the rash Lysander lost the Field Oppression as it is enough to make even a Wise Man mad according to Solomon Eccles. 7. 7. so it is an Argument that Justice hath forsaken the Tribunal and without Justice Human Societies become Cages of Ravenous Birds and the Band which is to hold Mankind together must necessarily be dissolved It 's this maintains the health and vigour of the Body Politick and this once taken away must on the other side cast it into violent Distempers Distempers which render it not only weak but deformed and odious and must at last be the Death of it It 's this whereby God intended Kingdoms and Cities should be governed and Men no sooner receive their being but at the same time receive the Principles of this Vertue Nature obliges them to it as much as it doth to self preservation and with their Mothers Milk they imbibe these Inclinations and on these Inclinations the wholesom Laws of all Nations are grounded and whatever Orders are contriv'd by Wise men for the well governing of Societies do all go upon this supposition Nay God himself is concerned to see this Justice maintained in Commonwealths and it is part of his Prerogative to preserve its Laws inviolable so that it 's being lost in a Corporation seems to reflect upon him and as it was he alone that first taught Men to gather into Societies so to let Oppression come among them which is the Bane that kills them to a sensual Eye seems to be no small disparagement to his Providence 2. Such another Disorder is when a Covetous Ambitious Prince is suffered to spoil and harrass the Countrey of his Neighbour Prince who is at Peace with him and not so much as dreams of any Hostile Approaches an instance whereof we have in Benhaded who without any other cause but that of Interest and his own glory fell upon Baashah King of Israel being in League with him and surprizing his Territories plundered and made himself Master of Ijon and Dan and Abelmaine and all the Store-cities of Naphtali 2 Chron. 16. 3 4. A strange way of War to fall upon his Confederate for no other reason but because he is more Potent and to deprive the other of his Right and Inheritance because he is too weak and feeble to oppose him To fancy because I have got a numerous Army that therefore I may do what I list and because I can be more wicked than another that therefore I may lawfully be so To imagine because I am a King that therefore I am exempt from all Laws and because there is no Man above me that therefore I may crush whomsoever I have a mind to to flatter my self because God hath advanced my Throne above other Potentates that therefore the rest must be my Vassals and because they cannot easily resist me that therefore I may make them fall a Sacrifice to my Lust and Glory Conceits monstrous and odious even to Pagans and Infidels and which deserve not only the sharpest Satyrs but Gods severest Vengeance We look upon Joab as a Villain because he killed Amasa Kissing and David justly called him the worst of Men because he Murthered Abner under pretence of Friendship and shed the Blood of War in Peace Thus Ninus takes what he can get because his Neighbours are unarmed and Sesostris of Aegypt discontented that he hath so little makes even his Familiars a prey to his Ambition Actions which in Private Men would be punished with the Hangmans Sword and in Persons of a lower Condition revenged with the most exquisite Racks and Tortures Yet it is not Power can justifie a Sin nor the greatness of a Man turn a Vice into Vertue Robbery is a Crime in a Prince as much as in a Subject and stealing other Mens Goods the greater injustice in a King by how much he stands higher than other Mortals No Prince hath power to act against the Law of Nature and what is intrinsically Evil can never be made Good by the most specious pretences of Authority Princes that are given to such injustice are Enemies of Mankind and no marvel if the Disorders they cause in the neighbouring Dominions are astonishing for the Sin it self is prodigious That which amazes the Spectator more is that such Unrighteousness very often prospers and the Disorders it causes tends to the Renown and splendour of the Perfidious Conquerer for it makes him not only more adored by Parasites and Flatterers at home who call him Great Invincible and a Demy-God but formidable to Nations afar off which like innocent Animals at the approach of the Ravenous Hawk quake as the Rumour spreads of his speedy though treacherous Victory A Scene of Affairs which Providence seems to suffer in and while he in whose Hands the Hearts of Princes are said to be le ts loose the Reins and suffers them to do what they list Men guided by sense can suspect no less than that the Lord doth not see neither doth the God of Jacob regard it as those Psal. 94. 7. 3. Civil Wars when Men of the same Countrey and Nation breaking into Factions imbrue their hands in one anothers Blood and thrust their Swords into one anothers Bowels as the Midianites Jud. 7. 22. When Neighbour fights with Neighbour and those of a Man 's own House prove his greatest Enemies when Members of the same Commonwealth first run into Discontents among themselves and thence into open Hostility one against the other when different Parties first give one another reproachful Names from reproachful Names come to Animosities and feed their Envy and Malice so long till it break forth into a consuming Fire There is hardly any Nation but some time or other hath felt the smart of these Intestine Divisions and if any have escaped the blow it must be because there was nothing in the Country worth contending for How many Mens lives were lost at Rome in the Contentions betwixt Marius and Sylla betwixt Catilines Party and the Senate betwixt Pompey and Caesar every School-boy knows that hath read the History This was the fate of the hot Disputes at Thebes betwixt Ismenias and Archias at Jerusalem betwixt Jason and Menelaus in Greece betwixt the Dorians and Jonians at Athens betwixt Thucidides and Timon in Italy betwixt the Guelphs and Gibellines at Constantinople betwixt Hypatius and the Court Party at Carthage betwixt Hannibal and Hanno at Florence betwixt the People and the House of Medices in France betwixt the Hedui and Sequani and he that shall peruse our own Chronicles take a view of the Quarrels betwixt the White and Red Rose and all the Seditions Rebellions and Divisions under the several Kings of this Island and add to all this what he remembers of the late Civil War that set Ephraim against Manasseh and Manasseh against Ephraim and they both against Judah cannot but behold a very sad Landskip of Horrour and Confusion To see Men Drunk with their Prosperous Fortunes and angry with their own Happiness
the Peoples Loyalty and then made advantage of their Perfidiousness Who made Religion a Stalking-horse to invade the Throne and when he had possessed himself of it was more lawless than the Person whom he pretended to expel for being so Who forced his way to Greatness through a thousand lives and knowing no means to arrive to it but injustice in the highest degree cut down all the Trees that stopt his Prospect who made the Bible subservient to his Sword and held it in one Hand that he might only do greater Execution with the other who under a pretence of Liberty made the Nation a greater Slave to him than they are in Turky and while he gave out that he would set them free bound them but the faster in their Shackles who to reform the Church pulled it down to the Ground and while he made Purity the Watch-word brought in darkness greater than the Aegyptian for he taught Men a new Religion how they might be Devout and yet Rob and Steal and commit Sacriledge without fear or Remorse of Conscience who in the worst sence became all things to all Men to make them all his Prey and complied with several Parties to make them all his Devoted Vassals who could weep to deplore the Misfortunes of the Time while he was the chief Instrument to bring them in and cry out against Monarchy while nothing less was the Object of his Ambition who waved the Title of a King meerly because he saw it was not safe and seemed Humble thereby the better to compass his dangerous Designs and Purposes Who to stop the Clamours of the People did them right thereby to wrong his Prince the better and to make his Murther Legal caused him to be condemned by a Law of his own making who first promoted the Parliaments Independency of the King and then made himself Independent of their Power who first gulled the simpler Party into an opinion of his sanctity and when he had done so wallow'd securely in the shades of the greatest Villany who made himself great by daring to do that which Heathens would have trembled at and so his Glory might be set on the Pillars of Fame was content to make Lucifer both his Instrument and General Thus lived the proud Vsurper but what is more died in his Bed lamented by the Crew that had served him in his Sins disposed of three Kingdoms to his Son who wanted besides Right his Fathers Cunning and Personal Qualifications yet he saw his Successor applauded and fawned upon by Men that were then in Power and had the satisfaction to behold a Man of his own Line in a probability to carry on his own Usurped Authority which was all that a dying Tyrant could desire and greater felicity a Man could not possibly aim at that believed no other Life or if he did could not expect a share in its Happiness yet with his Death his Hellish Laurels did not wither for his Funeral was Royal as if it had not been enough to have lived a King except he died so too and the pomp of his Interrment such as attracted the Eyes of the most curious Spectators Nay as after the Storm is past there remains some agitation of the Waves so the Agents of Foreign Princes that had dreaded this Neptunes Trident while alive retained some awe of his Power after Death which was the reason that with their forced presence they graced his affected Funeral An Accident uncommon and exceeding rare and if Asaph seeing the Prosperity of private wicked Men his Feet had almost slipp'd and he very near sunk into a slight Opinion and low thoughts of Gods Providence what would he have said had he seen Impiety thus publickly honoured not only in Life but in Death as if Heaven had applauded the Heroick Sin and loved to bestow Rewards on Men not only for their great Attempts in Vertue but for daring to be more than ordinarily Profane and Impious But as great as these Disorders are or seem to be they are no blemish of Providence nor doth that Golden Chain look the less lovely because all the Links are not distinctly seen by Men whose Eyes by staring upon Sensual Objects as People that look much on Snow have contracted a vicious dimness And so much will appear from what we shall propose in the second General viz. 2. Why God suffers such Disorders and Confusions to happen in Commonwealths or Kingdoms 1. God doth it to punish a Nation or People for their Sin When the Sins of a People are come to a fatal pitch and the measure grown full it 's time for God by sending such Disorders to lash the generality into better Manners not that God doth instigate them to these Disorders but it 's just with him to withdraw his restraining Grace and not to hinder their wicked Inclinations And when the Prop that upholds the House is Charity and that Charity is abused if the Prop be removed and the House fall it 's to make the Inhabitant sensible of his ingratitude When Pride and Idleness and fulness of Bread and its usual Concomitants Wantonness and Luxury come once to Rage and Reign God justly takes away the Partition that kept the Fire and Tinder asunder and then no marvel if being committed and let loose to fall one upon the other they cause a Combustion which is not easily quenched When the Body is grown Pletharick and the Humours abound the Wise Physician breaths a Vein and though the ignorant Spectator thinks he is going to let out Life yet it 's only to preserve the whole from perishing God sometimes afflicts a good King for his wicked Peoples sake so he permitted the Excellent Josiah to be Slain because though himself was one of the best of Men yet his Subjects were Hypocritical to a high degree and while they seemed to comply with the King in the true Worship of God continued Idolaters in their Hearts So God suffered the Martyr of the day to fall because the Nation that lived under his Shadow were grown extravagant in their Manners And that you may not wonder how God comes to punish the Innocent and let the Guilty go free I must answer That the Innocent though seemingly Afflicted yet lose nothing by the Adversity but only Anticipate Heaven and exchange their Temporal for an Everlasting Bliss a few years sooner while the Sinners though seemingly prosperous suffer signally in the loss of their great Representative for hereupon they must necessarily fall into confusion and while they send sometime to the Vine and sometime to the Fig-tree to Reign over them and know not where to fix they at last inconsiderately yet by Gods wise Permission fix upon the Bramble for their Prince whence Fire comes forth and either Disperses or Consumes the giddy Multitude Sometimes God punishes the People for their Irreligious Princes sake as he sent a Famine on the Land in the days of David 2 Sam. 21. 1. because King Saul had committed
To see them fall foul one upon another and they that might live in ease and safety like Mad Dogs bite and devour one another To see them enraged one against another upon a punctilio of State and as if their Lives were nothing worth throw them away because both Parties cannot be of the same Judgment To see them not only begin their Quarrels upon slight Occasions but pursue them unto Death and Ruine as it is an Argument of intolerable Pride and Self-conceitedness so it 's like the careless Spectator that sees the Tremendous Effects of it will wonder what 's become of Providence in such Disorders 4. Massacres When the true Religion is persecuted as a Pestilent Heresy and mighty Endeavours are used to Extirpate its Renown and Glory when Fire and Faggot become Arguments to confute it and Swords and the Gallows are made use of as the only Syllogisms to batter its Fortifications when it is not only contemned and derided but the Professors of it severely handled and those that dare be so bold as to own it put to most cruel Torments when the Floods of Ungodliness threaten to overwhelm it and the Malice of Men rises to that height that nothing will serve their turn but its Ruine and Destruction Such was the Massacre of the Jews under Antiochus when to live up to the Law of Moses was present Death and to observe Gods Statutes the readiest way to be Tortured when to believe in one God was to be broken on the Wheel and to abhor Idolatry involved the Votary in the danger of most barbarous Usage Thus was the true Religion treated in the first ten Persecutions by the Heathen Emperours when to have a Bible in the House and to be thrown to the Lyons was all one and not to offer Incense to the Heathen Gods was cause enough to be torn in pieces by Bears and Tygers when Multitudes of Christians were driven like so many Sheep to the Slaughter and the Hangmen were sooner tired with Executing than the Professours of Christ's Doctrine with the variety of their Tortures Thus the Church of Rome dealt with the Waldenses and Albigenses from the Year of Our Lord 1334. to 1340. and upward when those innocent Creatures for contradicting the Corruptions of that Church were hurled into the Fire and not to be subject to the Pope in his unlawful Decrees was counted as bad as Witchcraft when Flames were the Portion of Men that would not believe a Purgatory and a Dungeon the Reward of adhering close to the Oracles of the Holy Ghost Such was the Massacre at Paris in the Year 1572. when in one Night many thousands were Murther'd for no other reason but because they were Protestants and vast numbers of Men and Women Murthered like Beasts because they would make the Bible the only Rule of their Faith and Manners when at Rome they triumphed at the Inhumane Fact and like the Jews thought they had done God Service by sacrificing the lives of his Servants to their Rage and Malice This was the lot of the Protestants in Ireland in the Year 1641. when 200000 of them were destroy'd to make the Popish Clergy sport and Men that professed themselves to be of the Catholick Church out-did Indians and Cannibals in their Cruelty when the more Protestants a Papist killed the more he Merited and might tell the Pearls of his Crown in Heaven not by his Beads but by the number of Christs Disciples which as he thought he had sent to Hell and offered to the Devil If God takes care of any thing thinks the sensual Man it must be of the true Religion this we must conceive to be his Darling and if he hath more tender Affections for one thing than another this we must suppose is the chief Object of his sollicitude This makes most for his Honour and his Glory is advanced by nothing so much as by true and genuine Worship This therefore he must be thought to mind and cherish most and to look upon with the kindest Aspect But to see this Jewel scorned derided affronted and its lustre darkened by Clouds of Ignorance and Malice To see this Pearl broken shattered and the dust of it dispersed into the various corners of the Earth To see its Foes live great and those that touch this Apple of his Eye brave it in their pleasures To see them erect their Throne on the Necks of Gods Servants and securely trample on these supposed Favourites of Heaven what can we conclude but that either this is not the true Religion or that Providence is careless and supine in its Protection 5. Such another Disorder is Base and contemptible mens climbing up to the Thrones of Kings and displacing the true Owners and usurping their Authority When the vilest of Men are advanced to Royalty and they that were but Subjects a little before come to sit in their Lords Tribunal vvhen Persons of the Dregs of the People get up to the highest Povver and they that vvere but Scum before come to svvim like Oyl on the top and throvv dovvn Gods Anointed when a Jeroboam from Surveyor of the Kings Works rises up to be King himself and a Zimri that dvvelt in a Cottage before comes to possess himself of the Royal Palace Such vvas the sudden advance of the Famous or rather Infamous Massinello vvho from a Fisherman in a day or tvvo comes to be a Prince and from mending of Nets in a Weeks time is advanced to be more than Vice-Roy of Naples whose contemptible Condition is on a suddain changed into Adorations and his Converse with the meanest of his fellow Subjects turned into bows and cringes from the greatest of the People he that before had scarce a Dog to attend him in a few hours is followed by a Crowd and receives the Courtships and Caresses of an incredible Multitude he that knew little but Obedience a little before now Commands Armies and from a Slave comes to give Law to the proudest of the Spaniards They that before would scarce vouchsafe to look upon him now are glad of his kinder Smiles and his threats that before were accounted little more than the noise of a Hound are now dreaded more than the Almighties Thunder Such was the prodigious rise of the late Usurper whose Crimes and wonderful Successes in his Bloody Attempts have given occasion to the sad Solemnity and the Sackcloth and Ashes of this Day A Man if it be not a Crime to call him so for he outwent Devils in Hypocrisy by whose contrivance the Royal Crown fell down and with the Crown the Church and with the Church the Nations happiness a Man whose Crimes must be detested while time is measured by the intervals of Day and Night and who by his Actions hath fixed such a blot on Christianity as perhaps the Tears of many Ages cannot wipe away a Man who in pursuance of his Dreams was restless till he saw what the Evil Spirit had revealed accomplished and first poisoned
Brethren threescore and ten Persons Murthers them all and fills the City of Shechem with Confusion Things go on merrily and he fears no evil but when he had Reigned saith the Sacred Writer v. 23. Three years over Israel God sent an Evil Spirit between Abimelech and the men of Shechem and the Men of Shechem dealt treacherously with Abimelech which proved both his and their undoing v. 40 54. As great as their Friendship was before God doth but pull out a Pin that held them together and the whole Frame breaks in pieces and while they see no Foreign Power to revenge their former wickedness themselves are made the Instruments to do it God in this case made use of the Law of Retaliation and the Judgment that came upon them was suitable to their Sin Ephraim's Righteousness Hos. 6. 4. is as the Morning Cloud and as the early Dew it passes away Therefore themselves shall be as a Morning Cloud and as the early Dew they shall pass away Hos. 13. 3. so these Men had sown Divisions and Dissentions among the People at last their Sin becomes their Punishment and that which before had been their delight and pleasure proves in the end their Yoak and Burthen They divide themselves and are lost This was the case of the Arcadians Troezenians and Thessalonians of old and hath been re-acted in our days for though such Jealousies and Dissentions seem to come by chance yet there is nothing more certain than that God thereby visits the Sins of those that have been the causes of Publick Disorders and Confusions and when those who have assisted them in their attempts begin to suspect either their Fidelity or Honesty and thereupon plot how to remove the Mushrooms they have raised its Providence disposes their hearts to it not that he who is of Purer Eyes than to behold Iniquity prompts them to Sin but justly sends blindness on their Minds whereby their Eyes become dim to their Interest and they tempted to undermine their own Foundations 5. Sometimes God so orders it that the Authors of such Confusions shall hearken to ill Counsel whereby they may be ruined Ahab by the Prophets Testimony was a Person that signally troubled Israel 1 Kings 18. 18. But behold how Providence deals with him A fancy takes him that he must needs go up and Retake Ramoth Gilead out of the hands of the Syrians yet before he adventures upon the Enterprize he consults both with his Confederates and such Prophets as he had whether the Expedition were safe or no. All but Micah advise him to it and to this Advise he hearkens but see how Providence laid the Scene I saw the Lord saith Micah 1 Kings 22. 19 20 21 22. I saw the Lord sitting on his Throne and all the Host of Heaven standing by him on his right hand and on his left and the Lord said Who shall persuade Ahab that he may go up and fall at Ramoth Gilead and one said on this manner and another said on that manner and there came forth a Spirit and stood before the Lord and said I will persuade him And the Lord said unto him Wherewith And he said I will go forth and I will be a lying Spirit in the mouth of all his Prophets and he said thou shalt persuade him and prevail also go forth and do so And so it came to pass he was perswaded went and was Shot and Died. And though at this day we see no such Visions as Micah did yet we may justly imagine when we see the same events that they are compassed and effected the same way i. e. by Gods permitting some Evil Spirit to put ill Counsel into the Heads of those with whom such Firebrands Advise that acting according to those Counsels they may come to that woful End which their Crimes and Follies do deserve Were our Eyes quick enough to behold the Transactions and Consultations in the Kingdom of Spirits above us could we pry into their Secrets Order Proceedings and Management of this lower World we should be able to resolve a thousand Phaenomena and mysteries of Events which now seem strange and uncouth to our darker understandings for on the Molehills of this World where myriads of little Ants do run those Spirits exercise their power and that which we call Accidental hath been and is contrived by their deliberate Resolutions Thus we may suppose they acted when Rehoboam follow'd the Counsel of his Young Men and rejected the grave Advice of his Elder Senators the very cause of his succeeding danger Thus they blinded the Carians of old who rebelling against Darius set up for themselves but by neglecting the excellent Counsel of Pixodorus were Conquer'd by the Persians Thus they deceiv'd the tumultuous Athenians who following the dangerous Advice of Aristagoras drew the fury of Darius upon them and laid the Foundation of their Ruine Thus they couzen'd that unwary and Seditious People in their Conflicts with the Lacedaemonians while they obliged them to hearken to Cleophon who encouraged them to a vigorous prosecution of the War of which they repented when it was too late for they lost not only all their power and greatness but became subject to domineering Tyrants and lost all their ease and conveniencies too Thus the Seditious Zedekiah was served by them Advised by Jeremiah the Prophet to yield himself to the Chaldean Monarch and expect his Mercy he desperately hearkens to the turbulent Counsels of Men as vicious as himself to stand out against the Babylonian Army which proved his overthrow and the utter destruction of Jerusalem But still those Evil Spirits as they are Gods Executioners so they all must attend his Command and Order and they cannot thus impose on Sinners here on Earth till the Almighty gives them a Warrant for to do so And he may do it as he is the Judge of Heaven and Earth and it 's just he should do so to lash the Insolencies of Men that would confound Kingdoms or Societies 6. Sometimes he sends upon Men who are the Causes of such Disorders a Worm to gnaw their Breasts even a tormenting Conscience Such a turbulent Spirit was Pashur the Son of Immer the Priest in the time of Zedekiah a Man who set both the King and Nobles against the Prophet Jeremiah whereupon God threatens him to make him a terrour to himself which without all peradventure came to pass when Nebuchadnezzar took the City Jer. 20. 4. So that when no visible Judgment appears in such Men there is an Enemy many times within them which frights them worse than all External Violence Cain who was the first that brought Disorder into the World behold how after his Brothers Murther his Conscience haunts him Though there were no People in the World but his nearest Relations yet he fancies every place he goes to full of Men and Enemies and is afraid they 'l kill him Tiberius who scarce let a day pass without some Villany and seemed to be born to the