gainers I am I confesse so much a Leveller that in this corrupt state of mens principles and minds corruptible at the best it is safer for Laws to govern than Men. Not but that that blessed day of the Lord 's own righteous Reign may be neerer the dawning upon us than perhaps the present dark and cloudy complexion of our thoughts and affairs would seem to hold forth Therefore I would not have the door of a lively expectation shut against our Lord's appearing as I would not that in the mean time though we knew He were to come to morrow we should throw away our Reason and put out our Lights as men and despise those liberties he hath given us as advantages for our serving of him The late violent turns and changes that have befallen this poor Commonwealth since our Arms rested from the common enemy have to my apprehension lookt more like the Trumpets in the Apocalypse that with gallantry and state brought in Corruption than the Vials that work it out These pour not forth themselves at once with observation but leisurely and secretly wast and consume long-rooted Usurpations And all that either the Civil or Military power hath to do is but to maintain us in peace and freedom that so we may attend unto that Light of God which according to the prophecies of Scripture is breaking forth which will certainly undermine and destroy the State Anti-christian as well as the Church Anti christian for there is both and both shall be destroyed with the Spirit of Christ's mouth and the brightnesse of his Appearing And without his appointment it will never be done by secular Sword or Arm. When I say The Powers are to maintain our peace and freedom I am aware what I say and that it implyes We were in the possession of them and indeed so we were and they were given us of God If it be demanded when we were so and wherein it appeared I answer When our Arms were victorious over all our enemies in the field which was not till after Worcester fight Then was there nothing in our way visibly but Mercy and Truth Righteousnesse and Peace might have embraced each other The Enemy was subdued in England before that but there was a remnant of him in Scotland and Ireland And then the Rent that was made among us by the taking off the King weakned the honest Interest much as the Action it self gave opportunity to the ambitious aspirings and designs of some when that place was empty to get into it at least wise such jealousies there were Perhaps when that action shall be reveiw'd by us in Cooler Spirits we may see Cause to acknowledge that the King was not so ripe for the Capital Justice of man in those passive Circumstances wherein he then stood as a Prisoner of War till he had forfeited the security we might have laid upon him I am sure our Eager policy in that Action for self-preservation hath little succeded or answered our desires However the sickle of Divine Justice cutting him down it was not adviseable for honest men when they had discharged their judgments and consciences in a saithful testimony to divide thereupon But notwithstanding this breach we were again as I said upon fair advantages after the Battle at Worcester when nothing was wanting but a Spirit and wisdome to manage so great an opportunity A time like that of Augustus Caesar When our Saviour was born all the World was quiet So was all our little world for the Saviour to be born into it the 2d time Tyrants both in Church and State expel'd their Armyes vanquisht The Nations like wax ready to receive any good and righteous impression yea the Parliament it self expecting what good thing would be required of them to do having power to refuse nothing should have bin demanded The Lawyers quaked the formal Clergy were down in the Mouth the Malignant trembled the loose Nobility and Gentry lookt pale All men were frighted into a fear and awe of God and the hearts and expectations of all good men were up exceedingly But wherefore is a price put into the hand of a fool when there is no heart Now was the time that God said unto us as once unto Israel Go up and possesse the Land which I have sworn that I would give you Go fill the Land with Righteousnesse plant my Name and my Truth there Drive out all profannesse unmercifulnesse injustice oppression ease the burdens break the yokes relieve the necessities of my people stamp my Image upon the Nation consecrate it to me whatever thing in your minds that is honest and just and good and merciful bring it forth and fear not for the Lord your God which goeth before you He shall fight for you according to all that He did for you in Egypt He that brought you up from under Regal Tyranny and Episcopal domination that hath vanquished the Enemy in the three Nations before you and all their formidable hosts He is with you 4. This was the possessing of the Land which the Lord called his people then unto Even to fill the seats of Judicature and all places and things with the presence of God not to satisfie our selves to possesse the King's and Bishops Lands and Deane and Chapters Lands or rather to be possessed by them All men must here needs understand that I charge the Army And indeed I do so though not them alone but many of the then Parliament who took a new scent of the Honors promotions and Advantages of those whom God had cast out before them and lost the scent of the Cause yea and many of the zealous people of the Nation too were taken off by these things These were the Moabitish snares that inveigled the Princes And what hath followed thereupon is sad to behold at this day We having lost in a manner all that we had got and being relapst deeper into bondage then heretofore in the Kings time He is not an Englishman that doth not bleed to see how since that Liberty is lost Property expos'd to Arbitrary Lust and Will The Publique Cause and Interest laid-by A Private Cause and Interest set up Men sworn to it Judged by it not only as to liberty and livelyhood Officers being Casher'd the Army and others put out of Places of Trust but some put to death for not preferring it before the publique Malignants countenanced and taken into favour occasion given to the formal yea the profane spirit to lift up its head while publique spirits and the precious of the Land were discouraged yea that very spirit whereby our Cause rose and obtain'd so far lookt upon as an Enemy and watcht over with a jealous eye Tryers set up to keep it out of the Pulpit good Justices removed and the old spirit of the Gentry brought in play again worldly greatnesse again affected by those that sometime seemed to set their face another way The burdensome pompe and vanity of a Court again revived
birth it should not have gone back again For when God will work who can lett therefore sure that was not the time and therefore we are guilty of no such A postacy as you charge us nor his late Highnesse of turrning his back upon the Designs of Heaven Ans The Kingdom of God was not onely at the Door and come to the Birth but it is born into the World and is among us though as a Kingdome of Patience Know ye not what our Saviour said of himself and of his Kingdom Luk. 17.25 It shall indeed come as irresistably as the light and as generally and it shall be as evident and conspicuous as the light but first must he suffer many things and be rejected of this Generation It is no Argument that the time is not because men reject the Kingdom The Kingdom hath its time to suffer as well as triumph to suffer before it triumph The Son of Man must be betrayed before he be inthroned but woe unto that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed though it be the fulfilling of the Counsell of God So the Kingdom must be rejected of this Generation What Generation why mark who put the Question unto our Saviour vers 20. The Pharisees the strictest Sect of Religious persons among the Jews the Generation we have been describing in the foregoing Discourse The Kingdom of God could not be rejected if it did not make its appearance All men court Christ at a distance and court the Kingdom of God in the Notion in the Prophecy of it they do not reject it there but when it comes not coming in their way with observation and outward shew they reject it coming not in the wise in the mighty in the noble in the learned but Christ riding on an Asse coming in Fishermen in the people that knew not the Law this was the Offence and is the Offence at this day I have heard with my ears in the time of the little Assembly some of that Assembly say into whose hands perhaps this may come I pray the Lord they may consider it and repent for they are now of another mind That if they did not think and believe there were some better and greater thing at the bottom in the design of Providence calling them together then meerly to go upon an outward settlement they would not continue at that work a day longer such convictions and awakenings of the Kingdom of God its being at hand were upon some Spirits that do now steer another Course But to return To what uncomfortable and dangerous waies and policies this disobedience did subject his late Highnesse is lamentable to consider sometimes to court this party sometimes that now with the Cavaliers then with the Presbyterians Then when they galled him turn to his old friends and speak kindly to tender consciences living upon the wrack all his daies which made him in all probability seek his peace in forreign designs with the noise and reputation thereof to drown the noise of Conscience at home which was still gnawing at the Root Then Anti-Christ must be conquered and the Spanish power that upholds him Until at last these continuall strivings and fightings within brought him down into his Grave The Lord knows I mention not this to bring up a blot upon his Memory nor to insult over his Ashes He that shall do so considers not that He was set forth unto us as a Mirrour of humane frailty Therefore be not high minded but fear and that it was not his personall ambition or other Evils but our sins in association together that both gave him up to that temptation and us to that subjection wherein certainly he was equally unhappy with us to be the Person that should take away that liberty that He had been imployed to purchase for us and to have all this ruine befall us under his hand As for his sin it is to God but the use of these things is to us and upon no other account do I repeat them CHAP. VI. A farther and more full Character of that Spirit in many great Pretenders that knew not our Cause nor indeed served it but serv'd themselvs of it And a witnesse against them BUt why do I speak of the Cause of God when most of us are ignorant of it and far from righteousnesse as the Prophet speaks The Cause of God is a divine thing and as the day of God Who may abide it Is it our ease our peace our liberty our promotion our pleasures our Interests Nothing lesse The Cause of God is that which searches and tryes and burns up all these is an enemy to all these in that carnall and dark way of understanding possessing and injoying of them which men imagine The Cause of God is that indeed which hath health pleasure deliverance and salvation in it for every Creature rightly understood and truly advanced and subjected unto but of all that we have done God may justly say Did ye it at all to Me Did ye take away the Bishops at all to me No ye did it to your selves and ye have feasted your selves with their flesh their lands their revenues Yea their power and Jurisdiction so far as for shame ye may ye do joyfully exercise over your Brethren When ye took off the King's head did ye do it at all to me No It was to your selves that ye might be absolute and supream your selves And hath not the Event shewed it When ye abolished the House of Lords did ye it at all to me Are ye not mad to set it up again So that why do we inquire after particulars wherein we have gone astray when we have gone astray from the womb from our first birth and setting forth in this Cause we have acted from a gentile principle from self preservation for self ends and advantages from stomach and revenge because we suffered and were eclipsed by the former powers Now the Wrath of man works not the Righteousnesse of God the Apostle tels us we were never subjected to God in those Rods that were upon us we could not lay down our lives and take them up again as Christ we fullfil'd our own lust and were set to save our own lives in all we did This is far from the righteousnesse of God And this may be infer'd not only from the State we wrought in which was dark and legal and fleshly as that of old Israel but from those Characters of wavering uneavennesse and uncertainty which accompanied all our Actings Hence we were for the King and against the King for treating and then for breaking off for carrying on the Cause and now for carrying it back thus bringing upon our selves all the blood that hath bin shed in the Land both on the one side and one the other whereas the righteousnesse of God is a steady thing is not yea and nay puls not down to set up the same again The righteousness of God judges things in their root and principle be
and idle persons therein entertained and maintained upon the charge of the poor exhausted Commoners justice as much delayed as before the Lawyers as Corrupt and Exorbitant Those Bawbles as once they were deem'd and styled and ridiculous formalities of State again introduced as vain and excessive Feastings and as superstitious and Idolatrous Funerals as in the darkest times in all these things as if we should professe to glory in our shame The election of Members to sit in Parliament as Corruptly negotiated and sollicited as in the Kings time Armies modelled and imployed not for maintaining of the Cause of God and the Nations save onely in name and title but indeed and in truth to maintain those that have Usurpt the Dispose of us and it and all our Liberties A Council receiving paye for work the Nation never set them upon When others would serve gratis Nehemiah did not so nor the former Council of State though they had their faults In a word all things running again in the old Channel and not onely King Lords and Bishops set up again under new appellations but even the old Names and Powers claym'd and contended for as to the two first The Negative Voyce and the Militia it self not excepted two main branches of the late Quarrel and if these succeed to the desire of some as if we look to humane probabilities there may be too much Cause of fear when we consider what attempts were made and what means were used the last Parliament to have made a King we must have Bishops too if the old Proverb which was no doubt the result of a deliberate consideration and inspection into the Nature of the two Interests No Bishop no King do hold good While these things have bin doing the hand of God hath bin upon our Bodies our Cattel our Trading What strange and New diseases have swept away whole Families and Townes almost of late years So as we could not avoid taking notice of an intimation of Divine Displeasure therein Unnatural and intemperate seasons a plague among our Horses wherein perhaps we have too much confided Our Merchants break and run away daily Our Ships lost and taken to incredible numbers Our Men the strength of our Nation sent to digg their graves with their swords in forreign Countries and disagreeing Climats whither they are prest forth against their Consent a thing that would not have bin put up formerly and the Poor of the Land increasing wonderfully upon us whole Families ready to starve for want of Trade and Imployment whilst that which would maintain many Thousands is lavisht I may say imbezeld to keep up the Port of a few new rais'd great Ones at an unnecessary height Where these things may End or whereto they are directed in the Intentions of many that drive them on the Lord alone knows but it is much and with too much ground or appearance of likelyhood suspected to be with an eye to bring-in the old Family assoon as they have made all things ready which by that time all is said that these Designers are able to alleadge of the Commodiousnesse thereof to put us out of fear of any more Warrs and Changes and to save the Charge of maintaining Armies to keep out that Title I fear the Nation may have too strong a Temptation unto And then what will become I say not of King's and Bishops Lands which many of the Gentry and Sould'ers have swallowed down it were the lesse matter if the disgorging of them were the worst consequence but what would become of the Estates and Libert'es not to say the Lives of all honest men that have adhered to this Cause Nay what would become of the Cause of God and Religion which we have bin contending for against Popery and profanenesse let every indifferent person Judge Though the truth is setting these consequences aside if there were a Necessity of a King again I must professe I should think it more righteous yea more honourable for our principles and our Cause to take a branch of the old Family that hath not forfeited his Right by actual hostility against us than to set up any other Family in that place so little grudge have I against that expulsed Family though I think whosoever pretends to be their Friend and should wish them restored to that Office and Dignity in this Day wherein God seems to be overthrowing designedly the throne of kingdoms consults neither theirs nor the Nations peace But which is the Misery of all the rest There are not wanting that endeavour to perswade us that though these symptomes of death are upon us yet we are well and upon an excellent constitution What would ye have May ye not be as good as ye will say they and that this is our Cause we fought for Which is so true as that the Calves were Israel's Gods that brought them up out of the land of Aegypt As if the setting up a few men that seemed sometime zealous for the Cause were the triumphing of the Cause when the body of the Adherents languish God knowes whether in this I do enviously detract from the Merits of any His late Highnesse or others that rose with him who deserved eminently in their day And None was more joy'd to see the power come into His hands then those that have since had so much cause to bewail the ill use of it But to take it ill of us that we cannot dance and sing in these circumstances is such an unreasonablenesse as is amazing Wonder not that men that have been free should think it irksom to be in bondage That those that have purchased their liberty at such a Rate should be willing to enjoy it That those Court Trinkets and Fopperies those chargeable Bawbles and Vanities being once cast out are not without regret and anguish received and taken in again No No we cannot so easily take upon us all the Blood that hath been shed in this Quarrell we cannot state the cause upon a Person or a Family or the individuall circumstances of Hic Nunc Tyranny is Tyranny and Oppression is Oppression be it excercised by whomsoever and superfluity and luxury are worse in this Generation than in the former daies A liberty there is I grant to say what you will against the old Court the High Commission the Star-Chamber the waies of the Bishops and former Tyrants and persecutors and to professe and practise any thing that touches not present Corruptions but shall we have liberty to witnesse against the same Evills in new dresses * May Sir Henry Vane freely propound a Healing Q. A. No If he do he must for an answer be sent to Carisbrook Castle May Col. Okey Lt. Gen. Ludlow and other faithful Officers in the Army freely remonstrate against incroaching Tyranny No they must then be cashier'd and sent to the Tower May Mr. Cardel freely preach against a formal Ministry and Worship No He must then leave his Benefice in Lumbard-street May Mr.