A SERMON PREACHED In St. Pauls Church London before the Right Honourable the Lord Major Lord General Aldermen Common Council and Companies of the Honourable City of London February 28. 1659. BEING A day of solemn Thanksgiving unto God for Restoring of the Secluded Members of Parliament to the House of Commons The Common Council And preserving the City and a Door of Hope thereby opened The fulness and freedom of future Parliaments The most probable means under God for healing the hurts and recovering the health of these three Brittish Kingdomes By JOHN GAVDEN D.D. Ezek. 21.26 27. Thus saith the Lord Remove the Diadem and take off the Crown this shall not be the same exalt him that is low and abase him that is high I will overturn overturn overturn it and it shall be no more untill he come whose it is and I will give it him Restat ut pauciores pluribus cedant hoc uno stant popularia imperia aliter casura H. Gro. Hist. Bet. l. 17. pag. 150. LONDON Printed for Andrew Crook at the Green Dragon in Pauls Church-yard 1660. Aleyn Major A Common Council holden the 29. of February 1659. Ordered that the thanks of this Court be given to Dr. Gauden who preached Yesterday before them at St. Pauls Church And that he from this Court be desired to print this Sermon SADLER To the right Honourable THOMAS ALEYN Lord Mayor of the City OF London THE Court of Aldermen and Common-Counsel AS by your Desire I was induced to preach the following Sermon so by your Order in Common Council I was requested to print what I preached I have obeyed you in both and supererogated in the later adding something prepared but omitted for want of time and a respect due to your expectation of a second and better course on that Festival This I have done not only as compliant with your Christian Commands but as solicitous to conform all my endeavours to the publick Good of your City and our common Countrey which a great part of the Church of Christ and many precious souls as well as mens bodies Lives Liberties Honours and Estates are embarqued All which have for our sins been long engaged in a tempest of War and sea of Blood nor have they been able to make any fair Port or happy Haven these many years since they lost their Pilots and Compass their King and Parliaments by the various Euroclydons of mens passions Lusts and Interests which have tossed them to and fro with every wind made great waste of all that is precious for Religion Justice and Honour besides Estates and Lives of men in the three Kingdomes threatning all either with speedy and utter Shipwrack by forreign Invasion or an everlasting storm by domestick confusions untill the unexpected and undecerned providence of God began to open to your and the Countryes prayers some door of hope by the prudent valiant and succesfull Conduct of the present Lord General Monck from whom all good men expect all good things nor can he deceive them without deceiving and destroying himself and his Countrie Your gratitude to God for this seasonable dawning of Mercy which seems to bespeak a great calm occasion'd your solemn Convention that day and my preaching to you In which work you cannot wonder if I endeavoured to shew my self a Work-man that needed not to be afraid or ashamed being very sensible with you of the great many and long hurts of the daughter of my people both in Church and State I then freely declared them to you I deplored them with you I proposed the methods of cure to you as fully as the time will permit and as freely as became my duty to my God and my conscience As I would not injure any man or fester the times so I abhor to flatter them which is the greatest injury a Preacher can do to Church and State Some I hear were offended then late of Christs of John Baptists and Saint Pauls preaching at the plain dealing I used which possibly was from thier overrawness and soreness more then from my roughness As I aim to do things faithfully personally so decently and discreetly Nor do I think I am to learn of those Censorious Catos how to preach any more then they will learn of me how to buy and sell or how to fight and war No man may wonder if I dare to reprove those sins which some dare to do or approve but dare not hear of or repent The parrhesie or freedom of my speech as a man a Christian and a Preacher was such as became my feeling of the publick miseries my desire of the publick tranquility and my sense of that fidelity I ow to God to my Countrey to you and to my own soul These are not times to palliate and speak smooth or soft things Never age had fouler humours or prouder tumours more felt and more painfull more hard and less mollified These I would help to cure that so we might recover publick health together with our wits and reason our Laws and Religion our good Confidence and Government our Peace and Unanimity all which we have lost since we lost our heads in Church and State Our full and free Parliaments consisting of King Lords and Commons in which the soule and life the honour and happiness of these Nations are bound up And no part of it is more concerned then your famous sometime flourishing and still populous City in whose happiness the whole Nation will be happy and in its misery all must be miserable Since London is not only as a ponderous Byas to the great bowl which draws all parts towards it but it is as the Mistress Lady or Queen to which every Village City and Countrey of the Nation as officious Hand-maids study to present all manner of costly comlyness not only feminine as the superfluity of peace and plenty but also masculine for London like Pallas is furnished as with men of Counsel and Conduct with Treasure and Strength with all sorts of Armes and Aminition being a Camera Imperii Britanii a vast Magazine of men and money a nursery of all Arts Mechanick Ingenuous and Military a great entertainer of Learning and a noble encourager of Religion wanting nothing to make it self and the Nation happy if it have such heroick minds and honest hearts and become so rich so great and so Christian a City 'T is true like plethorick bodies great care must be had how ill humours yea and good ones too are put into motion since the first cannot well be long kept in nor may the second be purged out The first threatning dangerous inflamations the second no less dangereus Evacuations Here Prudence Order Moderation Confidence and Unanimity are required besides Zeal and Courage in order to recover your and our former health in Church and State which was made up of an admirable temper and constitution till sin tumults violence and war cast us into these Feavers Convulsions and Confusions with which
chief Magistrate of a Commonwealth to be similis altissimo as high as the highest in three Kingdoms which unity of this Church those have sought most subtilly to divide whose interests and purposes was to destroy it that by balancing of parties they might better keep up themselves as dancers on the rope are wont to do This restoring of the Church to its pristine unity is to be done by such an harmony of Doctrine as may be publickly owned and confessed by such an uniform way of worship as shall be publickly recommended and encouraged by such an authoritative and orderly Church Government among Bishops Presbyters and People as may carry on the Discipline of the Church for Ordination and Censure with gravity and honor with piety and charity redeeming both holy things and the Ministers of them from that vulgar insolency and Plebeian contempt under which they are fallen and have long lain either by their own indiscretion levity and divisions or by the petulancy force or fraud of others whose aim is to have no Presbyters as well as no Bishops yea and no Churches of the Reformed Religion That lenitive of equanimity forbearance and moderation in respect of consciencious Dissenters from the publique consent customs and constitutions in the Church which Christian charity requires and publique peace with safety may bear will best be prepared and applied when we fully see what is noxious malicious and intolerable what is only inconvenient and imprudent or infirm and venial in mens opinions and pretensions to be sure such a wise method may be used and such a course taken to have able Ministers and honest Magistrates concur in their judgement and joynt endeavors that the Justice of the one and the gentleness of the other the ability and sanctity of both in their places and performances may be such as shall render the established Religion so venerable and conspicuous as will in a few years draw all sober men to it when they shall see nothing in it but what is for the main conformable to Gods Word and necessary either for the being ot wel-being of Humane and Christian Societies As Civil so Ecclesiastical hurts are best that is soonest easiest surest healed revertendo ad leges bonas antiquas by returning as the wounded Hart to Dictamnum to those Laws and Canons wâ— are not therefore bonae quia antiquae but therefore antiquae quia bonae in which the aequum unum bonum make the vetustum Their verity equity and piety gave rise to their antiquity and their antiquity gave reverence and solemnity to their equity or goodness T is certain there can be no compleat health in the body till every part every limb every vein every vessel doth its Office in due time and place irregularities must be rectified defects supplied excesses repressed ill humors purged and all reduced by Law to good order A blessed work and to be done with as much Moderation and gentleness as the fidelity of the cure will permit and the spreading of the disease doth require wherein many parts may by weakness or by nearness to the fons morbi the first peccant or ill affected part have contracted sad distempers which will easily be cured of their anguish if the evil neighborhood be mended Here generous and gracious remissions are just and Christian to misled multitudes and to such whose penitent errors shew they were not of malice but credulity and mistake who are more zealous now for health than ever they were to be debauched and disordered so much to their own and the publique affliction Acts of pardon Amnesty or Oblivion are excellent lenitives Publico bono tam publicae quam privatae simultates injuriae sunt condonandae to pardon as well publique as private losses and injuries to the publique peace to interpret the intent and meaning of either side to have been good who persist not in evil the zeal of some to maintain their Loyalty to the King for which they thought they had the clearest commands of Gods Laws and mans The zeal of others to preserve the lawful priviledges and fixed authority of Parliaments against any thing that by violent overthrowing of those must needs hazard the overthrow of all possibly neither of these parties might be so bad or blameable as to the first intentions but that they may easily be reconciled in the medium which both first professed to intend namely King and Parliament setled laws and established Religion if this had been kept to the quarel had been soon ended in Church and State the misery was that by jealousies and misunderstandings the passions and transports of both sides might so overbear them as to occasion those sad conflicts and consequences upon both which neither of them at first intended but deprecated and detested mean time while humors were in motion new and unexpected diseases got head under the name of interest of State of liberty and common equity which had no law little reason or Religion So between the Episcopal Presbyterian and Independent Parties much of the acidness and sharpness of the humor would be allayed if this Poltice of charitable censure and interpretation were applyed one all sides that the first did but aim to maintaine the order and eminency of presidential Episcopacy which was so universal so antient so primitive so apostolical and so prosperous in the Church of Christ the second designed onely to bring Episcopacy to such a paternal temperament with Presbytery that the whole Clergie of a Diocess and the concerns of Religion might not be exposed to one mans sole jurisdiction without the such joynt counsel consent and assistance of Ministers as is safest for Bishops Presbyters and People the third of Independents or Congregationists which seemed to stickle for the interests of people in religious transactions where their souls are so much concerned what Minister they have and how both he and others of their congregation behave themselves either to the edification and comfort or the scandal and grief of that part or members of the Church with which they actually congregate and communicate It seems but agreable to the ancient usage of the Churches of Christ in St. Cyprians Tertullians and Irenaeus his time that no publique transactions much less impositions touching Religion should be made without fairly aquainting the Clergy and Christian people too with the grounds and reasons of them that Church-government might not seem to be a tyranny or an arbitrary and absolute domineering over the faith and consciences of Christs flock but a mutual and sweet conspiring of the Shepherds with the sheep to make each other happy in truth and love by orderly authority and due subordination I should be glad to see the beams of this candor this kindness this charity shine in all faces from all sides that the Shiboleths of different dialects and designes the carnal and unhappy discriminations of I am of Paul I of Apollos and I
such children nor have so learned Christ as to expect his Kingdom to be of this world though in it yet not after its methods of the sword but by the word of truth and spirit of patience thus came the King of Sion the other by the sword of blood is a rare project for Muncer and Knipperdolling for Hacket and Arthington when they can be merry in peoples miseries with populus vult decipi decipiatur people have a mind to be deluded and t is fit they should be so when credulous people will believe in any spirit an hundred to one but some lying spirits and deceivers false Christs and false Apostles will come among them who shall make them believe light is darkness and darkness light that good is evil and evil good that their iron chains are bracelets of gold that factious Conventicles are purest Churches that Synagogues of Satan are the truest Jews or children of Abraham that partial Conventions and Senates sifted and purged affronted and bafled by tumultuary or armed force are full and free Parliaments Which name and thing of Parliament every sober and understanding English man justly venerates and highly esteems in their due and only true constitution so Parliaments are justly honored as flos corona gentis the cream flower and crown of a Nation the anchor and center under God of Laws Liberties Lives and honors of all that is dear to us in this world yea of our Religion too A Free and full Parliament is the very Palladium pacis publicae the best preserver and restorer of our peace publick health and all honest interests the most august and honorable Assembly in the world Quo sol illustriorem non aspicit as Bishop Andrews calls it in his Tortura Torti pag. 291. the best tempered constitutions of spirits and humors of power and counsel in a Nation the oracle of publique wisdom the magazine of publique strength the source and fountain of publique order and authority the treasury of our riches the sanctuary of true Religion the ark in which the Church of England is embarqued the Conservatory of both sanctity and civility the best umpire of our civil differences the most equanimous Censor and reformer of manners the grand Trustees of Church and State when so full and free as becomes men of conscience and honor Who would not submit their honor estate liberty life and all things temporal to such a Judicature of his Country-men such Arbitrators of the publique choise But to cry peace peace to the body when the whole heart is faint when the whole head is sick when the very brains are beaten out when the vital and best spirits of a Nation are almost expired and exhausted when the military and pretorian insolence shall stand over the Senate or Parliament as Hercules with his club over Hydra's many heads This partiality is such a tyrannous imposition on reasonable men as if they were commanded to believe and declare that a part is equal to or more than the whole that glow-worms are brighter than the Stars and Meteors or Comets more benigne than the Sun and Moon that all the wisdom and piety of a Nation were contained in a Knapsack as the Holy Ghost was carried in a Cloak-bag from Rome to Trent Men need but count the pole or tell noses to tell what a free and full Parliament means which comprehends all the Representatives and Trustees chosen by the Nation besides the Peers who were the great Council to the Prince Peace as health includes the good constitution of the whole but cheifly of the most Noble principal parts peace of Church and State at home and abroad will be far from that Nation whose publique counsels are at variance and their cheif Councellors are either fighters against themselves or oppressors of one another to serve some partiall which must needs be a Sinister base and bad interest for no counsel is good in or out of Parliament which is not for the publicks good in which every legal and just interest is contained Indeed it s a meer cheat put on the poor Patient the daughter of my people when vaine and empty words of peace peace are used and yet either the sword or the exactor or the oppressor devoureth every way and every day when God and man his word and the violated Laws peoples sad experience and tired patience their exhausted estates and dayly alarms proclaime there is no true peace no honest and just no safe and secure peace which indeed is not to be expected while such Witch-crafts are imposed and such wicked purposes partially and violently promoted utterly to deceive undo and destroy a people which brings me to the fourth particular Fourthly The {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} lye or fallacy which the Spirit of God by way of Irony expresseth they have healed thus they pretend and brag but slightly {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} super leve ut leviculum tanquam rem nihili {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} LXX despicientes vili-pedentes cum illusione Syr. cum ignominia verbis mendaciorum suorum Chald. Thus Translaters and interpreters render the word variously but to the same sence arguing the little respect of piety honesty equity and charity or humanity which was in these vaine glorious and ungracious healers who either wanted skill or will or power and influence or due authority or they were slighters and contemners of the publiques health onely intent to their private wealth and advantages They never searched the bottom of the Nations great crying sins disorders and sufferings nor applied seasonable just and meet remedies to either yea they festred and enflamed the lighter hurts to greivous ulcers small faults offences mistakes differences and jealousies which did arise in Church and State they either dressed these scratches with Vinegar and gall onely with sharp and picquent corrasives without any lenitive or moderation or else by a dilatory negligence and supercilious carelesnes they let publick distempers and hurts run on till they were less capable of any cure or patient of good applications Yea and by a superfluity of wanton cruelty they either widened the wounds and made their probes their punniards or else dressed them with poysoned spunges while they seem to purg them as one that is killed by a glyster or potion And at best by a most impupudent hipocrisie they have skinned over the hurts with some shew of setling what was shaken and of reforming what was amiss when indeed no men did more deform the beauty or ruine the welfare hinder the healing of the publique than these Healers by their enormious sins and outragious lusts by their unjust and violent actions by their partiality and impotency of their passions by their evil eyes their fowle breath and their rough hands which are the instruments of bad hearts and base minds Little or no publique healing is expectable from men that are
of rigid Presbytery hath been heavier than the loyns of moderate Episcopacy It is a Monstrous either want of skil or of conduct or constancy for publique Physitians to let things run to such impolitick lapses under the pretence of curing the hurts of the daughter of their people as while they sought to recover the frequency of Parliaments thereby to moderate all enormityes and remedy all burthens inconvenient in Church and State that at last the publique welfare should come to that sad pass or ill fare that some things called Parliaments should be thought the greatest publick grievance and what convention is there so illegal and contemptible which some flatterers of times and powers will not christen and consecrate with the venerable name of that almost sacred Senate How desperate and sad a State is it when any grievance should be called a Parliament or any Parliament prove a publick grievance as if Parliament had the name from Parium Populi Principis lamentum the lamentation or complaint of Prince Peers and People or their contempt till at length even military insolency dared to adventure as the requital of the long and great pay which they as Soldiers had received from their dear Country-men to garble and purge to shufle and cut to lay out and take in Parliaments at their pleasure like a stock at Gleek yea and not onely to act against them and without them but above them in a game of Government wholy new to England called Stratocracy Mean while good God! what became of the wits of some of our wise Physitians and our confident Surgeons Could they not have foreseen and prevented by discreet counsels and moderate methods of seasonable applying State Physick those swoonings and heart faintings those convulsions and dyings those groans and bleedings of Church and State of Kingdoms and Commonwealth of Laws and Religion of Magistracy and Ministry which have all suffered in twenty years of tedious attending their cure more hurts than they ever did for an hundred years by all the diseases that were pretended so necessary to be cured that rather than fail all even head and members limb and life it self must be ventured where was the vertue of former oathes of late Protestations of all their Covenants and Vows the Antidotes which they had taken or given against Anarchy and Apostacy Sage and well-advised Physitians must still consider how subtil and Proteus-like distempered humors and spirits are in a body that is foul they instantly being moved but not removed slide as from one part so from one disease to another as easily transmuting interests and dangers as the scales of a ballance go up and down when more weight is cast into one than the other it presently follows the preponderancy and grows lower when heavier which was before higher because lighter So in publick or epidemick distempers preventive and prophylactick medicines must be used as well as Cathartick and purgative else things will by secret and insensible steps suddenly vary from one extream and oppression to another as the cold and hot sits of a Quartane especially if the grievances of sharp and unseasonable remedies like some corroding plaisters follow the grievances of the sore and disease so either stupifying instead of suppling or exasperating instead of mollifying or cutting noble parts quite off instead of reducing them to due temper and proportion State Physitians must be as wary of using too much of the salt of popular Proposals and the niter of levelling principles as other Physitians are of using Quick-silver uncorrected or unmortified for they are both most acute poysons if not well prepared and aptly applied by which either unfit or unseasonable or immoderate or rude or forcible applications men are quickly carried beyond their own duties and others deserts for want of that caution conscience charity and discretion which is necessary for all those who meddle in matters of life and death in private much more publick healing and welfare else the quick as well as the dead flesh may be cut off and consumed the vital as well as vitiated spirits and humors may be exhausted The very Arteries and Sinews of Government are prone to be rotted and the whole fabrick of the body will fall one limb from another Especially when by the fury or fear of Prince or people things are brought to that pass that all other medicines being laid aside nothing is made use of but the weapon-salve that ungnentum armarium the sword of war which hath seldome the vertue of Achilles his sword which was to heal as well as to wound hence follow those horribe healings which like Simeons and Levi's cure of the Sichemites when they were sore destroy both prince and people either lopping off the armes and legs of the body Politick the strength and multitude of the Nobility Gentry and Communalty which is the glory of a King and Kingdome or else by a dreadful abscission cropping off the very head of Soveraginty from the body of the polity the first reduceth a Nation to its stumps and makes it a cripple a long time the other makes both its appearance and its motions as monstrous and deformed as if a body should move without an head as it was in those dayes when there was no King in Israel or as the Giant Polyphemus did when blind he gropeth for Vlysses so are a great people when in the darkness and confusion of Anarchy they seek in vaine for that order wisdome and authority which are the body soul and spirit of Government and are eminently comprehended in the head with which the whole body best corresponds when happily compacted together This principal part once taken away by violence the body like fouls whose heads are wrong off may flutter for a while with blind inordinate and dying motions but no better can be expected unless as in Hydra many heads could presently spring up in stead of one which is neither easily nor suddenly done in Nations whose native courage emulation spirit and metal raiseth up many rivals for soveraignty and as many disdainful enemies against all that either obstruct their pretended power or affect to enjoy it themselves 6. When these pretending healers are much for a new Paracelsian practice for unexperimented applications or medicaments of their own inventions which are occasionally extracted and Chymically made with sin and force by themselves and such as are of their faction but they do not natively flow as the balme of Gilead doth from the tree of good Government and polity that is from those Laws and constitutions which have been long approved as most proper for the Nations welfare which without doubt are best able and most apt both to preserve and restore the health of the daughter of my people no counsel practice or power of Prince or Potentate or Parliament that are praeter or contra-legal can be for long or sound healing but rather proves more noxious and infestive at last
to the publique peace For the Law which is power regulated by wisdome and wisdome asserted by just power and both confirmed by the Parliamentary consent of all estates concerned this is the Radical moysture or native balsome by which the lamp of life is preserved in the body Politique as this decayes so spirit and vigor health and harmony peace and protection love and life decays Yea where force is necessary to be used yet it must be limited and commissionated by law else it is but a Lion broke loose or a ranging Bear or a ravening Wolf or as a mutinied Army no better then a tumultuary riot and violence like the fighting of a body with it self in fits of the falling sickness such new pits and cisternes will not hold any water for they are not onely crackt in the making and marred upon the wheels but they presently dash against one another as earthen pitchers they are by-paths of extravagant power and fallacious pretentions but not comparable in point of health and safety to the good old way bona antiqua probata which long time had liked and attested to be very good Such as put on in all haste Sauls Armour of Soveraignty which they never before essayed to wear nor have shoulders fit for it will soon find it not onely inconvenient for them but combersom dangerous and in the end pernicious if they mean indeed to kill those Gyants those Goliahs of uncircumcised enormities which defie God and Law it is better to take those smooth stones and that sling to which as Masters of assemblies or Magistrates or Parliament men or Justices they are wonted according to the Law and the duty of their place than to cumber and engage themselves in such uncoth high and heavy undertakings which are seldome other than disadvantagious and destructive as always dangerous to the counsellors and actors no less than to the publick peace and welfare for as Tacitus well observes Consilia callida inhonesta prima fronte laeta tractatu dura eventu tristia new and illegal projects are commonly pernicious and crying at last however they smile and flatter at first nor can any violence or success heal a Nation or a conscience where the Law smites by accusing and the conscience by condemning men for their wicked principles and unjust proceedings 7. When these pretended Healers leaving all wonted and approved medicines which Gods word and the laws of the land right reason and true religion do warrant or allow fly to their inchantments as if they would heal by charmes and cure by Philters or amulets as by carrying Bibles in their hands by using much Scripture phrase and expression by following sermons and fasts and prayers by affecting an odd kind of canting way of writing and speaking by zealous pretending of sanctity and Christian liberty or through reformations of advancing the cause of God and Kingdome of Jesus Christ by crying up providences and successes by conjuring up strange fears and hopes jealousies and expectations like so many Ghosts and Goblins to scare and amuse the common people Lastly by flying to raptures inspirations enthusiasms holy convulsions and such like quaking and quacking tricks as pretend no less to the skill of healing all the hurts of the daughter of my people than Wizards and cunning men do to cure all diseases of man and beast Thus the Temple of the Lord the Temple of the Lord is urged when they intend to destroy Church and State it is superciliously yea very surlily spoken to persons much better every way then themselves Stand by we are holier than you we are Abrahams seed and the true Israel of God The work of healing Church and State is the work of Saints as soone as they can agree what way to take what plaisters to make and what power to get into their hands that they may apply their rare Cataplasmes or Emplasters Thus some tell us there must be no King but King Jesus and themselves sitting on his right and left hand in all power Ecclesiastical Civil and Military judging the twelve tribes of Israel for they strongly fancy England to be Judea or the holy land and most of the people to be of late turned Jews Others will have no Bishops nor any thing that belonged to Bishops but onely their good lands and houses the spoiles of those Egyptians others will have no presbyters nor tythes nor Temples but arbitrary and unmercinary Preachers in occasional Barnes and Stables or sub dio in open fields who will do the work of Christ without mans wages It were well if their Souldiers would do so too in their holy wars which are voted by some to be the work of Jesus Christ some would have they know not what themselves but they attend further light by which they may better discerne the way of healing the Nations and their own hurts Mean time they look neither to the Law nor the Testimony neither to the rule of piety equity nor charity as if a little chattering of pious or rather impious nonsence were sufficient to cast out the legions of Divels or the clay and spittle of their lips were able to cure the many distempers of these Nations especially when the blindness boldness and folly of such Operators and Circulators is so manifest to all men that have eyes inlightned by reason or religion by Laws of God or man that I hope it shall proceed no further Have we need of mad men as Achish King of Gath speaks of David disfigured to a frenzy Are they likely to be healers of others whose diseases are so got into their crowns that they are not onely fantastick but fanatick to the tune of the Maniches and Circumcellians that is people of no just and honest of no settled or constant no rational or religious principles morbus destruit artem a good Physitian is not fit to be his own or others Physitian if he be distempered much less these men than who no men have discovered more craziness of mind and crookedness of manners having little fear of God and less reverence of men either their ambition or their indigence or their idleness or their Jesuitick juglings or their desperate designs to turn all into rapine blood and confusion makes them impatient that any men of better skill and honester wills than themselves should come nigh the Patient or apply those All-heals or Panaces and Catholicons which are no where to be found in their Pedlars packs or Apothecaries shops where poisons are set off with the specious titles and inscriptions of sanctity and liberty and light but in the known Laws of God and man rightly interpreted and impartially executed according to Equity Order and Charity not in those godly formalities or gracious extravagancies or illegal irregularities with which some vaporers have made so great flourishes for some years and so long afflicted the daughter of my people and would for ever have done
have Councels power and Authority interest and influence fit to advance the publick welfare by correcting the distempers and reducing all to a due constitution of health They that is 1. Those Princes or Kings Judges and Chief Magistrates who being themselves vicious or Idolatrous or Hypocrites or vain turning Piety into Policy and Religion into reason of state not onely infect the people by the contagion of an impious example but are willing the people should be as bad as themselves That for their enormities being followed by their Subjects they may seem less by the Imitation and as it were Approbation Kings that rule their people not by Law and Justice but by will and Passion more for their own pleasure than the publick Welfare that are great Oppressors flaying as well as fleecing their people yea breaking their bones and eating their flesh Ruling men not as rational creatures of the same Creator nor as brethren in the same Saviour sons to the same Father of their Countrey but as mere Slaves and Vassals forgetting that every King hath a King in heaven above him to whom he is subject and must give account not onely of the hurt he hath done and the wounds he hath made on the soules and bodies the estates and consciences of his people but also of their Health and good he hath left undone when it was in his place and power like the Sun in the firmament or as a little God among men to have been {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} a Catholick good to Church and state that thousands might have been blessed by them in this world and to eternity blessed God for them Not only the hands but the mouths eyes of Princes are healing of their peoples evils if they will but rebuke and reprove frown upon and discountenance evil doers Mens sins and Accounts enlarge according as their influence and relations ampliate which carry their obligations with them to God and man Great place and power are of all things most to be avoided if they onely serve to aggrandise a mans sins either of omission or commission for to augment his Judgment and Eternall torment 2. Those subordinate Counsellors and inferior Magistrates who are under the command of man and more of God these heal slightly when they are not men of Integrity fearing God and hating Covetousness but crafty Complyers with the inordinate lusts and passions with the illegal commands of either Princes or people contrary to their oaths so by flattery or faction to make way for their Ambition and gain by the undeserved favor of either or dividing one from the other by a most unnatural war and jealousie Such as please man rather than God and love themselves more than their Country or the Church such as prefer their bodies and Estates before their souls and put the healings of the Church and true Religion in the last place or Rear of affaires and when they profess to heal the Irreligion of others by severe Acts and Ordinances against Adultery Swearing Prophaness debauchery drunkenness corruption injustice c. yet themselves are higher by the shoulders than the most of the people in these and other enormities As if Peers or privy-Counsellors or Counsellors of State or Parliament-men had a Priviledg to sin more or to repent and suffer less than other men Nothing weakens the credit and Authority of any publick Lawes so much as when the Law-givers least observe them or are the first that break them like Physicians that prescribe strict diet to their Patients but themselves indulge all manner of Epicurisme Here every one is prone to retort Physician heal thy self The best things are commonly done by the best hands Religio medici Conscience is here required as well as his Science They will hardly do their Country good who care not either to serve God or to save their own souls Men should make conscience of private actions much more of publick adventures which are of grand consequence as the undertakings in war and not to be done rashly slovenly slightly and indifferently Nor may publick Counsellors or Ministers of State like Achitophel think they do wisely or safely because they go with the vogue and stream of times with the winde and tide or humor of some people in their prevalent Factions discontents and clamors by which vote Christ himself was crucified Mark 15.13 Common people in their Paroxismes or fits of discontent like sick and pained patients are ill Dictators to their Physicians who must advise better for them than they would for themselves else they will heal their hurts very slovenly slowly and ill-favouredly to their own sin and reproach as well as others pain and charge Nor is it enough for Aarons excuse to say The people are set upon mischief when they would needs have him make them visible Egyptian Gods to go before them under the figure of a golden calf to be instead of their true and invisible God publick Persons and Honorable Counsellors as Joseph of Arimathea must not go quâ itur sed qua eundum as peoples fury or the prevalent Faction drives them but as the Word of God and the Lawes of the land direct them else they shall bear not onely their own but the iniquity of their people who sin and suffer unwarned and naked hurt and unhealed upon the account of such cowardly Counsellors and corrupt Magistrates or Ministers of State all whose wisdomes will come to nought and they will at length like Achitophel be snared in the halters of their own twisting 3. Those Priests and Prophets those Pastors and Teachers those Bishops and Presbyters who are in Publick Place and sacred Authority as to the things of God the matters of Religion and mens souls good These heal slightly when they do the Work of God negligently when they skin over scandalous publick sins as Ely to his Sons with soft reproof when they sowe pillows under Princes Parliaments and peoples elbowes when they fear the face and offence of men more than of God when they are workmen that need to be ashamed their Lives and Actions confuting their Instructions and their doing making their Doctrine to blush when they heal publick Enormities or calamities by I know not what novel Inventions and magick spels of fine words which are no better than the powder of a post compared to the approved Catholick prescriptions of 1600 years which were soveraign for Clergy and Laity to preserve order and unity soundness of Doctrine and inscandalousness of manners in the Church of Christ under Christian Kings and Queens who were bountifull nursing Fathers and Mothers to the Church of Christ and the Clergy yet not by the Dominion and pomp luxury and tyranny of Bishops nor yet by the Factious and refractory humours of Presbyters much less by the schismatick sauciness of people who cast off both Bishops and Presbyters but by the fatherly
which are now chronick or inveterate of many years continuance and very deep reaching from head to feet into such a posture of healing and into such healers hands as may be best able and honest on which account as these Souldiers who can do nothing against the truth and Law against Church and State but for them will deserve great honour and rewards from the Nation and its Parliaments full and free So people must blame themselves if they chuse for Healers or Physitians such men as are neither for wisdom and skill nor for courage or conscience nor for honesty or vertue nor for good example or reputation or yet for well-gotten estates of any value or publique interest nor ever probable to heal others since themselves are sick and sore either of fear and guilt or of Schism and Faction or of superstition and sacriledge or of Rebellion and Anarchy or of the itch of novelty and mange of popularity or of the plague of immorality and debauchery From such Healers both Civil Sacred and Military so unhealed so unwholesome so infectious so destructive to Church and State to Law and Gospel to Justice and Religion good Lord deliver the daughter of my people 5 Lastly Not only these unskilful or unfaithful or unwilling persons of publique influence are blamable for not healing the hurts of a Nation when they have authority and opportunity as well as power or for healing so slightly that things are never the better nay worse and worse But further there lyes no small sin and blame upon the Patient the people or community First when they are not conscienciously careful what Physitians or Surgeons they make choice of and put themselves with their lives estates liberties and lawes bodies and souls into their hands but adventure upon every pragmatique Emperick and confident Undertaker Next when this is done commendably as truly I am prone to believe it was in the first Elections of the long Parliament if they could have quietly kept together without tumultuating factions and fatal divisions for people then not to acquiesce as they ought under God in their skill and honesty onely following them with such modest Petitions as are necessary and such complaints as are comely also with their prayers to God for a blessing But for the populacy then to cluck into parties and conspiracies according to the cunning of some Agitators for novelty and factors for troubles then to break out into tumultuary rudenesses and seditious menaces and at last to become dictators to their Physitians and like gouty feet to threaten the head and shoulders and hands if they be not cured of their anguish after their own fancy not after the Rules of Art and Law of Health These are so far from being Healers that they are the greatest hinderers of their own and others publique health in the world yea the venome and acrimony of these fretting and turbulent humors subtilly diffused among the divided vulgar and by their means re-infused into the publique hurts and real grievances cannot but strangly increase the malignity of distempers throughout the whole habit of the body which {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} pestilent and depraved state of the generality of the people divided and distracted like Demoniacks or possessed with fears and jealousies with envies and hatred with hopes and other unreasonable passions is much harder to be cured and more dangerous to the publique than the disaffection or inflammation the discontent or ambition of any one part of the body which is easily corrected or counter-ballanced with the Antidote as it were of all other sound parts which are far the major number When therefore a sick Nation hath done its duty in the choice of its Healers The way is to assert the Honor and Authority of those orderly Physicians not to suffer any intruding Empyricks or extruding Mountebanks by fraud or force to drive these away that way may be made for their cruel activity and unsatiable gain It will prove an endless and costly cure which permits it self to every one that hath a minde to be tampering The best way is patiently to submit to their own Parliamentary choice and to Gods dispensation by their means In this way there is hope if people can be still they may see the Salvation of God Patients will make mad work if they may controle and cudgel their Physicians Although it is possible that the crying sins committed in a Nation may be such that no outward means can cure its sores and maims especially if the noblest and most vital parts of the body being cut off or grievously wounded there be a clamor of blood unjustly shed crying to heaven for vengeance which vengeance if a Nation will hope to escape and be healed they must be sure not to adopt the sin by after silence or Smotherings But rather so publickly to expiate it in wayes of Repentance as it may not be imputed to the whole Nation and their Posterity As the desperate Jews imprecated His blood be upon us and our children in the case of Christs being put to death by envy and faction by popular clamors and Statepolicies when against all justice of God and man yea against the sence and conscience of Pilate none of the justest judges he was condemned to dye to gratifie a popular and military importunity to which some Scribes and Pharises Hypocrites together with some covetous and ambitious Priests had exalted the credulous and cruel common people who are prone to triumph in the Tragick executions and ruines of their betters and Superiours as a kinde of victory over the others greatness and a levelling of eminent honor to their own meanness and baseness 6. But It is now time for me in order to give way to the pains of my learn'd and reverend Successor and to avoid the tyring of your patience at the first Stage when you are to go a second It is time I say for me to bring up the Rear and to present you in the Sixth particular with the vera sanandi methodus the true method of publick cures of healing the hurts of the Daughter of my people in Church or State For the precipitant preposterous or presumptuous neglect of which these Medicasters are here blamed reproached and threatned by the Spirit of God with whose Philanthropy as with every good man that politick and indeed pious because charitable maxime beares sway Salus publica suprema lex The welfare of the whole in all its integral members and essential parts as compacted by the constitution and order of the publick polity is the supream Law rule measure and end of all just Councels and honest actions which aym at the health or healing of a Nation As {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} is {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Beauty is the due proportion of parts with decent colour So {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Health consists
{non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} in the harmony and orderly constitution of all the humors and parts of the body That nothing necessary for the well-being of the whole be wanting That all grand defects be supplyed That what is weak be strengthened what is dislocated be restored to its place That there be no dividing of what should be united That what is divided be gently closed and composed That there be no such redundancy or overgrowing of any humor or tumor in any part as to rob and weaken others or to swell and exceed in themselves or to deform and inflame the whole In brief the true and safe method of healing effectually the hurt of the daughter of my people is 1. Medicos optimos accersendo By calling to her help wise and worthy Physicians as I have formerly touched men of skill and experience of Honesty and Ability of honor and conscience who prize a publick Good Work above any reward and think it the highest temporal reward to do their country good in which they serve their God and their Saviour the Church and State they must be Physitians that are not by much study and practice run out to Atheism as some corn in lusty ground doth to straw and halm but such as know what belongs to Religio medici the piety of a Christian as well as the mystery of a Physitian my meaning is people must take special care in their choice of Parliament-men that they be not Mechanick or Mercenary or Military obtruders of themselves who have much to get and little to lose by troubles whose fortunes and estates must be vampt and mended by their practice upon the Church and State But such Gentlemen of quality and repute for wel-gotten and wel-used estates that they may deserve to be esteemed Heads and Fathers of their Tribes and not the Tails or Posteriors as the Scripture speaks to the reproach of some publick persons Such in whom the Country may have sufficient caution and security for their love of Justice Order and Peace by what they have to venture and lose in tumults wars and oppressions Commonly desperate minds attend desperate fortunes and the motto of such is Quocunque modo rem and oportet habere The multis utile bellum hoped advantages as Lucan observes in the Cesarian and Salust in the Catalinian and Appian in the other Civil Wars is the spark fewel and bellows for the most part to civil perturbations private not publique interests are usually looked at For how can it be that the full and found parts of the body Politique should hope to mend their condition by war any more than men that are well and not delirant or raving in a Feavor and madness should by bruising and beating and cutting and wounding themselves and all that are near them expect to make themselves more strong or more comely 2. When the Patient hath done himself so much right as to get good Physitians able and honest for the publique care Their work is First Morbum decernere vulnera perscrutari to find out the true disease to search the wounds througly and impartially yet with as little pain and disorder to the Patient as may be with a clear and judicious eye with a gentle but faithful hand with a tender but honest heart neither Physitians passion nor compassion must divert them from doing their duty It is the first step and a good advance to health to know truly what the hurts and disease is herein to be only conjectural or over-confident or fearful or perfunctory or palliating or complying not daring to search and discover the pudenda vulnera shameful wounds and lethales morbos deadly diseases which are discerned in the Patient but with smiles and fair words with healing questions with Physical or Anatomical lectures about Government as with lingering lenitives and petty cordials to supple and skin them over to silence and smother them with crying peace peace till we have done our work which is to undo you and all men but our selves or for State Physitians so to regard by a superpolitick policy the several partial novel and pretended interests that have been or are on foot as to take in among others even that of the very disease as if it were to be considered other ways than to be cured as if it must be continued tolerated and indulged yea and fed as a Wolf or Cancer in the body or brest with good nourishment least it prey upon the whole body This is for Physitians to be afraid and overawed by the Malignancy and predominancy of the disease at this rate Grex totus in agris Vnius scabie perit porrigine porci the whole herd or flock must be infected the patient will be like Gehazi condemned to an eternal plague and Leprosie of civil dissentions and oppessions of war and its black consequences Physitians after this course must turn very fools and become parasites to putrefactions if they dare not own or cannot attaque either the sourse and head of the disease or the streams and potency of it what do they meet and sit and consult or rather constult together they had as good cast their caps as thus lay their heads together when they have no mind to do the work nor courage to go through with the cure Not but that all great and noble cures not miraculous are the children of time and discretion for a while the sons of Zerviah were too hard for David and Solomon did not those acts of remarkable Justice against Joabs and Shimeis and Abiathars factious Priests insolent Soldiers and cursed cursers until the Kingdom was strengthned in his hand but this is certain as Christ did not raise to life Jarus his daughter till the Minstrils were all turned out So nor can the daughter of my people be recovered to firm and sure health till all pretended Civil Interests are by degrees either satisfied if just or crashed quashed and removed if not consistent with our Reformed Religion also with the Laws of the Land and the fundamentals of our excellent Government which are the true principles of publique health and till all Religions or Ecclesiastical pretended Interests are so tried and examined for many say they are Jews that are not and cry up their new Church ways when they may be but factors for the Synagogue of Satan vaporing of Christ and the Spirit when they are Antichrists and full of unclean spirits till I say all these on all hands be faithfully reduced and subjected to the grand interest of God and of our Lord Jesus Christ which consists in Justice and true Religion The measure of the first is our Laws enacted in full and free Parliaments The rule of the second are clear truths of Scripture which set forth the facienda morals necessary to be done by all to all men the credenda mysteries of Faith necessary to be believed also the special practiques of Christian
work of a wise Physitian and Chyrurgeon is Sana Medicamina applicare to follow the Patient with wholesom medicaments as are 1 probata approved upon the file of long experience 2 propria specifica as apt proper and specifick as can be had considering the genius and constitution of the Patient also the original continuance and progress of the disease cures are by contraries those medicines will most certainly help which most encounter the principal causes of our maine disease and are proper antidotes against the malignity of our sores It is but the capricious and ridiculous conceit of some fine men who want employment to send this now languishing State of England and the other two adjacent antient and united Kingdomes to Mars his hill in Athens or to the Lacedemonian Sparta or to the Roman Capitol or to the Venetian Arsenal or to the State-house of the low Countries and so to send the Church to Geneva Edinbrough or Amsterdam as if we were Churches or Nations of yesterday in our bibs and swadling clouts to be dandled in the laps of such dry nurses and this in order forsooth to learn some unwonted models of civil and Ecclesiastical Government which like new garments will hardly fit for they will be either uneasie because too straight or unhansome because too loose Doubtless in Governments that Scripture Proverb of Wine holds true the elder is the better if it have not lost its spirits especially when not onely time and use but great wisdome had proportioned it to the true interests of the Nation and of all estates in it which follow much the genius of the people if they be either soft slavish and pesantly as in some countrys or robust manly and generous as in England the first will easily crouth under any burthen and truckle under any prevalent power the second is hardly contained in any bounds but those that are Soveragine and Imperial by way of monarchical yet legal Majesty which having something in it neerer the Divine Idea than any other way of Government by the perfection of wisdome guiding power and power assisting wisdome is onely fit to govern those Nations whose high spirits are impatient to be ridden by their equals much more to have their inferiours to become not only their rivals but superiours When the Cappadocians had leave to be a Province or popular State under the Roman Empire they refused the freedome and craved the favour of having a King to rule them as they ever had time out of mind professing the temper of the people was such that they would not be subject to any but those in whom Majesty was so concentred by the Laws and customs of the Nation that they could without shame and disdain pay an homage as subjects to them Herein experience hath been and will be our teacher but then it will be and hath been as Hippocrates begins his Aphorisms {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} a costly painful difficult and dangerous experiment and if at last it do not fit the Genius temper and desire of these Nations so as to ease them of their terrors and vast charges of civil War to free them of the fear of Enemies at home and abroad to settle them in such peace and plenty as many yet remember they injoyed before the flood of our civil wars to open the obstructions of trade and those veins of industry by which the body is maintained by the secret circulation of commerce as of the blood if all these Symptomes Concomitants or effects of health do not follow the essayes of new formes of Government alas what do we all the while but keep the daughter of our people upon the rack of paine and expence using a kind of a State Strappado by which to bring the armes to hang backwards rather then forwards so as they can neither lift up themselves to their head nor yet defend and help the body or themselves so by a dreadful convulsion to bring all things of antient order honor and beauty in the nation to the distractions and deformities which must needs attend such novelties as are not proper for the publique nor practicable without continued force and endless charge 3. Their healing medicines must be plenaria Catholica such as may in time do the work compleatly yet with leisure and discretion For momentary cures are onely miraculous So as carefully to preserve the good spirits and humors to strengthen the sound parts yet remaining to follow the grand crises of the disease and the indications of health which way evil humors are easiest discussed breathed out or purged still conserving the two main principles pillars and supports of health life and subsistence in the body politique the radicale humidum as I call it which is plenty by trade and industry that there be no crying out nor complaining by those whose mouths cannot eat if their hands be idle 2. That calidum radicale the sacred fire or celestial flame which Prometheus is said to have kindled in mankind which shines in reason and religion in Justice by good Laws well executed by Magistrates and in devotion by the holy publique worship of God solemnly discharged by able and autoritative Ministers both which are the grand designes of good learning which is the souls school for improvement and education during its minority or absence from its Fathers house till it comes to vision and fruition which sets it beyond all learning but that of the Fathers glorious example No civil laws can be wholesome for the publique which do enterfeer with true Religion which either rob God or his Church or his Vicegerents and Ministers or his poor of what is their due nor can any Ecclesiastical laws be healthful which cross the civil laws and authority so as to bring in licentiousness injuriousness rebellion or any thing that is for Doctrine fanatick or for practice injust and immoral all which like poysonous touchings or unwholesome feedings are destructive to the publique health The perfect healing of the Church and Religion as Christian and reformed whose divisions hurts and deformities are many will hardly be done without calling those spiritual Physitians together after the primitive pattern in Ecclesiastical Synods or National Councils who are best skilled in the true state of health in the nature of the diseases and in the aptest remedies which in Religion ought to be very humane and charitable convincing with meekness of wisdom and healing as much by prayers and tears as by reasonings and perswasions I confess I cannot see how a Committee of Parliament for Religion is proper for this work further than to be {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} the promoters of it when put into fit hands of able Ministers Herein the first grand work is to bring us to be again one National Church from which honor and happiness we fell as Lucifer from heaven when some mens ambition affected to make the
slight healing 1. By unskilful undertakers to 〈◊〉 2 Tim. 3.5 Prov. 20.3 2. By unfaithful Isa. 5.13 Ier. 4â— 22. Tit. 1.11 Isai. 56.11 1 Cor. 15. Lopes was Physitian to Q. Elizabeth and suborned to poyson her Camden When transported with passion and opinion Ier. 5.31 Isa. 3.9 The {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} or transport 4. When they too much intend petty symptomes and neglect the main distempers The slight healing by taking away the Liturgy Grand neglects and petty severity 5. By immoderate and dilatory tamperings Of curing the hurt of Monarchy by Democracy and Episcopacy by Presbytery Of medicines become maladies The lubricity and subtilty of ill humors Of violent ways of healing Gen. 34.25 Prov. 14.28 Iudg. 21.25 Slight healers by new inventions and unexperienced applications Law the most healing Ier. 6.16 7 Healing by charmes and Parliaments Ier 7.4 Isa. 65·5 Mat. â—0 22 The spoâ—les of those Egyptians Isa. 5.20 1 Sam. 21.15 Rom 3.8 Isa. 61.8 Exod. 32.28.35 Numb. 16.7 8. Slight healing for want of constant application of good prescriptions 2 Chron. 16 1â— For too much trusting to Physitians Isa. 17.5 Of Patients idolizing their Physitian Eccles. 9 1â— Psa. 3.8 and 29.11 Psa. 47 1â— Ier. 2.30 Isa. 58. 2 Parliament Prayers in a Book called The ancient Prayers of the Church 5 The persons charged for slight healing Kings and soveraign Princes slight heaven Eph. 22.26 27. Pro. 28.15 16. Micah 3.2 3. 2 Counsellors and subordinate Magistrates slight Healers Exod. 18. â—â— Gal. 1.10 Luke 4.23 Exod. 32.22 Luke 93.51 Ezekiel 33. 1 Cor. 2.6 2 Sam. 17.23 3 Priests and Prophets Pastors and Ministers slight Healers 1 Sam. 2.22 Ezek. 13.18 The Harmony which ought to be in the Church in order to Healing Of Ecclesiastical Council or Free Synods Souldiers and Commanders slight healers The present hope of better things from Souldiers 2 Cor. 13.6 5 The patient blamable for its own slight healing 1 By not carefully applying to good Physitians 2 By popular conspiracies against them The danger of popular distempers Peoples due regard and submission to their right Physicians full and free Parliaments Some sins may keep the hurts of a people uncured Luke 27.25 Part. 6. The true method of sound healing 1 By putting themâ—elves into the hands of good Physicians able and honest By Physitians right discerning the disease and throughly searching the wounds Of fainthearted foolish false and flattering Physitians Matth. â— 13 Rev. 2.9 Healing of the Church and Religion Lev. 13 14. Of scandalous toleration in matter of Religion The practice of sincere and speedy healing 1. To purge a way what is noysom Psa. 119 126 Matth 13.23 2. To apply such wholesom medicines as are tried and proper â—â—â—â—dels of new Governments heal 〈◊〉 Acts 17.21 Luke â— Governmâ—nt must fit the genius of people Novel essays of Government dangerous To apply Catholick and compleating medicines Psal. 1â—â— 14 Of Ecclesiastical Synods to heal a Church Acts 15.6 Of charâ—table toleration Civil hurts healed by recourse to the Laws Of lenitives and modâ—ration in healing Acts of Oblivion Reconciling of parties 1 Pet. 5.3 Charity and cander among Christians 1 Cor. 1.12 and 3.3 Lib. 17. p 115 Fâ—llow holiness and peace will follow Mourn for sins Pray with patiâ—nce Isa 26.12 Isa 19.20 Lev. 26.41 2 Chron. 28.22 Beware of false Healers Appeal to all Estates whether healed Aâ—peal to all esteats whether healed The sence of the Nation Necessary freedome to speak of our hurts Pristine health was best Good words heal not Ier. 5.3