of Genua who promised to deliver Constantinople into the Emperours hands so he would make him King of such a place that he desired And Mahomet yielded and assured him that he would do it and so he did Pet. Primanday c. 39. pag. 423. for as soone as ever the said Justinian had betrayed the City into his hands he presently made him King for that good service which he had done unto him but for a reward of his treachery to his Lord and Master Augustulus he cut off his head within three dayes after And so all the wise men that I have read of do conceive that no good service done to succeeding Kings can merit the blotting out of the perjury and perfidiousness of Traytors to their former Kings and Masters but that after they be rewarded for their good turns done to the latter they should likewise receive the merit of their perfidiousness to the former Theodorus in Collect. l. 2. The reasons why perfidiousness should not be pardoned And the reason is rendred by the foresaid Sages 1. Because that as Theodoric the Arian said when he cut off the head of an Orthodox Deacon whom he loved because he revolted to please Theodoric as he thought to Arianism they that keep not their oaths and faith to God can never be faithful to any mortal man Flav. Vopisc in vita Aurelian 2. Because that as Aurelian said when he suffered Heraclemon which had done him so good service to be slain he could not believe that he which would betray his Countrey and prove faithless to his own Prince could ever continue faithful unto him but that upon the like discontent or hope of a greater gain such Traytors as will turn the leaf and saile with every winde will become as treacherous to their latter benefactors as they have been unto their former Masters And therefore though we should forgive them as Christians yet it is neither wisdome nor pollicy to believe them as friends because not onely the Fable of the Snake but the Son of Syrach also teacheth us what little credit is to be given to reconciled friends Eccles 10.12 And the wise heathen bids us semper diffidere to suspect such faithless men continually Object But what if the Kings and Princes have promised Pardons unto the Traytors for some special service done unto them Can they afterward punish them for their precedent offences unto others I answer that as Cicero saith Sol. every man is bound and much more it is for the honour of a Prince to keep his word and promises inviolable though upon some exigent necessity he may be constrained to make the same to his prejudice and against his will and it was well said that the bare word of a Prince should be of as great force as the oath of a private man But though Kings and Princes should inviolably observe their words in their Pardon 's granted unto Rebels and Traytors and other Malefactors Not to countenance and favour those that have been Traytors and why yet as Philip King of Macedon answered Lasthenes that betrayed the City of Olynthum and Augustus Caesar said to Rymetalces King of Thracia that had forsaken Antonius to joyn with him that he loved the treason that did him good but he could not endure the Traytor that betrayed his Master And Alexander Severus was of the same minde but that he joyned cruelty with his hatred unto the Traytors for when he had inticed many Captains of Piscennius Niger his Competitor of the Empire to disclose their Masters secrets and had served his turn of them and settled his affairs he made all those Traytors Herod l. 3 and their children also to be put to death as Herodian writeth So the wisest men conceived that they ought not to countenance and favour those that had been Traytors unto other Princes though they had done good service unto them and that for these three reasons 1. For that he which hath turned one leaf can turn another and he that hath betrayed my Father may upon the like hopes and surmises betray me likewise and he that hath been a Rebel knows the way to become a Rebel 2. For that this honouring and magnifying of Rebels and Traytors to former Princes for their good service done to latter Masters may prove to be an encouragement for others to become Rebels and Traytors in like manner against their Kings For when amongst many thousands of Rebels they see but few punished the rest pardoned and many of them favoured and preferred why may not the seditions think that they shall either prevail or if miss of their enterprise they may escape the fortune of those few that shall be punished and be magnified like those that they do see thus rewarded 3. For that this favouring and countenancing of those that have been Rebels and false is a great offence and discouragement to those that have ever continued faithful and loyal especially if they see themselves postponed and neglected And therefore the Kings and Princes that I told you of thought it neither wisdom nor policy to regard and favour those whom they pardoned for their treachery to their former Princes though they had done never so good service unto themselves and if all Kings did so I believe fewer Traytors would spring up among the people And this appeareth plainly by our new Plotters of Rebellions and Treasons now amongst us in this Kingdom of Ireland for who and what are they that doe thus murmur and mutter against both God and his Anointed the King and his Lieutenant the Church and Common-wealth But those that have been members of the Beast and limbs of the great Anti-Christ the Rebels and Traytors that rose and warr'd and some no doubt but had their hands or fingers dipped deep in the bloud of that blessed Saint and glorious Martyr our late most gracious King Charles the First and having escaped their just deserved shame and death and being so highly rewarded by their Grand Masters for their great wickedness with the lands of the Irish without distinction whether they were bloudy Murderers and Rebels against their King or innocent Papists that were both loyal unto their King and succourers of the Protestants and now seeing the touchstone of truth and justice rendring to every one his own according to his merit either of nocency or innocency they stamp and stare and being moved with madness like boyes at blinde manbuâ—â— they let fly their Arrows even bitter words nay false scandalous rebellious and treacherous words against the King against his Lieutenant and against the peace and happiness of this whole Kingdom they care not whom they traduce so they may stir up the coals of contention and move the discontented to a new Rebellion And what wayes do they take for this but the very same which they had learned and practised before in England under the Long-Parliament 1. To tax and to traduce the good King for doing that they know
and rooted out his whole off spring And I could spend my whole hour in examples of this kinde but I will content my self with two or three As 1. Of Ferdinando the fourth King of Castiâ—e Ferdinando who did most unjustly condemn two Knights to death and one of them cryed O thou unjust Judge we do cite thee to appear within thirty dayes before the Tribunal of Jesus Christ to receive judgement for thine injustice and so upon the last of those days he dyed to receive his sentence according to his summons And one Lapparel a Provost of Paris Lapparel caused a poor man that was prisoner in the Chastilet to be executed by giving him the name of a rich man who being guilty and condemned was set at liberty in the place of the poor man but the just judgment of God discovered his injustice and being accused and condemned he was hanged for his labour and so Philip King of Macedon was killed by Pausanias a mean Gentleman Philip Macedo Demetrius because he denied to do him justice against Antipater that had wronged him and Demetrius for throwing the petitions of his subjects into the River and denying to do them justice they all forsook him and Pyrrhus took away his Kingdome And many other men I could name to you that their injustice hath undone them And therefore all men should take heed of committing this horrible sin of injustice either by doing wrong or denying right unto others The injustice of some Judges And yet I am ashamed to speak it though I shall not be affraid to write it how gravely some Judges have sate upon the seat of judgment to pronounce unrighteous judgments and think to cover all their iniquity with the fig-leaves of the formalities of their Lawes to overthrow the reality of justice Oh beloved Monstrum horrendum ingens est it is a most horrible thing to have injustice done from the seat and from the Ministers of justice when a man is apparently wronged oppressed and expulsed out of house and home and shall with a deale of travel and a great deale of expences come to a Court of justice to be righted and instead of being redressed he shall see there scelus sceleribus tectum his former wrongs finely handled and loaded with far greater wrongs Do you think that this is well pleasing unto God or that such injustice shall escape unpunished no no for they shall finde that there is a God which judgeth the earth and that his judgment will be according to truth without partiality either to Jew or Gentile which here among men I see is not so But as I read that Diogenes seeing some petty thieves led to the place of execution laughed exceedingly and being demanded why he laughed he answered to see the great thieves lead the little thieves to the Gallowes so if he should see men forcibly expelled out of their possessions and the forcible entrers legally acquitted or if he should see the poor Irish Catholicks driven out of house and home either because they were Irish rebels which justly deserved it or because they were Romish Catholicks which should not therefore be destroyed and should see the great English Sectaries that had been greater rebels countenanced and magnified and to injoy the others Lands and Livings would he not laugh at this justice which is just like that which we read of in l. 1. of Philip Commines when Charelois lost the Feild and his Captains and their Troopers fled away he gave the offices and places of them that fled ten leagues to those that had fled twenty leagues beyond them Therefore I say to you whom God and the King have made Judges of these things for the settlement of this Kingdome As you have done hitherto so still ride on with your honour and have no respect of Persons nor of Nation nor of Religion but do that which is just and righteous in the sight of God and as God hath blest you and preserved you hitherto so he will still bless you and preserve you for evermore And for the preservation of better justice then I see in many places I shall speak more of it in another place and after another manner for you may be sure that Kingdome shall never be happy where oppression is frequently used and iniquity protected by injustice and especially by the Courts of Justice And therefore to the end that true justice might be truly observed I could wish the Parliament would make some Acts Lawes against many abuses practised by some cunning Lawyers in the very Courts of Justice The abuse of some cunning Lawyers in quashing of Indictments and especially against the frequent and abusive quashing of Indictments which is a sin of no slender malignity â—or when a poor man far from the fountain is by violence oppressed and he indicts his oppressors then presently comes a Certiorari and removes it to the Kings Bench and there the Lawyers are so skilfull in the tricks and quiddities of the Law and the Cases of John A-Nokes and John A-Stiles that they say there can hardly be any indictment framed but they are able to finde a flaw to quash it which I was told by great Lawyers And what a wrong is this to his Majesty in his fines what an injury to the poor men that are oppressed and what incouragement to all those wicked men that are so ready to offer all violence unto their neighbours which are not able to indict the same offendors three or four times over till they shall finde a man able to draw a faultless indictment And if this be not a greivous greivance worthy to be redressed if you desire the preservation of justice judge you And therefore it were good that some better way were devised for the framing of Indictments or the not quashing of them so easily and so frequently as they are reported to be 4. Sacriledge 4. The last frequent sin that I shall at this time desire you to cast your eyes behinde you to behold Gods detestation of it and his punishments that he poureth out upon the offenders is sacriledge which is the taking away and with-holding of those Revenues which God hath appointed and godly men have dedicated for the maintenance of Gods service and the religion of Jesus Christ and so the robbing of God himself both of his honour and service a sin so general that the custome of it hath quite taken away the sense of it and men think it to be no sin at all But I know what some may here say that now I plead mine own cause 1 Sam. 12.3 I will briefly answer as Samuel did unto the people and I say that I sued indeed for the Church right but I testifie before the Lord and your Grace and you All that I did it not to inrich my self for I thank God I have enough both for my self and my relation wife children and friends but I did it for the
and warmes no man or the candle that is put under a bushel and lights no part of the house are in a fearfull case because that as our Saviour saith Matth. 5.13 when the salt hath lost his savour it is thenceforth good for nothing but to be cast out and to be trodden under foot The desperate condition of ignorant and negligent Ministers so when the crier hath lost his voice by being choaked with junkates and the watchman hath lost his eyes by too much sweating after worldly wealth and the Minister cannot preach either through ignorance or negligence they are thenceforth good for nothing but to be cast out and thrown into the bottomless pit But 2. 2. The eye of a blameless life As the Ministers of Christ should have the quick sighted eye of learning and knowledge so they should have the clear eye of a blameless life and conversation otherwise as Penelope to delude her woers is said to untwist in the night what she spun in the day so by the darkness of their evil life they pull down all that they built by the light of their preaching The Lord saith that the Priest shall not go up by steps unto his Altar Exod. 20.26 that his nakedness be not discovered thereon and Saint Bernard saith there are four things necessary for every Priest ne quid nuditatis appareat that his nakedness may not appear And they are 1. Capiti velamentum a vaile for his head and that is prudent discretion which covereth all his folly and imbecillity Four things necessary for every Priest and is not onely a virtue but the guider and moderatrix of all vertues 2. Corpori vestimentum a garment for the body and that is fervent devotion because it is the office and duty of the Minister to pray for all 1. For the good men that they may continue good and not fall 2. For the evil men that they may rise from their fall And prayer without devotion is like the body without a soul 3. Manibus munimentum a covering for the hands and that is good works because that as our works are strengthned through our prayers Hieron in Lament c. 3. so our prayers are available through our works saith Saint Jerome 4. Pedibus fulcimentum propps and shoes or sandals for the feet and that is a pure and an upright life and conversation because bad Ministers do not dispensare but dissipare bona Domini and rather dishonour then honour their Lord and Master Christ And therefore the Heathen Priests at their sacrifical solemnities were wont to say Innocui veniant procul hinc procul impius esto Casta placent superis pura cum mente venite And as the Magistrates and Ministers should be full of eyes That all good Christians should be full of eyes so all Christians in like manner should be full of eyes to look unto themselves and to their wayes for though as the Apostle speaketh they were once darkness while God winked at the time of their ignorance yet now they are light in the Lord even as the Prophet shewed they should be The people that walked in darkness have seen great light Esay 9.2 and they that dwell in the Land of the shadow of death upon them hath the light shined because it cannot be denied but that as Daniel saith knowledge is increased and as our Saviour saith light is come into the world And therefore the people should take heed that they love not darkness more then light or that they be not like the fool Harpaste that was as blind as a beetle and yet would not be perswaded as Seneca saith that she was blinde but that the room was dark For I fear that we have too many men that think they want no eyes but that the house of God is dark and wants light but that is because they are bleere-ey'd like Lâ—ah and look a squint and cannot see the truth There be many others that are full of eyes Many are full of eyes yet not like these beasts but of all evil eyes but their eyes are oculi nequam evil eyes such as Saint Peter speaks of and others have eyes far worse My time will not give me leave to discover them But if the Lord should say unto me as he said to his Prophet Amos what seest thou I must answer Amos. 8.2 I dare not tell what I see and if the Lord replies should they that are to be like Lions become as fearfull as the Hares that run away from the noise of the Hounds Have I not often delivered thee as I did Elisha after he had delivered his message unto Jehu when he presently shut the door and fled 2 Reg. 9.3 v. â—0 therefore I command thee to tell me what seest thou Why then if thou commandest me I must tell and I must say with the Prophet that I have seen unrighteousness and strife in the City moreover I saw the place of judgment and wickednâ—ss was there Eccles 3 16. and the place of righteousness and iniqui-quâ—ty was there and I saw the tears of such as were oppressed and they had no comfort because power was on the side of their oppressours c. 4. 1. And worse then the parable of Menenius Agrippa when all the members conspired against the stomach I have seen a monstrous ill-shap'd body cutting off his own most excellent and unreprovable head and the worst Parliament that ever England saw rebelling and warring and doing far worse to the best King that ever England had And I have seen the Commons-house of that Parliament encroaching by little and little upon the rights and priviledges of the Lords as the Plebeians did upon the nobility of Rome till at last they had quite supplanted them felix quem faciunt aliena pericula cautum I hope O Lord that I shall never see the like again Yet I see one thing more that troubles me much many men that say excepting the conscience of their religion that should not undo them they are innocent from any offence done either against their King or against their neighbors and yet to be driven out of house and home and those that were known to be rebels to have fought against their King to enjoy their Lands and Livings and to become great men and to hold in their fingers the Lands of Innocents of the King of the Church and of God himself which can as hardly be pluck'd out of their fingers as it was to pluck the club out of Hercules's hands for they have got possession of them and possession being as they say eleven points of the Law twelve Juries cannot dispossess them But for the trial of the truth hereof his Majesty hath most graciously appointed and his Grace here doth most favourably countenance these wise and religious men that shall justly and religiously determine these things And I am confident that being wise men as they are they will shew themselves
right of the Church and I resolved and vowed that whatsoever I recovered I would by the grace of God wholly bestow it upon the reparation of the Church so that recovering it I should be not one penny the richer and loosing it not one penny the poorer And I desired nothing but what I conceived to be the right of the Church because I know God loves not to be honoured with unjustly gotten goods But now finding that as the Prophet saith I have laboured in vain and I have spent my strength for nought and seeing the partiality and injustice of men I will with patience submit my self to that strength which is beyond my ability to oppose and study to serve my God another way because I see that as David saith the sons of Zervia are too strong for me because we that were faithfull to our King were fleec'd and bareshorne and left poor and beggarly and they that served the Beast and adheared to the long Parliament and were arrant rebels against our late good King have got all our Lands and our Monies to make friends withall and to keep us still under hatches and so though nos fuimus Troes yet now they are the men and without envy let then enjoy their prosperity so they forsake their iniquity and repent them of their former impiety And so desiring you to bear with this my just defence I shall proceed in this discourse for none other end but to discharge mine own duty and for the good of your souls to avoid the just wrath of God for a sin so highly displeasing unto God and to that purpose I shal desire you to read the 2 Mac. c. 3. where you shall finde how that when Simon the mutinous traitor both to God and his Country had informed Seleucus King of Asia of the riches and the treasure of the Church of Hierusalem and incited him to seize upon it and he had sent Heliodorus his treasurer to fetch it and Heliodorus came like a Fox pretending it was to visit and to reform the disorders of Phoenice and Caelosyria but Onias the high Priest perceiving that the goods of the Church was his errand his countenance was quite cast down and the people not enduring sacriledge ran some to the Temple some to the City Gates and some gadded up and down the streets as frantick men like Bacchus froes and all lifted up their hands and eyes and voices unto God for the defence of his Church and God heard their cry and did help them For Heliodorus was no sooner entred into the treasury to take away the spoile but there appeared to him a terrible man in compleat armour of gold mounted upon a barbed horse that ran very fiercely at the Kings Treasurer and trampled him under-foot and withall there appeared two other men of most excellent beauty and strength whipping him so that he was carried out of the place speechless and without any hope of life untill God restored him upon the earnest prayer of the Priest and people And to let you see how dangerous a sin is sacriledge to rob the Church Act. 5.5 the end of Ananias and Sapphira can bear witness for though their death was the punishment of their lying yet all must grant they were drawn to that sin by the cord of sacriledge And if a greedy desire of with-holding that from the Church which themselves had given was sufficient to open such a window unto the Devil that he came presently to cast them as a prey to the Jaws of Hell how many foule sins do they commit and how many greivous plagues may they fear to fall upon their heads which take away from the Church that which they never gave Gen. 47.22 v. 26. And you may remember that when Egypt in the time of Joseph felt so extreme a famine that the fift part of the Land was sold to releive the Land yet the Patriarch in all the care that he had both of the Country and of the King to succour the one and to enrich the other never attempted the sale of the Lands of the Priests nor once to diminish any jot thereof And if the holy man in so great an extremity never ventured to take away the possessions of the Idolatrous Priests though it were to the releif of a whole Kingdome I wonder with what face dares any man in the world curtal the maintenance of Gods Church and take away those Lands and houses that by religious Princes and other pious men have been consecrated to Gods service But Foelix quem faciunt aliena pericula cautum You might be happy if you would cast your eyes behinde you and by the examples of Gods judgments upon other sacrilegious persons learn to escape the punishments of sacriledge because they are all written for our instruction And we read that Celce the Constable of Gertrund King of Burgundy having under the authority of the King his Master enriched himself and enlarged his Territories with the Goods and Lands of the Church and being one day in the Church at his Devotion and hearing the words of the Prophet that proclaimed a woe to them that joyn house to house and land to land he suddainly shricked in the Congregation and cried out This is spoken to me and this curse is upon me and upon my Posterity and so afterwards died most miserably And we read in the Annals of France that although Lewis the Sixt surnâ—med the Great was once the Protectour of the Church and had caused the Count de Claremont the Lord de Roussi and other great men that had pillaged the Bishopricks to restore their robberies unto the Church again yet in his old age when he began to pull the Church he was sufficiently punished for it by the suddain death of his Eldest Son which was indeed the very staffe of his age though he was urged unto it with extreme necessity They that would see more examples of this kinde let them look into my Declaration against Sacriledge and Doctor Saravia's vindiciae sacrae translated into English by James Martyn And if for all this men will needs have the portion of Gods Church let them eat it with that sauce which God hath prescribed in Psal 83. and which like the Ieprosie of Gehezi wil stick to them and their Posterity for evermore 3. 3. Why these beasts were full of eyes before As you heard that these Beasts were full of eyes within and behinde so they were full of eyes before and so should we be And that is to behold and see 1. Praesentia the things that are present 2. Futura the things that are to come and must come 1. 1. To behold the things that are present As 1. The vanity of all things For the present things I shall onely leave to your consideration 1. The vanities of this life And 2. The uncertainty of our state And touching the first Saint Augustine saith most truly Si quid arrisisset prosperum
seek to be relieved And as the Poet saith Excessit medicina modum by such a way whereby usura superat sortem and the seeking of a Remedy shall so far exceed the Disease I know not with what safety either of Life State or Fortune which are all in the power of the Juries to determine of them any man can live in this Kingdom For here especially in the County of Kilkenny where that perfidious Rebell and Traytor Axtell planted his Colony such a multitude of Anabaptists Quakers and other worser Sectaries What I say against these I say not against the worthy Gentlemen and good Protestants that are also very many and my very good Friends in these parts Neither do I say it against those wel-bred Gentlemen that were Officers and Commanders in the Arâ—â— but of the generality of the Common â—ouldiers and some of the meaner Officers that for their small Arrears got large Territories and are now great Free-holders and the chiefest Jury-men and Judges of our Lives Lands and Fortunes that in the beginning of the English Rebellion were broken Citizens and Tradesmen Taylers and Tinkers Shoomakers and Coblers Plow-men and others the like men of no fortune thought to raise themselves by the Irish Wars and having some Arrears of Pay due unto them go Orders to set out Lands unto them for the same and the Kingdom being depopulated and wasted and made a Wilderness without Inhabitants the Lands were of nothing worth and they had what Lands they pleased and as much as they pleased for their Arrears for ten pounds as much as is now worth a hundred pounds a year and for a hundred pounds as much as I will give a hundred pounds per annum These men that followed Axtells Religion and were of his Plantation being mounted up on Cock-horse to be such great Eâ—â—eholders the Irish Proprietors being for the most part driven away and the Church Lands also taken into these Souldiers hands they must now be for the most part the principal Jury men and so the Judges of our Lives Lands and Fortunes And they considering their own interest to be alike in the Lands both of the Church of the Irish and of all from whomsoever they hold it do stick and cling together like sworn brethren or rather like forsworn wretches to defend and maintain each others Title and Interest in the Lands that each one holdeth both against Clergy and Laity God or the King be the same right or wrong they will not lose their lands And they do incourage each other thus to continue in their wickedness saying that they got their Lands with the loss of their bloud and the hazard of their lives and therefore to get the King some small fine whereof he shall have but the least part of it and be but very little the better for it and to dispossess their own fanatick Party and give the Lands unto their Enemies especially unto the Bishops whom of all others they hate most of all and Bishop Williams above all the rest as he that hates their former Rebellions and their now practices more than any man else they will never do it though they hazard the loss both of body and soul Indeed for the Bishop of Ossory he understands their malice towards him well enough I pray God forgive them so great that were it not for some honest and truly religious Irish Gentlemen and some of the Catholick Religion I profess that I durst not live amongst these that formerly warred against their King and if the truth were known do as I believe as little love their present King as they do much hate our Church and the Bishops of our Church when as they that hate their Bishops cannot be said to honour their King as I have most fully shewed in my Grand Rebellion And therefore I went unto his grace my Lord Lieutenant and related to his Grace the Verdict of the Jury plain contrary to their evidence and the Declaration of my Lord Chief Justice and the Judgement of the whole Court and therefore did most humbly desire his Grace to give me leave to go for England to dispatch some necessary occasions and to signifie unto his Majesty that if there were no Court of Star-Chamber here nor any other provision made to punish all perjured Juries and all high Transgressors of the Laws and hainous offendors that deprive his Majesty of the fines justly due unto him and his Subjects of their right we the true Protestants and his Mâ—jesties loyal Subjects were not in safety nor able to live among such Confederates of wickedness but must as King Boco said to the Senate of Rome depart thence lest the ire of the Gods or the rage and injustice of such men do utterly destroy us And his Grace very mildly and graciously answered my Lord the Bill for a Star-Chamber is already arawn and sent to his Majesty to be signed and will speedily come down to pass the Houses and then such Malefactors may be fully punished according to their offence And I protested and do protest that I would be with the first that would do my uttermost endeavour to punish this Jury and all false and forsworn perjured Juries and the like high Transgressours that concern me whatsoever For It is most certain that Impunitas peccati invitat homines ad malignandum And therefore I do believe that I am as equally bound in conscience to punish this Jury as I am to recover the Lands of the Church and as Solomon saith because the punishment is deferred the hearts of the children of men are altogether set to do evil and my Divinity assureth me that to punish a perjured person and a transcendent Transgressour of the Law is as acceptable unto God as the relieving of the Oppressed because that hereby we do our best that those which will not be perswaded by good Counsel to be honest and vertuous may be forced with stripes to do their duties or at least terrified from being so vicious for that as St. Bernard saith Qui non vult duci debet trahi And therefore with what means that God hath given me I will with his assistance do my best to repair Gods House to relieve the Distressed and to punish the Perjured and the Oppressors of Gods People and the rather because that here in the parts where I live I have seen in three or four years more forcible Entries Riots and Oppressions than I have seen in England or Wales that might be thought a little more wild than England in all my life so that a Stranger might rather think it a Country of Robbers Tyrants and Oppressours much like unto Albion when Brutus entred it than a Country where with safety he might dwell amongst them for I do profess were it not for some honest Irish that are not all of my Religion nor I of theirs that do further me incourage me and protect me in Gods servicâ— and the advancement of Gods
and domineered over most and almost all the Nations of the World that the Jews will they nill they may see that omne mundi regnum omnis mundana sapientia omnia divinae legis sacramenta testantur quia Jesus est Rex every kingdom of the earth all the wisdom of the World and all the sacraments of the divine law do bear witness that Christ is King and this Lion here spoken of in this Text. And the difference betwixt this Lion and all other Lions is that as Franciscus Vallesius de sacra Philosophia c. 55. saith Mos Leonis est sibi tantum pradam capere non Leaenae but Christ took the prey for his Church and not for himself And we finde that his kingdome by three special prerogatives excelleth all other kingdomes of the world that is 1. Preheminence of Christs kingdome threefold 1. Eternity 2. Purity 3. Largity 1. The Prophet saith thy Throne O God Psal 110. is for ever and ever and thy Dominion shall endure throughout all Ages but transibit gloria mundi all other Kings within so many years shall not govern and after so many dayes they shall not be for death spareth none but sceptra ligonibus aequat And as Nazianzen saith Constantinus Imperator famulus meus ossa Agamemnonis Thyrsitis death makes no difference betwixt the bones of King Agamemnon and base Thyrsites the Emperour Constantine and my servant but when their race is run and their glass is out we may say of each of them as Horace saith of his Friend Torquatus Non Torquate genus non te facundia non te Horat. Restituet pietas But this King hath a prerogative above them all for he was Rex à seculo a King from everlasting and he shall be a King in secula seculorum world without end Luke 1.33 for so the Angel Gabriel testifieth that of his kingdome there shall be no end And this should batter down the pride of Tyrants that say with Nebuchadnezzar Is not this great Babel that I have built For mene mene tekel peres their glory is but as the grass of the field or otherwise if they were immortal they were intolerable And this should teach us to labour to become the Subjects of this King in whose kingdome there shall be Aug. l. 1 c. 10. de Trinitate as Saint Augustine saith requies sempiterna gaudium quod nunquam anferetur à nobis An everlasting rest and joy that shall never be taken from us 2. Preheminence The second preheminence of his kingdome is purity for of this King the Prophet speaketh thou hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity and the scepter of thy kingdome is a scepter of righteousness For this King is not like Ahab that would take away Naboths Vineyard nor like Rehoboam that would oppress his Subjects with over-grievous Taxes but he is a righteous King and a most just Judge far unlike some Judges of former dayes that for a word have made a man a transgressour and for a syllable or one letter have quite overthrown a mans cause and right and so have made the Laws a nose of wax to bend and turn as they pleased and to be rete Vulcanium like Vulcans iron net to catch the poor and friendless but tela aranea like the spiders web so easie for the rich and powerful to passe through it But blessed be God for it we have few such now and we hope we shall not provoke God so far as to send such amongst us for if you suffer oppression and wrongs when as the Poet saith Mensuraque juris vis erit Then surely peaceable men shall not be able to live in the Common-wealth But the equity and justice of this King should perswade all other Kings to follow his Example and as the wise man saith Sep. 1.1 to love righteousness all they that are Judges of the earth 3. Preheminence The third preheminence of his kingdome is that God anointed this King with the oyle of gladness in all things above his fellows for their time hath an end their dominion a limitation but his time is not limited and his rule hath no marches but exivit in omnem terram it hath gone forth into all Lands because he is the King of all the earth and when as all other Kings are but Reges Gentium Kings of some few Nations he is Rex Regum Dominus Dominantium the King of all other Kings and the Lord of all Lords And therefore Eusebius saith that the distinction or difference betwixt this true Christ and the other imaginary Christs that were anointed Kings before him may truely and very easily be discerned Euseb l. 1. c. 1. Eccl. Histor quia illi priores Christi nulli penè nisi genti propriae cogniti sunt those former Kings were scarce known to any but to their own proper people but not onely the name but also the rule power and kingdome of this true King is extended over all Nations per universum orbem terrae and through the compasse of the round world And though when the Jewes would have crowned him King Rex fieri noluit he refused the same yet to shew that this Dominus Angelorum was also Rex Judaeorum Beda l. 5. in c. 19. Luc. as Beda speaketh when he rid to Jerusalem upon the Asse he willingly permitted the people to cry Hosanna and to intitle him King of the Jewes and he confessed as much himself unto Pilat that he was a King And what meaneth this saith the Venerable Bede that he now willingly embraceth quod prius fugicudo declinavit that which before he declined and fled from it and the kingdome that while as yet he lived in the world he would not accept he now denieth not to take it when he is by and by ready to go out of the world He answereth that he formerly refused it Beda l. 3. in c. 11. S. Mar. because of the gross imagination of the Jewes that conceited him to be a temporal King like unto others but he doth now accept it to shew quod non temporalis terreni sed aeterni in coelis Rex esset imperii that his kingdome was not of this world as himself said unto Pilate but as the King of Heaven he ruled all the world Well then What we may learn from this Doctrine that Christ is our King seeing Saint Matthew doth by so many inanswerable arguments prove Christ to be a King and that he is a perpetual universal and principal King and here exprest by the Lion in this Text we may collect and draw matter both of comfort and fear both of joy and of grief For 1. Seeing Christ is King then as the Psalmist saith Psal 97.1 exultet terra let the earth rejoyce for if we will obey him and be ruled by him he will appoint over us such Viceroyes and under-rulers that will lead us sicut
be but that many and many great men will frett and chafe and be discontented at your doings though you do never so justly but it is your duty to do that which is just and in doubtful cases when evidences on both sides are in aequilibrio to encline to that which tendeth to the service of God's Church and the honour of the King's Majesty Sap. 1.1 and you ought always to remember what the Wiseman saith Love righteousness yee that be Judges of the Earth for righteousness exalteth a Nation Proverb And this righteousness you cannot preserve unless you be like Lions without fear either of threatnings or of dangers And as the Magistrates so the Ministers and Preachers of God's word should be like Lions to do their duties without fear for so the Lord saith unto Ezechiel I send thee to a rebellious Nation but thou son of man Ezech. 2.6 be not afraid of them neither be afraid of their words nor dismayed at their looks Quia timiditas Predicantis est calamitas Audientis Because the fear of the Preacher is the calamity of the Hearer when the fear of reproving mens sins hardeneth them in their sins and encourageth them to sin more and more And therefore I say that we should remember what the Lord commandeth us Cry aloud and spare not Esay 57.1 lift up thy voice like a trumpet and shew my people their transgression and the house of Jacob their sins And if the great men of the world threaten us to rob us of our lands or deprive us of our liberties let us look what the Lord saith I Esay 51.12 13. even I am he that comforteth you and who art thou that thou shouldest be afraid of a man that shall dye and of the son of man which shall be made as grass and forgettest the Lord thy maker that hath stretched forth the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth and hast feared continually every day because of the fury of the oppressor as if he were ready to destroy And it is well that he saith I even I am he that comforteth you seeing it is with us as it was with Ezechiel Ezech. 2.3 4. that Bryars and thorns are with us and we dwell among scorpions a rebellious Nation that are impudent and stiff-hearted for I must humbly crave leave to tell you a story of truth and no fiction When I came first to lie in the Bishops house in Kilkeny I dreamed that the Bishops Court was full of people Citizens Souldiers and Gentlemen with Drumms Swords and Muskets and being affrighted with the sight of them before they had entred the house or done any hurt I presently awaked and looking out at the window for them I saw none then for many dayes I often mused what this meant at last I sound that the Citizens of Kilkeny on the one side the Souldiers on the other side and the Knights and Gentlemen round about came about me like Bees to rob God of his honour and the Church of her right by dividing her Revenues amongst themselves as the Souldiers did the Garments of Christ And I neither fear nor care what any man thinks of what I say my duty telling me what I should say But though they threaten to be my ruine and to cause me to spend what I intended to the repair of the flat-fallen Church to preserve the Revenues of the Bishoprick yet seeing the Lord saith I even I am he that comforteth thee and that have delivered thee from so many dangers and so many times from the hands of most mercyless Rebels and bids me not to fear I must not be dismayed but as Elias told Ahab and J. Baptist told Herod of their faults without fear so I and all others that are God's Ministers ought to be bold as Lions to reprove the sins of the people and especially those sins that are most frequently committed and are most prejudicial to the service of God and most pernicious to their souls least as Lucian saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by escaping the smoak of mans anger we shall fall into the fire of God's fury when we fear men more then God And therefore my dear brethren I had rather you should blame me for my boldness then that God should punish me for my fearfulness and I know that as the Drunkard cannot endure to be told of his drunkeness or the proud man of his pride or the Rebel of his rebellion so no more can these sacrilegious persons abide to hear of their sacriledge And must we therefore hold our peace for fear of their sayings jeeres or threats By no means 2. As we should be bold as Lions without fear so we should be diligent and painful in our places like the Oxen without laziness to pray continually and to preach constantly and as the Apostle saith in season and out of season that is not so frequently as our late Fanatiques would have us to preach Sermons full of words without substance but as St. Augustine expounds it Volentibus nolentibus For to the willing hearers it comes in season and to the unwilling it comes out of season whensoever it cometh And when we do this then 2. That the Magistrates and Minist should be like the Ox painful and diligent to doe their duties as the mouth of the Ox that treadeth out the corn should not be muzzled so ought not we to be molested nor detained and held with vexatious suits to hinder us to discharge our necessary duties lest the punishment of our neglect should fall upon the heads of them that cause it For we are sure that our God is so just that he will not punish any one for not doing that which he is not suffered to doe as for not going into his Church when the wayes are so stopt that he cannot possibly pass it 3. We should be not like the horse and mule 3. The Magistrates should be like men sober and rational and not voluptuous like Beasts that have no understanding and whose mouths must be holden with bitt and bridle lest they fall upon thee but we should be endued with reason like unto rational men that as Cicero saith Agere quicquam nunquam debent cujus non possunt rationem probabilem reddere ought never to do any thing whereof they could not yield a very probable reason And God knows how many things we do for which we can yield no reason at all For what reason had we to wax weary of our peace and of our happiness and to rebel against a most gracious King to destroy our selves And what reason have we to expect God's blessing and yet to continue sacrilegious to rob God of his dues Or is there any reason that any Common-wealth should keep Souldiers to protect them and not regard them nor countenance them nor pay them their wages Surely they are very necessary to preserve our peace and they ought not to be slighted and John Baptist saith
things of this world in our judgements rightly informed which now seem so precious in our imaginations being corrupted What the spiritual men that are like the noble Eagle should doe And therefore if we would be like the noble Eagles mounting up to Heaven then as Moses builded his tent without the hoste and far from the hoste so should we build our habitation out of this world and far above the world and as Elias when he journeyed towards Heaven in his fiery Chariot and was flying up in a whirlwinde bestript himself of his mantle and threw it down to the earth lest the weight of it should presse him downward and so hinder his ascent to Heaven even so if we desire to ascend to Heaven we must bestrip our selves of all worldly impediments that are as heavy as a talent of lead and do not onely hinder us from ascending upwards but do press many men down to the bottomless pit And as the Prophet David in all distresses comforted himself with that pious meditation saying Whom have I in heaven but thee and what is there on earth that I desire in comparison of thee so do all those that make their unum necessarium their chiefest purpose and design to go to Christ to have an everlasting house and lands satisfie themselves with the hope of obtaining their desire And this is the reason that seeing God hath given them all that they have they weigh not a straw if they be driven to spend all that they have for the benefit and good of the Church of Christ and to promote the service of God And if the wise men of the world laugh at our folly and say we shall spend ten times more then we shall ever get We may answer that for our losses and expences they are but as feathers and that shall never trouble us but our hope is that we shall attain unto our desire which is to mount up with the rest of God's Eagles unto the Kingdom of Heaven and that will countervail all our losses And so much for the peculiar and proper Description of these Beasts THE SECOND SERMON REVEL 4.8 And the four Beasts had each of them six wings about him c. 2. FOR their general and common description 2. Their general and common description it is said they had each one of them six wings about him and they were all full of eyes Touching which you must observe 1. Some things about their wings 2. Some things about their eyes And 1. Of their wings 1. About their wings These two things are to be noted 1. What are these six wings 2. To what end they had these wings or what use they made of them 1. What they are 1. Rupertus and others say these six wings are the six works of mercy visito poto cibo redimo tego colligo fratres that is as our Saviour sets them down to give meat unto the hâ—ngry Matth. 25.35 drink unto the thirsty lodging to the stranger cloathe to the naked and to visit the sick and those that are in prison others understand hereby the six spiritual works of piety and mercy which are to correct the offendor to instruct and consell the ignorant to comfort the afflicted to bear patiently all injuries to forgive all trespasses and to pray for our enemies and persecutors but Balaeus and Lambert say that these six wings are faith hâ—pe charity justice mercy and truth and I think they come nearest unto the truth for by those six we shall be able to shun and flie away from all the mischeifs of the world and these six wings are able to mount us up unto our father in Heaven And they that have not these six wings are rightly said to be like the Ostrich which often spreads her wings but seldome flieth But they that have these six wings are most happy and need not fear the greatest dangers nor the malice of their greatest enemies For 1. Faith is radix omnium virtutum the root of all virtues and you know what mightie things Saint Paul setteth down to have been done through faith 2. Spes alit afflictos hope preserveth the afflicted and maketh not ashamed saith the Apostle 3. Charity covereth a multitude of sins and of all the three divine graces 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the greatest of them all is charity 4. Justice is such a cardinal virtue that Theognis a Heathen saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 justice comprehends all virtues 5. Our Saviour saith blessed are the mercifull for that they are sure to obtain mercy And 6. Truth as Zorob proveth is so great that it will prevaile against all oppositions for though that by the tricks and delayes of sutle heads it may be clouded for a time yet at last it will bud forth and appear But I fear the Lord hath a controversie with the Inhabitants of this Land because as the Prophet saith there is no truth nor mercy I may add nor justice nor knowledge of God in the Land or if these be then I am sure you will not build up Zion with bloud and Jerusalem with iniquity because the Lord loves neither House nor Lands that are unjustly obtained I cannot stand to examine it or to handle the particulars that might be said concerning these six points for that might require six houres to do it at least but I will proceed and say 2. If you would know to what end they had these wings 2. What use they made of their wings or what use they made of them the Prophet Esay tells you in the practice of the Seraphims that it was for these three special ends That is 1. To cover their faces 2. To cover their feet 3. To flie about For he saith that with two of their wings they cover'd their faces and with two they covered their feet Esay 6.2 and with two they did flie And this they did for these three ends That is 1. To check our curiosity 2. To shew our misery 3. To teach us industry 1. It is the nature and the foolish disposition of man to be alwayes prying and searching into every thing the secrets of God the mysteries of state and the obscurities of nature And yet the Seraphims that stand in the presence of God are fain to cover their faces not to hide their sins which they had not but because they are not able to behold the brightness of Gods glorious Majesty and if the Angels hid their faces from the brightness of Gods Glory how dares sinfull man prie into it because as the Apostle saith he dwels in the light light that no man can attain unto it 1 Tim. 6.16 Exod. 34.20 and the Lord saith himself that no man could see his face and live for though we walk in the chearfull light of the Sun yet we are not able fully and directly to look upon the Sun when he shineth in his full strength and brightness but it will dazle our eyes and
he have done it Yet this man sold his God that had done such great things for him and brake his Commandment for an Apple What moved Adam and Evah to offend God Ambition And what moved him to doe this but that which moveth all his children ever since to destroy themselves and all the Kingdoms of the earth Ambition That he might be as Lucifer desired to be before him similis Altissimo like Gods knowing good and evil And this infernal weed that first took life in Lucifer's breast hath poysoned all his Posterity ever since and especially all the great men of this world that desire to be greater and affect and contend for honour and greatness above measure For as Eudoxus the Philosopher desired of the Gods that he might behold the Sun very near to comprehend the forme greatness and beauty thereof and afterwards be burnt of it as the Poets say Phaeton was so Ambition is the boldest and the most disorderly passion of all those desires which trouble mens mindes and fills their heads with an unsatiable greediness of obtaining those things which they should no wayes desire and by that means as Adam did they undoe themselves and many thousands more for so Mar. Crassus the richest man in Rome M. Crassus burning with ambition and an excessive desire of new triumphs presumed at sixty years of age to undertake the warr against Arsaces King of the Parthians and therein his whole Army was discomfited himself miserably slain twenty thousand of his men killed C. Marius and ten thousand taken Prisoners So Caius Marius weakened with old age but strengthened by Ambition to continue in sovereign authority would undertake the warr against Mithridates King of Pontus and thereby he was the cause of his own utter overthrow and of that great slaughter which imbrued all Italy and Spain with the deluge of bloud that Sylla by his extreme cruelty brought upon them Spurius Melius Marc. Manlius Hen. 5. And the like may be said of Spurius Melius the Roman Senator of Marc. Manlius of Henry the Fifth whose ambition deprived his own father from the Empire and caused him to dye miserably in Prison and indeed of those threescore and thirteen Emperours that within the space of one hundred years dyed all of them excepting three that dyed of sickness in their beds by violent deaths And as the ambition of the Triumvirate Octav. Antonius and Lepidus had well-nigh ruinated the Roman Empire Pet. de la Primauday fr. accad pag. 223. so Peter de la Primauday saith that the ambition of the Dukes of Orleans and Burgundy had almost utterly consumed the Kingdom of France and was the occasion that more then four thousand men were slain within Paris in one day and so I may say that this wilde plant and bitter root of Ambition that first sprang up in Paradise and afterwards grew worse and worse in the accursed earth was the cause that moved the late Vsurper and many others of those Traytors and Rebels that followed him to bring all the calamities that we have both seen and felt in these Dominions And therefore we ought to detest this cursed Plant that brought forth such bitter fruits of undutifulness unthankfulness and rebellion to be rendred unto God for all the great good that he had done for man But now after that man had fallen and thus disloyally sinned against God Non dignus est peccator panc quo vescitur nec lumine coeli quo illuminatur The sinner even the best of us all that are Adam's seed is not worthy of the bread that he eateth or the light of the Sun that shines unto him for if before his being he deserved no good how much evil doth he now deserve when he hath so fouly defiled himself and so highly offended his God And yet Vtinam saperent How graciously God dealt with Adam after he had sinned I would to God we would cast our eyes behinde us to behold and see the goodness of God and what wonders he hath done for the children of men for he pittyed Adam when he was naked and made them coats of skin to hide and cover their nakedness and to preserve their bodies from the storms of winter and the scorching heat of summer And when all the World had corrupted their wayes before God he saved Noah and his family And with the seed of Adam when the deluge destroyed all other flesh and afterward he snatched away Abraham out of the very flames of Idolatry that was begun to be kindled in his father Terah's house and then he delivered him out of Egypt and preserved him out of all his troubles And for the seed of Abraham The Israelites the children of Israel Moses tells you what God hath done for them for when he divided to the Nations their inheritance Deut. 32.8 9 10 11 12 13 14. he took Jacob for the lot of his own inheritance and though he found him in a desart land and in the waste howling wilderness yet he led him about he instructed him and kept him as the apple of his eye and he made him ride on the high places of the earth that he might eat the encrease of the fields and he made him to suck honey out of the rock and oyl out of the flinty rock butter of kinc and milk of sheep fat of lambs and ramms of the breed of Basan and goats with the fat of kidneys of wheat and to drink the pure bloud of the grape And the Prophet Ezekiel doth amplifie the great goodness of God towards this people more at large saying that their birth and their nativity was of the land of Canaan their father was an Amorite and their mother an Hittite i. e. an accursed people and in the day that thou wast born thy navel was not cut neither wast thou washed in water nor salted nor swadled at all no eye pittyed thee to have compassion upon thee but thou wast cast out in the open field to the loathing of thy person and when I saw thee polluted in thine own bloud I said unto thee live and I washed thee with water and anointed thee with oyl I cloathed thee also with broydered work and shod thee with badgers skin and I girded thee about with fine linnen and I covered thee with silk I decked thee also with ornaments and I put bracelets upon thine hands and a chain on thy neck even as our fine Ladyes have in these dayes and I have put a jewel on the forehead and ear-rings in thine eares and a beautiful Crown upon thy head and thou didst eat fine flower Ezech. 16.3 ad v. 15. and honey and oyl and thou becamest exceeding beautiful and perfect through my comliness which I had put upon thee saith the Lord God How unthankful and undutiful they were to God And what reward did this people render unto God and what requital have they made unto him for all these
great benefits that this good God had done unto them First Moses tells you They waxed fat and then they kicked as we lately did and forsook God that made them and lightly esteemed the rock of their salvation They provoked him to jealousie with strange Gods and moved him to anger with their abominations They sacrificed to Devils and not to God to Gods that they knew not that came newly up whom their fathers feared not which was and is the fruit of every new Religion as of late dayes we have fully seen amongst us And then as they forsook God that formed them so presently they rebelled against his servants they muttered and murmured and rejected all their Governours and as the Psalmist saith They angred Moses in their tents and Aaron the Saint of the Lord for these two to forsake God and to rebel against their Governours do always go together And if you look into the foresaid sixteenth Chapter of Ezekiel you shall see how the Prophet sheweth their wickedness and how they have multiplied their abominations above measure and as many of us over-wickedly and unjustly seeking to make our children great in this world do bring them unto the Devil in the world to come Ezech. 16.21 so did they slay their children and cause them to pass through the fire and as the Psalmist saith Ps 106.37 They offered their sons and their daughters unto Devils and the Lord himself assureth us that Sodom had not done so wickedly as they had done Ezek. 16.48.51 and Samaria had not committed half of their sins And what an intolerable ingratitude was this The most monstrous thing that ever was not possibly to be described quia dixeris maledicta cuncta cum ingratum hominem dixeris because thou sayest all the evils that can be said when thou namest an ungrateful man especially to God that hath done such great things for us For we read of many bruit beasts that for small benefits have been very thankful unto men as of the Dog that for a peice of bread will follow and be ready to die for his Master and the Lion that for pulling a thorn out of his foot preserved the slave that did it from all the beasts of the forrest and afterwards his life on the Theatre in Rome and Primauday tells us of an Arabian infidel that being taken prisoner and afterwards set at liberty by Baldwin King of Jerusalem in token of his thankfulness for that favour Pet. Prim. c. 40. p. 431. he went to him by night into a Town where he was retired after he had lost the field and declared to him the purpose of his companions and conducted him until he had brought him out of all danger And when bruit beasts and Pagans are thus thankful unto us shall man be unthankful unto God No no He should be truly thankful And Seneca saith there be four special conditions of true thankfulness 1. Grate accipere to receive it thankfully 2. Nunquam oblivisci Never to forget it for he can never be thankful that hath forgotten the benefit 3. Ingenue fateri per quem profecerimus Four conditions of true thankfulness ingeniously to acknowledge by whom we are profited 4. Pro virili retribuere to requite the benefit received in the best manner that we are able But this people scarce observed any one of them I am sure not the second and therefore not possibly the third and fourth for the Prophet David tells us plainly that after the Lord had shewed his tokens among them and his wonders in the land of Ham and had brought forth his people with joy and his chosen with gladness and had given them the lands of the Heathen Is 105.42 43 so that they did as many have done amongst us to take the labours of the people in possession Ps 106.13 Yet within a while they did as we do forget his works and would not abide his counsel V. 21. yea they forgat God their Saviour which had done so great things in Egypt wondrous things in the land of Ham and fearful things by the Red-sea But to let this people pass that were destroyed for their unthankfulness let us look unto our selves and have our eyes behind us to behold and see First What God hath done for us And What God did for us the people of these dominions Amos 3.2 Secondly What we have done for the honour and service of God And First As the Lord said of the Jews You onely have I chosen of all the families of the earth so I believe the Lord may justly say of our Kings dominions that he shewed more love and favour unto them then he did to any other Kingdom of the World for whatsoever good he did to others he did the same to us And he shewed two more signal favours to us then he did to any other Kingdome of all Christendome As I. He raised the good Emperour Constantine the Son of Helen out of Britaine to close up the days of persecution and shut the doors of the Idol-Temples II. When the mysts of ignorance and errors and superstition had covered and overshadowed almost all the Church of Christ God sent successively no less then five such excellent Protestant Princes King Edward the sixth Queen Elizabeth King James and King Charles the I. and II. as no other Kingdom had the like to protest against all the Popish errours and superstition and to make such a perfect reformation of Religion that both for Doctrine and Discipline no Church in Christendom is so purely and so perfectly established as these Churches of our Kings dominions are such love and such mercies of God to us as exceeded all the blessings of the earth and shewed to no other Nation of the world in such a measure but to this And what reward I pray you What requital have we rendred unto God have we and our people rendred unâ—o God for those great unparalell'd benefits that he hath done unto us I do profess I have been a man ever faithful to my King and ever fearless of all the dangers of the world and therefore I must say the truth as Saint Steven told the Jews though I should fare as Saint Steven did that as they were a stiff-necked people that have always resisted the Holy Ghost and persecuted the Prophets and been the traytors and murderers of Christ so have the major part of us shewed themselves a rebellious Nation that confederated to assist the Devil to requite Gods extraordinary signal favour to us with extraordinary signal contempt of Gods service and signal malice to all his servants above any other nation of the World by raising out of us and bringing in amongst us the great Anti-Christ that is the great enemies of Christ you know whom * The Long Parliament to slay the two witnesses of Jesus Christ which were Cohors Magistratuum Chorus Prophetarum 1. the best and blessed King Charles the First that
the sight of some few judgements against and upon these four predominant sins that are so rise amongst us and so pernicious unto us 1. Rebellion 2. Perjury The four usual sins of these dayes 3. Injustice 4. Sacriledge 1. For Rebellion this our last Age 1. Rebellion and the many Plots and Practices of wicked and fanatick Rebels now peeping forth amongst us do sufficiently shew how apt we are to fall into it though it be as bad as the sin of witch-craft which is the giving of our souls by a Contract unto the Devil but the dreadful vengeance of God for the Rebellion of Corah Dathan and Abiram against their Governours when the earth opened her mouth and swallowed them down quick to Hell and the heavy judgement of God upon Absolon for rebelling against King David which followed him hard at the heeles until he came to the bough where he was hanged and the shameful yet most justly deserved death of our late Rebels and of many more the like Villaines that I could quote to you out of Histories should deterre them from this unnatural sin of Rebellion and keep them within the bounds of their obedience to their Governours which is more acceptable in the sight of God then any sacrifice that we can offer him or if this can not do it then may they look for the like end as those that committed the like sins 2. For Perjury it is so pernitious a sin and yet so general 2. Perjury that I know not how to express the hainousness thereof But I finde this perjury to be like the three headed Cerberus 1. Of those Inferiours that either for bribes and reward 1. Of Inferiors or for fear of their Land-lords or other great men will most falsly swear before Judge or Jury to the taking away of the goods lands or life of many innocent men 2. Of Superiors which is a sin worthy to be punished by the Judges as being the utter ruine of many men fatherless and widdows 2. Of Superiours which break their faith and oaths that they make unto their Inferiours And such a forsworn wretch was Lysander the Admiral of the Lacedemonians Lysander and Tissaphernes that brake his oath which he made with the Grecians Tissaphernes Cleomenes and Cleomenes King of Lacedemon that did the like with the Argians but he was sufficiently plagued by the just judgement of God for his perfidiousness and perjury when the women of Argos overthrew the greatest part of his Army and he with a knife killed himself And many more Tyrants and Commanders I could name of this kinde that neither feared God nor regarded their faith with men and therefore were plagued by the just judgements of God 3. Of the middle sort 3. The other sort of perjurers are of a middle size and great men that either through discentent or hope to be made greater Eccles 8.2 do break their faith and falsifie the oath of God as Solomon calls it and so prove Rebels and Traytors unto their Kings and Governours 1. How Neclas served Duringus for his treachery to the Son of Vratislas But how doth the just God reward these perfidious and perjured Villaines And how do most wise men deeme and deale with them but as Neclas did with Duringus who to secure Neclas as he said in his Throne falsified his faith to his Prince and killed the Son of Vratislas that was the next Heir unto the Crown hoping that for his good service he should be much favoured and well rewarded of Neclas but the wise Prince abhorring such perfidiousness said unto him that perjury and treachery could not be mitigated and wiped away by any good turns or after-service and therefore whereas he expected a reward for his good service done unto him he should have it according to his merit For of three things he should chuse which he would 1. To kill himself with a poinyard Aenaeas Sylv Hist Bobem c. 11. or 2. Hang himself with an halter or 3. Cast himself down from the Rock of Visgrade and he hanged himself upon an Elder tree which while it stood was called Duringus tree as Aenaeas Sylvius writeth 2. How Selim used Ladislas Kerezin Camerar Hist Meditat. l 1. pag. 20. c. 7. Johanâ— Menarius Histor Turc l. 4. c. 22. And though Ladislas Kerezin did a very good turn to Selim in yielding up to him the strong place of Hinla yet for his perjury and perfidiousness he caused him to be brought to a most miserable death which you may see in Camerar And the same Selim did the like to a Jewish Physitian whom after the good service he had done unto him he caused to be beheaded for his treachery against his Father saying that upon the least discontent or hope of reward he would not stick to do to him as he did to his Father and therefore he had no reason to let him live because commonly Traytors are double Traytors and as unfaithful to him whom they serve as to him whom they have betrayed And so Soliman his Son promised his Daughter with a very great dowry to a certain Traytor for yielding unto him the Isle of Rhodes and when he got the Iland 3. How Soliman used the Traytor that yielded to him the I le of Rhodes he brought his Daughter in a magnifical pompe unto him and said thou seest I am a man of my word but forasmuch as you are a Christian and thy Wife a Mahumetan and I am loath to have a Son in Law that is not a Musulman therefore it is not satisfactory to me that in hope of favour and gain thou turn thy coat for fashion sake Camerar l. 1. c. 7. p. 21. but thou must also put off thy skin which is baptized and uncircumcised and so he caused him to be flead alive And the same Solyman used the betrayers of Nadast that defended the Castle of Buda in like manner And the King of Henetia having promised Marriage to Romilda the Wife of Prince Sigulphus 4. How the King of Henetia served Romilda the Wife of Sigulphus Aventinus l. 3. Annal. Bavar which had fallen in love with him as Potiphars Wife did with Joseph so soon as she delivered unto him the City of Friol did after her marriage and one nights lodging with her cause her to be set and married to a sharp stake as a worthy punishment of her treachery And the Emperour Aurelian did not much better use the Traytour Heraclemon nor Brennus Demonica 5. How Aurelian served Heraclemon that betrayed into his hands the City of Ephesus as Titus Liv. saith the Daughter of Sp. Tarpeius betrayed the City of Rome unto the Sabines and for her reward lost her life on the Tarpeian Hill But though I could produce to you very many more examples of this kinde 6. How Mahomet served John Justinian yet I will close up this point with what Mahomet did to John Justinian
not nor ever shall be able to prove that he did but the Scots say that he did and so they do say a thousand things more then I believe to be true and they should believe nothing especially what they know not against their King when as all other men that are both wise and honest can sufficiently answer and justifie all that ever his now Majesty did And I that am not worthy to be of his counsel and to know the reasons of his actions yet could shew you very just and sufficient reasons for every thing that ever I heard his Majesty did and I would do it but that Himself and his Council I know can justifie all his actions with many far deeper reasons then I can dive into Therefore these very firebrands of sedition knowing this would a little excuse his Majesty by laying the faults upon his Counsellors that seduced him And who are they They speak in general in universalibus latet error so did the long Parliament against our late King there they learned their lesson and they walk in the same paths But the former Parliaments could name their names the Duke of Buckingham so can these men name the Duke of Ormond And what hath he done I observe two things that they charge him with 1. To testifie what he knew to be truth and these men conceived to be otherwise A mighty fault because they had not their eyes open to see the truth his Grace offended to testifie the truth 2. In obeying his Majesty's gracious goodness by relieving those that were necessitous and perhaps for ought that they know had done his Majesty very good service and for ought that we know had done no injury to any of our men and this is a sin unpardonable with these uncharitable men I but they will say by relieving these he lets the Army starve and I demand what Subject ever did pawn his own lands melt his own plate lay out his own moneys to relieve the King's Armies and to shew himself I will not say more faithful but I say neer so faithful to his King and so bountiful a benefactor and friend to all the King 's loyal Subjects as the Duke of Ormond hath alwayes been I must and ever will with all thankfulness acknowledge it when the long Parliament and their whelps had robbed me of all that I had all the relief and subsistence which I had from all the friends in the world was that bountiful gift which this noble Duke sent me by Sir George Lane And I could name the many many more to whom his Grace did the like And are these things faults worthy to be reproved And I am sure he hated the Rebellion and disowned the Rebels of this Nation as much or more then any man and would you have him to be an enemy to the postnati and a stranger to the innocent God hath made him a more honourable and a more gracious man I but we are not yet come to the quick the English interest by the favour of the Duke unto the Irish and the Judges of the Court of Claim is much shaken and is like to be dismembred and left inanimate But would you have the English interest to continue be it right or wrong or would you have it so to continue that God might bless it and it to prosper If so then let it be rooted in justice and established in truth or otherwise the breath of the Lord will scatter it and the wrath of God will soon destroy it and instead of blessing will as Jacob said bring the curse of God upon you and your Posterity And you might see if you had your eyes open the great care of my L Duke and the great pains and diligence of the Court of Claim to search out the truth of every cause that the innocent should not be made guilty nor the nocent carry away the victory And what more would you have done Yet as I said before they that have learned the way to be Rebels do know the way to be rebellious still But especially because Rebels and Traytors have had their Presidents and examples to chalk and tread out the desperate pathes of treachery and rebellion unto them because as the Poet saith Nullum caruit exemplo nefas You cannot easily name the wickedness that I can not parallel with the like example as If Alexander and Holophernes were drunk so was Noah long before them If Oedipus committed incest with Jocasta so did Lot commit incest with his own daughters and if Polynices kill'd his own brother Eteocles so did Alexander Caracalla kill his own brother Getha Romulus killed Remus and Cain his onely brother Abel And so the men that became Rebels and Traytors unto their King and murderers of their Brethren here amongst us may alledge they are not the first that rebelled but they can name enough that murdered their oppressors which they onely intended to do and they can cite you great Massacres and the rooting out of many Potentates that Lorded and domineered over the poor people as the massacres in France the Cicilian Vespers the treachery of Mithridates and the subjects of Pontus that conspired together to destroy all the Romans that were dispersed over all the Kingdom of Pontus so the Saxons became treacherous and the murderers of all the British Lords on Salisburie-plain and they say the Irish did the like to eradicate the Daues out of this Kingdom and they have done no more unto their Oppressours But to answer these subtle Pleaders for the defence or lessening of their sinful mischief by the example of others wickedness I say 1. That no example can any ways excuse wickedness but rather aggravates the sin that the sight of others falling into the ditch should teach us to beware of the like fall yea though we should have never so many examples of any evil-doing yet we ought not to follow them because the Lord tells us plainly We ought not to follow a multitude to do evil and it is our duty not to do what others do but what God commands us and all others to do 2. I say that herein hîc hîc caruit exemplo nefas those two fold treachery and rebellion 1. Of the late English-Scotizing Rebels And 2. Of the bloody Irish murderers can not be fitted with any Presidents nor parallel'd out of any Histories I do assure you that I have read as many English Greek and Latin Histories as well I could yet in all the Histories that I have read I do profess unto you I never found so much cruel subtlety and such infernal impiety as I saw in the English Rebels nor so much ingratitude inhumanity and cruelty as we read in Sir John Temples Book was acted in the Irish Insurrection if you will afford it no worser name for 1. Touching the English and Scotish Rebellions first for their subtlety the subtle serpent devised not so many lies to deceive our forefathers as they most impudently
special acts of Gods providence and such as any one that like these Beasts hath his eys behind him might see and say Digitus Dei erat hîc here Why God brought things thus to pass in all these things no humane art but the very hand of God brought them all to pass And God brought them thus to pass for these two special ends 1. For the deliverance of his servants and all faithfull people to incite them for ever to become thankful unto him for such unspeakable and extraordinary favours And truly if God commanded the Israelites to observe the feast of Passover in remembrance of their Deliverance from Pharaohs bondage and their passage through the red sea and doth so exceedingly blame them that they had so soon forgot his works and were not mindfull of his covenant but had forgot God their Saviour that had wrought such great things in Egypt wonderous things in the land of Ham and fearful things by the red-sea and if the Jews upon the command of Hester and Mordechai did throughout all their generations Hesâ—er â— 27.31 observe the feast of Purim the fourteenth and fifteenth days of the moneth Adar and Christ himself observed the same in remembrance of their deliverance from the treachery of Haman then certainly we have great reason to observe this twenty third day of October in remembrance of our great deliverance and to shew our thankefulness unto God throughout all generations for that deliverance from those bloody massacres that were intended against us and it should be a day of rejoycing and of feasting and of relieving the poor as were the days of Purim and especially seeing it cannot be imagined what miseries and calamities might have succeeded if they had prevailed 2. God discovered these secret Plots and Treacheries of the Rebels and effected these wonderful things not onely for our sakes or onely to get thanks and praise for the deliverance of us his servants but also to get honour and glory unto himself as he faith of Pharaoh by the punishment and destruction of his Adversaries And that the punishment and rooting-out of Rebels and Traytors might be a preservative to deterr all others from plotting rebellions and treason against their King or any other mischief against their Neighbours And therefore if men will needs be seditious and rebellions I would they were like these beasts full of eyes behind them that they might see and seriously consider how the just God doth reward and punish and plague these perfidious and perjured Villains and how most wise men deem and deal with them no otherwise but as Neclas did with Duringus and the other wise Kings and Princes did with those perfidious and perjured Rebels that I told you of before And the reason why they did so was because they found it unanswerably true that the best way to secure their peace and to establish them in their dominions is to destroy and to root out rebels and traytors out of their territories 1 Sam. 6.5 19.23 1 Reg. 1.19 For you may read how Shimei became a rebel against King David and how King David pardoned him Yet he bids King Solomon to bring his hoary-head to the grave with blood and saith For thou art a wise man and knowest what thou oughtest to do unto him and was not David so Yes and it was wisdom and mercy in David at that time to spare him but now he tells Solomon That when time serveth it should be neither wisdom nor policy in him to spare him but his wisdom should teach him to destroy him because it is an old Axiom that Qui malus est in eodem genere mali semper praesumitur esse malus and experience hath very often found it to be very true that an oppressor drunkard or rebel can as hardly leave his drunkenness or rebellion as an Ethiopian can change his black skin or a leopard his spots that are upon his back as saith the Prophet Jeremy Therefore Solomon tells him that whensoever he goeth out of Jerusalem he shall die And at the end of three years two of his servants ran away to Gath and he like an asse sadleth his asse and followeth after them then Solomon tells him of his wickedness against King David V. 44. and commands Benaiah the son of Jchoiada which fell upon him that he died V. 46. And then it is added in the text And the Kingdom was established in the hand of Solomon And was it not established before yes three full years at least but never so absolutely and so surely as now this old rebel is taken away For though he was the first that submitted himself to King David yet it was very likely or at least suspicious that his malice and rebellistill lurked in his heart as fire under the ashes till they found opportunity to break out and so it may be with all others the like rebels whatsoever And therefore if men will be rebellious it is wisdom and policy 1 Reg. 2.12 for the establishment of Kingdoms to keep Soldiers and Garrisons to keep them under in ore gladii till all the old rebels be quite destroyed and extinguished And if men complain of burthens and taxes and impositions let them blame themselves and those rebels that caused them and the rebellions dispositions of them that may be justly suspected to be the obstacles of peace and tranquillity But if they will needs charge our good King and the Duke's Grace for any fault let them do it for their being too mercyfull and milde in suffering them and others that are like them to live that had so justly deserved to dye and especially if they would suffer them to enjoy the Lands of the Church and the Possessions of them that are innocent 3. The next reigning sin that spreads it self amongst men 3 Injustice is injustice and I wish we would cast our eyes behinde us to see how God hateth and hath plagued this monstrous vice which bringeth forth so many pernicious effects and destroyeth all the duties of honesty The wise Solomon saith That oppression maketh a wise man mad Prov. 7.7 and oppression is but one branch of injustice and therefore injustice is far worse then any oppression For if justice be such a general virtue as Aristotle saith that he which hath it hath all other virtues then certainly he that is unjust must be filled with an huge heap of vices when as this is such a cardinal sin as never walks alone And therefore as Justice exalteth a Nation so Injustice translateth a Kingdom from one Nation to another people as it did the Monarchy of the Assyrians unto the Medes and that of the Medes and Persians unto the Grecians And it pulleth down the wrath and vengeance of God not onely upon the person that is unjust and doth injustice but also upon the heads many times of all his posterity as for the Injustice done to Naboth God destroyed Ahab Ahab
1 John 2.2 2. In the Sanctuary there were two things 1. The Incense-Altar 2 What the Incense Altar Shew-Bread and Candlestick signified 2. Table whereon were 1. The Shew-Bread 2. The Candlestick And these were Types and Figures that signified the chiefest things in our Church as the Incense-Altar betokened the prayers of the people Psal 141.2 as the Prophet David sheweth and whereas this Altar of Incense was to be sprinkled by the High-Priest with the bloud of the Sacrifice once every year it signifieth that our prayers be they never so many and never so fervent Exod. 30.10 yet if they be not purified and perfected by the bloud of Christ they are unvaluable before God 2. The Shew-bread and the Candlestick signified the light that the people should receive by our explaining of the Word of God and the feeding of their souls by the preaching of the Gospel and blessed Sacrament of the body and bloud of Jesus Christ 3. The Court of the Temple was divided by a wall of three cubits high Joseph l. 8. c. 3 John 10.23 Acts 3.11 that the one part of it might be for the Priests and the other for the people And this Court of the people was sometimes called the Temple and sometimes Solomons Porch So you see the Jews had Jesus Christ and the Gospel of Jesus Christ but veiled over and we have them with open face And in this Court was their Corban or Alms-box which the Greeks termed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Latines from the Greeks Gazophylacium the treasure and the alms that was put into this box the Hebrews called Tsedaka which properly signifieth justice to teach us that it is justice for us to relieve the Poor and that the matter of our alms and relief should be goods justly gotten and not as many do steal a Goose and stick a feather rob many and relieve a few These were the chiefest parts of the Temple and the chiefest things therein and this Temple was thrice built 1 Reg. 6.37 1. By Solomon that finished the same in seven years 2. By Zorobabel that finished it in the ninth year of Darius Hystasp Joseph l. 11. c. 4. and so from the second year of Cyrus that began it it was fourty six years in building 3. By Herod that finished the same in eight years Idem l. 15. c. ult 1 Chron. 29. v. 3. And what provision David left for the erecting of this you may read Besides this Glorious Great and Magnificent Temple What their Synagogues Typified that was answerable to our Cathedral Church they had many Synagogues that were as our petty Parish Churches for though 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Copia lactis Goodw. l. 2. c. 2. from the Verb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to gather together doth properly signifie a Collection of any things that may be gathered together yet commonly the Synagogues are taken for the Houses dedicated to the worship of God wherein it was lawful to Pray to Preach and to Dispute but not to Sacrifice And it is likely they began to build these Synagogues when the Tribes were settled in the promised Land When their Synagogues began to be built because the Temple being too far distant from those that dwelt in the remote parts of the Land they built to themselves Synagogues to Pray to God in them instead of the Temple For so we read that Moses of old time had in every City them that preached him Act. 15.21 being read in the Synagogues every Sabboth day and David in his time findeth great fault with those wicked and prophane wretches that like our late Rebells Psal 74.8 destroyed and burnt up all the Synagogues of God in the Land And of these Synagogues Sigonius writeth Sigon l. 2. c. 8. de Repub. Heb. Matth. 4.23 Act. 9.2 c. 13.5 c. 13.14 Maymon in Tephilla c. 11. Sect. 1. there were four hundred and eighty in Jerusalem and in other Cities and Provinces there were many other Synagogues as in Galilee in Damascus at Salamis at Antiochia and they held him for a very good man and a lover of their Nation that built them a Synagogue where they might pray and serve God And Maymonides saith the tradition was that wheresoever ten Families of Israel were they ought to build them a Synagogue And were the Jews that were under the Law and burthened with such infinite taxes and ceremonies of their Religion as were more then they were able to bear so Zealous so Religious and so ready to part with their Wealth and the best things they had to build so sumptuous and so glorious a Temple and so many Synagogues for the service of God that were but the Types and Shadows of our Cathedrals and parish Churches that are for the Preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ And shall we that are freed from all the ordinances of their Law be so cold and so careless to repair the houses of Jesus Christ But we may remember what Hor. saith Delicta majorum immeritus lues Romane donec Templa refeceris aedesque labenâ—es deorum foeda nigro simulacra fumo l. 3. Od. 6.3 All that happened to the Jews are Types and ensamples for us 1 Cor. 10.11 that hath don so much for us as I shall shew you by and by Truly I am sorry to see it and I am ashamed to speak it that such a Cathedral Church as this and so many other Churches as I have seen in this Diocese should be so Barbarously demolished as they are and so little regard had of their repayring They weep for us because we weep not for their abuse But to go on and 3. As the High-Priest of the Jews was the Type of Jesus Christ and their Temple was the Type and Shadow of our Cathedral Churches so all that they did and all that happened unto them were Types and Ensamples for us that are now under the Gospel and as the Apostle saith they are all written for our admonition And so our Saviour here tells Nichodemus that As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness even so must the Son of man be lifted vp wherein you may observe these two things 1. The Type which is expressed in the Historie 2. The thing Typified which is the Mysterie signified by the Historie For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And 1. For the Historie you may read it in Numb 21. v. 4. to the tenth verse and which you must well observe before you can understand the Mysterie And therein you may observe these four parts V. 5. 1. The Sin committed by the Israelites v. 5. V. 6. 2. Their Punishment inflicted upon them for their sin 3. Their Repentance and confession of their sins v. 7. V. 7. 4. The Remedie that preserved them v. 8. and 9. V. 8.9 4. Parts of the History 1 Their sin four fold 1. Their sin seems to be morbus
complicatus a twisted and decompound wickedness consisting of these four special branches that do most commonly walk together 1. Ingratitude 2. Inconstancie 3. Impatience 4. Injustice For 1. 1. Ingratitude They had received from the hands of God the greatest blessings that ever Nation received from a handful of hunger-starved people no more then threescore and fifteen souls to be multiplied and increased Acts 7.14 Exod. 12.37 within the space of two hundred and fifty years to the number of about six hundred thousand men besides women and children And then being cruelly opprest and tyrannized over by Pharaoh King of Egypt to be so wonderfully and miraculously delivered out of his hands so fully and opulently with silver and gold and Jewels and abundance of all manner of wealth and for God himself to guide them and to feed them with the bread of Heaven and the food of Angels What a monstrous ingratitude was it for such a people to murmur against God and to complain against Moses as if God had purposely brought them and Moses maliciously drawn them out of Egypt to be destroyed in the Wilderness of Arabia petrosa the most uncomfortable place of all the earth And is this the thanks that they render unto God for the wonders that he wrought for them in Egypt and the fearful things that he did by the Red Sea where they exceedingly rejoyced for their deliverance and sang that excellent Song of thankfulness unto God saying That he had triumphed gloriously and thrown the horse and his rider into the Sea Exod. 15.1 But 2. They had now changed their thoughts 2. Their inconstancy and their levity and inconstancy is shewed unto the world and so they continued alwayes a fickle and giddy headed people never constant in any thing but in inconstancy for though Moses brought them out of bondage and eased their shoulders from their burdens and their hands from making the pots yet when he had been but forty dayes absent from them they will needs make golden Calves and cry out These be thy gods O Israel that brought thee out of the land of Egypt And though King David subdued all their enemies the Philistines 1 Chron. 18. and the Moabites and Hadarezer King of Zobah and the Syrians and the Edomites and the Ammonites and had given them rest on every side and Solomon his Son had brought them peace all his dayes 2 Chron. 1.15 and made silver and gold at Hierusalem as plenteous as stones and built them such a glorious Temple for the service of their God as had not the like in all the world yet when his son Rehoboam did but a little discontent them they presently cry out 2 Chron. 10.16 What portion have we in David And w have no inheritance in the son of Jesse And so though Jesus Christ healed their sick raised their dead cast out their devils and by their own confession did all things well and therefore as it were to day spread their garments under his feet and cried Hosanna yet as it were to morrow they had no other note then Crucifie him crucifie him And such was the inconstancy of this people that though at first they joyfully received admired and loved the celestial Manna yet now they say in plain terms Our souls loatheth this light bread Numb 21.6 3. Their impatiencie 3. Though the Heathen man Menander could say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is the part of a wise man to bear all calamities and misfortunes patiently because as Horatius saith Levius fit patientia Quicquid corrigere est nefas When as another saith Dat spatium quo se crimine purget homo Patience yields a man a time and space to purge himself from that sin which hath brought his calamities upon him Yet this people for this their travel which they thought too tedious betwixt Egypt and Canaan grew weary of it and fell into such impatiency that they could not contain themselves but they must secretly murmur and then publiquely with open mouths complain against God himself and against his Servant Moses as if they had dealt too cruelly and too maliciously with them But 4. Their Injustice Amos 3.2 4. How unjustly they do this it is apparent to all the world for God professeth You only have I chosen that is for his own inheritance and his own people of all the nations of the earth And Moses continually ventured his life spent himself wholly to do them good to provide them food to procure them flesh Numb 11.12 to draw water for them out of the Rock and to carry them in his bosome as a nursing father beareth his sucking child yet so palpable was their injustice thus falsly to accuse both God and man And this was the sin of Israel The sin of England just like the sin of the Israelites and this was the sin of England in a far greater measure and a much higher strain then they did For When God much more merciful to us then he was to them had more abundantly shewed his wonders and his favours to us then he did to any other Nation under Heaven as in our deliverance by Jesus Christ from sin and Satan whereof their deliverance from Egypt and Pharaoh was but the shadow and sending to us such pious Princes so stout a Protestant as Queen Elizabeth so wise so learned and so peaceable a King as King James and so milde a man so religious and every way so excellent and surmounting all other men in all piety and goodness as King Charles the first to bring us out of the Egyptian darkness of errors and superstition and to preserve the pure light of the Gospel amongst us which no Nation under Heaven had the like yet we did not only murmur and complain against God and against his Annointed but we raged and railed we rebelled and murdered the best of Kings and our own most gracious Governour that like an Angel Pellican gave his own bloud to give life unto his children so fa◠did we exceed these sinful Jews in all wickedness But 2. Having seen their sin 2. Their punishment what followeth but their punishment which is alwayes at hand even at the heels of sin for God having heard their murmuring the Lord sent fiery Serpents among the people and they bit the people Numb 21.5 so that many of them died where you may observe how just and how proportionable their punishment is unto their sin for as the people like unto Serpents spitted out their poyson against God and his Servants so God sent these fiery Serpents to disgorge their venom against this people And you may observe further that if God did thus severely punish the murmuring and the words of this people for the Text saith no more But that they were discouraged because 〈…〉 the way and therefore spake against God and against Moses saying Wherefore have you brought us out of Egypt to die in
murderers adulterers and such like wicked Gods Gods not worthy to be men So it is better to do no service unto God than to do that which is so exceedingly contumelious unto the Deity because that service which is to injurious unto God and so derogaâ—ory to his honour is most acceptable unto the Devil as the Israelites mistaking the true seâ—vice and thinking they sacrificed unto God did indeed offer their sons and daughters unto devils Psal 106.36 as the Psalmist speaketh such is the nature of Idolatry So that indeed we can never pleâ—se the devil better nor shew our selves faithfuller servants unto him than whâ—n we do thus displease our God and shew our selves so perfidious unto His Majesty And yet it is wonderful to consider how apt and prone the Children of Israel were to fall and to wallow in this monstrous sin of Idolatry How prone the Israelites were to fall into Idolatry for no sooner were they come out of Egypt but they must worship God in the shape of a golden Calf so they turned the glory of the incorruptible God into the similitude of a Calfe that eateth hay and no sooner was any good man dead that had planted the true Religion amongst them but presently they supplanted the same by their Idolatry and this our Prophet sheweth at large in this Chapter as Ver. 26. 1 In the passage to Canaan when they worsh pped Moloc 1. To observe the order of their committing it and not of the Prophets setting of it down when he saith you have born the tabernacle of your Moloc thâ—t is in the wilderness when Moses was talking wiâ—h God on mount Sinai as Sâ— Hierome and Rupertus think or rather as Ribera thinketh when they committed fornica ion with the daughters of Moab that were the next adjoyning neighbours unto the Ammonites whose god this Moloc was and you have born Chiun your images the star of your god which ye made to your selves or as St. Stephen reads it out of the Septuagint Remphan who he was the star of your God Remphan or Rephan as others read it which Giraldus takes to be Hercules Ribera thinks him to be Jupiter but St. Hierom Remigâ—us and Beda take it for the star of Venus which going before the Sun in the morning was called Lucifer and following the Sun at night was called Hesperus and was worshipped by the Syrians as the Queen of Heaven and as Servius upon that verse of Virgil. Errantesque Deos agitataque numina Trojae observeth how the Gentiles carried their tutelaty gods with them Gen. 31.34 as Rachel did her fathers Idols whithersoever they went so the Israelites in imitation of them carried these Images in the Tabernacle after a most solemn and a pompous manner 2. The Prophet sheweth their Idolatry 2 In their setled Land when he forbids them to seek Bethel and to enter into Gilgal or to pass into Beersheba 2 Reg 23 8 1 Reg 12.29 because these places Bethel and Gilgal towards the North and Beersheba Southward were the uttermost parts and borders of the Holy Land where Jeroboam did set up his golden Calves And the Children of Israel were such calves The reasons why the children of Israel were alwaies ready to worship their calves that all the holy Prophets and the godly Kings could never withdraw them from the Idolatrous service of these calves and the reasons thereof you may gather out of the Text. 1. Because they were such gods as gave them ease and liberty 2. Because they were calves 3. Because they were golden calves 4. Because they had wodden Priests no better than their gods For 1. Jeroboam said it is too much for you to go to Hierusalem Reason 1 that is too much cost and too much pains for he knew the people would like very well of that Religion which would give them most ease and prove least chargeable unto them as men had rathet sit to hear than kneel to pray and to give a small stipend to their poor Lecturer than pay the tenth of all their increase unto their learned Pastor but this liberty overthrew all their piety 2. He made two calves though there can be but one God not Reason 2 only to imitate their former practice in the Wilderness and their usual worship in Egypt because he knew men would be easily seduced to their old wont but especially to inlarge their liberty to let them serve God as they list which is very pleasing to flesh and bloud because the calves were such gods as did not much care what service was done unto them yet 3. He set up golden calves to make a glorious shew because the Reason 3 veriest hypocrites in the world would fain seem to do all for the honour of God and the preservation of the true Religion pulchra lavernâ Juven §. 16. da mihi fallere da justum sanctumque videri when as indeed it is but like their god a calfe though of gold yet dead without life without sense and such is the Religion of all Hypocrites a liveless and a senceless Religion let them pretend what they please And Reason 4 4. That they might sleep in their sins and never wake they must have Priests of the lowest of the people which were not of the sons of Levi that is of the regular ministers and conformable Clergy but those that were sittest for such Libertines as being neither able for their Learning to know God to teach his truth and confute Errours nor daring for their baseness to contradict the people in any of all their wicked waies for Jeroboam knew that Learned men and men of worth would never adore such Calves though they were made of Gold nor yet humour their people in their ease idleness and Idolatry therefore when men would change their Religion they must change their Priests even as Christ did when he translated the Jewish service into the Christian Religion he changed the Order of the Priesthood saith the Apostle Heb 7.12 so when we would overthrow the true Religion and make way for Libertines we must cast out the true Priests and with Jeroboam take for them the basest of the people Cha. 30.8 children of base men viler than the earth as Job speaketh which can neither confute heresie nor hinder Idolatry among their flocks 1 Reg. 12.30 But what saith the Text this became a sin an indeleable sin to all Israel that caused them to be led into perpetual captivity and to lose their everliving God because they served these golden calves Ver. 27. and were led by these woodden Priests for so the Prophet setteth down therefore will I cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus saith the Lord whose name is the God of Hosts and it was such an everlasting stain to Jeroboam 1 Reg. 14.16 c. 15. 30. that it is his indeleable Epithite carbone notabilis atro Jeroboam the son of Nebat that made Israel to
say or do I could not prevail to have the Record amended according to the original Record And when I saw that I desired my Counsel to desire their Lordships either to grant that it might be amended or to quash it out of hand that I should not spend my self in Dublin but go to begin a fresh and to indict them again and then my Lord Chief Justice answered seeing we desired to quash it let it be quasht which in respect of the Kings fine I conceived should not be done if the original Indictment found by the Jury was good Then I got the Kings Sollicitor Mr. Temple and the Kings Sergeant Sergeant Griffith and Mr. Darcy to draw me an Indictment that would stand good in Law and presently I went to Kilkenny and required the Justices of the peace to send their preÌ„cipe to the Sheriff to summon 24 men to appear at Freshfoord the 23 of the instant which they did accordingly and the Deputy Sheriff appointed these Gentlemen to be summoned Nom. Jur. ad inquirend John Grace of Courtstowne Esq Jonas Wheeler Gent. Rich. Donvil Gent. William Davies Gent. Walter Bushop Gent. Walter Nosse Gent. John Pursel Gent. William Pay Gent. William White Gent. Ralph Hale Gent. Lewis Mathews Gent. Robert Grace Gent. George Lodge Gent. Edmund Butler Gent. Matthew White Gent. William Hunter Gent. Thomas Green Gent. Vincent Knatehbul Gent. Ric. Comerford of Degenmore G. Tho. Bowers of Knoctopher G. Emanuel Palmer Gent. Mathias Reilegh Gent. Chri. Auetstone of Thomastone Tho. Hussie of Gowrom Gent. Toby Boyle of Condonstown Gent. Tho. Tomlius of Lyniate Abby Joseph Wheeler of Killrush George Barton of Goslingstown G. But before the Bayliffs were gone to summon them the High Sheriff was come to the Town and seeing the List of the Subscribed and having conferred with Sir George Ayscue that lay in the next Room where the Sheriff lay he said those men should not serve in the Jury but he would choose a Jury for this business and he nominated such men Anabaptists Presbyterians and others of the most rigid Sectaries that were in all the whole County Yet because I knew two or three of them to be very honest men I was very well contented with them But as soon as ever I was gone from the Sheriff those men were put by and other Sectaries put into the List in their stead * A Jury as my friends that knew them said would hang all the Bishops in Ireland if they were their Jury to try them And the Bailiff coming to me for more money then I had given him for summoning those that the Deputy Sheriff had appointed because now the High Sheriff had appointed men that he had picked out over all the County of Kilkenny Then I suspected some evil determined against me and I desired the Bayliff to shew me the List of those that he was to summon and when I saw those honest men that I knew put our and others put in their room I put the Warrant in my Pocket and bad the Bayliff tell the Sheriff that my Witnesses for the King were not ready and after he told this to the Sheriff he câ—me to me again weeping and crying and desired me for Gods sake to give him his Warrant For the Sheriff was very angry with him and he was utterly undone for shewing me the Warrant but I kept it still in my Pocket And thus was I served with a great deal of travel and charge above 60 li. in seeking to recover the Church Lands which I resolved and vowed if I could recover it to bestow it wholly for the repairing and re-edifying of the flat-fallen Church of Kilkenny And now let the Judge of all the World and let all just and honest men judge whether this be a fair and just proceeding But quorsum haec To what purpose is all this pains of this Relation Is it to taxe and charge the Reverend Judges either of injustice or partiality No By no means I taxe no man but I set down rem gestam the whole matter a capite ad calcem and they the Judges and Counsellours being great Lawyers may find all this to be just and especially to make it seem so to be and though for all cheating Pettifoggers and covetous Counsellours that against the dictate of their own consciences and against their King and against the Church of God will for a Fee sell their souls unto the devil I hate their doings that are Sicutatri â—anua ditis Yet I do from my heart honour and reverence all the grave and just Judges and Learned Lawyers without whose help and Counsel and Judgment we could not live in this Common-wealth And though I failed at the Kings Bench to prevail to procure those Fines unto the King which I conceived should be imposed upon those five that I indicted whereof the chief of them that is Captain Burges is now sent Prisoner to Dublin by my Lord of Ossory which may be a just Judgement that he should be committed by my Lord of Ossory for his abuse done to the Bishop of Ossory yet I have had very fair Justice done me by the Judges of the Court of Claim and I am confident to find the like from them again and to be righted by the Judges of the Court of Exchequer * And so likewise from the Kings Bench and Common Pleas. for the wrongs and damages that I sustained by those that forcibly entered upon my Possessions and do still detain it from me when I shall bring the cause before them Therefore I have no reason for the biting of a mad Dog to hang all the good Dogs in the Countrey or for the abuse or injustice done me by some one man or few Lawyers to exclaim against all others when as the Poet adviseth us Parcere paucorum diffundere crimen in omnes But I do exceedingly tax my self and mine own understanding that understanding both Greek and Latine and having read what Lambert Bolton and Dalton have written of Forcible Entries I should be such a Dolt as not to understand this Proceeding of mine about the Indictment of those Forcible Enterers to be a just and a fair Proceeding Therefore mine apprehension conceiving such proceedings to be foul and very much amiss and that the justice which I had upon the whole matter had not what Pindarus such Justice useth to have that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I thought good to set down the same not to accuse and complain against any one for being unjust or to seek any redress unto my self for I have born and can be contented still to bear more wrongs than this But I do it for these ends 1. To let poor men see how they may be wronged and oppressed and have their Land and Possessions taken from them by great and powerful men and what they are best to do in such a case and my counsel is to be patient because as I said before Levius fit patientia quicquid
corrigere est nefas and as our Saviour saith If any man sue thee for thy Coat let him have thy Cloak also So I say if any great man that hath a great Place or great Friends take away thy Lands let him take away thy House also rather then spend thy Money and lose that with thy Lands for as Christ saith If these things be done to the green tree what shall be done to the dry So if these Proceedings pass against me that can both speak and follow my businesse to the uttermost and I thank God have ability to go through with it what shall become of thee and thy Cause that art a poor man when thou swimmest against the stream and kickest against the pricks Therefore I advise thee rather in such a case to cry to God than complain to any Judge lest that as the Poet saith Excessit medicina modum thy remedy will prove worse than thy disease For thou seest how I am served put our of my House and spend above 60 li. and have no redress 2. If this proceeding and dealing with me be as I conceive it not so fair and so just as it should be both for the King and my self that am ejected out of my House and Lands then I conceive His Majesty and the Parliament should to prevent the like Oppression and wrongs to poor men provide an easier and plainer way to relieve the oppressed and to set down an usual Form of Indictment or to cause that the Indictments should not be so easily and so frequently upon every Lawyers motion quasht as they are reported to be Especially when the matter of Force is plain and evidently proved And this redress of Injuries I petition and move for for these four special reasons 1. Because the difficulty of framing the Indictments so that a cunning Lawyer cannot easily find a fault and a flaw in it and then the frequent quashing of such Indictments as are found faulty is a great wrong to his Majesty in depriving him of those Fines that otherwise are due and should be rendered unto him 2. It is a great Abuse and injury unto the poor Subject that shall be driven out of his Possession and for want of a sufficient Clerke or Counsellour to draw the right form of his Indictment which as I see few can do he shall both spend his Money and lose his labour and perhaps he is not able to do as I did three or four times to draw Indictments till he finds one that may stand good 3. This frequent quashing of Indictments is a great encouragement for Oppressors and wicked men to wrong their neighbours more and more for say they I will enter upon him and thrust him out and if he doth indite me I will remove it to the Kings Bench and I shall find a Lawyer that will quash his Indictment by and by 4. This very practise and proceeding may be feared to prove the very bane and destruction of whole Nations and Kingdoms For if Righteousness exalteth a Nation and a Kingdom is translated from one Nation to another People because of unrighteousness as Solomon saith and as we may read it in all Histories Then you may see how requisite it is for Kings and Princes to look to those things and not to suffer unrighteous Judges either for favour to one or hatred to another to do what they list and to make their Laws like a Nose of Wax to bend which way they please or like a Spiders Web that catcheth the small Flies but is broken by the great humble Bees all to pieces but to be like the Chancellour Steel that although he hated my person yet he said though I deserved it not I should have Justice and so he did me Justice presently and I love to do right to my Adversary and to say the truth of mine enemy But for my self I thank God for it as I lived many years very quietly and contentedly with far less means then 20 li. a year and with far less pains and troubles then I have now so I doubt not but I could live so still and I resolved and vowed as I have attested in my Epistle to his Majesty that if I should recover this Bishops Court unto the Church I would wholly and fully bestow the same for the repairing of the Cathedral Church of Kilkenny So that recovering it I should not be one Penny the richer or not recovering it not a Penny the poorer and so the wrong done by this Proceeding whosoever did it is as I conceive more against the King and the Church than against my self And if the Proviso for Sir George Ayskue carrieth this Bishops Court to him from the Church which in my understanding is clean contrary to the very words of the Act pag. 72. Let him pray that he hath it not with that Sauce which God prescribeth in Psal 83. And so I end and so be it as God pleaseth Amen And after I had delivered this same Relation unto his Majesty and shewed the Effect and sum thereof by the next day I gave him this Petition To the Kings Most Excellent Majesty The Humble Petition of Gruffith Lord Bishop of Ossory Sheweth THat your Petitioner hath caused five of the Tenants of Sir George Ayskew to be twice Indited for a forcible Entry upon the House and Lands of the Bishop of Ossory and yet your Petitioner with the Expence of above 60 l. could not prevail to have them punished as the Law requireth whereby your Majesty is wronged in not receiving the Fines that should be imposed upon them for that offence and your Petitioner is abused in being still kept out of his Possession to about 300 l. Damages May it therefore please your Majesty to write to the Duke of Ormond or to the Parliament to see that the former Proceedings may be reviewed and that your Petitioner may be relieved according to Justice And your Petitioner shall ever pray c. And my Lords Grace of Canterbury very graciously and like a most Religious Father and Countenancer of the Fathers of the Church going with me to deliver it to his Majesty and to let him understand the substance of it said here is the good Bishop of Ossory so his Grace was pleased beyond my Desarts to stile me that hath a very reasonable Petition to your Majesty and telling him the sum of it his Majesty like a most Pious King most graciously answered I will do it with all my heart and my Lords Grace sent for Secretary Benet and he drew me this his Majesties Answer the next day Whitehal July 16th 1663. HIs Majesty is graciously pleased effectually to recommend the Consideration of this Petition to his Grace the Duke of Ormond Lord Lieutenant of Ireland to the end his Grace may forthwith take care to settle and establish the Petitioner in his Right and that such who disturb him may be punished according to Law I know not what more I could have desired his
Majesty herein doing more then I desired And when I was very willing to have given 5 l. in Gold for Sir Henry Bennets Fee that most Courteous Gentleman Mr. Quod-dolphin said I should not pay one penny but Sir Henry would lay that upon the Church and my Lord of Canterburies score So fairly and so friendly was I used at his Majesties Court The Lord bless them and reward them for it and grant them alwaies the like Favour a I found with them And when I came with his Majesties Reference to my Lord Duke of Ormond I found his Grace as honourable and very gracious in his Answer and Direction to me but when his Grace referred the Petition that I drew to his Grace to do as his Majesty directed and his Majesties Reference to the Council-Table I must acknowledge that I feared the success and so it happened according to my fear for when I was called before the Council his Grace said he was no Lawyer but he left the Matter to them to inform me what was to be done according to Law and my Lord Chancellour said that both my self in my Relation and my Lawyers and Counsel confest that the Judges did act and their Proceedings were according to Law and therefore I must even begin again and it was my best course to proceed according to Law and I answered if all this in my Proceedings were Law I pray God send us a better Law for I shewed the whole Proceedings to his Majesty and to divers of the Judges of England and they said this was a fair proceeding indeed to set up a man of straw and then shoot at him to bring a false Indictment to the Court and then quash it for I proved it in the open Court by the Confession of the Clerke of the Peace that brought the true Indictment with him to the Court and acknowledged that the other was falsified either by the Clerke that he trusted to write it or by some other he knew not who that the Indictment brought to the Court was not the true Indictment that was found by the Jury and so without any more words my Lords Grace seemed to me very graciously to smile and so I was dismist But I fear that the favour which Sir Geo. Ayskue finds in every place against me may produce no good effect And then I called to mind the cause that moved me to fear the success I should have at the Council-Table not Injustice that I mean not I know that they are just but that the Justice I should have would not be to my advantage and the favour that I desired For when I still indâ—ed the forcible Enterers and still proceeded against Sir George Ayskues Tenants he preferred a Petition to the Council-Table about this Lordship of Bishops Court and I hearing of it conceived that before any thing should be done thereupon I should have the favour to be made acquainted with the same Petition that I might answer it but I could hear nothing of it until a little while after some of the Bishops by reason of the power to my L. Lieutenant and Counsel given by the last Proviso in the Act of settlement fearing that they would alter and retrench some of his Majesties Favours and Additionals granted unto them by the said Act petitioned that they would not do so but leave all things that concerned the Bishops statu quo as they are expressed in the Act without Alteration or retrenchment and my Lord Lieutenant and Counsel granted their Petition but with this only Proviso that Sir George Ayskues right might be preserved that is as I conceive against all the Bishops for that none is named and this Proviso of all the men in Ireland is but only for Sir George Ayskue and of all the Bishops in Ireland it seems by all likelihood only prejudicial to the Bishop of Ossory Which notwithstanding if the last Proviso in the Act of Settlement be well understood and rightly followed can be no prejudice to him at all as I conceive it for that the Power given to my Lord Lieutenant and Counsel by that Proviso is as I understand it a power to alter and retrench any thing in part or in whole which they shall find either contrary to his Majesties Declaration or inconsistent with Which are the very words in the Proviso or to the general settlement of the Kingdom and I conceive that the suffering of the Bishop of Ossory to enjoy his own House and Lands where the Bishops used to live and reside cannot be contrary to his Majesties Declaration not inconsistent with the general settlement of the Kingdom And therefore I humbly conceive that my Lord Lieutenant and Counsel have no power by that Proviso granted unto them to take away his Majesties Grant and Favour to the Bishop of Ossory and to settle the same upon Sir George Ayskue especially if his Majesty was deceived in his Grant to Sir George Ayskue as I verily believe he was for his Majesty grants him the Lands setled upon him for his Service in Ireland and I have searched and examined the Matter as much as ever I could and yet could never find nor understand what Service he had done in Ireland that deserved to carry away the House and Lands of the Bishop of Ossory or indeed of any Service that he did in Ireland at all either for King or Parliament And if for all this he carries the Bishops House away I will sing Mopso Nisa datur and seeing how many of the Bishops Houses and Lands that were by an Order of the House of Lords delivered to my possession by the Sheriffe of the County and were peaceably in my Tenants possession and paid me Rent ever since his Majesties happy coming in were given away while I was in London Petitioning about this Cause and could not be at Dublin to answer them that sued for them nor dreamed of any Suites against me and being not able in mine old Age especially seeing what Pains Charge and Success I have hitherto had with Sir Geo. Ayskue to follow so many Suits against so many men so powerful as they are in the Courts of Justice at the Council-Table and in all places I will like Balaams Asse so unjustly beaten lie down under my burden too heavy for me to bear and call and cry to God to arise and maintain his own Cause and the Cause of his own Son Jesus Christ Yet in this Suit betwixt me and Sir Geo. Ayskue because I have taken so much paines and spent so much Money and specially because I do hate and abhor that any man * I mean not Sir G. Ayskue but whosoever he be which hath fought under the Standard of the Beast and Long Parliament against that Most Pious King and my Most Gracious Master Charles the First should carry away the Houses and Lands that Religious Princes have dedicated for the Honoâ—r and Service of Jesus Christ for the Reward of that wickedness
aide and free will offering to do the same they were ready and so willing every man beyond his power to bring in their oblation in such abundance that Moses was fain to tell them they had brought enough and too much and therefore forbade them to bring in any more he like a good man and just being not desirous to make any gain of their bounty And you may read in 1 Chron. 29.3 1 Chron. 29.3 when King David resolved to have the Temple built what great provision he left for the erecting of it and how Solomon his Son did most gloriously finish the same in seven years 1 Reg. 6.37 and furnished the same with all things necessary for the service of God and after that Nebuchadnezzar had destroyed it the Jews under Zorobabel did most readily beyond the ability of captived men newly released contribute and offered their free-will offerings towards the re-edifying of the same which they finished in the ninth year of Dâ—rius Histaspes Joseph lib. 11. c. 4. that made it to be forty six years in building from the second year of Cyrus who began it according as the Jews say to our Saviour Christ And because these newly released Jews that had scarce taken root in the Land of Jury and were but scarce seated and unsetled in Jerusalem were not able to make this their Temple answerable in glory and sumptuousness to that most rare and admirable Temple which those two mighty Kings and Kings of all Israel David and Solomon had joyned their wealth and strength together to make it a most glorious house for the most glorious and Almighty God therefore Herod that was but an alien an Idumean knowing that great and glorious things are to be offered ascribed and dedicated to the great and glorious God re-edified and finished the same most sumptuously in eight years Joseph l. 15. c. ult as Josephus writeth and he built the same so exceeding excellent and more admirable than the Egyptian Pyramides that Cheops builded of rare Theban Marble so that for the rareness thereof the Disciples shew it our Saviour Christ saying Master see what manner of stones Mar. 13.1 and what buildings are here And the Jews generally were so zealous of Gods service and so ready to build and erect houses for his service that besides this glorious great and magnificent Temple they had many Synagogues that is other lesser houses like unto our Parish Churches dedicated and consecrated for the worship of God and he was counted a very good man and worthy of all love and respect that had built one of these as they tell Christ that the Centurion was worthy to have that favour shewed him by Christ as to heal his Daughter Luk. 7.5 because he had loved their nation and had built them a Synagogue that is a house for the people to meet in it to pray and to serve their God in it And it is most likely they began to build these Synagogues when the Tribes were setled in the Land of Canaan because the Ark that remained in Shilo and afterwards the Temple that was erected in Jerusalem Why the Synagogues of the Jews were built were so far distant from them that dwell in the remotest parts of the Land that they could not come so often as they would unto it therefore they built to themselves Synagogues to pray to God and to serve him in them instead of the Temple for so we read that Moses of old time probable I say from their very first beginning of their settlement Acts 15.21 had in every City them that preached him being read in their Synagogues every Sabbath day where by the way you may observe that of old time contrary to the conceit of our new Fanaticks the reading of the holy Scriptures was accounted the preaching of Gods word though I deny not but after it be read and so preached Luk. 4.18 it may be further explained as Christ did that place of Isa 61.1 And you see they had these Synagogues in every City so they must have as many Synagogues as there were Cities in all their Land The number of their Synagogues and Sigonius writeth that there were four hundred and eighty of these Synagogues in Jerusalem and the Scripture sheweth that in other Cities and Provinces there were many other Synagogues as in Galile in Damascus in Salamis and in Antiochia and Maymonides one of their prime Doctors saith the tradition of their Elders was that wheresoever ten Families of Israel were they ought to build them a Synagogue And shall the Jews that were under the Law and burdened with such infinite Taxes and Ceremonies of their Religion as were more than they were able to bear Acts 15.10 as the Apostle testifieth be so zealous so religious and so ready to part with their wealth and the best things they had to build so sumptuous and so glorious a Temple and so many Synagogues to perform those services that God required of them which notwithstanding were but the types and shadows of that true Religion which we have and do profess to embrace it and shall we that have the substance of those shadows which they had and the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ which they never had but in aenigmate preached so clearly and so amply among us and are freed from all the legal Ceremonies and Ordinances of the Law be so cold and so careless as we are to repair the houses of Jesusr Christ I fear then that these Jews shall rise in judgment against us Nay more than this if you look into the stories of the Gentiles Grecians or Barbarians that knew not God but knew that there is a God which all men ought to worship you shall find how zealous they were to build Temples and Oracles to their unknown Gods that were no other than the devils as the Oracle of Delphos Amphiaraus Hamonium Dodonaeum the Temple of Diana at Ephesus of Vesta Ceres Minerva and other Goddesses of the Gentiles and the many many Temples that the Romans and other Nations built to Jupiter Apollo Mars and the rest of their false and faigned Gods and Goddesses that were indeed but very devils Quia dii gentum daemoâ—ia and how sumptuously they erected and gloriously adorned and beautified those houses of these deceitful Oracles and were so exceeding bountiful almost beyond belief in their oblations and donations to these holy places as they deemed them as it appeareth in Herodotus Herodotus l. 1. by the large gifts of inestimable value that Cresus sent to the Temple of Delphos and other Temples of those Gentile gods And because they knew no otherwise but that these infernal devils were Celestial Gods and so worshipped them as gods with Temples Altars Sacrifices Prayers and Oblations dedicated unto them which do only and properly belong to the true and eternal God therefore Horace saith to them that neglected the erecting and beautifying of these
Temples that belonged to these no Gods Delicta majorum immeritus lues Romane donec templa refeceris Horat l. 3. Ode 6. Aedesque labentes deorum fada nigro Simulachra fumo The which Ode that worthy and learned Imitator of this best Lyrick Poet thus excellently translateth in this elegant Lyrick Verse Roman resolve thou shalt desertless tast Sins scourge for vice of Predecessors past Untill thou dost again repair Decayed Temples and make fair The falling houses of the gods disgrac'd And cleanse their Images with smoak defac'd To think thee less than gods thy power commends Hence take beginnings hither aime thy ends The gods neglected did impose On sad Hesperia many woes Twice Pacorus and twice Manaeses hand Our inanspicious forces did disband Who with a plentious prey made glad To little chains new links did add And if by the judgment of this learned man they shall suffer for all the sins and offences of their Fathers and Fore-fathers untill they re-edifie the Temples and raise the flat-fallen houses of these gods and beautifie the defiled Monuments and Sepulchres of their Heroes and other noble persons that were dead What shame and what punishment do we deserve for suffering the Tombs and Sepulchres of our heroick Fathers and the Temples Houses and Altars of our good God and our Redeemer Jesus Christ to lye so waste so ruined and so defiled as they are here in this Kingdom of Ireland for I do believe that of about 100 Churches that our fore-fathers built and sufficiently endowed in the Diocess of Ossory there are not 20 standing nor 10 well repaired at this day Truly I have done my best beyond my ability let Demas and the detractors say what they please to repair the Quire of St. Kenny and I have privately vowed and publickly protested often and engaged my self to God to His Majesty and to the People and I am contented to be bound in a bond of one thousand pounds that if the Bishops Court and Freshford that were given to the Church and dedicated to God for the service of Jesus Christ shall be restored to the Church there shall not one penny or penniworth of all the rents and profits thereof be retained or transferred to me or any of mine but it shall wholly and fully be imployed and laid out for the raising and reparation of that Cathedral Church which the Lord hath now committed to my charge But if I shall still see as I have seen hitherto that Rebels and Traytors that have been if such as have fought under the Standard of the beast and Great Antichrist against their own King to bring him to be murdered may be so stiled shall be countenanced furthered and upheld to carry away and enjoy the Lands and Houses of the Church and so little regard had of that justice we owe to render unto God what belongs to God and less respect to the servants of Jesus Christ than to the followers of the Antichrist then seeing as the Prophet saith in vacuum laboravi I have laboured in vain I have spent my strength my time my means and my money for nought in seeking to bring to God what is Gods and to the Church what of right belongs unto the Church Liberavi animam meam and I hope I may freely turn the leaf and as God said of the house of Eli I said indeed that the house of Eli 1 Sam. 2.30 and the house of his Fathers should walk before me for ever but now saith the Lord be it far from me And seeing they had so far dishonoured him and so much prophaned his service it was just with God so to do And so I said indeed I would do my best and I would bestow as much as I was able and perhaps more than many would imagine to repair the Cathedral Church of St. Kenny yet now being disappointed of my hope and finding men preferring flesh and bloud before the dictate of the Spirit of God favouring those that have been rebels before such as are religious Seeing I cannot build the Church of Christ I have resolved to the uttermost of my power to overthrow the Synagogue of Satan that is to punish perjurers and such others high transgressors of Gods Laws and to leave the houses of God as finding my self unable to prevail to do therein any good wasted and ruined as they are And if this I cannot do but that Scelera sceleribus tuebuntur one false and perjured Jury shall be defended and protected and justified by another false Jury and one wicked oppressor excused by another the like oppressor or that the fear of great men will not suffer poor spirited Lawyers to afford us Law for any money then ad te domine clamabo that we can have neither truth nor justice in the earth But to proceed to shew the miseries of the Church of Ireland though it be a very lamentable thing and an unanswerable argument of the decay of Piety and of small Religion in the noblest persons to suffer the houses of God to lie as they do for hogs and other beasts to dig up the bones of holy Saints it may be the Fathers or Mothers of the now great Lords and Ladies of the Kingdom Yet as the Lord said unto his Prophet Ezekiel Turn thee yet again and thou shalt see greater abominations Ezek. 8.6 so I say to my Reader For 2. The great want of able Ministers in this Kingdom and why they are so scant 2. As God is without Churches for his people to meet in to serve him so he is without servants enabled to do him service to praise his name and to teach his people and to have Churches and no Churchmen is to no purpose But why have we not such Churchmen as are able to instruct Gods people I say it is easily answered that it is not so easie to get able worthy and sufficient Churchmen unless there were sufficient means and livings to maintain them for as Seneca truly saith Sublatis studiorum premiis ipsa studia pereunt where there is no reward for learning there will be want of learned men as one demanding why there were no Physitians in Lacedemon answer was made because there was no stipend nor allowance set forth for the Professours of that faculty but as Martial saith to Flaccus Sint Maecenates non decrunt Flacce marones Virgiliumque tibi vel tua rura dabunt But here in Ireland since Hen. 8. Why we want learned and painful Preachers here in Ireland overthrew the Abbies and Monasteries that were as Universities to breed Schollars and to send them forth to feed the flock of Christ and gave the Revenues thereof which were the Ecclesiastical Livings of the Church unto his Nobility and lay Gentry that spend the same in many places in hawking and hunting and perhaps in some other worser employments the Church of Christ wanteth Schollars and which is worse wanteth means to maintain those Schollars that otherwise would supply
of them and do you think that this value is sufficient to maintain an able Ministery to supply all these Churches and Parishes as they ought to be or that Popery shall be supprest and the true Protestant Religion planted amongst the people by the unition of Parishes and the diminution of Churches without any augmentation of their means Credat Judaeus Apella non ego Object But you will say his Majesty hath most graciously provided and it is confirmed by the Act of Settlement that a very ample augmentation is added to all the meanest Bishopricks of Ireland and he hath most royally and religiously bestowed all the Impropriations forfeited to his Crown upon the several Incumbents unto whose Churches they did belong Answ I answer That when God placed man in Paradice the devil was ready to cast him out and when God maketh our paths straight and easie Satan will straight put rubbs and blocks in our way to stumble us so though I gave above fifty pounds for Agents money to follow the Churches cause and spent above thirty pounds to procure a Commission to gain that augmentation which his Majesty was so graciously pleased to add unto the Bishop of Ossory yet presently there comes a Supersedeas to stop the proceeding of my Commission How the devil hindereth all intended good and I am not the better either by Augmentation or Agents so much as one penny to this very day and some devil hath put some great rub for a stumbling block in my way untill God removes the same and throws it where blocks deserve to be And though his Majestie hath been pleased to bestow his Impropriations upon the Incumbents yet my Lord Lieutenant and the Council thought it fit to take forty pounds per annum out of those Impropriations for the better provision of the Quire in Dublin and so by that means the Clergy of Ossory are not the better by one penny that the Clergy might be like unto their Bishop for I find but four impropriations forfeited to his Majesty and bestowed upon the Church in all the Diocess and these being set by Mr. Archdeacon Teate to the uttermost pitch that he could they did not reach to forty pounds the last year And to say the truth without fear of any man we are not only deprived of the Vicarial Tythes and offerings by the Farmers of the great Lords Impropriate Rectories but our Lands and Glebes are clipped and pared to become as thin as Banbury Cheese by the Commissioners and Counsel of those illustrious Lords for though his Grace our most excellent Lieutenant the Duke of Ormond is I say it without flattery a man of such worth so noble so honourable and so religious as is beyond compare and for his fidelity and Piety and other incomparable parts scarce to be equalized by any Subject of any King and so many other great Lords are in themselves very noble and religious yet as Rehoboam in himself considered was not so very a bad King but had very bad Counsellours that did him a great deal of dishonour and damage so this most honourable Duke And thus as Christ was crucified betwixt the good thief and the bad so are we betwixt the good Lords and their bad Agents But let them fear least by making their Lords great here on earth they do make themselves little in heaven and other great Lords may have as I fear some of them have such Commissioners and Counsel that as well to make themselves a fortune as to enlarge their Lords revenues will pinch the Parsons side and part the Garments of Christ betwixt themselves and their Lords as my Lord Dukes Agents have distrained and driven away my Tenants Cattel for divers great sums of Chieferies and challenged some Lands that as I am informed were never paid nor challenged within the memory of man And who dares oppose these men or say unto them Why did you so Not I though they should take away my whole estate for as Naboth had better have yielded up his Vineyard than to have lost his life so I conceive it better to yield to their desires quietly than to lose both my Lands and my labour by such a Jury as will give it away though never so Unjustly whereof I have had experience and a sad proof non sine meo magno malo Yet The Civility and Piety of the 49 men I confess the 49. men have been very civil and shewed themselves very fairly conditioned and religious both to my self and as I understand to all other Clergymen and I wish that all Noblemens Commissioners and Agents would be so likewise that their doings may bring a blessing and not a curse upon them and perhaps upon their Lords and Masters Lords and Masters shall answer to God for the oppressions that their servants do under their power that must give an account to God for the ill carriages and the oppressions of the poor by their servants who dishonour their Lords and make them liable to Gods wrath for the wrongs that they do to make them the greater and so receive the greater condemnation for great men must not only do no wrong themselves but they ought also to see that none under their wings and through the colour of their power and authority do any wrong unto the poore But to deal plainly and to shew what respect favour and justice we the poor Bishops and Clergymen have from the great Lords and Courts of justice in this Kingdom I will instance but in the example of my self who after I had exposed my self to the dayly and continual hazard of my life by my preaching and publishing so many Books against the Rebels and Long Parliament which I have unanswerably proved to be the Great Antichrist and had for all their Reign served duram servitutem and suffered more hardship than any Bishop and upon my restitution to my Bishopprick by the happy restauration of our most gracious King having spent above four hundred pounds to gain the Bishops Mansion house where Bishop Bale saw five of his Servants kill'd before his face and himself driven to flee to save his life and which was given to Sir George Askue by Cromwel for his service to the Long Parliament I have fully shewed the favour and the justice that I had at the Kings Bench though I must ingeniously confess my Lord Chief Justice dealt as fairly and as justly as any Judge in the world could do And I do pray to God that both Judges and Jury and all the pleaders may have better at the Bar of the King of Kings Then letting pass the proceeding of the Court of Claim that gave away the Lands and Houses that were in my possession while I was in London though a chief Member of that Court promised that nothing should be done against the Church untill I returned home and acknowledging the civility and fair respect that was shewed me by my Lord Chief Baron and the other
Kerry the Bishop of Waterford hath Lysmore the Bishop of Laghlin hath the Bishopprick of Fermes the Bishop of Dublin hath also the Bishopprick of Glandelo the Bishop of Downes hath likewise Conner and Kilmore whose Lands and Lordships the great Lords and Gentry hold and they the names of those Bishoppricks whereof formerly each Bishopprick was sufficient to maintain an able Bishop If you say the Bishops themselves made away their Lands in Fee-farme I dare boldly and truly say as Christ doth of the like case that they who did it were thieves and robbers Joh. 10.8 and they that received them were no better but they that retain them worse When as now two or three Bishoppricks must be soddered and conglutinated together to make an honest competent means for one learned Bishop This I say sheweth he miseries of our Churches and the difference betwixt the fruits that the purity of the Gospel produceth in our times and the Piety of our forefathers that lived in the Primitive times and afterwards under the manifold mysts and several Superstitions of the Romish Church when the Lands and revenues that they gave to God to maintain the Bishop of Ossory to do him service is now * As I believe worth fifteen hundred pounds per annum and our zealour Gospellers have brought iâ— in the last Bishops time to be scarce worth two hundred pounds per annum and I believe the other Bishoppricks are not now and then much unlike it and so we and our forefathers are not much unlike those two Sons whereof our Saviour speaketh whose Father said unto the first Go work to day in my Vineyard and he said I will not but afterwards he repented and went and he came to the second and said likewise and he answered and said I go Sir and went not So our forefathers lived in the times of blindness and knew not well what was acceptable unto God yet they did to the uttermost of their endeavours and knowledge what they were able to please God and to serve him and we have his Truth and his Will his Gospel and his Mercies plentifully published and poured forth amongst us and we do all that we can to obstruct his service and to evacuate the Religion of Jesus Christ And therefore I do much fear that these blind Christians as our Gnosticks contemptuously call them The Papists shall rise in judgment to condemn our fruitless and sacrilegious Protestants shall rise in judgment to condemn the great and quick-sighted worldlings and fruitless Christians of our time who by their prophaneness and Sacriledge have so much hindered Gods Service and caused our most holy Profession to be so much blasphemed and slighted among Infidels and Pagans and the rest of the enemies of Jesus Christ Object But you will say how can that be Sacriledge or those men blamed that for the reformation of the Church took away those things that were usurped by the Pope and abused by the Monks and Friers to uphold Masses and Dyrges and to continue their Superstition to the great dishonour of God and the hazard of many thousand souls Answ I answer if a thief steals my horse wilt thou take it away from the thiefe and keep it still from me Art thou any better than the thiefe to me or any juster in the sight of God So the Pope and his Popelings took away the Tythes and Oblations the Lands and the Livings of the Church and thou tookest them from the Pope and his Friers And why dost thou not restore them to the Churches to the which they do belong For thou mayst remember that when Nebuchadnezzar had like the Pope robbed the Temple of God at Jerusalem and abused the Vessels thereof in the service of his false God and Belshazar his Son had in like manner prophaned the same by his lascivious quaffing therein with his Queens and Concubines for which he was justly punished by the revenging hand of God Dan. 5.3 25. yet Cyrus when he had taken Babylon and so robbed the thiefe that had robbed God and understood that these holy Vessels did belong to the Service of God in the Temple of Solomon he durst not meddle with them to retain them for himself but lest he should be punished for his Sacriledge as Belshazar was he commanded them to be carried to Jerusalem and to be restored to their former proprietors and for their former use in the divine Worship of Almighty God And so should Hen. 8. and those Lords and Ladies that have taken away the Revenues of the Church from the Pope have restored them to the Protestant Bishops and the reformed Ministers of our Church Cod. Theod. l. 4. C. 16. tit 44. contra Donat. And so S. Aug. sheweth all the godly Emp did Ep 50 ad bonisac militem For so you may find a Decree of the godly Emperours Honorius and Theodosius against the Montanists in these words If there be now any of the Edifices of the Montanists standing which are rather to be termed Dens of wild beasts than Churches of Christ let them with their revenues be appropriated to the Sacred Churches of the Orthodox Faith and in the said Code it is said let the Bishops Priests and Prelates that is of the Donatists be stript of all their Revenues and be banished to several Islands and let those possessions where Superstition hath reigned be annexed to the holy Catholick Church And good reason for it for as the Ark of God when it was taken and abused by the Philistines yet did it not then cease to be the holy Arke of God and therefore when it was afterwards sent home by the Philistines it was received respected and as much reverenced and to the same ends used by the Israelites as it was before as were also the Vessels of Solomons Temple after their return from Babylon So the Revenues of the Church though taken from the Church and abused by the Pope yet being restored again to the Church as they ought to be they have the same effect notwithstanding their former abuse to promote the service of God as they had before For being once dedicated for Gods service they ought never be to alienated from it as I have most fully shewed in my Declaration against Sacriledge but as those Censers wherewith the two hundred and fifty Rebels impiously usurping the Priests Office would needs offer Incense to God were hallowed and therefore God would not suffer them afterwards to be at any time employed for any common uses but commanded that they should be made into broad plates for a covering of the Altar Num. 16. and so the Brass which those Rebels had so wickedly abused should be religiously used by the true Priests for Gods service So the Lands and Revenues of the Church that were once hallowed and consecrated for Gods Divine Worship though the Idolaters did abuse them and the Lay Lords usurp them yet God cannot endure that being once in his possession and given