very strange if any considering men should think otherwise For it is a manifest Contradiction to be a Soveraign or Supreme Prince and to have a Superior Those Kings who have any Power above them are only titular not real Kings The Soveraignty is always lodged where there is the highest Authority And according to the Constitution of our Nation it is most certainly in the King for the Lords both Spiritual and Temporal together with all the Commons assembled in Parliament do by a Solemn Oath acknowledge the King to be Supreme and themselves to be his Subjects and they have in publick Statutes particularly declared the sole Supreme Command and Government of the Militia ever to be and to have been by the Law of England the undoubted Right of his Majesty and his Predecessors and that both or either Houses of Parliament cannot nor lawfully may raise or levy any War offensive or defensive against his Majesty his Heirs and lawful Successors Neither can any Laws or Statutes be made by them but onely such as the King approves Neither is the King accountable to them or to any other or liable to be punished by them or by any other besides God These are the Essentials of Soveraignty or supreme Power to have the sole Power of the Sword to have the Legislative Power to have a Power which is irresistible and unaccountable and no way subject to the coercive Authority of any other Every compleat and Imperial Soveraign hath all these And that we are under such a Soveraign the whole Parliament did acknowledge in the 24. H. 8. c. 12. in which it was Resolved That by sundry Authentick Histories and Chronicles it is manifestly declared and expressed that this Realm of England is an Empire and so hath been accepted in the World governed by one Supreme Head and King having Dignity and Royal Estate of the Imperial Crown of the same The Kings Majesty being therefore the only Supreme Governour in his Dominions next under God and having full perfect and entire Jurisdiction and Authority from God alone which no other Magistrates have but by Emanation from him ought to be revered by us with the highest Degrees of Awfulness and Veneration that can justly be paid to any Person or Power upon Earth The Fear and Hoour we owe to him is greater than we owe to any other and is the very greatest that can possibly be expressed except only that Divine Honour and Adoration which is peculiar to the Deity Thirdly This Awful Fear of our Soveraign Prince if it be really within us will have the very same Effect that the Fear of God hath It will produce a most humble and loyal Submission a most faithful and dutiful Obedience to him We shall execute his Commands with Chearfulness and bear with Patience what he inflicts upon us We shall carefully endeavour to observe and keep all his just Laws that is to say all those which are not contrary to the Laws of God And if it so happen that we cannot comply with his Injunctions by Reason of their Repugnancy to the Divine Commands then we shall meekly and quietly submit to the Penalties that ensue such non-complyance There is but one only case wherein a good and loyal Subject who duly fears and honours his Prince will refuse to obey him and that is when such Obedience will by no means consist with his Obedience to God then indeed he will obey God rather than Man because he fears God more than any mortal Man more than the greatest Monarch in the World But there is no Case whatsoever wherein he dareth either to resist or reproach the Person or the Authority of the King or to offer any Indignity to him For in the fourth and last Place it is to be remembred that all Acts of wickedly presumptuous Disobedience all Oppositions by Force of Arms all reviling Expressions and all manner of Affronts are the most manifest Contradictions to the awful Fear of Soveraign Majesty Where the Word of a King is there is Power Eccles 8. 4. But if his Word be slighted and his Power despised he is not honoured as a King Who may say unto him what doest thou None surely can without great irreverence Is it fit to say to a King thou art Wicked or to Princes ye are Vngodly Job 34. 18. No it is very unfit it is one of the highest Instances of Impudence Rudeness and Unmannerliness It is such Behaviour as doth no way consist with the Deference Obsequiousness and profound Lowliness which ought to be in Subjects But what is it then to take Arms against him Is it not plainly a fighting against God whom the King represents and with whose Authority he is invested Prov. 30. 31. A King like God is one against whom there is no rising up No not upon any pretence whatsoever without open Perfidiousness and Rebellion of which when any are guilty they not only affront their Prince and contemn his Laws and Government they not only act contrary to their Duty and Allegiance but they totally cast off the very State and Quality and Relation of Subjects yea they are such Monsters of Men as do in a great Degree renounce humane Nature and common Civility They are as natural Brute beasts made to be taken and destroyed So St. Peter describes them 2 Pet. 2. 10 12. If we have therefore any Fear of God or the King if we have any Regard to Religion or Loyalty Humanity or Civility we will abhor the thoughts of ever joyning with such salvage untamed ungovernable Creatures such Wolves and Tygers in humane Shape as Rebels and Traitors are Yea if we desire to keep our selves out of danger we will have nothing to do with any of the Friends or Correspondents of such ill men with any factious Designers who do more remotely attempt to destroy the Government by introducing the Changes and alterations of it Which brings me to The third Observable in the Text The useful Caution against Joyning or Associating with seditious Innovators Meddle not with them that are given to change That is joyn not thy self to any turbulent Sect or Party whose Discontent with the present State of Things or desire of Novelty makes them affect a change especially in those two great Interests of a Nation Religion and Government both which the due Fear of God and the King would preserve inviolate Now by how much the better the established Religion and Government is by so much the worse and the more detestable are all such Combinations and Confederacies for the Change of either of them Upon which Account I verily believe no People in the World have greater Reason to hearken to this Counsel of Solomons than we have For wherefore should we desire or endeavour an Alteration either of our Religion or our Government Our Religion is the true Christian Religion restored to its primitive Purity and reformed from the Corruptions and Abuses both of Hereticks and Schismaticks And shall we joyn
the Ordinance of God persecuted his Vicegerent with Fire and Sword and ingulphed the Nation in a Sea of Blood Which perfidious and inhumane Enterprises that they might the better carry on and justifie they pretended to aim at nothing more than the Honour and Happiness of the King in delivering him from evil Counsellors the security of the Subjects in their Rights and Liberties and the Glory of God in the Purity of Religion By these Artifices they strangely â—rought upon the cheated People yea upon divers of the better sort of men â—hose Wisdom and Virtue might have â—ade them eminent if they had not â—…en unhappily infected with some particular Errors destructive of Government By these Methods I say they obtained large Contributions from Persons of all Conditions and all Sexes who freely sacrificed their Moneys to the Treasury for the promoting so specious Designs And besides these voluntary Offerings they seized the Revenues of the King Queen Prince Deans and Chapters and Plundered the Houses of the Nobility and Gentry whom they knew or suspected to be true and faithful to their Soveraign Hence it came to pass that a formidable strength was gathered to them and great Multitudes amassed in such considerable Bodies that they confidently promised themselves an easie Triumph over Captive Majesty And then after various Skirmishes and Battels Sieges and Storms after innumerable Butcheries and boundless Outrages of Violence and Cruelty Spoil and Rapine and Devastation in which many Thousands and Ten Thousand of Brave Men and Loyal Subjects were either Murdered or Maimed oâ— Imprisoned or Impoverished by the Permission of Heaven Villany and Treason was Crowned with succesâ— the Friends of Loyalty were scattered and the Combination of Wicked Usurpers prevailed over the most Just and Gracious Prince But how did they now manage their Victory and what was the blessed Reformation they purchased at the expense of so much Blood and Treasure They reformed the Church by pulling down her Walls and Pillars by devouring her Lands destroying her Ornaments Vestments and Utensils defacing her Beauty sequestring her regular Ministry extirpating her Primitive and Apostolick Government abolishing her excellent Liturgy throwing away all Forms of Publick Worship and tolerating all Religions or rather Irreligions Schisms and Heresies They reformed the State by the oppression of the People the invading and exhausting the Wealth of the Kingdom the Subversion of the Fundamental Laws the Violating those before accounted so sacred Priviledges of Parliament for which they pretended to have taken Arms the Cashiering the Peers of the Realm and the Ruine of the Monarchy They brought us to a glorious Liberty indeed when the King and the Lords being laid aside as useless the Nations Ears were nailed to the Door-posts of the House of Commons and when that House too having Imprisoned or Excluded the far greater and sounder part of her own Members acted all things according to the meer Will and Pleasure of a whole Legion of Arbitrary Princes an Insolent Imperious and Tyrannical Army These things happened to us before the horrid Fact of this Black and Guilty Day these made way for it But then at the Perpetration of that incomparable and unexampled Wickedness all manner of Sins and Mischiefs seemed to be as it were concentred in one Point That execrable Murder and Martyrdom of the most Sacred British Monarch Charles the First of Glorious Memory taking it with all its Circumstances was perhaps the greatest and most comprehensive Sin next to the Crucifixion of the Son of God and the Sin against the Holy Ghost that any of Adam's Degenerate Race was ever guilty of since the Creation of the World Was perhaps the greatest Judgment that the inflamed Wrath of Heaven did ever inflict on these sinful Nations since they were Nations was such a Sin of this then Barbarous Island and such a Judgment upon it as the wide Ocean with which it is environed could hardly afford us briny Tears enough to lament and deplore That a King should be Tryed and Sentenced in a Judicial manner with ceremonious Pomp as a Capital Criminal by the meanest of his own Subjects against all Laws Divine and Humane and contrary to their own publick Remonstrances Declarations Promises Vows and Covenants That a Protestant King should be Murdered not secretly in a Corner by the Dagger or Pistol or Poison of a bigotted Jesuit a Clement a Raviliac or some such Roman Assassin but openly upon a Scaffold neer the Gates of his own Palace by a bold barefac'd Protestant Execution before the Sun at Noon Day before thousands of his own Subjects before divers Foreigners of all Neighbouring Countries this is such a monstrous Parricide as hath been an astonishing Spectacle to the present Age and will be an incredible History in the future In short that a King so Wise and Just so Pious and Virtuous One whose Life was the visible Transcript of the excellent Religion he profess'd whose Government by a Redundancy of Goodness made his Subjects seem to Reign with him one who was so great a Patren of the Church so tender a Father of his Country should be persecuted and driven out of the World by his own rebellious Children with all this hellish Insolency and Indignity after they had most solemnly professed that they would make him a Glorious King after he had most sincerely endeavoured to make them a Happy People and after they had obtained from him so large Concessions as no King granted before as no Subjects before demanded I say that men should ever be so wicked as to act such an ingrateful Villany among us that God should ever be so angry as to permit such an over-whelming Calamity to befall us this is a strange and a new thing in the Earth such as our Ancestors never heard of such as I wish Posterity may never imitate Thus they made their Soveraign a Glorious King indeed when they would not have him to Reign over them when they would not suffer him to be any longer Rex Diabolorum as the King of England hath been sometimes called and then truly was but furiously removed him to a Celestial Throne among the blessed Saints and Angels Thus they effectually separated him from ill Counsellors when they sent him to that High and Holy Place where 't is impossible there should be any But that Angelical advancement which made his Martyrdom a Royal Triumph was the greater aggravation of the Regicides Diabolical Guilt And that far more exceeding and eternal weight of Glory which turned his Loss of three Temporal Crowns into a light Affliction to himself made his three Kingdoms Loss of so Glorious a Prince the heavier Judgment upon them Had our many Usurpers been only the Authors of this one Mischief this alone would have abundantly proved them the great Plague of Heaven for the Transgression of our Land But after and besides this behold a long Train of direful Consequences The King being Murdered his only lawful Successor the
Heir apparent both of his Virtues and his Kingdoms was forced to be an Exile for his own safety and all lawful Government was banished with him Those who had the boldness to Arraign sacred and inviolable Majesty made no scruple to pass their unrighteous Sentence on the most Innocent of the People The Ax which had tasted Royal Blood could not afterwards be satisfied without frequent Sacrifices of the most Dutiful Subjects whom the devouring Sword had spared And the truly Keepers of our Liberties took care to secure them by making the whole Nation but one great Prison and themselves the Jaylors These Birds of Prey began now to divide the Spoil bestowing upon one another the Lands of the Crown the Revenues of the Church and the Estates of Delinquents as the Rewards of their great Service in delivering their Country from one pretended Tyrant and setting up forty or fifty real ones in his room For we were now governed by a vile Remnant of Representatives who justly deserved the Infamous Name that was generally given them And when these upstart Mushrom Princes of the New Common-wealth had pretty well blooded and fleeced the Nation when they had Condemned without any Law Executed without any Crime and sequestered without any Mercy until like the Locusts and Caterpillars they hardly left any thing green and flourishing among us in a word when they had done every thing that was good in their own Eyes and bad in the Eyes of all the World besides at length a leading Member of their Tyrannical Juncto who also bore the greatest sway in their Murdering Army being a more cunning Impostor than the rest out-wits them all pulls them down and Rules by himself with as absolute a Power as was ever assumed by the most Arbitrary Monarch This English Grand Seignior set over the Land a company of Bashaws under the Title of Major-Generals who in their respective Provinces according to the Command of their Imperious Master insolently domineered over the Nobility and Gentry disarming decimating and banishing several miles from London all whom they pleased to call Malignants that is to say all the Kings Friends that had survived the soregoing Miseries The Power he gave to these Decimators was great and boundless and their Proceedings were purely Arbitrary in Oppressing Robbing and Spoiling wheresoever they suspected any to be guilty of Loyalty taking from them yearly the Tenth Penny unless they bought off that annual vexation with a valuable Composition So that the Free People of England were become as very Slaves as any that live under the Turkish Government And after this great Usurper was called into another World to give an account of the cruel and bloody Tyranny he exercised in this we were under perpetual Confusions and various Changes of Government and Governours Britain seemed then no fixed Island but as it were a rolling Ship in the boistrous Ocean steered by no Pilots but the mutable and alternate blasts of contrary Winds tost up and down from one Wave to another and made the sport of the proud insulting Billows until the miraculous Goodness of Heaven settled us again upon our Ancient Foundations restored our Rightful Monarch and Excellent Monarchy of which our great sins had so long deprived us And so I come to the Second Observable in the Text the cause of this National Judgement which is the same that is the cause of all other Publick Judgments even the publick Guilt the Transgression of a Land It is the multitude of National Sins that introduceth the multitude of Governours If a People suffer under the successive Invasions numerous Oppressions and unbounded Tyranny of many Princes all this mischief whoever are the Instruments in bringing it upon them is the just Punishment and genuine Product of their own Iniquities God often permits the Hands of Sinners to execute his Wrath upon Sinners and makes the Wickedness of some the Chastisement of others When his Indignation is moved by the provok-Impieties of a sinful Kingdom and when the time for Judgment is fully come he will no longer shelter it by his Providence from the Sons of Violence and Blood no longer restrain the Tumults of the Rabble and the Madness of the Crowd no longer obstruct and defeat the mischievous Designs of turbulent Male-contents who hope to raise themselves by the publick distractions In such a Kingdom he often suffers a fawning Absolom to steal away the Hearts of the People or a cursed Sheba to blow a Trumpet and cry To your Tents O Israel As God turneth a Fruitful Land into Barrenness for the Wickedness of them that dwell therein so he many times permits the best of Governments to be subverted because Men will not lead under it a quiet and peaceable life in all Godliness and Honesty If a Nation happy in their full Possession of their Rights and Liberties in the most excellent Laws for their security and in a Wise and Gentle Prince to rule over them have no due sense of their own happiness but shall grow discontented and clamorous and affect a Change when they know not what to wish it is just with Heaven to plague such a froward and ungrateful People with Changes enough with all the various Miseries and Confusions with which prosperous Rebellions and Usurpations are constantly attended The Life and Safety of the King is the Life and Safety of the People their Welfare depends upon his And therefore one usual Method which God takes to punish the Sins of Subjects is to deprive them of their Lawful Soveraign of him who is the Breath of their Nostrils the very Soul of the Body Politick and to give them up to the cruel and killing Mercies of all that by Fraud or Violence can invade the Government Samuel plainly told the Israelites that if they should do wickedly they should be destroyed both they and their King 1 Sam. 12. 25. This was verified in good King Josiah He must fall When God would remove Judah out of his sight He who did that which was right in the sight of the Lord and walked in all the ways of David his Father and turned not aside to the right hand or to the left He who was so great an Enemy to Idolatry so Eminent a restorer of the Law so munificent a Repairer of the Temple like unto whom there was no King before him that turned to the Lord with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his might according to all the Law of Moses like unto whom there arose none after him even he must be cut off in the Prime of his Days when the Wrath of Heaven was kindled against the Sins and Provocations not of himself but of his Subjects And it hath been the Fate of divers excellent Princes to be snatched away from a People unworthy of them when God hath determined to visit the Transgressions of such a People with Rods and their Iniquities with Stripes with the worst
And if the Fear of God be considered as it is a filial Reverence compounded with Love it will be much more powerful to move and excite Obedience to him Reverence willingly offers readily pays and chearfully performs what was forced and constrained by meer Fear If Awe and Affection be united in a devout Veneration of the God whom we serve his Service which before was a Yoak and a Burden then becomes perfect Freedom so pleasant and so natural to us that to refuse it will be an Extinguishing of our own Joys a Resisting oâ— our own Desires and a Violence to ourselves A man that highly reveres another is as much inclined to please him as he is to please himself and as unwilling to offend him as he is to wound his own Breast Obedience therefore is an Inseparable Effect of filial Fear or Reverence And that which is so is the most certainâ— Mark of the Truth and Reality oâ— our Religion We all profess Religion and the Fear of God we all pretend the highest Awe and Reverence to his divine Majesty But do we sincerely endeavour to serve and please him Are we guilty of no wilful disobedience no chosen and deliberate violations of his holy Laws If we indulge any of these the true Fear of God is not in us For it is fourthly to be noted That these are the Contraries and Opposites unto this Fear All wilful and presumptuous Sins are perfectly repugnant to it These are Affronts and Contempts bold and Impudent Practices which carry the Marks of great Irreverence clearly written upon their Brow When men deliberately chuse to do those things which they plainly see and know to be contrary to the Divine Laws this is a manifest Discovery that there is no Fear of God before their eyes Let us therefore prove the truth of our Religion by the sincerity of our Obedience particularly by our Obedience to those Commands of God which require us to be Loyal to our Prince That we may fully shew what an Awful Sense we have of the Majesty and Soveraignty of the most high God both in our Words and in our Actions let both our Words and Actions declare how much we revere his Power and Authority not onely in himself but in those also whom he hath set over us And so I come to the second part of Solomon's Advice wherein we are admonished unto the Fear of God to subjoyn the Fear of the King who is Gods Vicegerent Of which I shall discourse in the same Method as I have done of the former by considering its Nature Degrees Effects and Contraries First As for the Nature of the Fear which we owe unto the King 't is very much of the same nature with that Fear which is due to God himself onely 't is inferior and subordinate to it For Kings are honoured in holy Scripture with the adorable Name of God And the Laws of England looking upon the King as a God upon Earth do attribute unto him in some Analogy diverse Excellencies that belong properly to God alone such as are a kind of Omnipotency in raising men from Death to life by pardoning whom the Law hath condemned a certain Omnipresency by his numerous Officers who every where represent him and little less than an Infallibility and an absolute Perfection of Wisdom and Righteousness For our Law will have no Error no Injustice no Folly no Imperfection whatsoever to be found in the King The Fear therefore which we owe to our dread Soveraign even like that which we render to the divine Majesty is a most profound Reverence for an high Esteem of and a most humble and dutiful Affection unto his Sacred Person and Authority It is a filial Fear compounded of Dread and Love For the King is the Father of our Country by whose Providence and Protection we are supported and defended by whose vigilant Care and Conduct we quietly enjoy all that we possess Of this as St. Jerom hath observed even the Philistines were so sensible that it was a constant Custom among them to call all their Princes by the name of Abimelech which signifies both Father and King And it was the Promise of God to his Church that in the Times of the Gospel Kings should be her nursing Fathers and Queens her nursing Mothers Which great Blessing hath been and is most visibly enjoyed by us in this Nation as much as by any People under Heaven Since then by being born the Kings Subjects we have the Happiness to be his Children the very law of Nature doth oblige us to pay him all the Awfulness and Affection and Duty of Children If I be a Father saith God where is mine Honour If I be a Master where is my Fear Now the King next and immediately under God is the great and common Father the supreme Lord and Master of us all And therefore secondly The Degrees and Measures of Honour and Fear which are due to the King are the very highest and the greatest next unto those that are due to God himself The supreme Power and Authority under God being lodged in the sacred Person of the Soveraign Prince he may justly demand the supreme Honour Within his own Dominions he is only less and lower than God he is greater and higher than all Ranks and Orders of Men. Yea all the States of the Realm joyned together all the Nobles and Commons and the whole Body of the People have not a Power and Authority equal to his All his Subjects whether Publick Magistrates or private men not only severally and apart but joyntly and together are under his Command For otherwise he would not be the King of a Kingdom or a Political Society united under one Form of Government but only a King of single men separately taken and so he would be a strange kind of Chimerical and imaginary Prince a King of nothing but a Rope of sands In the first Epistle of St. Peter Chap. 2. ver 13 and 14. that great Apostle makes this plain Distinction between our Subjection to the King and to all other Magistrates whether taken collectively or distributively We are to submit to the King as Supreme to all others as his Officers and Delegates Sent and Commissioned by him all of them together as well as each of them apart having received all their Power and Authority from him and he having received his from God alone For the King is no Substitute of the People but the Minister of God and his Power is the Ordinance of God This is the Voice of Scripture and of Reason and this I may with the greatest Confidence because I can with the strongest Evidence affirm it being not only the unanimous Opinion of all the Wisest Politicians and Statesmen in the World but also the Catholick Doctrine of the Christian Church for many hundreds of years together that a Monarch or Soveraign in his own Dominions hath no Superior but God Almighty And indeed it would be
with those who would exchange this sober rational well-tempered Religion either for the Extravagancies of Enthusiasm or the Follies of Superstition the Delusions of the Sectaries or the Idolatries of the Romanists Shall we joyn with those who would exchange decent and duly regulated Ceremonies either for rude and unseemly Gestures on the one side or for a Multitude of ridiculous and pompous Rites on the other who would turn pious and primitive Discipline into lawless liberty or intolerable Impositions sound and ancient Doctrine in all Points agreeable to the written Word of God either into uncertain and unwritten Traditions or into novel Enthusiastick Divinity and serious well compos'd Forms of Prayer understood by the People either into mere Battologies and Extemporary Effusions or into unedifying Masses in an unknown Tongue It is a great and a most true commendation of our Religion worthy to be ever remembred which was given by his late Sacred Majesty in some of his last Words to the then Prince of Wales our now most Gracious Soveraign His words are these I do require and intreat you as your Father and your King that you never suffer your Heart to receive the least check against or Disaffection from the true Religion established in the Church of England I tell you I have tried it and after much Search and many Disputes have concluded it to be the best in the World not only in the Community as Christian but also in the special Notion as Reformed keeping the middle way between the Pomp of Superstitious Tyranny and the Meanness of Fantastick Anarchy And as for the Government over us if Reason and Scripture may be heard it is the most excellent Form of Government It is a Monarchy and the best sort of Monarchy not a Despotical and Arbitrary but a Political or Paternal Monarchy such as is administred by Just and equal Laws not an Elective but an Hereditary Monarchy free from all Interregnum and from many Mischiefs to which Elective Kingdoms are subject It is such a Monarchy as by an adadmirable Temperament preserves at once both the just Liberty of the Subject and the Soveraign Majesty of the King It is a Monarchy of great Antiquity We have been under the Government of Kings beyond the utmost Records of all History Of Kings we may justly boast more than any other Nation in the World For it was our Island that yielded the first King and the first Emperor that ever embraced the Faith of Christ Lucius and Constantine Princes who in the Glory and Stability of their Actions abundantly answered the significant Omens of their Illustrious Names One of our Kings also was the first who cast of the Antichristian Usurpations of the Church of Rome and settled the Reformation by a Law And it hath been ever since under the same good Conduct of Kings that the true Christian Reformed Religion hath been hitherto preserved among us Shall we then be so unwise as to hearken to the Antimonarchical Insinuations of those restless Demagogues who would alter and change subvert and destroy this most excellent this most ancient Form of Government And what if some Men will not or cannot apprehend that our Government deserves to be thus extolled What if they suppose this Constitution to be none of the best Yet every plain Country-man may understand That the Mischiefs of a Change are unspeakable A Change of Government cannot ordinarily be introduced without a Rebellion and all the fatal Consequences that attend it a Rebellion which commonly begins with factious Combinations under Pretence of Defending Religion Liberty and Property proceeds by armed Force and all the Ways of secret Stratagem or open Assault and ends in Blood and Slaughter Spoil and Devastation Rapine and Plunder Oppression and Sacriledge a Rebellion I say which if prosperous and successful make a great Change indeed overturns all Order and Rule and licenses all the Injustice in the World lays the Reins upon mens necks and takes off the Restraints of their Appetites throws down the Fences of Law and leaves all open to the Incursions of Violence gathers mens Lusts into a common Storm and fills all things with Horror and Confusion breaks up the Foundations of the Earth and lets in a kind of Hell upon us All these dire Effects of Subverting the Government this Nation hath sadly felt and if we took any Notice of the Black and Fatal Day in the last week they must needs at this Time be fresh in our Memories But perhaps all this doth not discourage the men that are given to Change The seditious Incendiaries care not although the whole Kingdom be in a Flame if they can but warm themselves at the Fire and at the End of all this Blood-shed Ruine and Devastation they expect nothing less than the rich Spoils of a happy Victory and the Glory of Triumph I shall therefore consider in the last Place what may abundantly confute and confound such vain Hopes The dismal Presage in my Text concerning the swift Vengeance that shall surprize such ill Men and the unknown Misery into which both they and their Associates may tumble headlong For their Calamity shall rise suddenly and who knoweth the Ruine of them both that is both of them that are given to change and those that joyn with them Or else it may be understood of the Destruction that shall come upon them both from the Lord and the King Who can tell what terrible Judgment what heavy Punishment both God and his Vicegerent may inflict upon them Who can measure the divine Vengeance which is armed with infinite Power Who can limite or appease the Wrath of a King which is as the Roaring of a Lyon or as a Messenger of Death Kings are said to have long Hands and God hath longer and heavier which can soon reach and will most severely chastise such Disturbers and Overturners of Peace and Government In the Thirteenth to the Romans St. Paul hath very plainly foretold their Fate that they shall receive to themselves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Judgment or as we render it Damnation If we take the Word in the mildest Sense the meaning is that according to the ordinary Course of Gods Providence they shall receive some grievous Punishment here in this World They seldom die the common Death of men nor are they visited after the visitation of all men but are usually cut off by the visible Strokes of Vindictive Justice And their Punishment is as signal as their Villany They resist the Ordinance of God and they receive a Punishment worthy of God Every Age hath afforded Examples of this but I will only instance in the Judgments which followed the first notorious Sedition that happened in World and the last great Rebellion in our own Nation That first Sedition of which we have a large and full Account in the sixteen Chapter of Numbers was the Insurrection of Corah and his Accomplices against Moses and Aaron under pretence of
Justice and Clemency But Fourthly He was more especially angry with them for rejecting himself For God himselfe was in a peculiar manner King of Israel and by asking a King to go out and in before them they threw off the Government of God himself They have not rejected thee says God to Samuel when he appeared discontented at their Propositions but they have rejected me that I should not reign over them This then was their great Sin and Fault that they asked a King when they had already the best of Kings when the Lord their God was their King They were not culpable because they chose to be under Monarchical Government for they were under that before but because they preferred the Government of a King before the immediate Government of God For during the Times of Moses and Joshuah and the Judges they being inspired Persons who acted by a Divine Impulse the exercise of their Authority was under Gods own immediate direction But when God gave them a King though he himself was in some sense still their King and though the King which he gave them was his Minister and Vicegerent who ruled by and under him and received the Laws of Government from him yet he then in great measure left the Administration of it to the Will and Pleasure of Princes and to the Methods of humane Policy Now I confess indeed the Government of an Earthly King is not so eligible as the Government of God himselfe but it may notwithstanding be much better than any other Form of humane Government and it is manifest God thought it better because when he foresaw that the Israelites would in time be weary of his immediate Government he gave direction in their Law for setting up a King not for erecting a Republick or Popular State As we find in Deut. 17. 14. When thou art come to the Land which the Lord thy God shall give thee and shalt possess it and dwell therein and shalt say I will set a King over me like all the Nations that are about me thou shalt in any wise set him over thee whom the Lord thy God shall chuse And the Hebrews observe that there were three special Precepts given their Fathers which they were obliged to obey after their settled Possession of the Land of Canaan First that they should have a King over them Secondly that they should destroy Amalek Thirdly that they should build a Temple Of which three the first was concerning the setting up a King because the other two were to be performed by him It seems God was so far from being an Enemy to Kings that he designed a perfect Regal Government for his own People as soon as they should be well settled in the promised Land They were then to have a King a King not in any wise to be set up by the Election of the People who have no Power to govern themselves and can transfer none to another but a King of Gods own chusing and a King like those of other Nations with all the external Magnificence of Royal Majesty For so Samuel represents the manner of their King which though look'd upon by some Learned Men as a Description of Arbitrary Tyranny is supposed by others to be only an account of what is necessary to the due support of Regal Power according to the just Grandeur and Dignity thereof He tells them that their King should take their Sons and appoint them for himself for his Chariots and to be his Horsmen c. and to be Captains over Thousands and captains over Fifties c. and take their Daughters to be his Confectionaries and Cooks and take their Fields and Vineyards and Oliveyards that is to say the Tenth of them for so it is expressed in the following words the Tenth of their Seed and of their Vineyards and the Tenth of their Sheep c. All which seems to be absolutely requisite to the Royal State of a Soveraign Prince who cannot subsist without Servants and Officers of all sorts both for his Domestick Affairs and for the Execution of his Government nor maintain his Servants without a sufficient Revenue by Publick Taxes such as the Tenth of their Fields Vineyards and Flocks which was the usual Tribute paid to the Eastern Kings And now it must be acknowledged that Samuel does upon this account dissuade the Israelites from desiring a King because the necessary supports and expences of Royal Power would seem oppressive and burdensome to them who had been hitherto free from such Charges and Exactions For while they were governed by their former Monarchs by the High Priest or the Judge the Government was no charge at all to them The High Priest had no other Maintenance when he was Supreme Governour than when he was only High Priest And the Judge whom God extraordinarily raised up was secured and supported in his Government by the extraordinary Presence of the Divine Power without the Aids of Men or Money without any Mass of Treasure or numerous Guards and Trains of Servants But this is no disparagement at all to the ordinary Kingly Power as if that were more expensive and burdensome than other Forms of humane Government because it was like to be a new Charge to a People whose peculiar Priviledge it was to be free before from all such Services and Tributes The Israelites then were at length by Gods own Wise Institution placed under the Conduct and Dominion of compleat and perfect Kings who had not only the Power and Office but also the very Name and Title with all the Magnificent Appendages of Regal Majesty The first of these Kings was Saul of the Tribe of Benjamin who after God had chosen and exalted him to that high Dignity was received as a great Blessing from Heaven with the most joyful Acclamations of the People And the Holy Ghost hath thought fit to leave it upon Record that they were only the Children of Belial that said how shall this Man save us and that such Miscreants were the only men who despised him and brought him no Presents 1 Sam. 10. 24. 27. The People had desired a King that might go out before them and fight their Battles which desires and expectations Saul at first very well answered For when he took the Kingdom over Israel he fought against all their Enemies on every side against Moab Ammon Edom Zobah and the Philistins and whithersoever he turned himself he vexed them And he gathered an Host and smote the Amalekites and delivered Israel out of the hands of them that hated them 1 Sam. 14. 47 48. And although God was pleased to rend the Kingdom from Saul for sparing some of Amalek contrary to the Divine Command and for invading the Priests Office yet he was so far from abolishing Kingly Power that he carefully appointed a Successor in it and sent Samuel to Anoint him Indeed it was ever his purpose to settle the Kingdom in Judah and therefore he took occasion from Saul's
the Ages that are past There is no sort of humane Government which is not liable to some miscarriages and where the Soveraignty is invested in many there it is liable unto most Neither is it possible that there should be so much Tyranny in a Monarchy as there may be in a Republick unless we can imagine that one Tyrant may be guilty of more Outrages and Cruelties than thirty or forty who may have all the same Will and the same Power to do mischief that the one hath In a word all those good Offices and beneficial Acts of Government which the many Chief Magistrates in a Common-wealth can perform by the advantage of their number may be done much better and easier by one Soveraign Prince with the Assistance of his Counsellors and Ministers But the abuses of Supreme Power can never be so great or so many when it is committed unto one as they may be when it is committed unto many There is now only the last Observable in the Text to be considered by us namely the principal means of the happy and durable State of a Nation under Monarchy and that is the Wisdom of the Monarch his understanding and knowledge But by a man of understanding and knowledge the State thereof shall be prolonged Niloxenus being asked what was the best and most useful thing in the world Answered A King who being the Image of God is above all and commands all But when the King resembles God not only in his Supreme Power and Authority but also in his Divine Wisdom and Goodness When Light and Knoweldge and Vnderstanding and an excellent Spirit is found in him He is then certainly the greatest Blessing that Earth can enjoy or Heaven bestow A King that sitteth in the Throne of Judgment scattereth away all evil with his Eyes Prov. 20. 8. His Wisdom and Circumspection protects his numerous Subjects against those injuries which they may receive either from within by Disorders among themselves or from without by the Assaults and Invasions of a Foreign Power And this he doth by opposing and subduing the Authors of such Mischiefs For a wise King scattereth the Wicked and draweth the Wheel over them Prov. 20. 26. That is He discovers and dissolves the Associations of ill Men disperses their Assemblies breaks their Combinations and gives them the due Rewards of their unjust Enterprises The only Troublers of a State are wicked and unreasonable Men these therefore his Prudence suppresseth that he may procure and preserve a settled Peace and Tranquillity Thus the King by Judgment stablisheth the Land Prov. 29. 4. Although the common sort of People be of a perverse Nature Vain and Ignorant Proud and Contentious impatient of Restraint desirous of unbounded Liberty unwilling to be tied to Laws hard to be tamed and apt to run into Confusions yet the Prince who is well skilled in the Mystery of Empire bridles this Behemoth puts his hook into the Nose of this Leviathan reduceth the wild and boisterous Multitude to some Order and Quietness and by inflicting exemplary Punishments on some of the worst of them keeps the rest in due Bounds The Wise Monarch being well acquainted with the various Humours and Passions of Mankind and especially with that diversity of Temper and Manners which may be observed in his own Subjects applies himself properly to them and so manages them as to make their contrary Studies Inclinations and Affectitions joyntly conspire to advance the common Good He understands the Nature and Circumstances of his Affairs views things not only in their present Posture and superficial Appearance but searches them to the bottom enquires into the probable Issues and Events of them considers their Causes Concomitants Effects and Consequents with all their accidents and relations and useth not only his own Judgment but the best advice of the wisest men within his Dominions by which means he finds out the fittest Expedients for providing for the Safety and Prosperity of his Kingdom and the improvement of its Honour and Reputation His Laws are excellently contrived for the publick benefit not too gentle because such are seldom obeyed nor too severe because such are seldom executed He will reign in mens Hearts and Affections as well as over their Bodies and that he may be no less loved than feared he allays the Terror of Irresistible Majesty and the Dread of Supreme Power by gracious Assurances of his Royal Goodness He looks upon Justice and Mercy as the great Pillars that support his Government and hath an equal regard to them both His Throne shall be established in righteousness Prov. 25. 5. and upholden by mercy Prov. 20. 28. He is not so rigorous as to be wholly intent upon Justice nor so remiss as by his mildness to bring his Authority into Contempt He distinguishes Times and Seasons knows when to Pardon and when to Punish when to loosen and when to straiten the Reins of his Government He discerns Persons too not only who are good Subjects and who are Enemies or disaffected but also who are able and faithful Friends whose Reports he may credit whose Judgment and Integrity he may trust and who are dissembling Flatterers and Sycophants those Wolves in Sheeps clothing those sly Traytors under the Mantle of Loyalty He knows whom to employ and whom to reject whom to reward and whom to chastise Prov. 14. 35. The Kings Favour is towards a wise Servant but his Wrath is against him that causeth Shame The Constancy also of the Prince is a considerable part of his Prudence and he preserves the Nation he governs in a long and happy stability by being stable in his own Resolutions agreeable to himself suiting his Actions to his Words and those to his Principles and all to the Rule of right Reason For tho' he accommodates himself to the various circumstances of Things Persons Times and Events like the skilful Pilot who according to the different State of the Sea and the several changes of the Wind doth diversly turn and guide his Sails yet in all the Mutations Revolutions and Vicissitudes of his Affairs he persists unmoveably the same obviating every Emergency and managing every Case with a stedfast Presence of Mind and even Temper of Soul and a uniform Method of Procedure either regulated by his own former Experience or by the Observations of History In short the Glory and Majesty of a Wise Monarch shines always with the same bright Rays casting a fair Lustre and diffusing a benign Influence all about so that if any sort of People under his Dominions be not quickened and warmed by his kind Beams it is because their free passage is hindered by the gross Mists of Error Prejudice and Disaffection or by the interposition of some such Obstacles His prudent Administration makes his good Subjects happy But 't is no wonder if those men live somewhat uneasily under the most excellent Government who instead of Loyal Obedience to it are continually misrepresenting libelling and opposing