I would fain know if these four things were not the very causes that made the Rebels to being King Charles unto death this covetousnesse to get what is none of our own hath been the death of many Kings of many men for what made Caracalla slay his brother Geta in his mothers lap and between her armes but this inordinate desire to raign What made Phraharers son of Horodes King of Parthia kill his own Father and 29. of his brethren but the like desire to raign And what made Abimelech the bastard son of Gedeon slay 70. of his brethren in one day and Jehn to slay his Master even as Zimri had done the like before him and Absolon attempt to do so to his own Father but only this ambitious desire of bearing rule And if you look into the 8. c. of the 5. Book of Camerarius Camerar l. 5. c. 8. his historical meditations you shall find a Catalogue of such wicked murderers that have bin the death of many Kings that they might raign as kings themselves and therefore let the pretences of these murderers of their King be what you will change of Religion Arbitrary Government great Tyranny or loss of liberty yet all these are but forged and fained to blind the World and to deceave the people and the true Cause indeed is this Haereditas erit nostra This Profit is the point that doth the deed And as the desire to raign makes the regicides Cant. 2. so this inheritance of the Church which is signified by the Vineyard brought the doctrine of killing deposing and depriving into the Church of Christ and it is as truly Esay 5. as wittily said by one that Quid vultis mihi dare is the Jews question in this case Omnia haec tabi dabo is the Devil's answer to the Church-robber And such a dialogue betwixt the Devil and the Jew for the inheritance of the Church is powerfull enough to bring any King even Christ himself the King of Kings unto his death so I do assure my self and all the World may be assured of it it is not the calling or the office of the Bishops or of Deans Prebends which neither they nor their grand Master was ever able to disprove to be Divine that they so much detest but it is their Lands and inheritance that they so greedily gape for and as this made Naboth to lose his life so this makes our calling detestable and this was the cause the cause 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that brought Charles our King and one speciall cause that brought Christ the King of kings unto their deaths because they would not betray the trust that God reposed in them nor surrender up this their rightfull Inheritance unto the greedy Usurpers but shewed themselves faithfull shepherds that were ready to lay down their lives for their sheep rather then to betray the laws and liberties of the people and the happiness that God had determined for their subjects and for this as we owe to our Saviour Christ our selves our souls and our bodies to honor him and serve him to praise him and to magnify him for ever as our only Saviour and preserver from everlasting death and destruction so this good King this just magnanimous King King Charles that rather suffered an ignominious death then to give away the inheritance of the Church or annull the highest calling in the same the Calling of the Reverend Bishops deserves to be everlastingly Loved indelibly Chronicled and universally Published like Mary Magdalen for a faithfull Martyr a true Protector and a nursing Father unto the Church of Christ which here I vow for mine part ever to do whensoever opportunity offers it self to do it But as I said before they had their King in their hands Ob. they had him their Prisoner so they had his Kingdom in their power and possession already what needed they therefore to kill him that they might have that which they had For if Ahab had had the Vineyard questionless Naboth had not died Saint Mark answereth fully that they kild the Heire Sol. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that they might hold it and continue in it An answer specially to be observed for covetousness is a sin of Retention and never thinks of Restitution and the sin of forcible entrance can not endure to be put out of Possession thereforelest if he lived he might use some means to Regain it there is no surer way for them to hold in Peace what they unjustly got by the sword but by the death of the Just Owner And the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as I conceive signifieth not only that we may hold what we have but also that we may have more then we hold as if they should have said Some-what we have while we have him our prisoner and in our hands but more we shall get when we get him dead for then we shall have all as much as we can or will desire Therefore seeing ambition is like the daughters of the Horseleëch that still crieth more and more these murderers are like the Whore in the Apocalyps that having tasted the blood of the Saints will never give over till she be drunk with blood so will they never be satisfied with any less than the blood of their King Apoc 17. the death of the right Heir that they may hold what they have and have whatsoever they desire So you see the true Causes why these wicked murderers have put their King to death Now 3. 3 The patient and silent demeanor of this King Esay 53. Act. 8.32 When his adversaries most maliciously illegally and falsly accused him and laid many things to his charge contrary to all truth yet he answered not unto their charge but this good King being reviled reviled not again and being smitten smote not again but as a Lamb before his shearer is dumb so opened he not his mouth The Reason The Reason of not answering to their charge four fold why he answered not is not expressed by the Holy Evangelists therefore we may not curiously prie into that which is concealed nor Positively conclude the Reason that is not revealed unto us Yet with Modesty it may be conjectured that he would not answer 1. Reason 1 Lest his wise and satisfactory Answer might convince Pilate that was a rational man and seemed to bear no malice against him and being satisfied to let him go freed from the accusation of his enemies and so the Counsell of God which he knew and came to fulfill it touching the Redemption of mankind by his death might thereby be frustrated So far did he prefer our good before his own life A most gratious King 2. Reason 2 He answered them not lest his answering might have ministred an occasion to these malicious miscreants to suborn more perjurers to bear false witness against him so carefull was this good King of the good of his enemies that they should not heap
most of it seems never so Pious and the Preacher never so Honest And as one vicious Act doth not presently give the denomination of a wicked man to any one as to be once drunk with Lot doth not make a man to be stiled a drunkard as Aristotle truly saith Quia semel insanivimus omnes because there is no man living but he may sometimes fall So one virtuous Act doth not make a man Vertuous one wise word doth not prove the speaker to be a wise man and one Act of Piety whether it be to hear Sermons or to Fast or to erect an Hospitall or the like doth not make a Religious man But a good man must have the habit of well doing and a Godly Religious man must have respect unto all God Commandments and as the Apostle saith By continuance in well doing seek Glory Honor and Immortality And therefore the Judge that would be deemed a just Judge must not only once or twice do justice but he must constantly administer justice unto all and not only unto equals as many of them many times will do but also to the poorest and meanest men against the Richest and Noblest Persons wherein the timerous and corrupt covetous Judges often fail And the Preacher that desires to be a faithfull Minister of Christ must not only like those Landlords that require much and many services from their Tenants and then bestow a dinner upon them once a year bestow a Sermon or two upon his Flock when he comes to receive his Payments and to set his Tythes but as the Apostle saith he must Preach In season and out of season Volentibus Nolentibus upon all occasions at all times in all places and to all Persons that will hear him And not only some of his Sermon must be good and the rest factious and Seditious but they must be all Pious for the edifying of Gods people and peaceable for the quieting of Gods Church Or else one Seditious Sermon may do more evill than twenty of his best Sermons may do good but we should all Preach the Doctrine of Charity and Vnity that as there is but one God one Faith one Baptism one Christ and one Church here on earth So there should be but one and the same Doctrine and one and the same Discipline in the Church of Christ And so he that would be accounted a Charitable man must not only bestow his alms to one or two but as the Scripture saith he ought to do good unto all men and specially to them that are of the houshold of Faith for so the Lord commandeth us Give alms of thy goods and never turn thy face from any man i.e. any man that wants thy help and then The face of the Lord shall not be turned away from thee because as I said it is not any one Act of goodness but a Continuance in well doing that doth please the Lord and gives the denomination of a good man And so you see how a wicked man or a wicked woman may have some good speeches and do some good Acts and yet be no good man nor good woman But now for the substance of this Speech of Jezabel we may observe therein 1. Two Persons 2. Two things 1. The Persons are Elah the son of Baasha and Zimry Captains of half his Charets a Master and a servant a King and a subject that after became a King himself 2. The things that are mentioned in this short speech are 1. Murder the worst of all the injuries that can be offered to any man 2. Peace the best of all the blessings that this world can afford unto men So you see this Text is the Tragedy of two Kings and Treateth of two of the greatest and rarest things under Heaven the one Positive the greatest Evil that can be done to man which is murder The other Privative the want of the greatest good that the earth can afford unto men which is Peace for so the Phrase doth not only simply avouch that Zimri having slain his Master could not have Peace but it doth most forcibly infer that having done such a wicked Act it was impossible for him to have peace because an Interrogation is the most forcible vehement and significant expression either of Negatives or Affirmatives that any Orator can use ascertaining the thing far more Energetically then could be done by any plain and simple assertion And now let us by Gods assistance Treat of these Parties and Parts in their order And 1. Elah was the King of Israel and the son of a King of Israel 1 Person is Elah the son of Baasha that had Raigned 24. years in Tyrza and himself two years in the same Kingdom and in the same City and therefore in all reason he should either have been sooner dethroned or now to have been continued especially considering his Title was just he was no Vsurper and his rule was not Tyrannicall neither do we read of any great misdemeanour of this King save only that he walked in the waies of his Father and that he was drinking himself drunk in the house of Arza 1 Kings 16.9 that was his Steward Where you may observe these two things 1. 1 Not to follow our fathers evil wayes Ezech. 20.18 That we ought not to walk in the wayes of our fathers when our fathers walk not in the wayes of God but as the Prophet Ezechiel saith Walk you not in the statutes of your fathers nor defile your selves by walking in their waies And therefore if your fathers have unjustly taken away the Lands and Possessions of the Church or of any one else do not you continue in their wayes and perpetuate the wrongs that they have done lest God will destroy you as he destroyed Elah for walking in the wayes of his father for if your fathers have killed the Prophets and you garnish their Tombs if the Vsurpers have taken away our lands and you still detain them as you do Which is better or which worse to us judge your selves 2. 2 The bitter fruits of sweet drunkenness You may from hence observe the fruits of Drunk enness which hath undone many famous men as some in their drink have fallen off from their horses and so brake their limbs and some their necks others fell into the waters and were drowned and others into quarrels and were killed Noah though a righteous man yet by his drunkenness discovered his nakedness and thereby occasioned his son which he should not have done to deride his father's folly and for this his great impiety to bring an inevitable curse upon himself Gen. 9.25 and upon all his posterity a most fearful fruite all springing from this bitter root of sweet drunkenness So Lot being drunk lay with both his own daughters of whom sprang those two ungodly Generations of the Moabites and the Amonites And so did Armitus and Ciranippus the Syracusians plutarcb as Plutarch saith l. 2. c. 31. And
sed hoc solo contentus quia praecipitur he that is truly obedient to him whom God commanded us to obey never regardeth what it is that is commanded so it be not simply and apertly evill but he considereth and is therewith satisfied that it is commanded and therefore doth it because as S Aug. saith The command of the Superiour is a sufficient excuse for the inferiour Mandatum imperantis tollit peccatum obedientis i.e. in all things not apparantly forbidden And therefore as Julians Christian-Souldiers would not sacrifice unto the Idols which was an apparent evil at his command Sed timendo potestatem contemnebant potestatem but in fearing the power of God regarded not the wrath of man yet when he led them against his enemies they never questioned who they were that they went against nor examined the cause of his war but they went freely with him Et subditi erant propter Dominum aeternum etiam Domino temporali and in all such civill commands they obeyed this wicked King for his sake that was the King of kings and it may be fought against their own brethren So did the Jews that followed Saul against David and yet we never read that ever they were blamed for it And so should we do the like if we would do what God commandeth us For it is not in the subject's choice against whom he will fight but he must be obedient to his King if he will be obedient unto God for so the Lord saith I have made the earth the man and the beast Jerem. 27.5 6. that are upon the ground by my great power therefore certainly none should deny his Right to dispose of it and now I have given all these Lands into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar the King of Babylon my servant and yet he was both a Heathen and Idolater and a mighty Tyrant and all nations shall serve him and his son and his sons son and it shall come to passe that the nation and Kingdom which will not serve the same Nâ—buchadnezzar the King of Babylon and that will not put their necks under the oke of the King of Babylon that nation will I punish saith the Lord with the sword and with the famine and with the pestilence until I have consumed them by his hands Therefore hearken not ye unto your Prophets nor to your Divines which speak unto you saying Ye shall not serve the King of Babylon for they prophesie a lye unto you which he repeateth again and again they prophesie a lye unto you that you should perish Which very words I may take up against the Rebels of England Ireland and Scotland God gave these Kingdoms unto King Charles and they cannot deny this nor deny him to be a good man and a most religious King and He hath commanded us to obey him and they that will not serve him he will destroy them by his hand Therefore believe not your false Teachers whether they be the Priests and Jesuits of Ireland or the Brownists and Anabaptists of England for God hath not sent them though they multiply their lyes in his name because God hath so straightly commanded us to obey our King in all civil causes and in all things wherein he giveth not a special charge to do the contrary And therefore that which is most worthy to be observed though God himself for the sin of Solomon declared by his Prophet that he had decreed to cut off ten parts of the Kingdom from Rehoboam yet because the people revolted not to satisfie Gods justiâ—e for the sins of Solomon but out of their own discontents that he would not ease them of their burdens for this revolt from a foolish and an oppressing Prince they are termed Rebels 1 Kings 12.19 and as the Thief to prevent his discovery will commit murder scelus scelere regitur and one great mischief will shelter it self under a greater so their Rebellion corrupted their Religion and made them fall away from God to worship Idols as they had done from their King to serve a Traytor which soon brought them to confusion Because this revolt as it proceeded from them was most abominable unto God And therefore though they were not reduced to Rehoboam because that may pretend some cause as oppression yet this after a plenary disquisition can admit of none excuse and therefore being abominable above measure it cannot expect the least favour from God but they were most severely punished by God because they transgressed his will by thus rebelling against their King contrary to his Commandment 2. The other Caution is That if the King commandeth what the Lord forbiddeth or the contrary then I may disobey but I must not resist for this is the will of God that where my active obedience cannot take place my passive obedience must supply it And though our Kings were as Idolatrous as Manasses as Tyrannical as Nero as wicked as Ahab and as prophane as Julian yet we may not resist we must not Rebel which would overthrow the very order of nature Arnis de autâ—rit princ c. 3. pag. 68. as Arnisaeus proveth by many examples and takes away the glory of martyrdom and makes all the Precepts of the Gospel of none effect And therefore when the Christians in Tertullians time were more in number and of greater strength than their enemies yet being compelled to Idolatry they rather suffered any persecution than admitted of any Rebellion against the most wicked of their persecutors And Juâ—tinian faith Q is est tantae authoritatis ut nolentem principem possit coarctare Who hath so much power as to restrain an unwilling Prince And yet it is very strange to consider what new Divinity hath been taught ex cathedra pestilentiae out of the chair of our new Assembly to raise Rebellion against our King and that which is worse than Rebellion to refuse the grace of Remission The Scribes and Pharisees were most wicked hypocrites and they sate in Moses chair but they never durst teach such tenets as now are published and practised in these Kingdoms And therefore our Saviour saith Math. 23.3 All that they bid you observe that observe and do Indeed there were some Hereticks among them that in the dayes of Theudas and Judas Galilaeus taught That the Jews were not to pray for the life of the Emperour because he was but extraneous an Vsurper and none of their lawful Kings for which errour Pilate mingled their blood with their sacrifice but these never durst avouch they should not pray for their own lawful King much lesse that they might rebel and take up arms against him Joseph Antiq. though he were never so wicked For they knew that the holiest men that ever were among the Hebrews called Essaei or Esseni that is the true Practisers of the Law of God maintained that Soveraign Princes whatsoever they were ought to be inviolable to their subjects as they were in most places among the most
was spilt or any part of their goods spent they submitted themselves to the Parliament and left the Kings friends to sink or swim and the King himself to do as he could and I believe they were neither the first nor the last that did the like in many parts of this Kingdom neither do I conceive these men to be the worst of the King's Subjects because that indeed there was something now that might induce faint-hearted men and semi-Subjects to yield unto the Parliament though not to break their Oath which is indispensable and should be inviolably kept in any Case for that the King was worsted and the Parliament had very much prevailed against him though this also is no such great Inducement either with wise men or faithful Subjects to make them so suddenly to lay down their Bucklers because as the Poet saith Victores victique cadunt victique resurgunt The doubtful events of war And as another saith Communis Mars est interfectorem interficit Sam. xi 25. That is in King David's Phrase The Sword devoureth one as well as another as well the Conquerour as the conquered and therefore Menevensis saith of King Alfred Si modo victor erat ad crastina bella pavebat Si modo victus erat ad crastina bella parabat He feared his Enemies when he overcame them and he prepared against them when they overcame him and as Demosthenes answered when he was charged for running away from his Enemies Vir fugiens denuò pugnabit he that runs away to day may cause his enemies to fly away to morrow and so we finde it verefied many times as the Histories of the greatest Warriours testifie unto us But if fear of the Prevalency of the Parliament was now so powerful with them as to binde their hands and to shut their Purses from the King what was the reason they were so slow and did so little aid him either with men or mony when in all probability the King had the better or at lest stood at even terms with his enemies and then might with a little help and a small weight added turn the Scales and so subdue his Adversaries and prevent all the miseries and disasters that have happened ever since Surely here can be made none other answer nor any excuse alledged but the same reason that the Merozites had to shut their mouths stop their feet and hold their hands till they did see who should prevail and under whose wings they thought to shelter themselves when all the brunt was past The true cause of the neutrality of most men in this Kingdom without danger or at least to come off upon very reasonable termes And this was the cause of the neutrality of the most men especially the greatest men of this Kingdom And is it not therefore most just that this pannick fear and punick faith should suffer the punishment that such perfidiousness deserved that he which refuseth the sweet How justly these men were punished by suffering all that fell upon them just and easie Yoke of Christ should undergo the bitter hard and cruel Yoke of Satan or that they which undutifully neglected and refused to do a little help which their Conscience told them they should do for their King that exposed himself to the hazard of his life and loss of his Kingdom for to maintain the Service of God and to defend their Laws and Liberties should bear the full Measure and Weight of that punishment which they deserved Yes certainly me judice these of all others merited to be scourged with Scorpions and not lashed with twigs and I pray God their deserts do not light upon their heads when as neither plundering nor composition nor taxes can Paralel that greatness of their offence that destroyed both the King and his partie by their deserting of them Therefore whatsoever miseries taxes or service or any other Trouble of the like nature hath fallen on any person of this classes The greatness of their offence let him say and he shall say but the truth that God hath not onely most justly dealt with him that had so unjustly neglected his King but hath been more mercifull unto him then either his offence deserved or with any reason could be expected Secondly 2 The faith For those Subjects of the King that were like Gedeons faithfull Souldiers and spent their Wealth and Strength to the uttermost of their power to assist his Majestie and did according to their Consciences and as they conceived the Word of God Expounded by the true Prophets and servants of Christ directed them and yet felt the rod of God and the miseries of those times in full measure and far heavier then most others as though they had been the worst of men and the greatest of all Sinners such as divers of the Jews conceited those eihtteen Galilaeans upon whom the Tower of Siloah fell and those whose Blood â—ilate mingled with their Sacrifice were I say that if God should be extreme to marke what they had don amiss or should with the Eye of justice look upon the best of all his Saints were he as faithfull as Moses that was faithfull in all Gods house as religious as David that was a man according to Gods own heart as constant as Saint Peter that was contented to be Crucified for the Faith of Christ and as industrious as Saint Paul that laboured more then any of all the Apostles yet were he not able to answer God one of a thousand but he must lay his Hand upon his Mouth and opening the same he must say with Holy Job If I wash my self in Snow water and make my hands never so clean Job ix 30. yet shalt thou plunge me in the ditch and mine owne Cloaths shall abhorr me Dan. ix 7. and with the Prophet Daniel O Lord righteousness belongeth unto the When we do never so well God may justly punish us though not for that our well-doing but for some other evil-doings that we had done at some other time before or for some defect in our well-doing Why God punisheth the loyal Subject and his owne most faithfull servants but unto us shame and confusion of Faces And therefore how faithfull and how constant soever these seemed to be both in the service of God and discharging their duties unto the King yet must they confess they failed in many things of that degree of perfection which God requireth at their hands in both respects they neither serveing God as they ought nor being such Subjects unto thir King as the strictness of God's Law requireth And therefore I say First that in all our sufferings whatsoever calamities we have endured and what pressure soever lyeth upon us we must all confess that either for our delinquences and miscariages in these times or some other offences committed by us at some other times we are most justly and farr less then we deserve afflicted and punished by God whose judgments on us as upon all others are always most
Discovery of Mysteries and the Revelation of the great Anti-Christ And for which doings the Lord God hath if not sufficiently yet apparently shewed his just Wrath and Indignation against them many ways First In the discovery of their secret Hypocritical and hidden under-ground Mysteries of their Iniquitie which could not otherwise be sifted out and manifested but by the omniscient Spirit of the all-seeing-God Secondly In raysing so many godly men though to many with the hazard and to some with the loss of their lives and fortunes to oppose them and with a courage raysed by the divine Spirit to withstand their wicked ways and to uphold the true service of the living God Thirdly In the reducing of their chiefest Plots and Devices to nothing though out of his patience and long-sufferings he suffered them for a while to prosper and to walk on still and to proceed in their wickedness for they intended like those Gyants that built the Tower of Babel to erect such a frame of Government in these Kingdomes that they only and their Posterity and Successours should sit at the Stern to turn and guide the same as the thirty Tyrants did for a while in Athens so long as the Sun and Moon endureth and to that end they destroyed their King they suppressed the Bishops they excluded the Lords and then framed such an Engagement as might infringebly oblige and tie all the inhabitants of these dominions to adore them for their good Masters and Governours for ever But lo he that dwelleth in Heaven laughed them to scorne Psal ii 4. and the Lord had them in derision for as the Spirit of the Lord came upon Othniel and upon Barak and Gedeon to destroy the Aramites Canaanites and Midianites and as the Lord stired up Sampson and David to destroy the Philistines so the same Spirit stirred up one even the Lord General Cromwel a Philistine from among these Philistines and a grand Rebel out of these Rebel's that did first so wisely disannul their brazen Engin the Engagement and then seeing his opportunity and finding how acceptable it would be to God and beneficial to all good men he did with an Heroical courage dissolve that knot and scatter those Parliament-men as the Lord scattered the Jews that were the murderers of his Son and their own King over all the parts of this Kingdom And thus by the just Judgment of God the whol Mass of that long Parliament that thought to remaine as Kings for ever became like the chaff which the winde scattereth away from the face of the earth And therefore Secondly The just Judgment of God upon the dismembred members of the long Paâ—liament I must now proceed to shew you the just Judgments of God upon the dismembred parts of this great body as I finde them driven by the winde of God's wrath here and there throughout all the parts of these Dominions But I must confess that for the particular persons of that Parliament and their adherrents that have in a great measure already felt the heavy hand of God's wrath for their Transgressions in that confederacie it is a work beyond mans reach either to set them down or to shew their punishments and therefore I will confine my self and as the Lord shewed unto Moses the land of Canaan from the top of Mount Nebo afar of which sight must needs be therefore but very partial and imperfect so will I give you a tast and a glimmering light of some judgments of God and the justness thereof upon some particular men and the more noted Members of that Parliament and I will begin with him that was the beginning of our trouble the first disturber of our peace and the General of the late unhappy War the Earl of Essex First It was said as I remember of Dionysius King of Sicily Of the Earl of Essex that he was a Tyrant begot of Tyrants then which a worser Character could not be given and a baser description could not be made of him saith Plutarch But I will not say of this noble Lord who in deed had a great deal of Honour in him and carried himself for ought that ever I heard like a man of Honour and pius inimicus a noble Adversary unto the King that he was a Traytor begot a of Traytor yet I must say that his Father was a favourite of Queen Elizabeth and was arraigned and beheaded for Treason à ainst the Queen whether justly for his deserts or unjustly by the malice of his enemies I will not determine and though her Royal Majesty did Royally and most Graciously restore this man both to his Fathers Lands and Honours and King James confirmed the same and King Charles more then that made him one of his Privy Council and Lord Chamberlain of his House-hold which was for Honour one of the best Offices as I take it in the Court and for profit a place worth viis modis near about 2000. pounds per annum as I heard and conferred many other favours upon him and for all this this Lord as is conceived out of no other cause then ambition of popular praise which greedy desire of popularity hath undone many a noble minde or as others think out of a secret grudg which he bare to this good King and to King James his linage for giving way to his Lady and Wife to be divorced from him onely propter frigiditatem naturae which all Divines and Canonists do not consent to be a sufficient cause of divorce presently and willingly accepted the motion of the House of Commons Plinius lâ—b 8. cap. 23. and commission of the Parliament to become the General of all their Forces against the King wherein as Pliny writeth of the Aspick saying Conjunga ferè vagantur nec nisi cum compare vita est itaque alterutra intercepta incredibilis alteri ultionis curá persequitur interfectorem unúmque eum in quantolibet populi agmine notitia quadam infestat perrupit omnes difficultates ut perdat eum qui comparem perdiderat that he pursueth him which hath hurt or killed his Mate and knows him among a multitude of men and therefore hunteth him still and layeth for him breaking throughout all difficulties to come at him so it may be this Lord was such as Seneca speaks of qui tantùm ut noceat cupit esse potens that accepted of his office that he might be revenged for his disgrace when notwithstanding King Charles was not the Author of his dishonour nor did any wayes further that divorce and therefore should not have been maligned for anothers fault Or if it was not for this cause as I heard some confidently say it was yet for what cause soever this or any other and with what minde soever this Lord accepted that office as being loth to stain his Honour and Ambitious to retain the Fame of an honourable Soldier I never heard the King nor any other of the Nobility accusing him for any base ignoble and perfidious act
herein and that is that all and every one that had any hand or finger in that good King's Death or in the death of any of those His good Subjects that were unjustly and illegally sentenced to death I do not speak of them that were killed in the War because as the Poet Lucan saith Pharsal lib. 1. Victrix causa Diis placuit sed victa Catoni And as the Prophet David saith The Sword devoureth the one as well as the other but of those that in cold blood by usu ping Judges under the Colour of Law were contrary to the Laws both of God and of the Land most unjustly condemned unto death should for that their unjust Proceedings be justly questioned and legally tryed for their former Offence the same being of so high a Nature as I shewed to you before But you will say many of them as blinde Bartimaeus might easily see that acted very highly against the last King and as it is conceived had their hands deep in his death were as active as any others and most special Instruments to bring His now Sacred Majesty unto His Right whereby they have fully expiated their foul offence and deserve rather to be well rewarded and honoured as some say they are then any ways questioned as their Adversaries would have them to be I answer that His Majesty is wise as the Angel of God and knoweth best what he should best do and the Policy of State is far beyond the Sphere of mine Intelligence and their doings therein ought highly to be commended and deserve not meanly to be rewarded though as Will. Sommers told King Henry the Eight that such a Gentleman threatned to kill him and the King answered that if he killed him he would have him hanged for it Will. Sommers replied Nay good King let him be hanged before he kills me or else his death will not preserve my life and his hanging will do me no good so I heard some say that they would have had the Enemies of the last King first punished for their Rebellion and the Murder of Him and then rewarded for their good Service to His now gracious Majesty or else reward them well for their good Service done to our now gracious King and then question them and punish them answerable to their Deserts for their Disloyalty and Treachery to our late King as I read it in the Turkish History and in some other Historians of some very wise Kings that did so to the like Offenders because we may believe it for a truth that they which have proved false to their own true just and lawful Prince will scarce ever prove faithful to any Prince nor seem to be but either for hope still to reap the fruit of their Subtlety to turn when the Winde turns or for fear to be dash'd in Pieces if they turn not their Sayls to escape those Rocks which they cannot otherwise avoid and no thanks to such men for any good they do when they do it perforce and therefore should be trusted perchance And it may be many of the very Murderers both of the good King and of his loyal Subjects have robbed and spoyled not the Aegyptians of their Jewels but the Israelites their Brethren of their Goods Lands and Possessions which they have gotten into their own hands and thereby became exceeding rich and enabled themselves to match their Sons and their Daughters to great Families and to bestow large Gifts that do blind the eyes of the wise on others to make to themselves Friends of their unrig hteous Mammon to preserve them from ther just deserts and to pull down the Wrath and Vengeance of God on others for this their obstructing of the straight rule of Justice that teacheth us to do otherwise Or if it were not so many men do wonder how so many men as were conceived to have been active and most of them to have their hands embrued in the good King's Blood and were likewise guilty of the death of His innocent Subjects should escape uncensured and so few of them sentenced to expiate and appease the Wrath of God for such horrible unparallebd and transcendent Murthers for I knew eight persons executed at Dublin for the Murther of one ordinary Traveller and is it not strange that we see no more brought to their Trial for such a Sâ—aughter as was done upon our good King and His innocent Subjects so judicially and yet so illegally and altogether unjustly sentenced to death or shall we think that no more were guilty then were condemned or not rather that the guilty Murtherers by their Wealth Subtlety and Friends made many others guilty of God's anger and the pulling down of God's vengeance upon many more for their excusing covering and clearing such abominable Transgressours for I would have all men to consider duly how destructive Murther is to mankinde and how odious and hatefull it is to God above all other sins whatsoever especially when an innocent man is judicially and illegally Murthered as you may rightly finde the truth hereof fully proved in the fifth Chapter of the first Book of The Great Anti-Christ revealed and in these Sermons following And I would the Protectours of the King's Murtherers would rightly weigh what the people sayd to King David that His life was worth ten thousand of the lives of the common people and how the Lord punished the whole house and posterity of Saul and all the Kingdom of Israel until his wrath was satisfied for the innocent death of the Gibeonites that were but a poor contemptible people but killed without cause 2. Sam. xxi and especially that there be not any more but two sins that I can finde in the whole Book of God that the Lord saith cannot be pardoned and obliterated without their due punishment and they are 1. The high Abuse of God's Messengers and Publishers of his Will 2. The unjust shedding of innocent Blood For Of the First the Spirit of God saith that when the Lord God sent his Messengers unto the Children of Israel and they mocked the Messengers of God and despised his words and misused his Prophets the wrath of the Lord arose against his People until there was no Remedy as if he had said For other sins of these Israelites some ways and remedies might have been found out as Moses and Aaron by their prayers and censers appeased the wrath of God to turn away the Punishment of them and David and Ezra did the like from the Jews but when they mocked his Messengers despised his Word and misused his Prophets which were the onely Sâ—â—ve or Medicine that could heal their sickned Souls when they refused and cast away these Remedies from them then there was no Remedy in the World for them to preserve them from their just deserved Punishment and therefore saith the Text The Lord brought upon them the King of the Chaldees who slew their young men with the Sword in thâ— House of their Sanctuary and had no Compassion
all my readings of the sence and meaning of the Holy Ghost touching the coming of that Anti-Christ within three years and an half after both the witnesses were slaine that is the King killed and all the Bishop's silenced and suppressed from the execution of their Episcopal Function which is their Spiritual killing I should if I should live so long see both Your Majestie Restored to Your Kingdom and the Bishop's Elevated to their former Dignitie as blessed be God now both are fully come to pass according to mine exposition of that Prophesie And this Prophetical expectation of the Resurrection and Restauration of these two witnesses the King and the Bishops according to the true sence and meaning of the Holy Ghost I made known and shewed it to very many both in Dublin in Wales and in London and though some of them that saw mine exposition of those Prophesies that I thus explained did but laugh at them and others thought it but a Fancie yet blessed be the God of Heaven that Revealeth secrets unto his Servants as Daniel saith we see the truth of mine Explication in all things accordingly fulfilled and the confidence that I had in the assurance of their fulfilling strengthned me to be so bold in my Sermon before the Judges of the general Assizes at Conwey to speak for Your Majesties Restauration when You were comming towards Worcester that Collonel Carter now Sir John Carter a man then vehement against Your Majestie and now loyal to Your Majestie as many others are that cannot otherwise choose told me as soon as ever I had done it but that he would not seem to be uncivil he would have pulled me down by the Ears out of the Pulpit and the Governour of Beumaresh Collonel Courtney was resolved to have clap'd me up in Prison so that I was faign presently to fly away to save my self and the like boldness I always used in all the many Sermons that I preached at Dublin as most of that loyal City can bear me witness so that sometimes I was forced to take Sea and to fly as I did at Conwey to escape as soon as ever I had finished my Sermon Sic multum terris jactatus alto And now being restored to my Bishoprick by the great goodness of God and the happy Restauration of Your Sacred Majesty I do most humbly crave leave to remonstrate that as soon as I arrived in Ireland I went about my Diocess in my Visitation from one end to the other that I might understand the State of the Church and the Condition of the Country where I was exceedingly welcomed by all the old Protestants as they are termed in every place and when I had sworn Church-Wardens and Sides-men or Assistants in every Parish I gave them some Articles to be inquired after and a convenient time to return their Answer into the Court. And when they had answered to those Articles I found thereby and by what I saw with mine own eyes in the Country that the Presbyterians Anabaptists Quakers and the other fanatick Limbs of the Beast the Members of the Great Anti-Christ and the false Prophet that I have so amply deciphered in my last printed Book of the Anti-Christ had suffocated and supprest the whole usual and accustomed Service of God and as they had done in Ingland to his dearest Servants so in Ireland they had beheaded most of the Churches of Christ within my Diocess the Roofes of them both Slates and Timber being quite taken off and converted to their own use and the Walls of very many of them thrown down even to the Ground and of above an hundred Parishes I saw not ten Churches standing nor half so many well repaired they had as the Prophet saith so destroyed all the Houses of God in the Land as being loath that God which gave them all they had should have a House for his Servants to meet together to praise his Name And the great and famous most beautiful Cathedral Church of Saint Keney they have utterly defaced and ruined thrown down all the Roof of it taken away five great and goodly Bells broken down all the Windows and carryed away every bit of the Glass that they say was worth a very great deal and all the doors of it that the Hogs might come and root and the Dogs gnaw the Bones of the dead and they brake down a most exquisite Marble Font wherein the Christians Children were regenerated all to pieces and threw down the many many goodly Marble Monuments that were therein and especially that stately and costly Monument of the most honourable and noble Family of the House of Ormond and divers others of most rare and excellent Work not much inferiour if I be not much mistaken to most of the best excepting the King's that are in Saint Paul's Church or the Abby of Westminster and when I desired Mr. Connel my Register to begin to repair some places of that Church and to set up some Benches and Formes to let the people to understand that we intended and hoped though it should cost two thousand pounds to have all the Church repaired some of the Anabaptists as we have good reason to think so came in the night time the Church having no doors and with Axes and Hammers or Hatchets brake them down and carryed them quite away and did other unseemly Abuses besides And for the Preachers and Ministers of God's word The Great Anti-Christ had so filled the Country with his false Prophets Weavers and Taylors and the like Preachers that there were when I came thither but three lawfully ordained Ministers in all the Diocess of Ossory Mr. Baskervil Mr. Kearney and Mr. Deane The Labourers were so few though the Harvest was very great especially if we hoped to root up those very many stinking Weeds that the false Prophet hath sowed amongst us and for the Bishop's House the Slates Roof Timber Windows and Doors all carried quite away and very much of the very Walls thrown down and ruined Et sic periere ruinae so that it cost me above thirty pounds already to fit a Room or two for me to lay in And for the Lands of the Bishop the best of them are pretended to be Fee-Farmes and a Trifle reserved to be the Bishop's Rent scarce worth the looking after and those pretended Fee-Farms with most other of the best Lands contrary to all the directions of Cromwel that in all his Commissions excepted all the Church-Lands from the Souldiers Lots were by the Anabaptist's Commissioners notwithstanding their grand Masters Prohibition given to the Collonels and Captains for their Arrears and they do absolutely deny to restore them unto the Church until they besatisfied with Reprisals and so the Bishop hath not any thing from them But if the Bishops be so still kept from their Means how shall we be able to do our Duties and to discharge the Service that we owe both to God to our King and to the Church of God
the Priests but also to root out Presbyterium Our late persecution worse then Julians persecution the very Priesthood of Jesus Christ and so to extinguish the Christian religion out of the world for these men imitating him sought to supress not the then Bishops that perhaps might be found to have offended though that was never proved but Episcopacie it self and the discentive succession thereof which we received by prayers and the imposition of hands even from the Apostles time from those that are yet unborn and have I am sure done neither good nor evill and yet have received this evill from these men to have the Calling that they were to enjoy supprest their honours buried and their undubitable Rights and Means alienated from them Prohscelus nefandum quod magnum est mirum a most wonderfull thing that wickednesse should have no bounds no stop no reason nor moderation in its progression but like a stone tumbling down a hill never leave tumbling till it comes to the bottome or like a right Apollyon and a blind smiter that will slay the righteous with the wicked or rather destroy the righteous because they will not be wicked And yet this is not all we are not yet come to the height of these persecutors wickednesse Ezek. k. 13 15. or to the depth of their abomination but as the Lord saith unto the Prophet Ezechiel turn thee yet again and thou shalt see greater abominations so from the Lord I will shew to you greater abomination and the greatest that ever was committed here on earth For 3. The 〈…〉 the beâ—â—â—ving and murderring of the first King Touching which three 〈◊〉 are â—â—â—â—trable They have not only persecuted the Prophets and slain the Preachers and foreshewers of the coming of Jesus Christ but they have also saith our Martyr betrayed and murdered that just one For the fuller and more perfect understanding of which point I shall desire you to observe these three things 1. What they are and how they are styled by the holy Ghost that did this deed Traytors and Murderers 2. Of whom they are the Traytors and Murderers which is here exprest by that Just One and we shall find him to be 1. None of the Plebeians or common sort of men but a King the highest and the chiefest man in all the Kingdom 2. Not an alien as were Caesar and Herod but their own King originally and lineally descended from the Jews 3. Not an Vsurper as was Jeroboam and many others of the Kings of Israel and Athalia among the Jewes and Rich. the third and the late Cromwell amongst us but he was their own lawfull King without question lawfully descended from the Royall line 4. Not an unjust or tyrannical King as were Pharaoh Dionysius and Nero nor yet a lascivious King as were Sardanapalus Belshazzar and Heliogabalus but a most just perfect and pious King No better King under heaven 3. Who they were that the holy Martyr meaneth by these Traytors and Murderers of their King and we shall find them to be the Lords and Commons the People the Elders the Scribes and Pharisees and the whole Council of the Jewes 1. Part. 1. Their style and denomination which is twofold â— Traytorss They that have put this just King to death are here styled and shall ever be justly termed Traytors and Murderers 1. Traytors that is to their King for the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Holy Ghost useth in this place and is derived of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies prodo or trado from whence the word Traitor cometh doth properly and most usually signifie both in prophane Authours and in the Ecclesiasticall and Civil writers the illegal and undutiful demeanour and the rebellious behaviour of Subjects toward and against their King and as the most curious criticks and best searchers of the Scriptures do observe this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Traytor is never applyed to any King for any act be it never so illegall so foul so barbarous or so bloudy that the King commits agains his Subjects when as we find not one text in all the book of God the holy Bible that speaks of many wicked idolatrous and tyrannical bloudy Kings where any one of those Princes or Kings is signified by this word or called by this name of Traytor And therefore this word Traytors that the Martyr useth doth sufficiently shew that he meaneth thereby to prove Christ to be King and the Traytors that killed him to be his Subjects as I shall further declare unto you hereafter 2. 2 Murders They are murderers because he was unlawfully put to death for otherwise a lawful Judge may lawfully put a malefactor to death and be no murderer because God commandeth Idolaters and sorcerers and others the like malefactors to be put to death and they that legally put such men to death are never termed murderers but when the party executed is innocent and the Judge condemning him not vested with lawful authority the man so put to death is truly said to be murdered and his executioners murderers And such was the death of Christ because he was most innocent And so was the death of King Charles and the Judge had neither lawful authority nor a just cause to condemn him and therefore they that crucified Christ and put him to death are rightly termed murderers and because Christ was a King as I shewed you from the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 traytors they were no ordinary murderers of plebeians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and of the common sort of men but that which is the highest and the worst of all murders they were the murderers of their King and therefore the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Martyr useth to expresse the death of the fore-shewers of the coming of Christ and the words of the Husbandmen which they said together of the King's Son Marc. 12.7 8. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that comes of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Occido used here to signifie the death of this King ought properly to be translated either by killing or slaying or murdering as our last Translation renders the Martyr's words most rightly that they were his murderers But here it may be the Jews will object and say That Man or that King cannot justly be said to be murdered which is brought to a publick Trial and hath 1. His Charge given him to answer Three things seeming topalliat and to disprove the murdering of this King discussed 2. The Witnesses ready to prove the Charge 3. A Lawful Judge to pronounce sentence against him And all this was used against Christ the King of the Jews and against Charles the King of England saith the long Parliament therefore neither the one nor the other can justly and properly be said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be murdered but they are unjustly taxed and
right when they do the greatest wrongs and do commit such horrid murders as to murder their own King 3. For the Judge our Saviour seemeth tacitly to yield 3 The Judge was corrupt that by the permission of God not his Commission Pilate through the power of the sword and according to the Laws of the Conquerors had power and authority granted unto him to be the Judge both of life and death but according to the Laws of the Romans that had then subdued the Jews and committed this power unto Pilate none were to be condemned to death except he were proved guilty of the Crimes that should be laid to his charge And this Judge ingenuously and openly confesseth that although like a good Judge herein he had examined the matter throughly John 18.38 and sifted him and his cause ad amussim to the uttermost yet he could find no fault in him worthy of death and therefore being desirous to free him whom he found so innocent by a fair excuse and to quit himself from pronouncing so unjust a sentence against a just man he advised his adversaries to take their King and to judge him according to their Law that is if they had any Law to crucifie their King that was so just and had offended no Law because the Romans thought such proceedings of Subjects against their King very strange and therefore had no such Law neither in their 12. Tables nor in any of the Acts and Decrees of their Senate whereby he might justly condemn him and justly answer it if he were questioned for it And herein also this Judge by this fine device shewed himself witty and his counsel honest as it aimed at a good end that is to free the party accused but afterwards becoming the Judge of Christ not by the Roman Law which as himself confessed gave him no authority to condemn any innocent person but by the importunity of the rebellious Subjects and malicious enemies against their King that thirsted after his blood he forgets his duty and contrary to his own conscience So was King Charles condemned to death to satisfie the Parliament and the people that still cryed Justice Justice Mar. 15 15. Luke 23.24 and contrary to the Roman Law and to all other Laws he doth most unjustly condemn that Just King to death And both the Evangelists S. Mark and S. Luke tell us He did it to content the people and to satisfie the High Priests and the Elders that had over-perswaded him to become his Judge and over-ruled him to adjudge him unto death And therefore the Charge laid against this King being unjust the witnesses being both false and disagreeing and his Judge thus corrupted and compelled and so as it were newly made by the clamor of the people condemning him contrary to the Roman Law which was then the Law of their Land to please the people it is apparent to all the World as I conceive that both the Judge and Witnesses and all the Complotters and Contrivers of this Kings death and all the whole Parliament and Council of the Jews that approved and rejoyced at his death yea and all the people that cryed to have him put to death are justly meant by S. Stephen and by him here rightly termed murderers because as I take it the Law saith that in murder there can be no accessary but all and every one that hath any hand in it are deemed principalls And how far murderers are to be pardoned I leave it to him that pardoneth all sins to be determined But if God will pardon murderers I wish he would not prefer them to places of Trust and Authority lest the Woolf lett-go still continue a Woolf to vex the Lambs And as it is said of the Devil Daemon languebat monachus tunc esse volebat Daemon convaluit mansit ut ante fuit 2. 2 Of whom these Tâ—â—ytors were murderers Having spoken of the style and denomination of these Persecutors of the Prophets that they were traytors and murderers we are now to confider of whom they were the traytors and murderers and the Martyr tells us it was of that Just One and I told you that we find him to be 1. 1 Of a King proved 1. By his Birth A King and so proved to be divers wayes as 1. At his birth when the Wise men that came from the East worshipped him as King while he was in his swadling clouts and they are by the constant course and order of the Church annually on the twelfth day after the day of his birth commemorated and commended for it 2. 2 By the ministration of his Office In the ministration of his kingly office when he entred Jerusalem as Kings use to do in a Royall and a pompous manner and his disciples and a great multitude of his followers did him obeysance and gave him royall honour as to their King by cutting down the boughs and spreading their garments under his feet and crying Blâ—ssed be the King that cometh in the name of the Lord Luke 19.38 Matth. 21.15 and the childrens crying Hosanna as we use to do God save the King and when the chief Priests and Scribes were displeased at this acceptation of him for their King and bad him to rebuke his disciples for this attempt Christ told them plainly that if these should hold their peace the stones would immediately cry out that is to proclaim him King and to do him all Royal homage 3. 3 At his arraignment At his arraignment when he was to lay down his soul to be a ransome for our sins he avouched himself to be a King for Pilate demands the question Art thou a King and Pilate understood not any kingdome in this question but of a temporal kingdome when as in his conception to speak of a Spiritual King or kingdome was but a vain fancie and a meer Chimaera and therefore ad mentem interrogantis to satisfie the demand of Pilate Christ answereth without dissimulation aequivocation or mental reservavation Mark 15.2 that he was a King Matth. 27.11 or if he did not so he made no answer unto Pilate which as the Evangelist saith he did 4. 4 At his death At his death he had it written upon his Crosse who he was Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jews so that when they took away his life they could not deprive him of his right unto his kingdome 5. 5 At his burial At his burial he had his grave sealed as a King 2. 2 â—hey were the murderers of their own King We find this just one whereof this Martyr speaketh to be not only a King but also the King of these Jews that murdered him for he was not a King of Egypt that oppressed them nor the king of Syria that sought to subdue them but their own King the King of the Jews for so the wise men testifie Where is he that is born king of the Jews And so Pilate the
not to destroy the Law or the Prophets but to fulfill them and themselves by their false Expositions and new invented traditions were the innovators and corrupters both of the Law and Prophets and more particularly 1. For the Sabbath he sheweth that themselves are herein too nice and superstitious and he no prophaner thereof because the Sabbath was made for man i.e. for the good of man both for his soul and body of his soul by serving God and of his body by those necessary actions and recreations that may conduce for the continuance of his health on that day 2. For the reverence to be observed in the Temple or Church of God 2 Objection answered Esay 56.7 he sheweth that he was not too strict in driving the buyers and sellers and all other prophaners thereof out of the same because God himself saith even of this material Temple or Church of stones My house shall be called an house of prayer for all people for the Gentiles as well as for the Jewes but they had prophaned the same by making it a house of Merchandize and so a den of thieves as they do that make it a stable for their horses or a receptacle for their plundered and stolne goods And in both these points our Puritans now are just as the Jewes were then too much given to prophane the Church and too superstitious to observe the Sabbath But 3. For abridging the liberty of divorces 3 Objection answered Matth. 5.32 he tells them that he teacheth no otherwise then what was from the beginning that whosoever putteth away his wife saving for the cause of fornication causeth her to commit adultery but you by forsaking the good old way and following the traditions of your latter Rabbines your Assembly of new Divines have made the Commandements of God of none effect and teach for Doctrine the Commandements of men Chap. 15.6 just as they do now forsake the good old government of the Church that hath been from the beginning from Christ his time and follow the new invented Government that is forced from the false and wrested Expositions of our upstart Rabbines that never yet saw the age of a man since the death of Calvin and Beza the first Fathers that begat it 2. As they did thus unjustly taxe their King for Innovation 2 The destruction of the people And this madded the people against King Charles John 11.48 and the alteration of their established Religion so they have another bait whereby they do as cunningly catch the people and set them like wild men to joyn with them yea to out-goe them in their desires to destroy their King and that is Salus populi the safety and liberty of the people which they said would be utterly lost if they did let Him goe and this madded the people against their King though there was no truth in the charge nor ground to believe it but the feares and jealousies of the people raised only by the malice of their wicked leaders for how could it be that either the safety or the liberty of the people should be any wayes impaired by that King that came to fulfill the Law and to root out all the false glosses thereof and was contented to lose not his Kingdom only but also his own life for the safety and liberty of his people as themselves confesse that he must die for the people i. e. for their Lawes and Liberties and so become the Martyr of the Law and the Saviour of his people So you see the pretended charge against this King Jo. 11 48. that he was a tyrant by indevouring to destroy their Lawes and to alter their Religion and a Traytor to the State by forbidding Tribute unto the Conqueror whom now they were resolved to honour for their onely King lest they should lose their place and their Nation 2. 2 The true causes that moved the murderers to kill their Kings The true reall causes that moved these murderers to kill their King were very many but especially four 1. Envie to him 2. Despaire in themselves 3. Fear to lose 4. Ambition to be great For 1. 1 Envie Joh. 7.47 Mar. 7.37 They perceived that for his admirable worth and his divine endowments when as never man spake as he did and that he did all things well the people loved him followed him and adhered to him then As the glorious rayes of the Sun upon any putrified matter causeth a stench so his excellent vertues begat the poysonouâ—brats of envie and malice in these wicked miscreants and so Pilate perceived that for envie they had delivered or rather as the word signifieth betrayed him to death 2. 2 Despair of pardon When they had by their Declarations and Remonstrances their calumnies slanders and false accusations sought with all art to render him odious unto his people and had in all things opposed him to the uttermost of their might Gen. 4.13 then as Cain cried out my sin is greater then can be forgiven So the guilt of their malice and the remembrance of their fore-past wickednesse against him were of so deep a stain they they conceived all the water in the Sea could not wash it away and all the mercie of man could not remit their sin such is the conscience of all unconscionable sinners therefore though this good King could would and did forgive his enemies and pray for his persecutors yet because their hate and sins were so great that they could not believe it they thought themselves no wayes secured unlesse he were killed 3. 3 Fear to lose what they had gotten The men were now got into great power they had the liberty to be of what Sect and profession they pleased Scribes Pharises or Sadduces or what you will and to do what they would so long as they pleased the Conqueror no man could contradict them but if the right King continue King they saw he would not and could not endure such an Anarchie of Government and a Hodge podge to remain amongst them therefore Caiaphas the second man in power tells them it is expedient that he die for fear of the losse of their places and this their great power and liberty 4. 4 Ambition to be great men Matth. 21.23 Mâ—â— 12.7 Luk. 20.9 This King himself in the parable of the Vineyard which is faithfully recorded by three Evangelists sets down as I conceive it the main cause fundamental ground of his death that is their ambition desire to be great and to hold all power and authority in their own hands for so the wicked husband-men say This is the heir Venite come let us kill him and then retinebimus haereditatem ejus we shall hold his inheritance His it is we confesse yet then We shall hold it because as S. Mark saith then certainly erit nostra it will be ours and no man can keep us from it and indeed this desire of bearing rule And
be said But seeing the pressing of Obedience will avail little with the Rebellious if the fear of Gods judgements and the punishments of him that beareth not the Sword in vain doth not terrisie them from disobedience for such is the frowardness of mans nature that he would never fear God if he thought God consisted all of mercy and were not as just as He is merciful Therefore as you heard how necessary is obedience so I intend by Gods help to shew you the just judgement of God and the punishment of the Rebellious and disobedient upon the words that you shall find in 2 Kings 9.31 Had Zimri peace that slue his Master The last Sermon that I Preached in this City was on the Day of our Humiliation for the unnatural Rebellion and the monstrous Murder of our late most gracious King Charles the First And that work I then told mine Auditors I knew not how to do it in any better way than by paralleling the transcendent murder of Jesus Christ by those wicked Jews that crucified him which was their true and lawful King with that late unnatural murder that our English-Jews have committed upon their own just and lawful King Charles the First and that parallel I then prosecuted à capite ad calcem And this Text that I have now read unto you seems to be a Question demanding What became of one and what should become of all others wicked murderers that like him and like the other two sorts of Jews should kill both their King and their Master And the words are a Speech made at the entrance of a brave Conquerer into a famous City that is of Jehu into Jezreel A custom very often used amongst all Nations to make solemn Speeches at the Inauguration of their Soveraign Kings and Emperours or when any Noble Person cometh to any famous City as the University Orator doth it in the Academy and the Recorder in other Cities And so Jezabel makes this Speech unto Jehu assoon as ever he entred into the Gates of Jezreel Had Zimri peace that slew his Master And we do read of two special Zimries in the Book of God and both of them wicked men Numb 25. The first you may read of in the 25th of Numbers where you may see 1. How that Israel contrary to the Command of God joyned himself to Baal-Peor and that one Zimri a Prince of a chief House among the Simeonites brought unto his brethren a Midianitish woman named Cozbi the daughter of Zur that was Head over a people and of a chief House in Midian 2. How that for this transgression of God's Command the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel so that he said unto Moses Take all the heads of the people and hang them up before the Lord against the Sun that the fierce anger of the Lord may be turned away from Israel And Moses said unto the Judges of Israel Slay ye every one his men that were joyned to Baal-Peor And so they did that there were slain 24. thousand men 3. How that Phineas the son of Eleazar the son of Aaron the Priest according to the Commandment of the Lord and of Moses took a Javelin in his hand and killed both Zâ—mri and Cozbi and that the Lord was so well pleased therewith that he rewarded him with the covenant of an everlasting Priesthood and stayed the plague from the children of Israel And the Prophet David saith that when the plague was so great among them Psal 106.30 then stood up Phinehas and prayed and so the plague ceased And our Presbyterians that find such fault with our Liturgy do say That we corrupt the Text because in the Original it is said That Phinehas stood up and executed judgement and so the plague ceased But their carping at this without cause hath been fully and sufficiently answered and may be easily and briefly done because he both prayed and executed judgement for the Text tells you plainly That the people were weeping before the door of the Congregation Verse 6 and so praying to God to turn away his anger from them and Phinehas rose from amongst the Congregation and killed them and then the plague ceased To teach us that the only sure way to turn away God's anger and the plagues that we deserve is not only to weep and mourn and be sorry for the wickednesse of the people but we must also execute judgement upon the transgressors Deut. 13.8 and as the Lord often sets it down Thine eye shall not pity them neither shalt thou conceal them but thou shalt surely kill them So shall you put away evil from among you and turn away the judgements of God from you which otherwise must still lie upon you because sins and especially great sins such as are Idolatry Rebellions and Murders and their punishments are so indiss lubly linked together that God seldom or never remits the one without inflicting the other And therefore he would not take away the plague from Israel until judgement was executed upon Zimri and Cozbi And this was the first Zimri that we read of and is not meant here in my Text. 2. 1 Kings 16.9 For the other Zimri you may read of him in 1 Kings 16.9 where you may find 1. How this Zimri conspired against his King and his Master and killed him and slew all the House of Baasha and left not one that pisseth against the wall neither of his kinsfolks nor of his friends 2. How that after this murder of their King and Zimri's possessing the Royal Throne all Israel was divided and most miserably embroyled in Civil Wars when some of them were with Zimri in Tyrza others with Tibni and the rest with Omri 3. What became of this Zimri and his conspirators that have wrought all these Wonders and most tragical Acts to kill their King and all the Kings friends how he went into the Palace of the Kings house and burnt the Kings house over him and died burning himself therein A just judgement of Almighty God against such as would conspire to kill their King And of this Zimri Jezabel demands the Question Had Zimri peace As if she should have said Is it possible that either Zimri or any one of them that conspired with Zimri and had any hand with him in the murder of their King and their Master or that very Kingdom that fostereth any of those murderers should have any peace or settlement or any happiness in the world until justice and judgement be executed upon such transcendent Malefactors For she conceived that as the wrath of God and his plagues were not turned away from Israel until Phinehas stood up and executed judgement upon the other Zimri and Cozbi so this Zimri and the Associates of this Zimri and all the kingdom that abetted him should never have peace nor happiness so long as judgement was unexecuted upon them as the example of Achan and abundance more doth make it plain that the
executing of justice and judgement upon Idolaters and Murderers and the like haynous offenders and not suffering them to live still in pride and prosperity amongst us is the only thing to procure peace and to turn away God's anger from any Nation And therefore Jezabel doth peremptorily demand of Jehu Had Zimri peace that slew his Master Touching which words I shall humbly desire you to consider these two special things 1. The Speaker And 2. The Speech And And 1. The Speaker is said to be Jezabel the Wife of Ahab King of Israel and the Daughter of Eth-baal King of the Zidonians touching whom you may consider these three particulars 1. That she was a Noble woman Three things observable in Jezabel 2. She was a Witty woman 3. She was a Very-very wicked woman For 1. She was as I told you doubly innobled by Birth and by Marriage and so she was to be respected as Jehu that caused her to be killed hath himself confessed that she ought to be honoured and regarded as she was a Kings Daughter And the very Heathens testifie as much That à principibus nasci praeclarum est It is an excellent thing to be born of Noble Princes When with the Poet we can say Maecoenas aetavis edite regibus And therefore Solomon saith though not altogether Grammatically to be understood yet literally very true Blessed art thou O Land Eccles 10.17 when thy King is the Son of Nobles And on the other side Most wretched is that Land as our Land hath lately been when a rustick Marius or a Valerius Armentarius or a Potter's son like Dionysius or any other of such like mean abstract shall either by policy flattery or subtilty come to obliterate the Nobility and to sit in the Throne of Soveraignty as the very Histories both of the Greeks and Latines do afford us store of examples to confirm this truth As when Maximinus from a Shepherd in Thracia became an Emperour in Rome and Dioclesian that had been a Bondman and was made free by Aemilianus a Senator became in like manner to be the Emperour he proved to be one of the worst and the most bloody persecutor of all the Emperours And the Reason hereof is because as the Poet truly faith Asperius nihil est humili cùm surgit in altum Nothing is more cruel than a mean man raised high and none is prouder than the Beggar when he is mounted on his palfrey he will then ride you knew where the Proverb saith ut fluvialibus undis Extumuit terrens fluit acriùs amne Perenni As the Land-flood swelling high is ever more violent than the continual running stream So no kingdom can be more miserable than that where as Jotham said the Bramble shall reign over the Vines and the Olives or Abimelech Judges 9. the son of a Maid-servant and a Subject shall suppresse and destroy all the Royal children of Jerub-baal that had deserved so well at the hands of Israel And the examples of Maion Cleander and Sejanus confirm this truth unto us For this Maion was of mean parentage whose father was a Shop-keeper selâ—ing Oil but from that mean degree William King of Sicily raised him to be Chancellor and chief Admiral of Sicily and then enriched him beyond measure and favoured him above all his Nobles and he abusing his wealth and his power The notable treachery of Maion was insatiable in his lust spared no cruelty to surther his own designs and fell at length into a conceit of a kingdom and being expert to fain and to dissemble what he pleased he began to perswade his friends to depose King William and to defend his ambition by the deposition of King Chilperick and the choosing of King Pipin the son of Charles Martel in his stead which proved so fortunate to all the Kingdom of France And Herodian sets down the very like proceedings of Cleander The ambition of Cleander that was a Phrygian born and of that rank of men that are used to be sold publickly by the Cryer yet coming to the Emperour's Court young Commodus takes him for his servant and raised him to that honour to be both Captain of the Guard chief Chamberlain and General of all his Forces and then pride and ambition prickt him forward to aspire unto the Empire Herod l. 2. and he had dispatched his Master had not Faxilla the Sister of Commodus revealed his plots unto her Brother The unparalleld pride and ambition of Sejanus And Valerius Maximus inveighs most bitterly against Sejanus as Camerarius explains the passage of Valerius for his aspiring thoughts against Tiberius which if it had prevailed would have paralleld yea and out-gone the surprising of Rome by the Gauls the slaughter of those 300. of one Noble Stock the Allian day the Scipio's opprest in Spain the Trasimene lake the Cannae and AEmathian fields swimming in civil blood And therefore Sextus Aurelius Victor saith That so far as his wit goes he finds it most certain that the basest men when they have climbed to any height are of all others the most proud and ambitious And Camerarius saith that experience witnesseth That commonly those who from the stock of Tradesmen or sordid Paisants rise to places of worth either by their Wit or Fortune Who most pernicious to the Common-wealth are far prouder and more pernitious to the Common-wealth than those of a Noble and Antient Race So that it was well said of old Porters bear rule and the bad are set over the good I fear lest the floods will sink the Ship when these base and ignobly-born sons of the earth do envy the Nobles and sit at the stern to rule the roste For as Claudian observeth Nothing is more cruel than a mean man raised high He strikes at all while all be fears le ts fury flie So far as power can no beasts such fiercenesse have Or rage as hath o're freeman a domineering slave But as the Italian proverb is Apes the higher they go An Italian Proverb the more they lay open their shame so it fareth with these insolent fellowes that at last they will be hated of all and then come to a miserable end as it happened to this zimri Sejanus Maion Cleander Perennius and infinite others of later times and in our own time Yet I deny not but some of them though very seldome may prove vertuous as we find many of them that were the sons of Nobles to degenerate and like this Jezabel to become very wicked 2. This woman Jezabel was a very witty woman for here her speech is 3 Jezabel was a witty and a well educated woman sententia brevis very short but materia uberrima the matter is so full and so excellent that no Sage no Philosopher no Oratour nor scarce Prophet could comprehend more truth and a more observable Lesson more briefly and more plainly than she doth in these few words Had Zimri peace that slew his
Alexander the Great was so addicted to this vice that many times in his drink he slew his dearest friends as Clitus and others that we read of in Q. Curtius Valued worth 600. crowns and making a Supper on a time for his Captains he propounded a Crown to him that could drink most and one Promochus drank 5. gallons of wine but died within three dayes after and 41. more and so his Crown did him no credit Dan. 5.2 3 4 5. And Belshazar the son of the Great Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon drinking and quaffing in the Vessels that his father took from the House of God espied the hand-writing upon the wall that his kingdom should be taken from him and given to the Medes and Persians And many men in these dayes drink away their Lands their Monies their Wits and all that they have And therefore most wisely doth the Mother of King Lemuel say Prov. 31.4 It is not for Kings O Lemuel it is not for Kings to drink wine nor for Princes to drink strong drink And the son of Syrach saith Eccles 31.25 Plin. de viris illust c. 14. Shew not thy valour in wine for wine hath destroyed many As here King Elah was destroyed in his wine And Pliny the younger saith that Antiochus was killed at a Banquet by his own Minions because he would have forced them to drink beyond their abilities and against their wills And S. Augustine writes that one Cyrillus a Citizen of Hippo had an ungracious son that in the midst of his drunkenness killed his own mother great with child and his father that sought to restrain his fury and would have ravished his sister Aug. 60.10 Ser. 33. Vt citatur à Beard p. 491. Euseb hist l. 8. c. 16. had not she escaped from him with many wounds And Eusebius writeth that the Emperour Maximinus was so often deeply plunged in drunkenness that he became many times so mad that in his drunken madness he commanded many things to be done which he greatly repented of when he became sober again and no marvel for temulentia signifieth a voluntary madness and wine is termed temetum quia tentat mentem it shaketh the minde The notable Story of some young Drunkards out of Athenaeus Athenaeus l. 2. and destroyeth the senses as it appeareth by that notable Story which Athenaeus writeth of certain young men that drank so much that they verily believed they were sailing in a Gally and so tossed with the winds that they threw all things in the Chamber out at the window as Mariners use to throw their ladings over-board in a Tempest whereupon some Captains seeing the same came in unto them and finding them extreamly vomiting asked What they ayled who answered That they were Sea-sick and the storm forced them to throw all their goods into the Sea and because they supposed those Captains to be Tritons or Sea-gods they said That if they would help them at this time to arrive safe to land they would honour them for their Saviours ever after such madness is in drunkenness And Gregorius Turonensis saith that Attila which was called The scourge of god having married a Wife of excellent beauty and having well carowsed on his Marriage day fell at night into so dead a sleep that lying upon his back the blood that usually issued at his nostrils descended into his throat and strangled him and so indeed Drunkenness hath destroyed many more And yet Elah would not follow the counsel of King Lemuels Mother which might perhaps have saved his life and therefore Zimri takes this occasion to conspire his death So I come to the second Person mentioned in this Text which is Zimri 2. This Zimri was 1. King Elah's subject Second person is Zimri 2. King Elah's servant 3. A servant in an honourable place 1. Elah was Zimri's King and Zimri was Elah's subject 1 A subject and the Spirit of God sets down what honour is due unto our King Eccles 8.2 when he counselleth us to keep the Kings commandment or as the phrase imports to observe the mouth of the King and that in regard of the oath of God i.e. the solemn vow which thou madest at thine incorporation into Gods Church to obey all the Precepts of God whereof this is one To fear God and to honour the King or else the oath of alleageance and fidelity How straightly God prohibiteth the subject to offer the least dishonour unto his King which the subject makes unto his King in the presence and with the approbation of God who will most certainly plague all perjurers that take his Name in vain And so the same Spirit of God hath imprisoned and chained up our very thoughts words and works in the links of the strictest prohibition that they should no way peep forth to produce the least dishonour unto our King For 1. He saith Curse not the King no not in thy thought i.e. Eccles 10.30 Think not any ill nor to do any evil unto thy King and therefore the very thought of Treason was adjudged by the Court of France to be Treason and he that confest unto his Priest that he once thought to kill the King but afterwards repenting him of his intention he utterly abandoned the execution yet he was executed for that very thought 2. The same Spirit saith Thou shalt not revile the Gods i. e. the Judges of the Land nor curse that is in S. Paul's phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 speak evil of the Ruler of the people And 3. The Lord of Hosts gives this peremptory charge to every subject Touch not mine Annointed which is the least indignity that may be Psal 105.15 1 Sam. 24.4 5. and yet may not be done to our King by any means And therefore Davids heart smote him when he did but cut off the lap of Saul's garment And therefore it appears that Zimri had no fear of God no regard of his Laws nor any thought of his favour when he fostered so vile a thought and committed so horrible an act as to kill his King But is that so transcendent a sin for a subject to kill his King Quest What if the King proves a Tyrant or an Heretick or else seeks the ruine of his subjects may not the subjects then in such a case kill such a King Look into the 9. several Speeches delivered at a Conference concerning the power of Parliament to proceed against their King for misgovernment and there you shall find many examples of subjects that have deposed and killed their Kings when their Kings deserved the same and therefore Zimri may be excused if King Elah deserved to be killed I answer that many Kings indeed have proved very wicked Answ and have justly deserved some severe censure but from God not from their subjects we need not go far for proof hereof but if we may believe Sir Walter Rawleigh our own King Henry the Eight was bad enough and might
be numbered inter pessimos being an Adulterer a Tyrant and a Sacrilegious King that neither spared man in his fury nor woman in his lust and yet this Kingdom then had never a Zimri in it to take away his life for all his wickedness Bodinus de repub l. 2. c. 5. Not to resist our King though he should be a Tyrant Peter Martyr in 1 Sam c. 26. And Bodin saith the most learned Divines are of opinion that it is so far from being lawful for subjects to kill their King under colour of Tyranny that they are expressely forbidden to speak ill of them And Peter Martyr saith that Religious David made no doubt but that King Saul was a Tyrant yet he abstained from killing him when he might most easily do it because he saw that he could not lawfully do it and if it was not lawful for him that was by God's appointment and the ministery of God's Prophet Samuel annointed to be King after him then surely no other man might have done it Camer l. 2. c. 10. And Camerarius demands if there could be a worse Prince than Nero and yet saith he The Apostles S. Paul and S. Peter are so far from advising the Christians to conspire against him as they command them to use all obedience to him and that not for fear only but also for conscience sake Chrysost in Epist ad Thessal And S. Chrysostome saith That Theodosius destroyed Thessalonica and spared neither Sex nor Age neither young nor old man nor woman but took upon him so much as he listed to satisfie his own furious will and yet howsoever parendum est obedience must be given him saith this holy father And if the King becomes an Idolater Not to resist our King though he should be an Idolater and doth with Manasses command his subjects to worship Idols as Hen. 8. commanded the observation of the 6. Articles wherein they were to adore the Breaden god yet in this case no Zimri should presume to kill his King but the rule of the Apostles ought to be followed to obey God rather than man and not to do what God forbids though the King command it to be done yet no wayes to take armes against him but to follow the examples of the Saints and Martyrs of God Vt supra rather to suffer death than to offer any resistance and whatsoever becomes of our bodies to possesse our souls in patience saith Camerarius And though the King should prove a wicked Heretick yet we must not rise against him saith the same Author but with the weapons of prayer desire of God to convert him for so the true Christians followed the Emperour Constantius Not to resist our King though he should be an Heretick that was an Arian and they followed Julian the Apostata in his wars and expeditions though they were never so far and never intended to rebel against him And as the Jews and Christians were of this opinion that it is not lawful in any case for any subject to kill his King So the Gentiles also seem to be of the same mind for when the Jews cryed to have our Saviour crucified Pilate demands of them Shall I crucifie your King as if he should have said What was there ever such a Nation so wicked and so abominable before God and all good men as to desire to crucifie their King Why this desire seemeth The Jews confess that no Nation should desire to be the death of their King not only strange and admirable but also abominable and so incredible unto me that you should in good earnest desire to crucifie your King and it seems by their answer to this question of Pilate that they rightly apprehended his mind and did also approve his sense that for any Nation or People to desire to crucifie their King was most abominable and wicked and therefore they absolutely deny that they were his subjects and say We have no King but Caesar For They were not ignorant how the heathens honoured their Kings and how the Egyptians Aubanus de Africa l. 1. p 39. Osor de instit regis l. 4. P. 106. whose manners they knew well enough did bear so much good will and love unto their Kings that as Boemus Aubanus saith Non solum sacerdotibus sed etiam singulis Aegyptiis major regis quam uxorum filiorumque aut aliorum principum salutis inesset cura and Osorius saith Persae quidom aliquid caeleste atque divinum in regibus inesse statuebant and Q. Curtius tells us that the Persians had such a divine estimation of their King and bore so much love unto him that Alexander could not perswade them either for fear or reward to tell him whither their King was gone or to reveal any of his intentions or to do any other thing that might any wayes prejudice the life or the affaires of their King and Herodotus saith that when Xerxes fled from Greece in a vessel that was so full of men of war that it was impossible for him to be saved without casting some part of them into the Sea he said unto them O ye men of Persia let some among you testifie that he hath care of his King whose safety is in your disposition Then the Nobility which accompanied him having adored him did cast themselves into the sea till the vessell was unburthened and so the King preserved And Justin tells us that the Sicilians did bear so great a respect unto the last Will and Testament of Anaxilaus their deceased King Justin l. â— that they disdained not to obey a slave whom he had appointed Regent during the minority of his son And Plutarch saith that when certain men came to Tyribastus to have taken him he defended himself so stoutly that they were not able to come near him but when the apprehenders said They came from the King Plut. de superstit he had such a reverent respect unto his Majesty that he presently laid down his Cimiter and yielded himself unto them And for the Examples and Precedents that those learned Orators do produce at the conference to shew how divers kingdomes as England France Spain and many more have cast off some Kings whom they disliked and put to death some others that had deserved it I answer that I have read all the nine Speeches over and over and am sorry that learned men which have read so many Histories both domestick and forreign should like the Spider suck the poysonous examples of those books and alledge them for imitation in such transcendent impiety and I am more sorry that they should passe at a conference of men that were chosen of their countrey for most grave and wise and did professe themselves most religious without a supercilious and a plenary answer which they might very briefly do and with a lesse then the tenth part of the pains these Oratours or Lawyers if they were such for divines I am sure they
seminando occidit eum Aug. super Johan not because he killeth him with weapons but because he destroyeth man by wicked counsels and by setting on others to destâ—oy him so are they murderers that take away the life of man by any of these ways and therefore proculdubiò decipiuntur saith the same Father they are far deceived that think them only to be murderers which lay violent hands upon their neighbours Idem habetâ—r de poenit dist 1. periculosè The hainousness of a judicial murder and not them also per quorum consilium fraudem hortationem homines extinguuntur by whose wicked counsels and procurements men are brought unto their death And if any other murder be odious and wicked The hainousness of a judicial murder then certainly this Judiciarie murder whereby the innocent person is condemned to death as Naboth was by the High Court of Jezreel and Christ by the Parliament at Jerusalem must needs be most transcendently abominable and wicked above all other kind of murders whatsoever for that this is not a single simple murder but it is morbus complicatus a twisted de-compound maltiplied sin of many-many branches so that neither Cains malicious killing of his brother Abel nor Joabs traiterous murdering of Amasa nor Davids crafty killing of Vrias nor Brutus and Cassius his conspiring the death of Caesar nor any other kind of murder is neer comparably so hainous and so abominable as this which uno ictu by one single sentence doth cast an infinite number of persons into sin and binds them all together to be lyable to the severe judgement of God for hereby 1. 1 In the place The Seat of Judgement is made the stool of wick ednesse the throne of Satan and the shambles and slaughter-house of innocent blood to do the greatest wrong where I should expect the greatest right 2. 2 The persons Witnesses Jury Judge Jerem. 5.7 The persons here offending are many-many persons the witnesses forsworn and perjured the Jury corrupted and the Judge a devill that is a liar and a murderer from the beginning and doth hereby wrong 1. The innocent person that is condemned 2. The place that is abused 3. All good people that are scandalized and offended with this unjust proceeding 4. All Light-headed credulous people that hold and believe that innocent condemned person to be a malefactor justly punished and 5. God himself that is first cast out of his throne and the devil placed in his stead 2. He is made a lyar to pronounce a false sentence 3. A murderer to kill an innocent man and so lastly a very devill for he that doth all this can be none other then the devill and the Judge stands here loco Dei as Gods Vice-gerent in Gods stead and God himself saith dixi Dei estis and commands us to reverence and honour them as Gods and therefore this judiciary condemning of the innocent unto death doth as much as lieth in man make the just God to seem to be an unjust devill And it were a lesse sin to un-god him then to make the just God seem to be so unjust a Judge for as Plutarch saith Satius est nullos Deos credere quà m Deos noxios And may not God much better say to such offendors as he doth in like case unto the Jewes onely for swearing by them that are no gods and assembling themselves in the harâ—ots houses How shall I pardon them for this As if the hainousnesse of this sin of judiciary murder went beyond the understanding of the omniscient and All-knowing God to find out a way and the means to pardon it especially if we consider 1. The persons condemned For 2. The Courts condemning them For 1. The more considerable eminent and excellent the person condemned is in respect of his calling as are Kings Priests and Prophets and the more innocent upright and religious he is in respect of his life and conversation the more odious and the more abominable is the sin 2. The more eminent and high the Court is that condemneth the innocent the more transcendent is the offence And You may more that this Judicial murder may be done either 1. By an inferiour Court of Justice as the Judges of Jezreel condemned Naboth 2. By the High Court of Iustice the highest Court of the kingdom and the Synopsis of the whole Nation as Christ was by the Sanhedrim of the Jews And I cannot remember in all the book of God of any that were thus judiciarily condemned but only two 1. The subject Naboth by the personal procurement and command of his King Ahab and 2. The King Christ Jesus by his subjects and the National malice of the Jewes And what became of these murderers how did God pardon them Elias telleth Ahab the King In the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth shall dogs lick thy blood and the blood of Jezabel and God will bring evill upon thee and will take away thy posterity and will cut off from Ahab him that pisseth against the wall and him that is shut up and left in Israel and so Jehu caused the Rulers of Jezreel the same town and perhaps the same Judges that condemned Naboth to cut off the heads of 70. of Ahabs children and when he came to Samaria he slew all that remained unto Ahab untill he had destroyed him according to the saying of the Lord. And how the Jewes have been destroyed by Titus and afterwards by Adrian and ever since persecuted and plagued in all Countries and by all Nations for killing their King the time would be too short and my papers too scant for me to relate And therefore if any King or Kingdom Nation or City be guilty of such a judiciarie murder as was the subject Naboth or the King Christ Jesus Let them assure themselves the heavie wrath of God like a thick cloud hangs over their heads and is ready to pour down most terrible showrs of vengeance upon them if they do not most speedily repent as I shall by and by more fully shew unto you But whether Zimri did kill his Master with his own hands But we are sure Zimri did not judicially condemn Elab to death yet he had no peaceâ— and what peace shall they have which shall judicially condemn an innocent person unto death which is so compounded a murder and far more abominable then any other sin 1 King 16.29 Acts 25.16 or by some others of his confederates for it is said that he conspired and so plotted with other companions against him or whether he alone did murder him I cannot tell but because he was the primum mobile the first and chief setter on of this murder it is here onely ascribed unto him But afore we do absolutely condemn Zimri for Elah's death we ought to hear what he can say for himself and not as some Judges that will hear no reason but condemn the innocent against all reason for as it was not
the manner of them to deliver any man to die before that he which is accused have licence to answer for himself concerning the crime laid against him so it may be Zimri will shew some good reason why he kill'd his Master And I doubt not but he had learnt Absolons lesson that it was for the ill government of Elah propter bonum Reipublicae for the good of the people that they might be better governed and much eased of many burthens and relieved of their grievances To which I say that you must understand all Traytors and wicked actors to be just like unto Watermen that row one way and look another way so they pretend one thing and intend another thing Thus Zimri pretended to amend the Government to ease the people to reform the Laws and rectifie their Religion but his intention and his chiefest ayme was to make himself great to get his Masters place and to become a King himself which was first in his intention though last in the execution otherwise if his principal ayme had been as he pretended the publike good he would have turned and changed the Kingdom of Israel into a Common-wealth or else he would have made either Omri or Tibni whom the people loved and not himself whom they hated to be their King sed menrita est iniquitas sibi but wickedesse though not always yet sometimes bewrayeth it self as the action of Zimri to make himself a King discovered his prime intention and the chiefest occasion that moved him to slay his Master to be his Ambition and desire of bearing rule And indeed this Ambition and desire of bearing rule hath so strangely bewitched the minds of many men Camer l. 5. c. 8. that as Camerarius saith it is almost incredible to believe and most strange to consider what inordinate desire men have to raign and to rule as Kings what villanies they have committed to become Kings What horrible things have been done by those that were ambitious of bearing rule what execrable things they have done to continue Kings for Amurath the third caused five of his younger brethren to be strangled in his presence Ismael the second son to Teâ—mas King of Persia did put to death so many of his brethren as he could lay hold on and all the Princes that he suspected to have any desire to his Kingdom that so they might raign and rule without fear And Solyman mistrusting his own son Mustapha when he returned victorious from the Persian war and was received with such generall applause caused him presently to be strangled and a Proclamation to be made throughout all the Army that there must be but one God in heaven and one Emperour i.e. Himself here on earth and Camerarius saith that this is a perpetuall custom in the race of the Ottomans and among the Turkish Souldans to put all that pretend succession unto death Neither is it only a Turkish custom but it is also the practice of all such as are bewitched with such inordinate desire to rule as Kings to do the like For Plutarch writeth that Diotarus having many sons and desirous that only one of them should reign slew all the rest with his own hands and Justin saith that Horodes King of the Parthians killed his own Father and after that massacred all his brethren that he might reign and rule alone and the sacred story sheweth that the very people of God the sons of Israel were not free but pestered with this disease Judges 9. as Abimeleck the son of Gedeon slew seventy of his brethren in one day and played many other tragicall parts that he might make himself a King 2 Sam. 15.16 And the furious ambition of young Absolon did set him on fire to seek to end his Fathers dayes and to play the Parracide that he might reign in his Fathers place and so Zimri when he began to reign as soon as he sate on his throne he delayed not the time but presently slew all the house of Baasha 2 King 16.11 as Baasha had formerly done to all the posterity of Jeroboam he left him not one that pisseth against a wall neither of his kinsfolks nor of his friends And not to go from home for Examples Did not Henry the fourth put by Richard the second his own King and Cosen-German that he himself might be the King and did not Richard the 3d. cause the true King his brothers chidren his own Nephews the sons of Edward the fourth that were but children and never offended him to be done to death that he might wear the Crown himselfe And my papers would fail me if I should set down all the examples that I could produce of this nature for there is not any thing so sacred which the great men of this world that desire to be made greater will not dare to violate and spare neither King father brether nor friend to bring themselves to their desired advancement to be the rulers of the people and to have the power both of our lives and goods in their own hands as the proof is plainly seen in the foresaid examples and especially in Antoninus Caracalla who when he had most unnaturally and barbarously slain his own brother Geta even in his mothers lap and between her arms and being counselled by some friends to Canonize him among the Heroes and to place him with the Deastri to mitigate the thought of so execrable a fact answered like a vile Caitiffe Sit divus modò non sit vivus Let him be a god among the dead so he be not alive among men So great an enemy is the inordinate desire of raigning and ruling to all piety and right saith Camerarius l. 5. c. 8. And for Zimri's pretence to rectify the government to ease the people to establish the true service of God which King Elah and his Father Baasha had permitted to be continued as Jeroboam had corrupted it and to fulfill the Words of the Lord which he spake by Jehu the son of Hanani 1 King 16.2 I say these things were least in his thoughts and were but meer pretences and shadows to hide and cover his malice unto his King and his ambitious desire of bearing rule for he being a subject and a servant unto King Elah what warrant had he or what command from God to kill his King Jeroboam was the master piece of Idolatry and the ring-leader of them that made Israel to sin and yet I would fain know where God gives leave to his subjects to kill him for this intolerable impiety But when God setteth up Kings if they prove wicked to corrupt his service and to destroy his servants he can raise other Kings to punish them as he did Pharaoh King of Egypt and Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon to chastise and to remove the evill Kings of Judah or he can take them away by death or by twenty other waies that we know not of without making their own
God doth require that as he gave the Law so he should have his Law observed i.e. That he which sheddeth mans blood should have his blood shed by man For the fuller clearing of which point I pray you look what the Lord saith in Numbers 35.31 and the reason that is rendered verse 33. for that blood defileth the Land And I might here make you a whole Volume to set forth the declaration of the just judgement of God upon such Traytors and Transgressors of this Law as Zimri was both of former times and of these later years And You know what the Law saith An eye for an eye tooth for tooth Exod. 2.23 24. Math. 7.2 life for life And you hear how the Prophets threaten that spoilers shall be spâ—iled and that our Saviour saith With what measure you mete it shall be measured to you again And that the Holy Ghost saith He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity and he that killeth with the sword shall die by the sword which is lex talionis the law of retaliation and is the justest law in the World and said to be the justice which the Poetsfaign Radamanthus executeth in Hell by punishing every offender according to his demerit And Adonibezec said As I have done so God hath requited me Judg. 1.6 7. and hath executed the very same punishment upon me as I had done upon others And Justin writes that Gryphus King of Egypt had a poisoned cup offered him by his own Mother who formerly had betrayed Demetrius into the hands of his enemies and had caused one of her own sons to be killed that she her self might reign but Gryphus being forewarned of the mischief caused her to drink that potion which she had brewed for him And Benzo reporteth of Attibalipa a mighty King of Peru how the Spaniards having taken him prisoner and agreed with him that for two millions of Gold he should be ransomed yet after the receipt of the Gold did most perfidiously put him to death but it so fell out saith mine Author Berzo in his History of the New World l. 3. c. 5. that by the just judgement of God all they that were consenting to his death came to a most wretched and a miserable end So Aelian setteth down how Archelaus King of Macedon had a Minion named Cratenas Elian l. 1. that affecting the Kingdom murdered his Master but not many dayes after he was betrayed and murdered himself And Melancthon sheweth how Arius Axer slew Numerianus Mâ—lancthon Chron. l. 3. that he miâ—ht attain unto the Empire but the Praetorian Souldiers understanding the matter rejected Axer and chose Dioclesian for their Emperour that laid hold of Axer and put him to death as he well deserved for his disloyalty And further the same Melancthon sheweth how young Gordian the Emperour was teacherously slain by Philip Arabs whom Gordian had promoted to great honour but the justice of God served him with the same sauce when his own Souldiers conspired against him and Decius caused him to be slain So Domitian was killed by Stephan that was the Steward of his house and he was slain for his pains in the time of Nerva Casaubon animadver in Sâ—eton l. And the Learned Casaubon hath observed that Brutus and Cassius and all the rest of the Conspirators against Julius Caesar were never free from War but still followed by Angustus and Antonius until they slew themselves with the same Paniards wherewith they had stabbed Caesar But to what end should I tell you of any more such Stories out of prophane Authors that are so full of the like examples when the boly Scripture does sufficiently testifie by the examples that are therein set down that such murderers of their Lords and Masters never had any peace among men but were still molested with wars hatred and troubles until they were destroyed For Jozachar the son of Shimeath and Jehozabad the son of Shomer that slew their King 2 Kings 12.23 Chap. 14.5 And I think he did very well in it as I would have done 2 Kings 15.14 2 Kings 15.30 and their Master Joash were so bated by the people that the Kingdom was confirmed to Amazia that slew these murderers who had slain his father So Shallum the Son of Jabesh slew his King Zacharia and raigned in his stead but he was therefore himself slain by Menahem the son of Gadi within one moneth after he had slain his Master So Peka the son of Remalia conspired against his King and his Master Pekahiah the son of Menahem and slew him and Hoshea the son of Ela made a conspiracy against him and slew him even as he had kill'd his King which verified the old Proverb 2 Kings 21.23 24. Proditoris proditor He became a Traytor of a Traytor So the servants of King Amon that slew their Master the Lord stirred up the people of the Land to revenge his death and to kill all them that had conspired against their King i.e. the common people And so bere to name no more Zimri that slew his King and his Master that was a Drunkard hath no rest nor peace but is begirt and brought to that extremity as to throw himself into the fire to be burned a very just but a very fearful death And therefore let no Zimri nor any that are of Zimri's mind King-killers and the Murderers of their Masters ever think that they can have either peace or rest or any happiness but envy hatred and wars or some mischief or other to follow them at their heels until they be destroyed as they have destroyed their Masters For the Scriptures must be fulfilled that wickedness shall never prosper and the murderers of their Kings can have no peace nor any good successe while they live for having committed such horrible Facts they can have no Associats Patrons or Protectors but such vile Varlets as themselves and therefore these they must entertain and these they must advance and protect And remember what King Boco said to the Senate of Rome What King Boco said to the people of Rome Wo to that Realme where all are such as neither the good among the evil nor the evil among the good are known Wo to that Realme which is an entertainer of all fools and a destroyer of all Sages Wo to that Realme where the good are fearful to do good and the evil too bold to do evil Wo to that Realme where the patient are despised and the seditious are commended Wo to that Realme which destroyeth those that watch for the good The Diall of Princes pag. 393. and crowneth those which watch to do evil Wo to that Realme where the poor are suffered to be proud and the rich tyrants Wo to that Realme where all do know the evil and no man doth follow the good Wo to that Realme where so many evil vices are openly committed which in another Country dare not secretly be mentioned Wo to that Realme where
all think that which is evil and all speak that which they think and finally where all men do what they list in such and so unfortunate a Realme where the people are so wicked let every good man beware that he be no inhabitant for in a short time there must happen there either the ire of the gods or the fury of men to the depopulation of the good or the destruction of the bad when as nothing can betide the people in such a Kingdom but Oppressions and Taxes murmurings distractions and dissentions until the fire be kindled among them to consume and to destroy one another But if the personal shedding of the innocent blood be thus haynous and so severely punished what shall we say to National shedding of such Blood as was shed in these Kingdoms that was so infinitely more abominable than the other But as Doctor Turner when he was terrae filius in the University said to his Opponent Thinkest thou with terrible words to terrifie terrible Turner So these monsters of men that dare to kill both Kings and their Masters and then to suppresse the good and to advance the wicked to silence the wise and to magnifie fools will say these things are but shadows and bug-bears to frighten Babes and poor-spirited men that have neither the courage of Heroicks nor the knowledge of Scriptures for they can tell us well enough that although some King-killers have been punished like Zimri for slaying their Masters yet à particulari non est syllogizari we must not conclude a General Rule from particular examples for Baasha slew his King and his Master Nadab and yet he reigned 24. years and died peaceably in his bed And Jehu killed Joram his King and his Master and yet he reigned 28. years and prospered and died peaceably in his bed And Menahem slew Shallum his King and reigned 10. years and died peaceably in his bed and so did many more that are recorded in prophane Authors and the ambitious hunters after Kingdoms perswade themselves that they may speed with the best and not perish with the worst fortune And so likewise those Common-wealths and Kingdoms that have killed their Kings which they conceived to be wicked In the third speech at the Conference of Parliament pag. 15. Eutrop. l. 1. did not only escape free from punishment but were prosperous and had good successe and were the instruments of much good unto the people As it fared with the Senate of Rome which as Halicar l. 1. saith killed and cut in pieces their King Romulus and afterwards expelled Tarquin and judicially sentenced Nâ—ro to death as some do write and is the onely sentence for death that I have read in any history though for deprivation not so which sentence notwithstanding was never executed yet was it decreed and as those and the like Senators do alleadge the Common-wealth prospered after it I answer that una hirundo non facit ver and though Balaams asse once spake shall we think that all other asses shall be able to speak So one or two examples in particular are of no force in the generall but the truth is that Gâ—ds judgements are unsearchable his wayes are in the Seas his paths in the great waters and his footsteps are not known yet this we may know for certain that although a sinner do evill an hundred times and God prolong his dayes yet it shall be well with them that fear the Lord but it shall not be well with the wicked neither shall he prolong his dayes but be shall be like a shadow because he feareth not before God and so the Prophet David testifieth at large and Job did the like before him And we may know also that although Jehu and some others that had speciall Commissions from God to fulfill his will prospered and escaped the hand of judgement for their zeal to Gods service and their repentance for their transgression Psal 37.9.10 yet is it a most certam truth that murderers King-killers and all other like wicked malefactors shall never escape unpunished and yet God doth not alwayes punish them in like manner Either in respect 1. Of the time or Either in respect 2. Of the punishment or Either in respect 3. Of the persons for 1. In respect of the time he reserveth the punishment of some though they be never so wicked for the next life and suffereth them to prosper all their dayes in this world as he did the rich glutton what evill soever he did and this both holy Job and the good King David do sufficiently prove and examples enough might be produced of most wicked tyrants and murderers and the like malefactors that escaped the hand of God in this life but how they escaped the next I cannot tell themselves by this time know and this future punishment is the heaviest punishment in the world and the prosperity of such malefactors is the worst and the unhappiest prosperity that can be Others he punisheth in this life and yet those not all alike in respect of the time of their punishment but some presently as Achan Cosbi Corah Dathan and Abiram Nadah and Abihu Ananias and Saphira and the like others have some time given them to see if in that time they will confesse their sinnes repent them of their wickednesse amend their lives and make satisfaction to the parties wronged Zimri 7. dayes so Zimri had 7. days given him before he was punished Shallum that slew Zacharia had one month given him Otho that caused Galba to be slain had leave to reign four months before he suffered for his murder Otho 4. months Vitel. 8. mon. Phil. Arabs 5. years Decius 2. years Niceph. l. 18. c 58. Phocas 8. years 2 Kings 15. Peka 20. years and Vitellius that was the destruction of Otho had 8 months before Vespasian brought him to death Philip Arabs that slew young Gordian had 5. years given him before Decius revenged the death of Gordian and Decius that was the death of Philip raigned 2. yeares before he was punished for the death of Philip Phocas had 8. years after he killed his Master Mauricius before he had his punishment and Peka raigned 2. years after he killed Pekahiah before Hoshea revenged the death of Pekahiah so the Prophet tells the Nintvites they should have 40. days before they should be destroyed the children of Israel 40. years in the wilderness and Jerusalem was not destroyed in 40 years after they had crucified Christ the Son bearing with them just so long as his Father bore with them in the wilderness the old world had 120 yeares given them to repent before they were destroyed and the wickednesse of the Amorites remained well-nigh 400. years before it was revenged having continued from the wandring of the Israelites in the wildernesse even till the dayes of King Saul And therefore let no man wonder that we see not adulteries oppressions and murders presently punished neither should we think that because
rebellion and disobedience of the people as here because Zedechia was not suffered by these stubborn and disobedient people to follow the advice of this our Prophet therefore they were all delivered into seventy years Captivity And as the Lord is extream angry with those rebellious people that disobey and labour to displace the Kings and Governours that he sets over them So he sheweth abundance of his love and kindnesse to them that submit themselves to his ordinance and behave themselves dutifully and loyally towards those Kings whatsoever they be that God placeth over them as you may see it in the whole course and Story of King David and Saul for as he was the most dutiful and most faithful subject that ever we read of so God was pleased to raise him to be the best King that ever reigned over Israel for his King and his Governour was Saul the very first of that Order among the Jews and he was an hypocrite a persecutor a murderer a tyrant and a mad man yet when David whose life he thirsted after had him at his mercy and could as easily have taken off his head as to cut off the lap of his garment he said The Lord forbid 1 Sam. 24.6 that I should do this thing unto my Master the Lords Annointed to stretch forth my hand against him and his heart smote him because he had cut off his skirt And when he had him again in the like trap he said unto Abner Art not thou a valiant man and who is like thee in Israel wherefore then hast thou not kept thy Lord the King this thing is not good that thou hast done As the Lord liveth you are worthy to die because you have not kept your Master the Lords Annointed and his oath As the Lord liveth sheweth 1 Sam. 26.16 that he spake it in good earnest and jested not And if they be worthy to die that defend not and protect not such a wicked King especially in going about so vile an action as the murdering of so good a man and so dutiful a subject as David was then what shall become of them and what are they worthy of that murmur and grudge and plot against the life of such a â—ood King as maintained peace and jâ—stice amongst his people and offered no special injury to any particular man of us all Surely if I had the wisdom of Solomon and the eloquence of Demosthenes I were not able to expresse the odiousnesse of their sin that conspired against the person and proceedings of such a King as is inoffensive before God and all good men But to go on to shew unto you how faithful this good subject was to this bad King when the young man that was an Amalekite and none of Saul or Davids subjects came of his own accord to bring tidings unto David of Sauls death and of the good service that he thought he had done unto Saul at his own request to put him out of his pain David presently caused him to be put to death 2 Sam. 1.15 because he durst presume to offer any violence though that violence seemed to be a favour unto the Ruler of the people whom we are straightly forbidden to revile Exod. 22.28 or to speak evil of him So dutiful and so loyal a subject was David to so evil a Governour and so wicked a King as Saul And this his loyalty and fidelity unto Saul was one of the chiefest vertues that we find commendable in him before God had according to his fidelity to his King raised him to the Rule and Government of his people And I wish that all and every one of us would strive and study to imitate this good man in our obedience fidelity and loyalty to our King and Governours that God hath placed over us But here it may be some troubled and discontented spirit will say I could willingly yield all due respect and obedience unto our Kings and Governours could I be satisfied that God appointed them to be the Kings and Governours of his people Jeremy 23.21 but as the Lord saith of the false Prophets They run and I sent them not So he saith They have set up Kings but not by me Hosea 8.4 and they have made Princes and I knew it not And should we be obedient and faithful to such Kings and Governours that ambitiously set up themselves and are not righteously set up by God To these men that stumble at this block I answer 1. That the Prophet speaketh there as I shewed to you before not of any Soveraign Monarch but of the Aristocratical government of many men that will all be as Kings and Princes ruling and domineering over the people for so you see the Prophet speakes in the plural number of many Kings that in all the whole Scripture you shall never find to be either appointed or approved by God to be the Governours of his people for indeed those many Kings and Governours of equal authâ—rity are none of Gods Governours neither are they set up by God nor as I find approved by God in any place of all the Scripture But as God is One and the only Monarch of all the World so he ever appoints one Monarch only to be his Deputy to govern the people or nation that he committeth under his charge 2. I say that this Monarch and Governour whom God raiseth to govern his people attaineth unto his Throne and right of Government even by the ordination of God divers wayes as 1. Sometimes by Birth which is the most usual best and surest way and most agreeable to Gods will 2. Sometimes by Choice and the election of the people as Herodotus saith the Medes chose Deioces to be their King and the Princes of Germany now chuse their Emperour and they commonly chuse him that is by Birth the eldest son of the deceased King 3. Sometimes by the power of the Sword as God gave the Monarchy of the Medes unto Cyrus and the Kingdom of Darius and of many others unto Alexander and the Empire of the Romans unto Augustus and many other Kingdoms unto others that had no other right unto their Dominions but what they purchased with the edge of their Sword Which right though it be nothing else but Vsurpation and Intrusion in these ambitious hunters after rule and dominion yet notwithstanding it must needs be a very good right as the same cometh from the just God who is the God of war and giveth the victory unto Kings when as the Poet saith Victrix causa diis placuit And he having the right and power Paramount to translate the rule and transferre the dominion of his people to whom he will he hath oftentimes for their sins thrown down the mighty from their seat and translated the government of his people unto others whom some waies he thought fitter to effect his Divine will as he did give the Kingdom of Saul unto David and of Belshazzers unto Cyrus and
because they sought to preserve them from ruine so were this people mad against Jeromy and cast him into the dungeâ—n and adjudged him to be put to death because he sought to stop them in their Pegâ—sine race unto their own destruction And therefore seeing they were so impatient to be reproved and so violent against them that sought their preservation there was no means used to prevent and hinder their evil deeds and the progress of their transgressions for as our Prophet sheweth 1 Their Prophets and Preachers flattered them 1 Their Preachers were flatterers and reproved not their wicked waies but they sowed pillows under their elbows so strengthened them in their wickedness And those other Prophets that did not flatter them yet were they silent for fear of them following the counsell of the Poet Dum furor in cursu est currenti cede furori Difficiles aditus impetus omnis habet To give place unto their fury to prevent their own calamity Which notwithstanding was but to escape the smoak and fall into the fire but to avoid mans anger by not reproving them and to be liable to Gods wrath for not reproving them 2. 2 Their judges were corrupt The Judges and Magistrates did not execute the laws against them for though the Lord commandeth them to execute true judgment and shew mercy and compassion every man to his brother Zech. 7.9 and oppress not the widow nor the fatherless nor the stranger nor the poor yet as our Prophet testisieth Jer. 5 28. they judged not the cause of the fatherless and the right of the needy did they not judg and the Prophet Esay saith Their Princes were rebellious and companions of theeves every one loved gifts and followed after rewards and judged not the fatherless neither did the cause of the widow come unto them Ezay 1.23 but they suffered oppressions robberies and murders to go unpunished and so the Laws lay as dead because the execution of the law is the life of the law and I fear not I care not to be condemned by the Law so I be freed by the Judg and saved from the Execution of the Law And this twofold remisseness and double error of the Magistrates and Minislers did exceedingly multiply the sins of the people and as highly provoke the wrath of God The sin of one man doth often bring a plague upon many not only against the offendors but also against the whole Nation and especially against those that were so slack in the punishing of these offences and performance of their duties For if you search the Scriptures you shall find that the sin of one man which is left unpunished brings a plague upon many and the execution of justice upon a transgressor doth avert Gods judgment from a multitude As when Achan sinned Josh 7.21 1 Chr. 2.7 Numb 25.8 all Israel was troubled and he was called the troubler of Israel who transgressed in the thing accursed And when Zimri and Cozbi offended the whole people suffered so that twenty four thousand of them died but when that Phineas executed judgment then the plague ceased Psal 106.11 saith the Text and when Achan suffered the wrath of God was pacified And therefore Moses very often Numb 35.31 and in many places exhorteth the children of Israel that whensoever any man committed Idolatry or Murder or Sodomy or any other haynous crime Deut. 17.12 they should take no satisfaction for his offence but the transgressor should be put to death The not punishing of transgressors incourageth others to transgreâ—s their eye should not spare him neither should they have pity upon him so should they turn away evil from Israel For it is most certain as the wise man saith that because sentence or judgment against an evil work is not speedily executed but deferred though not pardoned yet the heart of the children of men is altogether or fully set in them to do evill and it is the greatest incouragement that can be for wicked men to proceed on in their wickedness Eccl. 8.12 to see other wicked persons pardoned and not punished And I pray God the judgments of God as sicknesses death wars and the like may not proceed on us for our not proceeding to the execution of justice against Prophane oppressors the Kings murderers and other like wicked offendors the murderers of the Kings Loyall subjects For we know how Saul spared Agag that was destined by God for his wickedness to be put to death and how for sparing him he lost both his life and his Kingdom and had all his posterity rooted out and we know how the Israelits spared the Canaanits whom God commanded to be slain and how for sparing them they became thorns in their eyes and briars unto their sides And I beseech you to consider what the Prophet saith unto Ahab Thus saith the Lord because thou hast let go out of thy hand and so pardoned a man whom I appointed to utter destruction that is to death therefore thy life shall go for his life and thy people for his people 1 King 20.42 So hatefull it is to God that we should pardon such transgressors as he will not pardon And it is no wonder that God should thus deal with them that thus spare the transgressors for as he Qui non prohibet peccare cum possit jubet which doth not hinder a man to sin when he can hinder him spurres him on to sin saith Seneca so Qui justificat impium he that justifieth the wicked and spareth a transgressor whom he ought and can punish is partaker of his transgression and is as abominable before God as he is Prov. 17.15 that condemneth the innocent saith Solomon And these are the two chiefest sorts of evil The two things that God chiefly hateth in the doings of men towards other men that the Lord hateth in the doings of men towards men that is 1. To oppress condemn and wrong the good and godly men 2. To promote justify and free the wicked men and suffer them to flourish notwithstanding all their bloody sins and transgressions And against these evils we the Preachers of Gods Word are injoyned still to denounce the judgments of God and if we tell not the people of their faults and reprove them not for these doings they shall die in their sins and their blood shall be required at our hands as the Lord saith unto his Prophet And therefore as S. Clement saith Nos quod vobis expedire novimus Clement recognit l. 1. tacere non possumus We cannot but we must tell the people of their doings and the more abominable we see their doings the more bound are we to cry aloud and spare not to cry against their wickedness And so much for the doings of this people 2. In the doome and due desert of this people for their doings 2 The doome and judgment of this people for their wickedness you may
we while we feared and served God we may easily perceive if we be not wilfully blind how we our selves that live in these Kingdomes while we feared God and observed his service were more happy then any of all our Neighbour-Nations both in regard of those many many deliverances that God hath wonderfully wrought for us far beyond usual favâ—urs both in the dayes of Queen Elizabeth and of King James as that Reverend Bishop Carleton hath collected and compiled them together and also in powring down so many inestimable blessings upon us bâ—â—a si sua norint Agricolae had we but the grace to acknowledge them as I dare confidently affirm it of our selves as Moses doth of the Israelites no Kingdome under heaven had the like as chiefly the purest preachâ—ng of the Gâ—spel the most learned Clergy the gravest and I believe the most uncorrupted Judges the wisest and the meekest Governours and above all the upholder of all the best and most pious Protestant King that ever these Kingdomes enjoyed O that we were wise and would consider these things and would understand these loving kindnesses of the Lord. But when How miserable did we be come when we did cast off the fear of God as Moses said of the Israelites dilectus meus impinguatus we began to surfet of these great blessings to loath Manna and to cast off the fear of God to deem the highest of Gods messengers not worthy to eat with the dogs of our flocks not fit for any thing but to be trodden under feet as mire and clay in the streets when we make our strength to become the Law of Justice when we despise Governours and speak great swelling words against authority yea and raise a Rebellion as odious as I shewed our King is pious then you see and I pray God you do not still feel what mischiefs and miseries do succeed and are like to continue in the chiefest of these three Kingdomes the house of God is made a den of thieves the Priests are made out of the basest of the people the Pulpits are filled with Heresies Treasons and Blasphemies the highest Courts of Justice are turned to be the shops of all oppressions and wrongs and Gods Annointed is persecuted more then any other yea and the whole Kingdome is made the butcherie and slaughter-house of the Kings best subjects and Gods most faithful servants and all this and much more because there is no fear of God before our eyes And therefore let not these holy Rebels under the pretence of their great love to God cast away the fear of God and let them not think they do him service by persecuting his servants or that that is Christian Religion which breaks forth into Rebellion because they cannot obtain their Petition but as Solomon begins his Proverbs with the fear of the Lord and the beginning of wisdom and ends his Ecclesiastes with Fear God and keep his Commandemets so I say that we and they should begin and end all that we take in hand with the fear of God and then all of us shall be blessed and whatsoever we take in hand it shall prosper But as S Gregory saith Probatio dilectionis exhibitio est operis and our love to God must be manifested by our love to our neighbours so our fear of God must be principally proved by that honour which we shew unto the King because as S. John saith it is impossible for us to love God and to hate his Image so it is impossible that any man should fear God which doth not honour the King because the same Spirit that saith fear God saith also honour the King and therefore S. Peter knowing how inseparably these duties go together after he had bidden us to fear God doth immediately adde honour the King which is the fourth branch of this Text. 4. Honour the King where I desire you to observe 4 Branch 1. Point and to observe it carefully when you had never more need to observe it then now 1. Who is to be honoured 2. What is the honour that is due unto him 3. Who are injoyned to honour him And all these are included in these word Honour the King 1. It is the King in the singular number and not Kings Homer Iliad 2. that every man is bound to honour for one man cannot serve two Masters much lesse can he honour two Kings but he must despise the one when he cleaves unto the other And therefore as it was like false Latine when Lamec said Hearken unto me ye wives of Lameâ— so it had been very incongruous for the Apostle to have said to any man honour thy Kings because as the Poet saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Isocrat in Nicol. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nec multos regnare bonam Rex unicus esto And so not only Isocrates Lucan l. 1. after he had disputed much of all sorts of governments concludeth peremptorily 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that no kind of government is better then the Monarchy but also Plato-Aristotle Plutarch Herodotus Philostratus Cassius Patricius Sigonius and all the wisest men that have written of Government have proved Monarchical Government to be the best form agreeable to nature wherein God founded it and is the first Government that ever was most consonant to Gods own Government and the most universally received throughout the whole world even from the beginning of the Creation to this very day C. 3. p. 20. as I have most fully proved in my Treatise of the Rights of Kings Therefore Serâ—nus writeth that when Craesus raigned over the Lydians he would have taken his brother to be his associate in the Government but one of the wisest Lydians rose up and said Or all the good things O King that are in earth there is none greater or better then the Sâ—n without which nothing could be seen nothing could remain on earth yet if there were two Suns periculum immineret ne omnia constagrantia pâ—ssum irent we should find the danger to have all things consumed with too much heat even so the Lydians do most willingly embrace one King and most faithfully believe and acknowledge him to be their Saviour and deliverer duos vero simul tolerare non possunt but they can no wayes endure two at once and Plutarch saith that Alexander gave the like answer unto Darius when he sent word that he should raign with him saying nec terram duos Soles neque A am duos Reges ferre pâ—sse that Asia could no more abide two Kings then the earth could endure two Suns because as Caelius saith Nulla sancia societas nec fides regni est Caelius l. 24. c. 11. Omnisque potestas impatiens consortis erit And I believe this very Kingdome hath found the difference betwixt two Lords-Justices and one Lord Lievtenant even as the Poet saith Tu causa malorum Facta tribus Dominis communis Roma Lucan l. 1. nec unquam In turbam missi
flor aliâ— faedera regni And yet when God and nature and Scripture and all the wise men in the world and our own reason and experience tells us it is better for us to honour the King then Kings to obey one then many when as the wisest of men tells us plainly that for the transgressions of a Land many are the Princes thereof Prov. 28.2 but by a man of understanding the State shall be prolonged Shall we be so mad as to rebell against our King whom God commandeth us to honour and chuse unto our selves 400. Kings which God never appointed over us and never advised us to obey them which if you do I say it is not vanitas vanitatum but it is the folly of follyes but and iniquity of all iniquities and therefore deserveth justly to be punished with the misery of all miseries Wherefore I beseech you my brethren to follow the counsell of the Apostle and to obey the Precept of God to honor the King the King which he hath placed over you and leave the other Kings the usurping and imaginary Kings to their own shame But 2. As we are to honor the King and not Kings so we are to consider among other things 1. Quem and 2. Qualem Regem Both what King and what manner of King we are bound to honor for we are to waigh in every King 1. Modum assumendi 2. Normam gubernandi 1. The manner or the waies how any King cometh to his Kingdom 2. The rules by which he governeth and guideth the people that shall be under his charge 1. Hos 8.4 God saith of many Kings They have raigned but not by me As many men do Preach whom he hath not sent these are Vsurpers and come to their government without right And therefore we are not to honor them because though they should govern justly yet they have unjustly attained unto their government and I know not where we are commanded to be voluntarily obedient to Usurpers Others there are that do attain unto their Dominions and yet not all the same way for 1. Some come by the Sword 2. Others by the peoples choice 3. Others by the right of their birth And though the last is best and most authentick yet we may not reject the other two so far forth as they are from God for when rightfull Kings become with Nimrod to be unjust Tyrants God many times disposeth their Crowns as pleaseth him as he did the Kingdom of Saul unto David and Belshazzars unto Cyrus and the like and this Right is good as it proceedeth from God Who giveth victory unto Kings when as the Poet saith victrix causa Deo placuit And as Daniel saith he removeth Kings and setteth up Kings Dan. 2.21 and Job 34.24 And when Kings neglected their duty so far that the people knew not that they had any King or who had any right to be their King or when the people were so miserably handled by such foes as invaded them that they could not tell how to withstand them then as Herodotus saith of the Medes that chose Deioces which is the first elective King that I read of to be their Protector the people made choice of the chiefest man amongst them to be their King Or as we read of Abimeleck when he that had no right unto the Crown would cloak his Vsurpation by the election of the people this popular choice was held for a good way to maintain that Vsurped Authority And though I deny not the right of some Elective Kings because God out of his infinite lenity to our Human frailty rather then his people should be without Government doth permit and it may be approve the same when it is orderly done as he did the Bill of Divorcement unto the Jews yet if we should justly waigh the case of Abimeleck and as some say of Jeroboam who of all the Kings of Israel and Judah were only made by the suffrage of the people how unjustly they entred how wickedly they raigned and how lamentably the first that was without question the creature of the people ended both his life and his raign it would shew unto us how unsuccessefull it is to admit any other makers of our King then He that is the King of kings And the time will not permit me to set down the great and many mischiefs that happened to the children of Israel by these Elective Kings no less then at all times to cast off the service of God and in the end utterly to destroy themselves when by Salmanazar they were carried Captives unto Assyria never to return again to this very day But against all this the brood of Anabaptists will object as they do now positively teach that to be a King is but an ambitious intrusion into Authority when as Nimrod rather by humane violence Gen. 10.8 then by any Divine Ordinance became to be the first King that ever was in this World and therefore S. 1 Pet. 2.13 Peter calleth the establishing of Kings to be the ordinance of man I answer that the Scripture shall determine this question for Solomon saith Hearken O ye Kings hear ye that Govern the Nations Sap. 6.1 2 3. for power is given unto you by the Lord and principality by the most high And S. Paul saith There is no power but from God and whosoever resisteth the power Rom. 13.5 resisteth the Ordinance of God And Daniel saith to Nebuchadnezzar O King thou art the King of kings for the God of Heaven hath given thee a Kingdom Dan. 2.37 Power Strength and Glory and the Wisdom of God saith Prov. 18.15 Esay 45.1 Per me reges regnant And the Lord saith as much unto Cyrus and no less to Nebuchadnezzar And to make the point more plain by Examples I would demand Jer. 27.5 6. whether Moses his government over Israel was by his own intrusion or by the Ordinance of God And what shall I say of Saul when he sought his father Asses and of David when he fed the flock of Jesse was it their desire or Gods design that made them Kings And you may see how little Jehu dreamed of a Kingdom when Elisaeus sent one of the children of the Prophets To annoint him from the Lord to be King over Israel 2 King 9. Therefore S. Augustine saith Aug. de Civit. Dei that the greatness of Empires cometh neither by chance nor by destiny by chance he understandeth as he saith the things that happen beyond our knowledg of their causes or without any premeditated order of reason assisting their conception and birth and by destiny he understandeth as the Pagans deemed what happeneth without the will either of God or men by the inevitable necessity of some particular order which opinion is most injurious to Gods providence but we must certainly believe that Kingdoms are constituted and established simply and absolutely by the Divine Providence of God and in another pâ—ace he saith
that we fail not to observe his Commandment ne rapiat fiscus quod non capit Christus lest the Rebell should take all because we will not part with what is fit both to defend our selves 2 To the hazard of our lives and to assist our King 2. If we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren as Saint John saith much rather ought we to do it for our King and I could shew you many worthy examples of many Jewes and Gentiles that are made famous throughout all generations for what they sustained in the defence of their Kings You may read that when David was assailed by a mighty Gyant named Ishâ—benob which was of the sonnes of Rapha the head of whose spear weighed three hundred shekels of brasse Abishai the son of Servia with the danger of his own life ran betwixt him and the King and for this faithfulness to his Master 2 Sam. 21.17 God assisted him so that he killed the Philistine and it is recorded in our Annals to his eternall praise that Sir Hugh Sincler at the Siege of Bridg-north seeing an arrow that was shot at his Master King Henry the second stepped betwixt the shaft and his Soveraign How freedily subjects ought to assist their King and not to 〈…〉 till it be too late and so receiving the arrow into his own body was therewith shot to death that he might thereby preserve the life of his King And as you see how far we are to aid and assist our King to the uttermost of our abilities with the hazard of our lives so we ought to consider the time when this assistance is to be yielded unto him for the School-rule is most sure Gratia ab officio quod mora tardat abest That aid is not good when it doth no good but doth a great deal of ill because we depended on it and were disappointed of it And this hath been the losse of many Armies and the destruction of many men that have perished in the expectation of their relief as the debates and delayes of the Carthaginians to send aid unto Hannibal lost him Italy and thereby lost themselves and many the like examples I could produce to you Therefore when Metius Suffetius promised aid unto the Romans and yet deferred the performance untill he could perceive which was most likely to prevaile of both parties the Romans more incenst against him that thus subtilly deceived their expectation then against their enemies that were in open rebellion tore him in pieces betwixt wild horses and the Poet saith to him that thought it a hard censure At tu dictis Albane maneres It was but very just because he was so false and the Merozites for the like faults were most fearfully cursed by God himself Judg. 5.23 And therefore Tolle moras semper nocuit differre paratis Let them that mean to aid their King take off delayes for as God loveth a cheerful doer so he loveth a speedy doer of any good and therefore he saith To day if you will hear his voice hearden not your hearts and put not off his service till to morrow But wise Counsellers will tell us that great bodies do move slowly and many matters cannot suddenly be concluded it is true yet the deferring of such duties as may be a weakening to one part and a strengthening to the other and the delayes that may be purposely protracted should be as wisely prevented as they are craftily intended I am no States-man neither will I presume to prescribe Rules for Counsell but as we daily pray O God make speed to save us O Lord make haste to help us so let us humbly beseech Almighty God that he would speedily assist and send aid unto our King and set an end to our vexations and compose all the differences of these poor distracted Kingdomes that so we might joyfully serve him and praise him without end Per Jesum Christum Dominum nostrum cui Laus Honor Gloria in secula seculorum Amen Jehovae Liberatori THE SIXTH TREATISE John 10.27 My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me THe blessed Apostle Saint Peter saith that Jesus Christ while he lived here on earth went about doing good that is Acts 10.38 not good to himself for so all worldlings and all ambitious men go about continually to do themselves that which they conceive to be good but he went about to do good to all others as strengthening the feeble comforting the broken hearted and healing all that were oppressed of the devil and as Saint Matthew saith he gave sight to the blinde he cleansed the leapers and raised the dead Mat. 11.5 all good deeds indeed And yet the doing of all these good deeds to all men that had need of them and were capable of good could not move all men to speak good of him All speak not well of Christ that did good to all nor to give him good words for all the good works that he did unto them but though some said he hath done all things well and he could neither make the lame to walk nor the blinde to see if God were not with him yet others and they were the major part and the nobler part of the people the Scribes and the Pharisees said he was a grand Impostor a Seducer of the people a Sabbath-breaker a drunkard a glutton and a wine-bibber a man possessed of the devil a friend of Publicans and sinners Neque enim Jupiter neque pluens omnibus placet neque abstinens Theog 25. and what not good God! Quid Domini facient audent cum talia fures What shall good men doe when such wicked men dare say such things of the Son of God But you may see and you ought to consider it that as Theognis saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Alius tibi male alius melius dicet bonos alius valde vituperat alius laudat God himself that made all things exceeding good and doth all things exceeding well cannot please the never satisfied will of all men but when one would have peace another would have war when some desire rain some others desire to have faire weather and so one will speak ill of thee another well and one will exceedingly dispraise the good another will as much praise them and commend them So different are the mindes of men And therefore how is it possible that either I Go how we will or doe what we will we shall never please all men or any man else either in our Sermons or in our Prayers though we preach nothing but truth and pray as Christ commandeth us to pray should notwithstanding satisfie all our hearers but that the Sceptick blameth what the charitable man commendeth and though our intentions be never so straight yet their expositions will be found often crooked And this cannot be helped neither is he the wisest that otherwise expecteth it but
aut per maria ambulare Aug. de bonis Câ—njugal c. 37. Non in quantum sil dei sed in quant filius hominis Id. de sanctitat Virginit c. 27. aut coecos illuminare but learn of me that I am meek and lowly in heart Therefore The second sort of the Acts and Doings of Christ are such as he did as man and are imitable to be imitated by us that are men and would be counted the Sheep and Servants of Christ and herein we should follow him And therein also we are to follow him 1. In respect of the Manner 2. In respect of the Matter For 1. What vertuous or pious act soever we desire to do 1 Sincerely 2. Totally 3. Diligently 4. Constantly 5. Humbly Diabolus dux nobis fuit ad superbiam Aug. ho. 12. Phil. 2.7 and to imitate Christ therein we must strive to do it to the uttermost of our power Modo forma in the same manner as Christ did it and that is 1. In sincerity without hypocrisie 2. For Gods glory and not for our own commodity 3. In a discreet knowledge and not in a blinde zeale Without the observation of which rules the Acts that we do may be good in themselves and yet quite spoyled from yielding any great good to us by our ill manner of doing them As 1. To fast and pray and to pay Tythes of Mynt and Annyse 1 Boni videri volunt sed non esse Bern. in cant Ser. 66. 1 Chr. 28.9 Prov. 21.1 Psal 51. Ad novercae tumulâ—m flere Hieron in Esa l. 6. How horrible it is to do villanies under the pretence of Piety Erasm in simil were very good deeds commended and commanded to be done by God himself yet because the Scribes and Pharisees did them in hypocrisie to be seen of men and to make the world believe they were Saints and the onely religious men our Saviour denounceth many a bitter woe against them and tells us that they have their reward and that is as Saint Hierom saith Gloriam mercenariam supplicia peccatorum So they that proclaim dayes of Humiliation and practise nothing but Oppression that pray to God to blesse them and prey upon the poor that curse them do but as the Greek Adage saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to weep for the death of our Stepmother and double their sin in the sight of God Quia levius est in alium aperte peccare quam simulare sanctitatem because the professed thief that robs by the high-way-side is not so bad as the holy Saint that under the shew of Religion takes away mine Estate saith Saint Hierome for as Wine mingled with Water doth sooner provoke vomite then either Water alone or pure Wine Ita intolerabilior est nequitia pietatatis simulatione condita quam simplex aperta malitia so any wickedness that is covered with the Cloak of Religion is a great deal more intolerable then if the same were plainly committed without any pretence of Piety saith Erasmus So horrible a sin it is to cloath Sin in the garment of Holiness as to put the Coat of Christ upon Judas his back 2. As it was an acceptable service unto God 2 Many doe Gods work for their own end as to subdue the rebels to get their lands for themselves The continual course of all worldlings in the service of God and a very good work to root out the house of Ahab for his Idolatry and prophaning Gods Service yet because Jehis did it rather to get the Kingdom unto himself and destroyed all the Kings children the better to secure himself in his Kingdome then to satisfie Gods justice for Ahabs Impiety the Lord saith that he will require the blood of Ahab on the house of Jehu even so they that destroy any Offenders root out the Transgressors of Gods Lawes and punish the Corrupters of Gods Worship be they whom you will the Work may be good and just yet if the doers thereof do it not so much to execute Gods Will as to satisfie their own Malice to suppress whom they hate or according to their ambition to make themselves great and to get their Estates and Possessions to themselves and their Posterity God will never accept of this work for any service done to him but will most severely punish it at the last And I think that the making of themselves great as Jehu did by the service that men pretend to do to God doth sufficiently cause many others to doubt whether they have done those things onely for Gods glory or for a conjuncture likewise of their own profit and I conceive you may be sure the jealous God will not regard that service which is done to him with a sinister aspect and respect to our own profit because he will not give his glory unto another he will not yield any part of his service to any of them that do the service but though he will certainly reward every man that doth him service yet as our Saviour explaineth the words of Moses it is written The shalt worship the Lord thy God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and him onely shalt thou serve and not thy self with him in the service that thou dost to him so he will neither accept nor reward that service which thou dost to thy self as well as to God or rather to thy self then to God And therefore I would advise all those that in doing service unto God by pulling down the Transgressors of his Lawes have raised themselves to such great Polsessions I would the Rebels would consider this to look well to their intention progression and execution of their work lest that for the service they believe they do to God they receive the reward of the Scribes and Pharisees or of Jehn that pulled down King Ahab to make himself King of Israel 3. 3 Many do good in a blind zeal Num. 11.28 2 Sam. 16.9 The love of Joshna to Moses when Eldad and Medad prophesied was good and so was the love of Abishai to David when Shimei cursed him and of James and John to Christ when they would have called for fire out of heaven to destroy the Samaritans for not receiving Christ but the love of them was in a blind Zeal without knowledge and therefore instead of being commended they were much reproved for their indiscretion even as Saint Paul persecuted the Saints when his blind zeal perswaded him that he destroyed Gods enemies And as Aiax in his frenzy is reported to have slain his own children by taking them for Ulisses and Agamemnon so many men in their blind Zeal destroy the true Ambassadors of Christ and the Pastors of Gods people by taking them for Popish Prelates Origen in ep ad Rom. Zelus ad mortem Amb. in Ps 119. and therein think they do God good service as the Jews thought when they crucified Christ for as Origen saith Putant se zelum Dei habere sed quia non secundum
her will No force can prevail against the will and actual sins have so much dependency upon the hearts approbation as that the same alone can either vitiate or excuse the action and no outward force hath any power over mine inward mind unless my self do give it him as all the power of the Kingdome cannot force my heart to hate my King or to love his enemies they may tear this poor body all to pieces but they can never force the mind to do but what it will And yet such is the deceit of our own flesh that if the devil should be absent from us our own frailties would be his tempting deputies and when we have none other foe we will become the greatest foes unto our selves as Apollodorus the Tyrant dreamd that he was flead by the Scythians and that his heart thrown into a boyling caldron should say unto him That it was the cause of all his miseries and so every man that is undone hath indeed undone himself for Perditio tua exte thy destruction is from thy self saith the Prophet yea the very best men Hos 13.9 by whomsoever wronged yet wrong themselves as now it is with our gracious King for as Valentine the Emperour when he cut off his best Commander and demanding of his best Counselour what he thought of it had this answer given him That he had cut off his own right arm with his left hand so when the good King seduced and over-perswaded gave way though against his will to make an Everlasting Parliament he then gave away the Sword out his own hand So I could tell you of a very good man that is brought to very great exigency by parting with his owne strength and giving his sword out of his own hand and when he excluded the Bishops out of the House of Peers he parted with so much of his own strength and brought himself thereby to be weaker then he was before and so it will be with every one of us and it may be in a higher misprision then with our King if we look not well unto our selves and take heed lest in seeking to preserve our bodies we destroy our own souls or to save our estates we make shipwrack of our faith or especially to uphold an earthly Rule or Kingdome we expose to ruine the spiritual Kingdome of Christ which is the Church of God as you know how the Parliament do it at this day And therefore the Spaniards prayer is very good Dios mi guarda mi de mi O my God defend me from my self that I do not destroy my self and Saint Augustine upon the words of the Psalmist Deliver me from the wicked man demanding who was that wicked man Answ it was a seipso and so the wisest Philosophers have given us many Precepts to beware of our selves And he that can do so Latius regnat avidum domando Spiritum Horatius quam si lybiam remotis Gadibus jungat uterque paenus Serviat uni doth more and ruleth better then he that reigneth from the Southern Lybia to the Northern Pole so hard it is for man under all the cope of Heaven to find any one that truly loves him But God is Verax veritas true and the truth it self and as Hugo saith Veritas est sine fallacia faelicitas sine miseria he is Truth without Deceit that neither can deceive not be deceived and as this our Apostle saith God is love and the Fountain of all true love and he is sweet he is wise and he is strong 1 John 4.8 How God loveth us and how sweet and gracious his love is therefore S. Bern. saith that he loveth sweetly wisely and strongly Dulciter quia carnem induit sapienter quia culpam cavit fortiter quia mortem sustinuit sweetly because he was made man to have a fellow-feeling of our miseries wisely because he did avoid sin that he might be able to help us and strongly because his love was as strong as death when rather then he would lessen his love unto us he would lose his life for us And therefore of all that pretend to love us God alone is the onely pure and truly perfect lover 2. For the affection it is love for God loved us and love 2 The affection Love comprehendeth three things as it is in the creatures is a passion better perceived by the lover then it can be expressed by any other and it comprehendeth three things 1. A liking to the thing beloved 2. A desire to enjoy it And 3. A contentment in it as when the Father saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased because 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 derived of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or as others think of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth to be fully and perfectly satisfied in the thing loved as Phavorinus testifieth And so though the affection of love is not the same in God as it is in us because he is a Spirit most simple without passion and we are often-times transported and swallowed up of this affection yet in the love of God we finde these three things most perfectly contained 3 Things contained in the love of God 1. An Eternal benevolence or purpose to do good unto his creatures 2. An Actual beneficence and performance of that good unto them 3. A Delightful complacency or contented delight in the things beloved as the Lord loveth him that followeth after righteousness that is he taketh delight and pleasure in all righteous livers and as he hateth the ungodly so he loveth the righteous and taketh delight in them and in their just and righteous dealing But because love is an inward affection that can hardly be discerned without some outward demonstration of the same and that as S. Gregory saith Probatio dilectionis exhibitio est operis the trial of our love is seen by our actions which testifie our love far better then our words How God imanifesteth his love many wayes when we see too too many that profess to love us when they labour to destroy us as the rebels pray for the King when they fight against him so finely can the Devil deceive us therefore God manifested his love by many manifold arguments As 1. Way 1 By screating things of nothing and making them so perfectly good that when himself had considered them all he saw that they were all exceeding good 2. Way 2 By preserving all things that they return not to nothing Quia fundavit Deus mundum supranihilum ut mundus fundaret se supra Deum because God laid the foundations of the world upon nothing that the world might wholly rely upon God who is the basis that beareth up all things with his mighty word and more particularly in preserving not onely the righteous but even the wicked also from many evils both of Sin and Punishment for did not God withhold and restrain the very reprobates even
all these things pass I dare appeal to any impartial Reader that neither Eusebius nor Socrates nor Thuanus nor Chammier nor any other Hystorian Ecclesiastical or Prophane that have written of Persecutions or of the cruelty of Antichrist can shew me any King since the King of the Jews that by his own Subjects and for no vice of his own that malice it self can tax him but only in reality whatsoever is otherwise pretended for the defence of Christ his faith and the true service of God the protection of all faithfull Preachers and the upholding of the Fundamental Laws of his Kingdom hath or could suffer more unkingly indignities by any Antichrist than our gracious King hath done by his own ungraciaus Subjects of these three Kingdoms But stay and let us consider that although these Persecutions be exceeding great yet our sins and transgressions are far greater and God in all this is most just and as Ezra saith Ezra 9 13. Punisheth us less than our iniquities deserve for certainly we must confess what the world seeth that we have sinned with our Fathers we have done amiss and dealt wickedly and therefore as Eusebius confesseth the iniquities of the Primitive Christians to have pulled upon them those Heathen Persecutions so must we acknowledge this Antichristian Tyranny to have most justly fallen upon us And not only so but seeing we have so justly deserved it let us submit our selves under the mighty hand of God repent and be sorry for whatsoever we have done amiss and pray to God for grace and strength to suffer what shall be laid upon us either for the punishment of our sins or the trial of our Faith to God and our Loyalty to our King not only the loss of all worldly things but even of our life it self because that in so suffering unto death we shall be sure to have the Crown of life which the Lord grant unto us for Jesus Christ his sake to whom be all glory and honour for ever and ever Amen I have spent two hours in treating of this one verse already and because here is magnum in parvo abundance of treasure in this little mine I must crave leave to spend one hour more and with that I hope I shall finish all that I have to say on these words You may remember I told you the words contain 1. Gods love to Man 2. Mans love to God The first I handled in my first Sermon And In the second I shewed you three parts that is to say 1. The Persons We 2. The Act Love 3. The Object him We love him 3 The Object of our love God The two first in my last Sermon And now because I love neither Tautologies nor to stand long upon repetitions I will proceed unto the object of our love where the Apostle saith We love him that is God And I would to God that we did all love him quia actus distinguitur per objectum because it is not our love that doth hurt us but the object of our love maketh or marreth all for as St. Augustine saith Duas civitates duo faciunt amores our love to God buildeth up Jerusalem Aug. super Psal 64. the Church and City of God and our love to the world and these worldly things buildeth up Babylon the Synagogue of Satan And therefore this is the errour of the sons of men The errour of men not that we are subject unto Passions and endued with the affections of Fear Hate Love and the like but that we misguide our Passions and misorder our affections by misplacing them where they ought not to be setled for we may fear so it be him that can cast both body and soul into hell fire we may hate so it be the thing that is evill and we may love so it be what we ought and as we ought to love But this is that which God cannot endure that we should fear men more than God or fear temporal losses goods or lands more than the loss of our souls and the wounding of a good conscience or that we should hate our brethren and not their sins which we cherish in our selves though we detest them in all others or that we should love the world and not God or any thing in the world more than God or so much that it should any waies lessen our love to God And therefore here I may stop my course and stay a while to reprove those many millions of men that are as the Philosophers said The Citizens of the world and do freely bestow their loves not on God but either upon the vain pleasures The love of vain things choaketh our love to God or the vile profits of this wicked world And it is a strange thing to see how one affecteth Honour another Beauty a third Authority and most of us some one kind of vanity or other that either drowneth or driveth away and so lesseneth much our love to God And above all things the love of Riches choaketh this divine love in all worldly men For as Apolonius Tyanaeus saith That he hath seen a stone called Pantaura which is the Queen of all other stones and hath in it all the vertues that are to be found in all the other pretious stones So to this stone do some men compare riches Kiches what they are like because they suppose riches to contain in them the force and vertue of all other things and are able to bring mighty things to pass as the fiercest beasts are made tame by them the fairest Ladies are won by them as Jupiter prevailed with Danae What great things wealth and riches have done when as the Poets feign he came unto her in a golden showre The greatest Kings are subdued by them when as no weapons can overcome the shields of Gold and Rome it self might have been bought if Jugurth had had wealth enough to purchase it as he said when he passed out of Rome And you see the Fishes of the Sea that are overwhelmed with water and drowned in the Deep cannot escape the force of Riches and the Fowls of the air though of the swiftest Wings yet can they not fly from their Empire yea what Altitudes have not Riches abated What difficulties have they not vanquished What improbabilities I will not say impossibilities have they not facilitated And what things have they desired that they have not obtained Therefore St. Augustine shewing the folly of the Pagans about their selected gods Aug. de Civit. Dei l. 7. c. 3. wondreth that if wise men were their Selectors why Venus was preferred before the Lady Vertue or if Venus deserveth her enhansement because more do affect her than those that love vertue then why was not Lady Money more famous than Minerva seeing that in all sorts of men there are more that love coyn better than knowledge and all Trades aime at Money and say with the Poet Quaerenda pecunia primum est virtus
he devised the way to depose her and to set the Crown upon the right Heirs Head whose example we ought all to follow when opportunity serveth Or were I not so that we must renounce usurped power how shall we protect and maintain the just and lawful authority 2 Sam. 15 16. surely the people that followed Abso lon when he had the power to trample Justice under foot to possesse the royal City and to drive the lawful King to flie from place to place and the followers of those perfideous Rebels of Killkenney that so barbarously massacred the poor Protestants and so foully so falsely deluded both the good King and all the Kings friends and have now as themselves pretend the great power in this Kingdom may well be justified not to have offended if this doctrine may be defended that usurped authority is not to be resisted but to be obeyed when its power is most prevalent But the Apostle tells us plainly Rom. 14.2 that whatsoever is not of faith is sin and with what faith I pray you can I obey that power and submit my self to that authority which my conscience tells me to be against truth and without Justice But Tertull. ad Scapulam makes this most clear where he sheweth how tender the Christians were to preserve the right to the lawful Emperours and therefore though Albinus was most powerful in the West and Pisen Niger in the East yet the Christians would be nec Albiniani nec Cassiani nec Nigriani Yet this much I must tell you that where the right heir is not apparent as it was not amongst many of the Primitive Emperours who were often lifted up to that royal dignity by none other right than the Sword of the tumultuous Souldiers and unconstant cohorts and were therefore obeyed by the good Christians because they knew not of any other that had any better right unto the Empire the same as yet being unsetled to continue in any hereditary line or when the just Title to the Crown is not cleered as perhaps it was not to all the Subjects in the time of Hen. 4. Edw. 4. and Rich. 3. and the like doubtful claimes then it is not for every private mechanick or ignorant Rustick to determine the right to the Crown and decide the equity or the iniquity of such powers but as the Apostle saith and as it was most learnedly handled by a most Reverend and a most learned Prelate of our Church not long since in this place they ought to study to be quiet to follow their own Trades 1 Thes 4 11. and to do their own business and not to polupragmatize in matters so transcendent and so metaphysical to their Mechanick and Rustick capacities And in this qualified sence you must understand and not mistake the meaning of the same most Reverend Prelate in this place upon our last Kings day that when it is doubtful to whom the right of the Soveraign Power should belong or who hath right unto the Soveraignty then all ignorant and private men are excused though they resist not the Government that hath the present power over them but do obey the same especially by their passive obedience and likewise by their active obedience in all honest and lawful demands All which with all that I said before I say to clear the integrity of the said Reverend Prelates intention from any sinister apprehension of misunderstanding hearers But where the right is indubitable and the soveraignty not to be questioned whose it is as it is with our most gracious King whom all the Irish Rebels of Kilkenny and all the other Rebels of these three Kingdoms deny not to be their lawful Soveraign I say that what Power soever exalteth it self above him or against him which the Parliament of England doth not when it challengeth only a kind of co-ordination with him we are not to yield any obedience unto the same especially if the same command or require any thing contrary to his commands because as the Son of Syrach saith We are to stand with the right and in the truth and as our Saviour saith To continue faithful therein unto death if we desire to enjoy the Crown of life And therefore though the dumb devil may hold my tongue Rev. 2.10 so that I shall be able to say nothing of what truth should be delivered yet all the power of hell shall never open my mouth and cause me to say that untruth which my conscience telleth me cannot be justified because this love to the truth of Scripture is a singular Testimony of our love to God 3. The next sign of the love of God is to love the honour of God without which we cannot be said to love God 2 To love Gods honour 4. The next sign is to love Gods Image that is Man 5. To observe Gods Precepts 6. To hate Sin 7. A longing desire to be with God to have an Union and Communion with him for it is an impregnable property of a person loving to desire to be united to the person loved and therefore Pyramus loving Thisbe cries out to the wall that hindered them to meet together Invide dicebat paries quid amantibus obstas Many other signs of Gods love I should shew unto you and the impediments that hinders us to love God such as are 1. The ignorance of the incomprehensible sweetness and unspeakable goodness of God 2. The too much love of our selves and of our carnal desires 3. The bewitching allurements of the pleasures profits and other vanities of this present world and the like that do hinder blind and suffocate our love to God And then last of all I should shew unto you the helps and furtherances to beget and to nourish the love of God in us such as are 1. The continual meditation of Gods goodness towards us and his excellencies in himself 2. The daily reading and hearing of Gods Word and the reading of other godly Books that do incite and invite us to love the Lord above all the things of this World 3. Continual Prayers to God for Grace and the assistance of his Holy Spirit to encline our hearts to love him 4. Often discourse and conference with good and holy men about the goodness of God and heavenly things and the like All which I should more fully and amply inlarge unto you but that the time binds me to defer the same to a fitter opportunity and in the interim to pray to God for grace to abandon the love of this World and to love God and to encrease in our love to him more and more through Jesus Christ our Lord To whom be Glory and Honour and Thanks now and for evermore Amen Jehovae Liberatori THE DECLARATION OF THE Just Judgments of GOD. THE Man that was according to God's own heart the best Subject that ever we read of and the greatest Ring that ever Israel saw David the Son of Jesse saith that the LORD is righteous in
all his ways Psal 145.17 and holy in all his works and the Prophet Daniel testifieth as much and so do all the Saints and Servants of God yea and the very wicked Reprobates do confess the same for Adoni-bezek the Tyrant that had Seventy Kings having their Thumbs and great Toes cut off to gather their meat under his Table doth acknowledge that God did most justly deal with him as he had dealt with others and so we finde that the Law of God is most just and requireth Justice to be done at all times in all places and to all persons as an eye for an eye tooth for tooth and he that sheddeth man's blood by man should his blood be shed yet such is the corruption of man's Nature that we do often judge amiss of the just Judgments of God and therefore Christ adviseth us not to judge that is amiss or if we judge not to do it according to the Superficies and outward appearance of things but to judge righteous Judgments and especially of all the Judgments of God that he sheweth either in this world or in the world to come And because God of late hath poured out much of his wrath and indignation and shewed many Judgments upon these Kingdoms I will endeavour Rom. 2.3 by the help and assistance of the same God to make as the Apostle saith a Declaration of the just Judgments of God to stop the mouths of all discontented Murmurers and to shew the just deserts of us all that either have been or still are most justly punished and I shall further shew how that in the midst of God's anger against these Nations he was pleased to continue his mercies and loving kindnesses to his dear and faithful Servant and our late most gracious King of ever blessed Memory Charles the First And first as the Poet saith A Jove principium Musae so I shall begin with him that was Jehovah's Vice-gerent the Anointed of the Lord and our most gracions King CHAP. I. FIrst then for King Charles I knew him before he was crowned King a most virtuous Vera quidem res est patrem sequitur sua proles Et sequitur leviter filia matris iter and Religious Prince religiously following the pious steps of his good and godly Father and well-beloved and well spoken of by all his Fathers Court pietas spectata per ignes and his Travels through France and Return from Spain have sufficiently testified his sincerity and constancy in the true Religion so that I may truly say of him Firma valent perâ—se nullúmque Machaona quaerunt And after he was crowned King all in white in token of that purity and innocency which he desired always to retain according to the counsel of Solomon that saith Let thy Garments be always white I living in His Court in no mean place had a very great desire to note and observe the lives actions and contrivements both of the King and of most other men that were of any note in the King's house and throughout all the space of seventeen or eighteen years that I was resident in His Court whereof I waited in my turn six or seven years upon His Majesty my Witness is in Heaven that I could observe none nor find out any man either of the Lords Knights or other Gentlemen of his House that was of so mild a Disposition so courteous in his Conversation and so pious in all the actions and circumstances of Religion as King Charles was a man that I never heard to take the Name of God in vain at any time nor ever saw him passionately angry with any man neither do I believe that the mouth of the Father of Lies could justly tax him of any open crime or inexcusable defect either of Charity Equity or Piety before the Birth of the Long Parliament or after throughout all his life for he knew that Qui sceptra duro saevus imperio reget Timet timentes metus in autorem cedit Seneca in Oedipo Act. 3. and I am sure I am able to arise in the last day to testifie against many of his enemies and accusers that I have often heard them justifying him in those things for which afterwards they accused him and condemned him yea they were his Counsellours to have them done and then his Prosecutours and Persecutours of him unto the death for doing them Much more could I speak and speak it most truly in the just praise and commendation of this good and godly King and when all that I could speak were set down I must confess mine offence that plenty it self and the abundance of his virtues Talem vix reperit unum Millibus 〈◊〉 multis bominum consultus Apollo Ausonius and merits hath made me poor in mine expressions thereof Prob dolor infoelix sors nostra amittere talem Ter foelix talem quae tenet or aviorum And is it not therefore strange that the just and good God should suffer the wicked Sons of men so strictly to prosecute and so unexemplarily to handle and to deal with so just so good and so Religious a Prince as the Long Parliament hath done with King Charles and so to confute that Poet which saith Nullum caruit exemplo nefas when as no Historie of any Times of any Kingdom can parallel the proceedings against King Charles I answer no not at all but in the death of this good and godly King may be seen the great merey of God and I dare not say the Revelation of the just Judgment of God but the gentle chastisement of a most loving Father to a most dear and dutiful Son that all men that see the same might praise God for the one and fear him for the other for as the death of the Son of God Jesus Christ was most unjustly done by the wicked Jews that condemned him for Blasphemy against God and Treason against Caesar whereof he was most innocent and guilty of neither yet was it most justly suffered to be done by the determinate Counsel of God as Saint Peter sheweth because that out of his great love and mercy to save sinful man he became his Surety to pay his Debts and to satisfie God's Wrath by suffering that death for our sins that as the Prophet saith We by his stripes might be healed therefore did God most justly execute upon him what he had most mercifully undertaken for us all so though King Charles was a very good man and a most religious Prince and as his friends knew most innocent and free from all those crimes that were layd to his charge by the long Parliament yet could be not be justified from all offences against his God but as Moses that was faithful in all Gods House yet failed he a little at the waters of Meriba and as David that was a man according to Gods own heart yet offended he also in numbering the people and as Ezechias and Josias that were two of the three best Princes of all the Kings of
of death for the King then to be perswaded for what pretense of good soever and by whomsoever were it an Angel out of Heaven to consent unto his death is to become guilty of a great fault and to say that he was perswaded thereunto by the Bishops whose fault was therefore greater then his Majestie 's can no more excuse him then for the man of God to say that he was seduced by the old Prophet And therefore this might be a just cause with God to suffer him that to satisfie sinful men would offend his good God by giving way to them to take away the life of an innocent man to have his own life taken from him even by those men to whom he had yielded to take away the life of another man which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a conformity of our punishment to our offence and is nothing else but lex talionis an eye for an eye a tooth for tooth and death for death which was the first Law that God published after the Deluge saying Whosoever sheddeth man's blood that is either per se as Cain did Abel or per alium as David did Vriah's and Ahab Naboth by Act or it may be by consent by man shall his blood be shed Secondly touching the Bishops my self knoweth that he loved them all and honoured their Calling very much being fully satisfied of the truth of their Divine and Apostolical Institution as appeareth by that learned and exquisite defence that himself most graciously made against the Presbyterians of the Episcopal Order and he was indeed a right Constantine to all the Bishops rather hiding their infirmities if he spyed any fault in them with the Lap of his Garment then any ways multiplying or publishing the same unto the People And this was a most Christian course in him for I may justly say Victima sacra Deo res est succurrere Cleris And as our Saviour saith of them He that receiveth you receiveth me And the Bishops of all other his Subjects were his most loyal Servants and most faithful Oratours never thwarting their King nor crossing any of his just Designs but ever cleaving unto his Cause and voting on his side so far as truth and right and a good Conscience would give them leave contrary to which his Majesty never desired any thing And therefore when the King saw the malice of most wicked men qui oderunt eos gratis and did bear an intestine hatred against these true Servants of God and did strive manibus pedibúsque with all their might against all justice to thrust them out of their undoubted Right by the favour we confess of our most pious Princes for him as we conceive against his own mind and to his own prejudice to please and satisfie the implacable hatred of his and their enemies to pass an Act to exclude the Bishops out of his Great Council the Parliament when above thirty Acts of Parliament had confirmed their right Interest therein since the confirmation of Magna Charta was an errour as I conceive not salvable and a fault that cannot be justly excused by his best Friends and therefore God might justly suffer all his Counsels to fail and his Counsellours to become perfidi familiares his familiar Traytours such as the Poet speaks of Saepe sub agnina latet hirtus pelle Lycaon Subque Catone pio perfidus ille Nero. And though I do not nor dare not say it was so yet I may say that for this God might so give way to his Enemies to prevail against him and to thrust him out of his Kingdom when he gave way to thrust his Embassadours out of his house which is but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and even as Solomon divided God's Service betwixt God and the Idols of Zidon Moab and Ammon 1 Reg. 11. c. 12. so God divided his Kingdom betwixt his Son Rehoboam and his Servant Jeroboam so might he deal with King Charles when he yielded to expel the Bishops that were his true Friends and God's Servants out of his Council to suffer his Enemies to exclude him out of his Kingdom and not unjustly or without cause neither as the same proceeds from God whose ways are always just for who could better declare the right and truth of things unto the King then the Expounders of the Book of Truth Who could advise and direct him to make better and juster Laws then the Teachers of the Law of God and who fitter to judge of right and to require Justice to be enjoyned and practised by all People then they whose Calling is continually to call upon all men to live godly and soberly and justly in this present World Why then should they be excluded from the Seat of Justice either in the making of Laws or to see those Laws executed unless it were that the Lay-Justices might do what they would without shame and what they pleased without controul when as heretofore the reverend Presence of the Bishops and grave Divines and their sage Counsel did oftentimes stop the Current of Injustice and made some ashamed of some gross dealings that in their absence they were not ashamed to have effected and therefore I suppose I may justly say that as it was said of the Emperour Justinian when he caused Aetius his brave General to be cut off he had cut off his right Arm with his left Hand so did King Charles when he pâ—ssed that Act that prejudiced himself more then the Bishops Thirdly touching the Parliament we must understand that Parliaments were first instiâ—uted by the Kings of this Nation to inform them of the Abuses Dangers and Defects which the Lords and Peers and the wiser sort of their Subjects which each Countrey had elected and the chief Cities had chosen for that purpose had observed and to advise and consult with their King de arduis rebus Regni of these and all other difficult and great Affairs of the Kingdom as the Writs that call them together do declare and then to consider by what good means the Dangers of the Kingdom might be prevented by what Laws ' the abuses might be redressed and which ways the peace of the People might be preserved and the happiness of all his Subjects continued and enlarged and if they understood of any sorreign dangers invasions or injuries to consult how the same might be prevented and rectified And when the King understood what his Lords and Commons conceived fitting to be done He with the Advice of His Council ratified what he approved and rejected what he disliked with the usual phrase in that kind But in process of time the Parliament-men as I heard wise men say began to incroach more and more upon the Rights of Majesty upon the Power and Authority of the King especially of those Kings that either had no Right or at the best but doubtful Titles unto the Crown or those that were of less Abilities or of an easie and facile disposition and would soon be perswaded
for judgement against the Bishops that were the Authours of these evils and so as all the Mariners were tossed for Jonas his sin so all the Bishops must suffer for the offence of few And though as Eusebius saith all the malice of the world and all the persecution of Tyrants and all the Stratagems of that old Serpent could not darken the glory of Christ his Church while the Bishops and the rest of the Priests and Preachers of God's word held together and kept the Unity of Faith in the Bond of Peace yet when the Bishops fell together by the ears and dissented in their opinions the one from the other the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they that held the faith of one Substance which is the right Catholick faith from them that maintained the faith of the like Substance which was and is the Arrian Heresy and when the Priests banded against the Bishops and the Bishops did therefore seek to suppress those Priests then the Lord darkened the glory of the daughter of Sion and the Church that formerly triumphed sate then as a Sparrow that is alone mourning upon the House-top even so now in our days when they that ought and had promised and vowed most solemnly when they were admitted to Holy Orders to reverence their Bishops and to be advised by them and obedient to them began to spurn with their heels to spit in their faces and to bark against them in their Pulpits our Saviour's words must hold true that A Kingdom divided against it self cannot stand and much less the Hierarchy when the Priests and Bishops are at such ods and so contrary to themselves And this division of Reuben with the aforesaid distempers was a great presage of their present fall yet I believe not all the cause that moved God to permit the Devil to stir up Enemies to throw them down but the true cause was greater sins if I judge right then either of these for the former might be the aspersions of Enemies and but onely the allegation of ill-willers without any sound ground for their Justification or if true but the Acts of some few of the inferiour Bishops and the Divisions of the Clergy might lessen our repute and weaken our Authority but not utterly to overthrow our Hierarchy as all the contentions of the Primitive Church never did And therefore the true causes of our ruine must needs be of an higher nature and they might be besides the forenamed and some others that we know not of these three main faults that can neither be denied nor excused 1. The misguiding of the good King before the Long Parliament The three great saults of the Bishops 2. The neglecting of him in the Parliament 3. The evil Counsel they gave him with the Parliament First The King having a reverend opinion of the Bishops Fault was perswaded to second and to set forward the Designs of the Bishop of Canterbury in many things that brought him the ill opinion and so diminished the love of the people as in the matter of Saint Gregory's by Saint Paul's and especially in sending the newly amended Liturgy unto the Scotish Church and the Prosecution of that business so eagerly to the great prejudice of the King which was to speak what I conceive to be truth without flattery such an Episcopal offence as cannot be expiated with words nor could be defended with the power of the King as the Scots alleadged Non omnibus unum est Quod placet hic spinas colligit ille rosas and which I conceive to be the Original and the Seed of all the King's troubles and misfortunes and the Bishop's overthrow mittere falcem in alienam messem to busie themselves out of their own Diocess especially among the Scots that were bewitched with the love of the Presbytery and hated all forms of Liturgies but such as was without form or beauty like Christ at his Passion that was then as the Prophet saith without form or beauty for had they rested quiet without raising up those Northern blasts and those Spirits that they could not lay down they might no doubt in my Judgement have remained quiet to this very day but they throwing these stones into the Air they fell into their own fore-heads and they verified the old Proverb Qui striut insidias aliis sibi damna dat ipse he that diggeth a pit for another shall fall into it himself for by troubling the Scots with the new service they pull'd an old house upon their own heads and an unspeakable trouble upon the King and this Kingdom as they soon felt it afterwards and all the people smarted for it Secondly Great fault of the Bishops When they had troubled these unsavory waters and raised up these foul Spirits that they could not binde and had engaged the good King in this bad cause they neither justified the King with their pens nor assisted him with their purses near so much as so good a Patron both of them and of their Churches had deserved but as men stupified with that storm that the Parliament had raised they were tongue-tied in his Cause and hand-bound for any great help or assistance they afforded him against his and their own enemies And what a neglect was this of so good a King by wise men to save their Wealth and to lose both their King and themselves I would they had remembred Ausonius his Epigram 55. Effigiem Ausonius Epigt 55. Rex Croese tuam ditissime regum Vidit apud manes Diogenes Cynicus Constitit utque procul stetit majore cachinno Concussus dixit Quid tibi divitiae Nunc prosunt regum Rex O ditissime cumsis Sicut ego solus me quoque pauperior Nam quaecunque habui mecum fero cum nihil ipse Ex tantis tecum Croese feras opibus But they skulked to escape the storm I could name the men that had and let abundance of Wealth and ready Coin behind them and yet did nothing to relieve the King and suffered their King to suffer Ship-wrack a fault not unworthy to be punished by the Judges and an unthankfulness yea and such unthankfulness as exceeded all their former defects and faults to do so little for him that did so much for them and was contented to lose his life as he did rather then he would consent that they should lose their honour and be degraded of that Calling to which Christ had called them I am sure it is our duty and we ow it unto our King as I have fully shewed in my Book Of the Right of Kings to hazard our lives for our King and to spend all that we have in the defence of our King and I think this King well deserved if ever any King deserved at the Bishops hands that they should hazard their lives and expose all that they had in the just defence of so just a King and therefore God dealt most justly with us to suffer all our Bishops to
fall that would not help him to stand which agonized strived and sweated to keep them up And yet I will shew you greater abomination for Thirdly The greatest fault of the Bishops When the Parliament thirsted after the blood and so eagerly sought to take away the life of that good and wise Earl of Strafford and the King like a just and a Christian King would not against his Conscience consent unto his death to shed the blood of him whom he conceived if not innocent yet not worthy of death nor guilty of the crimes laid to his charge they chose some Bishops to perswade the King and to rectific his Conscience as they pretended wherein he erred and they were the heads of the people the heads of the Clergy and the chiefest amongst the Bishops two Arch-Bishops and two of the prime Bishops that I can name and these all but one * The Bishop of London which I am sure herein was the honester the wiser and the more Christian advised the King and I pray God the Earl's blood be not laid to their charge howsoever after they had been with the King the King was induced to subscribe unto his death though still with some reluctancy of his own Conscience as himself confessed which makes me to conceive it was for none other cause then as Pilate delivered Christ to be crucified for fear of some evil if he denied it or as Herod committed St. Peter unto the Goal to please the people that would needs have it so so did the Bishops so did the King though unwillingly commit this great evil to satisfie the desire of the long Parliament but O Lord I hope and am sure thy mercy is such that thou hast not laid this to the charge of him that was deceived by those guides that with Balaam had their eyes open Numbers 24.15 and yet did set a stumbling-block before the blinde and therefore are the more inexcusable who knowing the judgement of God that they which commit such things are worthy of death not onely joyn with the Parliament themselves though not in that sentence yet in approving by not disproving the sentence of his death but also be the means at leastwise ut causa sine qua non to draw the King to deliver him into the hands of his Executioners Who then but such as with the Sodomites do grope for the wall in the clear day can not see the judgment of God to be most just against us and far less then we deserve to suffer the Parliament to thrust us out of their Society when we would be companions with them in this Iniquity and to put all the Bishops out of their Honourable calling when the chiefest of them would have any Finger with the Parliament to put such an honourable person out of his life a person The just commendation of the Earl of Strafford for a true Friend of the Church that I dare say it upon my knowledg did more favour and more good to the Church and Church-men then any man except the King in these three Kingdomes for as men that saile in a Ship when a Storme cometh must all both good and bad endure the same loss so the Bishops sayling with the same winde must all perish with their heads in the same Boat And as their sufferings and the judgment of God was most justly inflicted upon them all in general as we may conceive for these master-faults and the general corruption that was amongst them not much inferior if true to those wherewith Corn. Agrippa taxeth the Roman Prelates so I could descend to everie particular man and shew you how the violent death of the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury and the sudden death of the Arch-Bishop of York and the Childishness of the Arch-Bishop of Armath and whatsoever disaster befell to any other of them they have for some offence or other more then most justly deserved the same But I love not to rake in the dunghil of their shame and dishonour wherein I have no other pleasure but to amplifie the Declaration of the just Judgments of God even upon these otherwise most worthy men and the faithfull witnesses of Jesus Christ and upon the sight hereof to teach every one of them and every like of them to say with Job I do abhor my self and repent in dust and ashes and to proclaim it with Saint Paule to all the World Let God be true and just and every man a lyar and every one of them to have more cause to rejoyce and to praise God that he hath so favourably spared them then either to complain and murmur or to grieve that he hath too severely dealt with them and to warn all men to consider 1 Pettr 4.17 that if these things be done in the green trees what shall be done in the drie and if judgment thus begins in the house of God and upon his own faithfull Witnesses for their delinquences what shall be end of them that obey not the Gospel of Christ Secondly 2 The Insetior Clergy For the other Clergy the Priests that have suffered and felt the rod of Gods anger within these few years wherein the Wars raged amongst us I may distribute them into these two Ranks that is either 1. Presbyterians or 2. Episcopalls or First Revel xiii 11. The Presbyterians are the false Prophets and the Beast that rose out of the Earth and they were duces omnium malorum the Fountaine from whence sprang all the mischief they hated both the King and the Bishops and therefore contrary to their oathes taken many times both of their Faith and allegiance to the King and of their submission and canonical obedience to their Diocessans have rebelled against their King and railed against their Bishops and became the incendiaries and the bellows to blow and to inflame that fierie zeal of some of our blinde zelots and the infernal malice of some others both of the Parliament Citties and Countries to dethrone the King and to degrade the Bishops And truly The causes of the differences and distast betwixt the Bishops and presbyterians 1 On the Bishops part though I have deligently searched into the cause of this mischief yet I could never fide it to be any other then First too much austerity superciliousness and neglect if not contempt of these men in some of the Bishops for which they cannot be excused when of all others they should be curteous and affable like Pompey of whom it is Recorded that no Petitioner departed from him discontented because he either granted his request or he gave such reasons with that curtesie and affability that the Petitioner could not be offended and as Titus the Son of Vespatian was wont to say non oportet quemquam a Caesaris colloquio tristem discedere so should a Bishop especially endeavour to let none of his coat and calling to depart from him in discontent Sueton. in vita Titi. if reasons and faire speeches could do the same Multum quippe placent
the Presbyterian way I am confident and sure that God never approveth of their courses nor for a man to accept of his own right by an indirect way and therefore I finde not that he blessed any of the Scots designs but as Nahum saith of Niniveh Nahum 3.13 so we may say of them thy people in the midest of thee are Women the gates of thy land shall be set wide open unto thine enemies and the fire shall devour thy barrs and I think they have found it true themselves through their Kingdom when the Lion and his Bears the Tyrant and his Whelps came amongst them And therefore this deliverance of the Prince being of the like nature as those wonderful deliverances that God wrought for other good Princes which are set down by Camerar libro secundo capite decimo being such a special act of God's favour and so wonderful in our eyes and as I believe with these former praecedentia fore-passed things will be a warning to him and to all others to amend future things and to detest and abandon this Presbyterian way which I am confident the Lord hateth and do assure my self will never bless it nor them that cordially follow it if they do rightly understand it howsoever he may in his secret Counsel suffer them as he doth many other Sinners and great offendours for a time to tyrannise over his children and to prosper in this World which is but as the Prophet saith a slippery station when as Claudian speaking of Ruffinus and his confederates saith tolluntur in altum Vt lapsu graviori ruant God lifteth them up to throw them down which makes their overthrow the greater by how much their exaltation is the higher for Qui jacet in terra non habet unde cadat He that walketh upon the ground can have no great fall but as Horace saith Saepius ventis agitatur ingens pinus celsae graviori casu decidunt turres feriuntque summos ful◠ura montes And so I believe their fall will be ere long which now ride on other men's palfreys and jet it up and down in pride in their Brethren's garments because as Job saith Job 20.5 27. The triumphing of the Wicked is but short and the joy of the Hypocrite is but for a moment when as the heavens shall reveile his iniquity and the earth shall rise up against him Secondly for the rest of the Scottish nation Mr. Hall a Counsellour for the Common-Wealth of England The trial of Mr. Love pag 76. How the Scots have been always avers and great enemies to the English-Nation in the triall of Mr. Love saieth that Master Love held Intelligence with the Scottish-Nation which truely saith he I do conceive hardly an English man that had the blood of an English man running in his Veins would joyn in confederacy with that Nation of all the Nations in the World against the Common-Wealth a Nation that hath been known to have been a constant enemy to this nation in all ages through the memory of all Histories whereby * If this be true you may guess how worthy they are to have an union with this Nation and how wisely we do to submit our selves by an indissoluble Covenant to their Scottish-discipline and therefore touching the now distressed and subdued subjects of Scotland especially those that Covenanted with the Parliament of England to overthrow the established Government of our Church and to set up the beggerly Presbytery I may most truely say lex non justior ulla Quam Artifices tales arte perire suâ Never Nation was more justly dealt withall then they be by what Crumwell brought upon them for though according to the Apostles warrant saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Cretians are always lyars I might justly say there are national sins as well as personal and you know that punica fides Titus 1.12 grew to be a Proverb among the Romans to note out a perfidions person so I might truely tell you that from Fergusius the renowned King of the Scots that first entred Ireland and afterwards was drowned at Carreg-fergus now corruptly called Knoc-fargus in that Kingdom their own Chronicles do testify how this Nation have been always such as Saint Stephen saith the Jews were a stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears that have allways resisted the Holy Ghost even as their Fathers did so did they so were the Scots a stiff-necked stubborn and rebellious people that have always resisted their own lawful Princes by deposing some and killing others whom they disliked and whom I could easily name if it were not for fear to be too tedious unto you out of their own Chronicles And though they had many brave Commanders and gallant Soldiers amongst them and some great Schollars as furious Knox Antimonarchical Buchanan That the Scots have been ever a most rebellious Nation in his Junius Brutus and De Jure regni apud Scotos and the like not a few yet as a little colloquintida spoileth all the whole pot of pottage so their treachery and Rebellion against their Kings obscureth all the good parts that can be in them It is a rare commendation that Quintus Curtius gives unto the Persians for their love and faithfullness unto Darius their King in his dejected Fortunes when they would rather lose their own lives then betray their King and Damianus a Goes tells us that many Infidels among the Indians were not inferiours to the best nations in their Obedience and Loyalty to their Kings and yet the Scots of all other Nations are as they say clean contrary for to go no further then our times it is not unknown to both Kingdoms how many signal favours were conferred upon men of all sorts both the nobles Gentles and Plebeyans of Scotland by King James that made himself poor How liberal and bountiful King James hath been unto the Scots to make them rich and many times emptied his own Exchequer to fill their purses and how King Charles never imposed any heavy burthen upon them but was no small benefactour to them preferring them in his own house to places of the greatest honour and best profit and those that came with their staff like Jacob over the Tweed and in their blew Bonnets into England they were in a short space enriched Knighted and ennobled in the King 's Court. But least that this Commemoration of benefits should be taken for an exprobration as the Comick speaketh I will not name those great persons that have been made great by this good King and that I could have set down for unthankful retributours of such great favours yet in general I would that all men knew how they have all rewarded their deserving Prince for that blessed man in his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith The Scots are a Nation The King in his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 How lovingly King Charles used the Scots upon whom I have not onely tyes of nature sovereignty and bounty with my Father of blessed
Roman Deputy testifieth Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jewes 3. 3 They were the murderers of their own lawful King This their King was not like Jeroboam the son of Nebat starting aside and stepping in over the right Kings head nor like Queen Athalia that usurped the Regal throne by suppressing the lawful King but he was their own lawfull King lineally descended from King David both in respect of his Putative Father and his Mother Mary as both Saint Matthew and Saint Luke do testifie and sufficient reasons may be produced to prove that by heredâ—tary right which is the â—best and the most undubitable right unto the Crown he was born the King of the Jews 4. 4 They were the murtheres of a just King And this their King was not like Rehoboam the son of Solomon that is a foolish or at least an undiscreet son of a most sage and a wise Father but he was the wisdom of God as saith the Evangelist that his wise answers to all the subile questions of his adversaries Luke 11.49 and the malicious objections and remonstrances of his persecurors satisfied all wise and indifferent men and stopped the mouthes of many of his greatest adversaries when they admired his worth though they persecuted his person John 7.46 and hated him the more yet were they driven to confesse that never man spake as he did Neither was he like Manasses an Idolatrous and a bloody King nor yet like Ahab an unjust tyrannical intruder of himself into his subjects possessions but he was a most pious and a religious King going in his own person unto the Temple and scourging all prophaners out of Gods house and he was so pitiful so merciful and so mild that as Cicero saith of Pompey and the Historians say of Titus the son of Vespasian that for his courtesies was termed deliciae generis humani never man departed unsatisfied and discontented from them Mat. 10.13.8 so did this good King never deny the just request of any Petitioner that ever came or sought unto him but be went about doing good healing all that had infirmities and releasing all that were possessed of the devill And for his own integrity and the uprightnesse of his life he could not only say with Samuel Whose Oxe have I taken or whose Asse have I taken 1 Sam. 2.3 or whom have I defrauded and I will restore it but he could justly demand of his greatest adversaries and the most malicious priers into his actions Which if you can rebuke me or reprove me of sin for they that thirsted most after his blood must needs confesse that he was of an incomparable life in whose mouth was found no guile and in whose heart was no deceit So spâ—tlesse he was in all his actions that the holy Martyr might justly call this King that Just One. And yet they say with Martial Non amo te Princeps nec possum dicere quare Hoc tantnm possum dicere Non amo te We love the note O King but why we cannot tell thee But this we can assure thee that we do not love thee And therefore notwithstauding all that I have said that he was 1. A King 2. Their own King 3. Their lawful king And 4. A just and pious King that desired onely their good And thus they murdered King Charles that was 1 a King T. Their own King 3. Their own lawful King 4 Their just wise and most religious King the preservation of their Lawes and the maintenance of the true service of God amongst them for the salvation of their souls yet their love is so little and their hatred is so great that they must take away his life and kill him and that in the most barbarous manner and the most odious kind of killing they must murder him And he that murders a Christian King commits a fourfold murder saith our Chronicler Speed 1. Homicide 2. Parricide 3. Christicide 4. Dei-cide because the King is Gods annointed and his Vice-gorent here on earth therefore David killed the Amalekite because he had killed a King though that King was most wicked and none of his own King 2 Sam. 1.16.16 And you may conceive what a devellish and hellish fact this is beyond all heathenish abomination for subjects to murder their own King For Pilat that was but a heathen and a very corrupt Judge hearing them so fiercely crying out to have him crucified and being amazed at such an execrable voice sayth Shall I crucifie your King As if he had said Is it possible John 19.15 that you should desire me to crucifie your King for Reason and Nature and the Lawes of God and of all Nations will condemn you for this fact and detest you for base Traytors and the bloody murderers of your King But the old Murtherer that hath been a murderer from the beginning John 8. hath surnished his Schollars with two strong but deceitful arguments to justifie the killing of their King 1. From the Law of Nature 2. From the word of God 1. Nature teacheth us to defend our selves and to kill any one 1 From the Law of Nature rather then to suffer our selves to be killed by him because every thing in nature is sâ—i conservativum and therefore to study for a self-preservation is an inbred Law of Nature Quam non didicimus sed exhausimus ex natura which we need not learn when as Nature teacheth the same saith Cicero And therefore these Jews do conclude It is expedient that this King should be killed lest the Nation if they let him alone should be Destroyed i.e. rather then they should Justly perish he must be Vnjustly murdered this is the reasoning of Flesh and Blood But to this the Apostle answereth in generall that the Wisedom or the reason of Worldly men is foolishness with God 1 Cor. 1.20 and chap. 2.14 and the Naturall man receaveth not the things of the Spirit of God for they are foolishness unto him And more particularly we say that the Holy Scripture is the best interpreter of the Law of Nature and then I desire you as our Saviour advised the Jews to search the Scriptures and go through the whole Book of God and tell me if you find not Subjection to our Kings every where injoyned and Resistance even against the Worst Kings every where prohibited And then shew me where you find the least Print of any Precept or Counsell given to any Subject to put their King to death Or where any Subjects mentioned in all Gods Book did ever alleage any Text of Scripture or produced any good Example from the Scripture to warrant or to excuse such a fact I am sure Saul was a Tyrant and a Bloody murderer a Demoniak and Prophaner of Gods service Varighteous and Irreligious and sought the life of David every way and in every place and though he was but the First elected King of the Jews 1 Sam. 10. and
no Heir by Inheritance to the Crown and was rejected by Gods Spirit and David by Gods own appointment was to Succeed him in that Kingdom 1 Sam. 16.1 13. and was anointed by Samuel to be King in his stead which was very much Yet this Good Subject when Saul was put into his Hands and his servants perswaded him to take the Advantage of that good opportunity 1 Sam. 24 24. and to do justice upon that Wicked King he would by no meanes be advised by them nor suffer them to Rise against his King and when Abishai told him that God had delivered his enemy i.e. Saul into his hands and therefore desired that if David would not do it himself he would suffer Him to smite him David answered No by no means 1 Sam. 26.9 10 11. and he yeelds this reason Who can stretch forth his hand against the Lords anointed and be guiltless And he addeth The Lord shall smite him but God forbid that I should stretch forth mine hand against him Nay more then this when David took the Speare and the cruse of water from Sauls boulster and then went a great way from them he cried unto Abner and said Vers 16. Wherefore hast thou not kept thy lord the King As the Lord liveth ye are worthy to die because you have not kept your Master the Lords anointed Where you see David sweareth a Great oath As the Lord liveth and therefore he jesteth not They are worthy to die not they Alone that Kill their King but they also that hazard not their own lives to Protect and preserve the life of their King be their King never so Wicked I am sure in Davids judgment this is True Divinity Yea more then all this when Saul had fallen upon his own sword because he would not fall into the hands of his uncircumcised enemies and being in extream anguish desired a young Amalekite that was passing by to rid him out of his pain and the young man in favour to him performing his request and out of his respect to David that was to succeed him he brought the Crown that was upon his head and the Bracelet that was upon his arm unto David that the enemies might not have them and to shew that he took no pleasure in the death of Saul he came in a very mournfull manner with his Clâ—athes rent and Earth upon his head and likewise to shew his Loyal respect unto David he fell to the Earth and did Obeysance unto him and though he was a stranger and Subject neither to Saul nor to David therefore owed no service unto either of them yet because he took away the Life of Davids King the anointed of God and his Vicegerent here on earth David caused one of his young men 2 Sam. 1. to fall upon the poor Amalekite and for his mistaken curtesie unto Saul and unwelcome service unto David to smite him that he died So dear was the life of this Wicked King unto this Godly man that was a man according to Gods own heart the best subject that ever we read of and therefore was honored by God to become the best King that ever Israel had So that in the Genealogie of Christ the King of Kings he is preferred before Abraham as S. Matth. 1.1 Matthew sets it down The book of the Generation of Jesus Christ the son of David the son of Abraham And is it not Strange that these Jews that were given so much to read the Scripture and had them more readily then our Puritans have them at their fingers end and could tell how many Affirmative and how many Negative precepts were in all the Bible and how many times every word was therein mentioned and yet that they would not now consider that Job saith Is it fit to say to a King Thou art wicked Job 34.18 Psal 105.15 Eccl. 8.4 Numb 16. Deut. 33.5 Hos 1.4 2 Reg 21.24 and that God himself saith Touch not mine anointed and the wisest amongst the sons of men saith Where the Word of a King is there is power and Who may say unto him What doest thou Or that they could not remember how fearfully God destroyed those Rebels that rose against Moses that was a King in Jesuron and destroyed the posterity of Jehu because he had destroyed his own King Ahab and stirred the people to slay all them that had slain Amon though he was a most wicked King But the truth is that the Old Serpent the Prince of darkness teacheth his Schollers to reject the Old light and now to stand altogether for New lights new Revelations and new Divinity therefore S. Augustine speaks most truely of these Scripturists that they had the Bible In manibus but not In cordibus and they had the truth in Codice but not in Capite for now Caiphas contrary to all the Old Scripture Joh 18.14 hath a New Revelation that it is expedient Pro salute populi that One man should dye for the people therefore Christ their King must needs be Killed and all the people cried out for justice and double their crie Crucify Him Crucify Him Salus Populi doth require it 2 From the Word of God 2. To prove it Lawfull to put any King to death Prosalute Populi he that hath all Scripture ad unguem can furnish you with a Text of S. Peter 1 Pet. 2.13 that affirmeth the Kingly office to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Humane Ordinance or creature therefore the people being the maker of the King Ob. they may destroy their Own creature if he failes in the End for which he was created To this our True Divines have oftentimes most truly answered 1. That the Jews held their Royal Government to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Sol. Immediate from God and to be in force without the Election of Ordination from man and all other dominions and rule to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Humane Ordinance because God had determined and set down the Plat-form of their Government which he had not done to other Nations that as the Prophet saith had not the knowledge of his Laws and therefore S. Peter writing here to the Jews tels them that although the Kingly office should be but as they held an Humane Ordinance and not as theirs was a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Divine Rule yet his Precept was that they should Submit themselves thereunto for the Lords sake i.e. though the Governours were Heathens and their Government Heathenish yet Obedience and not Resistance is due unto them for the Lords sake by whom All Kings both Jews and Gentiles do bear rule 2. That although the Jurisdiction of Kings for Extent in some Part 2 Sol. and in some Degree might be said to be Humane from men yet the power of the Sword which hath Potestatem vitae necis is simply and absolutely Divine from God For who can give power over the Life of man but he that
our brethren the more conformable we shall be to God who loveth all men as they are his creatures and doth good to all men by making his Sun to shine upon the good and upon the bad and sending rain upon the just and upon the unjust and so they that imitate God in loving all men and doing all the good they can unto all men do hereby shew themselves to be the children of their Father which is in heaven as our Saviour saith Matth. 5.45 And therefore seeing we are all brethren Aug. habetur 24. q. corripiuntur and the same God is the father of us Sic affici debemus charitatis affectu ut omnes velimus salvos fieri we ought so charitably to affect all men as not to separate our selves from them and to exclude them from our Churches or societies but to wish the health and salvation of all men and to do our best help and furtherance to save and to relieve every man which is as the Apostle saith To honor all men And this our love honor and esteem of all men The love and honor that we owe to all men 2 waies to be considered must be especially considered 1. In respect of the manner of it for 2. In respect of the matter of it for 1. It must be shewed really and truly from the heart without Hypocrisie and not as worldlings and wicked men do that 1 In respect of the manner of it as the Poet saith fronte politi Astutam vapido servant sub pectore vulpem That is in the Prophets words do speak friendly unto their brethren and imagine mischief in their hearts like Joab that said to Amasa Is it peace my brother and while the tongue thus annointed him with oyl the hand stab'd him to the heart for we should love our neighbours as our selves that is as truly and in as true a manner though not in as great a measure as we love our selves yea this is the commandment that I give unto you Joh. 13.34 How Christ hath loved us ut diligatis invicem sicut ego dilexi vos that ye love one another even as I have loved you And how hath Christ loved us 1. It was Amore vehementi non mediocri with no small nor mean love but with the greatest affection that could be Joh. 15.13 Rom. 5.10 for greater love then this hath no man that a man should give his life for his friend saith our Saviour and he gave his life for his enemies saith the Apostle 2. It was Amore vero non ficto with a true sincere love and not with a seeming affection and a dissembling heart And 3. It was Amore perseveranti non finienti with a continuall and lasting love for whom he loved he loved unto the end and not for a short space And therefore our love to one another should be great true and lasting love and not like the worldlings love that seems fair and full while we are in prosperity but will fall away like water when we fall into adversity and so verify the Poets saying Donec eris faelix multos numerabis amicos Nullus ad amissas ibit amicus opes 2. This true honor and unfaigned love 2 In respect of the matter of it which is two fold that we owe and are injoyned to shew and render unto all men in respect of the matter consisteth in two things 1. No waies to hurt or wrong them 2. Every way to assist and to help them 1. 1 No waies to hurt them He that offereth injury unto his neighbour or doth wrong to any man An injury what it is doth contrary to the rules of nature saith Cicero Et injuria est verbo vel facto cum aâ—iquo injustè agere and an injury is to deal unjustly with any one either in word or deed saith Isidorus and you know that besides the breach of natures law such a one as either of these waies wrongs his neighbour breaketh the commandment of the Almighty God who doth expressely forbid us to defraud or oppress or any waies to wrong one another or the stranger that is amongst us as you may see it in Moses and Jeremy ful y expressed for Moses saith Thou shalt not steal nor deal falsly nor defraud thy neighbour and the wages of him that is hired shall not abide with thee all night untill the morning Lev. 19.11.13 and the Prophet Jeremy saith Thus saith the Lord Execute ye judgment and righteousness and deliver the spoyled out of the hand of the oppress r Jer. 22.3 and do no wrong do no violence to the stranger the fatherless nor the widow neither shed innocent blood for the very heathen Poet can tell you that Quaelibet extinctos injuria suscitat ignes Ovid. l. 3. de arte amandi Wrong and injuries stir up striffes and do kindle the flames of unquenchable fire and though as Aristotle saith Melius est injuriam pati quà m alteri nocere it is better to suffer wrong then to hurt another and as the Comick saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That man is to be deemed most excellent which knoweth how to suffer most injuries yet because the frailty of flesh and blood is such that as the proverb goeth Scribit in marmore laesus they that register benefits and good turns done unto them in the sands will ingrave all wrongs and injuries done to them in marble never to be blotted out of memory and Solomon tels us Eccl. 7.7 that oppression maketh a wise man mad and if wise men can so hardly brook to be oppressed then surely fools and simple men will be stark mad to see themselves injured and will be ready to be revenged upon every advantage And therefore we ought to take great heed that we do no injustice nor offer any wrong to any man because dealing righteously one with another is the mother and preservative of love amongst neighbours Esay 32.17 and of peace amongst all men Injustice and wrongs the cause of all mischief for as the Prophet saith The works of righteousness shall be peace and the effects of righteousness quietness and assurance for ever Whereas injustice oppression and wrongs are the causes of Laws Murders Wars and all Mischiefs And yet I demand if any thing in the world be now so common and so publick as wrongs injuries and oppressions Especially of them whom we ought most of all to honor and to love for though S. Paul bids us to esteem our Governors and our Teachers that are over us 1 Thes 5.13 How fairly Pharaoh dealt with the Priest Gen. 47.22 and do admonish us very highly in love for their works sake and the very heathens did no less for when Pharaoh bought all the Lands of the Egyptians throughout the whole Kingdom of Egypt he bought not the Lands of the Priests but assigned a portion of corn to sustain them so
that they needed not to sell their lands And Aâ—taxerxes King of Persia certified to all his Officers in all Provinces that touching any of the Priests Levits Singers Porters Nethinims or Ministers of the House of God Ezra 7.55.24 it shall not be lawfull to impose tole tribute or custome upon them and Jezabel that painted harlot could have so much shew of piety as to feed four hundred Prophets at her own table yet now What Bishops lands are not sold and taken from them What Priest or Church man is free from taxes and contribution and not more heavily taxed than any others And therefore if any Jew Pagan or Infidel were demanded Whom he thought to be the more religious and the better lover of God either Pharaoh that preserved the Priests-lands or they of the long Parliament that took away and sold the Bishops lands Either Artaxerxes that freed all the Church-men from all taxes and Jezabel that fed so many Prophets at her own Table or they that now over-load the poor Ministers with such unreasonable contributions as they are scarce able to provide bread for their own Table What answer would he make think you or whom would he think the better Saints and most acceptable unto God Judg you that are the Parliament men But letting these men thus dealt withall in their patience to possess their souls some man that is moved to see oppression and the oppressors flourishing and to behold villanies committed and no justice executed will say perhaps Should not the Magistrate the King punish their villanies and revenge the wrongs of Gods servants or Have not some of them you speak of neglected their duties and others committed strange out-rages and should these be loved and helped and not rather stripped of their estates and punished in their persons as these men are To this I answer 1. That for the Magistrates punishing in due measure both the Omission of just duties or the Commission of unjust offences in all men of what calling quality or condition soever they be the law of God commands it every Common-wealth requires it and no wise man speaks against it And if the Magistrate neglects it as Saul neglected the punishment of Agag or cannot do it for some just reasons that do hinder him as Zedekia for the Rebellion of his Lords and Commons had not the power to do justice and to hinder the wrong and indignities that were offered to the Prophet Jeremy and as our good King for the same reasons cannot hinder the wrongs of Gods Messengers and others of Gods servants Collos 3.25 then I say with S. Paul He that doth wrong shall receive for the wrong that he hath done and there is no respect of persons with God Deut. 32.35 et deinceps for the Lord hath said it and he will perform it Mea est ultio ego retribuam To me belongeth vengeance and recompence and their foot that is the foot of the oppressors and wrong-doers shall slide in due time that is when God shall see the time fit for the Lord shall judge his people and he will judge righteously and then he will repent himself for his servants when he seeth that their power is gone and that there is none shut up or left but as it were all begger'd and destroyed by their oppressors and he shall say where are their gods their rock that is the Saints which did eat the fat of the sacrifices and drink the wine of the offerings and so got all the best of all the land unto themselves let those gods and those holy saints in whom they trusted rise up and help these Tyrannicall oppressors of my servants For I even I am he and there is no god with me that kill and make alive that do wound and heal that is my servants for it is I that have wounded them and killed them for offending me otherwise you that are their enemies could never hurt them and I will heal them and make them alive again and I will avenge the blood and wrongs of my servants Vers 43. for I lift up my hand to heaven and say I live for ever and I will whet my glittering sword and my hand shall take hold on judgment Deut. 32. from the 35. vers to the 44. v. I will render vengeance to mine adversaries and the oppressors of my servants and be mercifull unto my people In all which excellent expression of Gods just judgments you may plainly see both the relief and deliverance of Gods corrected and dejected servants and the punishment of their proud and flourishing oppressors And our Saviour Christ Luke 18.7 in like manner saith Shall not God avenge his own Elect that cry day and night unto him though he beareth long with them Yes I tell you that he will avenge them speedily And though as Plutarch saith There be certain Rivers that do suddenly hide themselves under ground as the River Nigar doth in the Abissins Country Abbats pag. 184. yet eò perferuntur qâ—ò tendunt they go thither where they intended So though the wrath of God against wicked oppressors and other transgressors of his Laws lieth hid for a time and his judgements seem to be forgotten yet in extremas calamitates aufert aliquando nocentes He will at sometime or other punish them severely enough with iron hands though he comes on leaden feet as he did the Amalekites for the wrongs that their forefathers did to the Israelites four hundred years before And therefore seeing God Almighty challengeth vengeance was a peculiar right and properly belonging to himself and promiseth that he will avenge the blood and all the wrongs injuries and oppressions of his servants I say with Moses Thou shalt not avenge nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people Levit. 19.18 And with Solomon Say not thou I will recompense evil but wait on the Lord and he shall save thee Prov. 20.22 And as our Saviour saith Resist not evil but whosoever shall smite thee on the right cheek turn to him the other also Math. 5.39 Or if you cannot do this yet as S. Paul saith See that none of you render evil for evil or revenge wrong with wrong For as the son of Sirach saith He that revengeth 1 Thes 5.15 shall find vengeance from the Lord and he will surely keep his sins in remembrance And therefore the only way for us is to follow the counsel of the son of Sir ach Ecclus. 28. Forgive thy neighbour the hurt that he hath done unto thee so shall thy sins also be forgiven thee when thou prayest for otherwise That we should be ready and willing to forgive al wrongs done unto us one man beareth hatred against another and doth he seek pardon from the Lord he sheweth no mercy to a man which is like himself and perhaps not so bad as himself and doth he ask forgivenesse of his own sins Alas alas saith the Heathen