter said a Martyr If for being spared how much rather upon condition of being crowned for everwith glory he would be a gainer to purpose by his sufferings if when his Persecutors took away a temporal life from him God should give an eternal life unto him Seneca said Si longae leves si graves breves Seneca Of all that we can suffer here if they seem long they are but light if they are grievous they can be but short sith life it self cannot be long And one of better principles that was his contemporary and as some affirm of his acquaintance also saith the same but with a great deal more of comfort and encouragement viz. That our light afflictions which are but for a moment work for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory while we look not at the things which are seen but at the things which are not seen for the things which are seen are temporal but the things which are not seen are eternal 2 Cor. 4.17 18. S. Paul that once rebuked S. Peter brought in as questioning his pretended Successor And he that once rebuked Peter to his face cannot I conceive be guilty of any great presumption if he question his pretended fuccessor what he hath to do to judge anothers servant sith he stands or falls to his own Lord especially such a servant as was his rightful Soveraign servant in a Scripture sense only to him who is Lord of Lords Let him search the whole New Testament over and over again and when he hath done it twice let him do it ten times more and let him shew if he can where any of that rank and condition have been excommunicated they may be admonished rebuked advised and that with discretion too observing their distance not otherwise And those whom Christ the King of Kings hath placed in his stead on Earth he hath reserved their final sentence to his own more righteous judgment The matter being so clearly stated by such infallible Authorities as aforesaid what may we think of that great Diana of our late Reformers The Solemn League and Covenant examined the Solemn League and Covenant one of the chiefest limbs whereof concerning the Civil Magistrate is so down right lame and so suitable to those Romish principles that were we not well satisfied in what part of the World it had its original we might sooner have guessed it to have been contrived rather by a Conclave of Popish Rabbies then by those who pretended themselves Divines of the more refined and reformed Religion It makes provision for the Kings Person The Article which concerns the Kings preservation conditional Crown and Dignity as to the security thereof but how or how far Quamdiu bene se gesserit so long as he behaves himself well and no longer He must stand to all intents and purposes in the nature of a Probationer durante vita and if they dislike him he is a King but durante bene placito during their pleasure or at least till they can find an opportunity to unking and dethrone him In the defence of the Protestant Religion there is the condition so that if the King be wanting or be supposed to be wanting in the defence thereof as he will always be supposed to be by some Sect or Faction they then conceive themselves as well they may from that condition absolved from any obligation that that Covenant lays upon them as Subjects to protect and defend him as their Soveraign because it binds them so to do only upon that condition and not otherwise Yea they will be ready to think themselves thereby firmly engaged to their utmost to oppose him To honour him for fear is servility to do it for our own benefit to work our ends upon him is self-love and to do it with a reserve or an implicite condition is in plain terms no other then implicite Rebellion The Authors actions the best Comment upon their own Act. The actions of its Authors were the most authentick Comment upon their own Act who had no sooner brought his Subjects into that snare but they basely defamed the King as favourer of Popery and an Army is levied to force him to a redress of their pretended grievances which amounted to no less then the unkinging of himself the rooting out so far as they could that ancient Government of Episcopacy and the introducing a Linsey-Woolsey one in its stead as a learned Prelate sometime called it Bishop King in his Sermon before King James at Hamton-Court Cant. 8.11 which when he preached that Sermon had not seen the age of a man threescore and ten and the delivering all those to the spoil who meerly out of Conscience adhered to him From whom they learned this or what hand guided that pen or what head-piece inspired that Party that inserted that Clause is easie to guess not Christ but Antichrist not Paul one of his Apostles That clause taken out of Bellarmin but Bellarmine one of the Popes Cardinals who tells us in plain terms and down right language If Princes endeavour to turn their people from the faith they may and must be deprived from their Government and Christians are bound not to suffer such a King to rule over them And that his Doctrine might be swallowed with the more ease and the less straining he way-lays that objection grounded upon the contrary practice of the Primitive Christians telling us but most falsly upon what ground they did it Anticavaleerism which the Author of that pestilent Pamphlet fit only to make Subjects