of Obedience to their King and a discreet Government of themselves CHAP. III. The distinct Offices of the Prince and Subject in the concerns of Acquisition and Settlement TO Speak a Man to be a true Lover of Peace is to affirm him a good Christian and very Wise A Fool neither knoweth its Value nor how to compose himself to the Study thereof Even those in diverse Ages so much Famed for Policy and the Ruine of Crowns did at the best but Act that Incendiary who not capable of otherwise attaining a Name procured it by the destruction of a magnificent Temple whereas his unfurnished Brain could have contributed nothing toward the Erecting of a meaner Fabrick At the same rate do I Judge of the exalted Men of our times who so cunningly Scatter Discords with an undiscerned Artifice To this Malice Leadeth them as a ready Guide inspiring them with Councells suiting with their proposed ends but the way of Peace have they not known nor are they capable of Instructions how to find them or Demean themselves in them But as the Arts of Government do excell all others the rest being only attendants to them so of all Regal Excellencies a thorough conversation and intimacy with the Arts of Peace is undoubtedly the Sublimest And those Subjects who in their Trusts and Stations sedulously apply themselves to the Execution of Kingly Dictates and to be fit Ministers of Injunctions of this sort are questionless the most nobly aspiring and the more nearly and immediately they are concern'd in discharge of this Office the more delicately fine and polite their frame and temper ought to be All men indeed have their executive parts to act and account for but they are for the most part different and the most accomplish't because Subjects are but subordinate In which condition to do well is their true Glory but to attempt their own Promotion to set themselves forward out of Self-confidence is the greatest forfeiture and most manifest discovery of Infirmity of judgment For although the Love of Peace is an admired Virtue in both Prince and People yet the Offices are not the same The Prince is as the Head directive the Subjects partly executive partly passive Even those whom the King from his observations of them receiveth into the recesses of Consultation are if not altogether yet in this very point for the most part Executive their advises being Insignificative until they have his approbation and are by his Will formed into a Law to which even they are to yield a ready obedience Now the Counsels of Peace are Kings peculiar Skill a Mysterious and God-like Faculty into which Subjects are not to pry any farther then the admissions of Royal Grace To attempt upon them is a Sacrilegious breach of their Peace and a great interruption of the Subjects own which nothing destroyeth like Suspition that emboldeneth this sawcy scrutiny and overthroweth in order to outward disturbances our best Peace even that of our Minds What therefore the Prophet spake in Gods cause I may to the People inoffensively speak in the Kings In rest shall ye be Saved in quietness and confidence shall be your Strength This is the Subjects safest course although they are sometimes taught the contrary that Question being reiterated with ostentation of judgment in the Speakers at what time this duty and counsel is pressed upon them What shall we all lye still seeing such approaching dangers and suffer our throats to be cut like fools and cowards And here alas how quick-sighted we would needs be when the Dreamers of Dreams have somewhat awakened and told us their dreadful Visions Whereas were we throughly awakened we could not but see more clearly and above all plainly discern that our watchful Pilot who sitteth at Helme doth naturally as bred up to Speculations and judiciously as having all the accumulative advantages of knowledge foresee any tempest which being like to arise may endanger the Ship of State We that lie below too much fear sinking by every high Blast and hearken foolishly to envious destractors Sailing in the same bottome to whom our Masters wisdom and greatness are a grief and Eye-sore Thence when there is really a time of need help is mutinously I had almost said Rebelliously denied because our Commander doth not to the certain ruin of all direct his course by common advice in an extraordinary case At the beginning of a Storm they 'l not be under his Command because they are told that they know not what perilous Rocks lye hidden in such a Tract Insomuch that in the want of due assistance if all be prosperous beyond expectation the success is miraculous and to be ascribed only to Gods immense goodness and our excellent Conductors judgment and experience But all this while what probability can we have that our Prince either doth not cannot or will not see mischief drawing on nor protect us and by so doing preserve himself Of the eminence of his abilities hath been enough if not here spoken yet every where known What reason then that his own safety should be so cheap in his own estimate Doth he it out of hatred to himself Or are his Subjects so odious to him that he becometh contented to ruin himself that we may all certainly Perish Having no reason to conclude the first we Answer the second with an Enquiry What have we done How have we behaved our selves towards him to excite in him an Indignation so Prodigious that taketh away all care and respect for himselfe And such an Indignation there must be by our undutiful demeanour or else it is manifest that our Consciences accuse us of Evil in the height designed and endeavoured which meriteth such an one although he harbour it not in his Sacred Bosome For we cannot fear that which is not or which hath not been deserved But innocence is free from suspition especially where the concerns are vastly more his then any particular Subjects and at least equal to all But the fears are raised and the suspitions somented by men who notwithstanding their Professions and the peoples opinion of them hate their King and have no desires of their Countrys tranquility And where ever such appear the King in his Rules of Peace cannot but see a necessity of taking them off by violence if other means procure not a speedy Remedy because the Publick Peace is preserved when disorder is prevented and such Victims are very satisfactory to her Nay so far are they from being in the least offensive to Peace that those Princes who have too long Tampered with other Medicines before they set upon this way of Cure have offended against her Laws by too much delay For when Busy Men have been permitted to goe on too far in dispersing their Mallice under specious pretences rather then they would strike off the Cancred Member to the general preservation although this forbearance proceed meerly from compassion the Authours have been unwillingly indeed but Accessaries to the
sent by God with an especial Commission to lead an Army against the Amalekites and utterly destroy all that they had Man and Woman Infant and Suckling Oxe and Sheep Camel and Asse But after Victory obtained the People Murmur that so chargeable an Expedition of two Hundred and ten Thousand Men should have no Recompence That the Spoils of a Rich Eastern Country and such Plenty of Fat Sheep and Oxen Younger Fatlings and Lambs should all while they had neglected their Farms Flocks and Herds at Home Perish to no Mans benefit That at their return there must be Publick Thanksgivings Sacrifices and Feastings with their Wives Children and Relations at Home which they judged would prove a Lean and Barren joy if the Sacrifices and Beasts to be Slaughtered must be fetched from their own Folds and Stalls These or the like were the Voices of the Multitude and were specious Arguments used by the Nobles Rulers and Chief-Captains to perswade the King to neglect his Duty towards God for the good of the People They all concluded that the present Interest was the best Religion and that the shew and noise of Sacrifice would Silence Heavens Decree pronounced for the Contempt of its Laws Neither was this easily obtained of the King who although a Valiant Man was forced to yield for the Murmurs and Mutiny had proceeded so High that he was put into a great fear such as Subjected him in the meanest sort to the Raving Populacy for as he saith of himself he Feared the People and Obeyed their Voice But thus the King pleased the People to his own and their Ruine For God immediately commanded the Kingdome to be Rent from him And although some Years Intervened between the Sentence and Execution yet the rest of his Reign was but improsperous and at length upon Mount Gilboa the King his Sons and People fell down grievously Slaughtered by a Forreign Enemy and Invasion and the Victory over them was used most Savagely and Insolently Such are the usual Harvest which Subjects Reap from their undutiful behaviour wherein the more Successful they are the more inevitable is their destruction Miscarriages in any such attempts are most happy which instruct them what should have been forborn what practised and convince them of a necessity of renouncing all Rude and Irreverent thoughts of their King in order to the establishment of Happiness But that so powerful an Example set down by the Holy Penman must needs be prevalent with Men so much professing Religion I should not have gone farther for one then the so fresh and Sadly memorable of our late times Then were seen the Tides of Popular Fury to Swell to such an excess that they Swallowed up all Government both in Church and State our Kings Princes and most eminently Pious and Loyal Churchmen were either Murthered Banished or driven into Corners and in short after the discontented Rabble had taken the matter into their own hand to which frequent Royal Condescentions did but the more embolden them to Repair Reform Cure and Settle all their miseries and dissatisfactions did even infinitely abound And then to find what they sought for they were compelled to retreat to acknowledge their folly and distress supplicating him whom they most rebelliously and ignominiously dispossessed of his Crown and Dignities Return thou and all thy Servants Until his Peace was restored theirs was in excilement none other with their Boasted Sciences of Government could after a long and wretched experience give any hopes of effecting the publick safety but the same they had rejected Whom with accumulative Honours they Petitioning to return acknowledged that nothing but want of confidence in their lawful Monarchs virtue and judgment had so miserably enslaved them under Anarchical Tyranny nothing but that confidence could revive the Sinking Kingdoms Glory So great a Calamity and unexpected Redemption successively furnishing us with infalliable Rules for prosperous enjoyments our suddain forgetfulness or careless observance of them maketh us appear the most despicably Sottish of Mankind We are uneasy and thoughtful by listning to the Authors of our newly vanquished afflictions who with an ill natured but most genuine Ofspring instill Poysonous Opinions into the minds of their Fellow Subjects in detraction of the present Government I should rationally think their very Persons caution enough against any their insinuations much more when they repeat Rebellion in the same methods and rush on with more impudenoe then their former beginnings knew Nevertheless we have seen divers of them promoted to be of the Grand Council of the Nation and there Principals of such ungrateful and undecent Orations that while they pretended to represent Greivances ought themselves to have been proceeded against as the most intolerable of all Grievances We hope that Members of a Sound constitution may by Gods Blessing succeed them to repair in Truth those breaches which the former vitiated ones have opened to Scandal Confusion and the Terrour of our Prince and all Religious People Otherwise we ought to intercede with God and the King that such Prodigies of State may no more appear among us to Subvert our Peace and Religion with novel and unheard devices of Government and Vnion What considerate Man seeth not the Foundations now stricken at when by the same courses and many of the same Hands they were before Subverted and when the Nation Sinneth again its old Crimes after such a Miraculous Restauration what can hinder the worse thing from befalling it Or where shall we look for a second Redemption who have so Idly undervalued the First In former Ages the Great Assemblies did indeed what they undertook support the Nation by Strengthening their respective Kings but of late they have been so far from treading in the Steps of their Ancestours as that Blessed Prince delivereth it who afterward more sharply felt the mischief of such Parliamentary digressions by dutiful expressions in that kind that contrarily they have introduced a way of bargaining and contracting with their King as if nothing ought to he given him by them but what he should buy and purchase of them either by the quitting somewhat of his Royal Prerogative or diminishing and lessening his Revenues This was spoken of Disrespects and Demeanours inconsiderable in comparison of what himself became afterwards Sensible of and his Royal Son hath lately found too much cause to mention and reprove And each of these disloyal Practises encrease the consternation which hath Seized us and is general though diversly afflicting Men according to their diversity of Humours Some are entangled in Labyrinths of Conceits that their Prince is ill advised and hath no good Councel as if he wanted their judgment in Choosing and all of their Choice and Representatives were endued with Infallibillity some are so fearful of disorder in the State and so jealous of Religion least Superstition should enter in and corrupt it that they presently break the Peace which they only fear may be broken and most Superstitiously Idolize those
Calamities which followed It is I know a much applauded discourse That for the King to please his Subjects to Rely upon their Love and cast himself wholly upon their affections are the only means for him to establish Peace and attain to the height of Formidable Grandure No Prince being so powerful and Rich as he that winneth and so Ruleth in the Hearts of his People But while they urge this to him what in the mean time do they make their King whom they would suppose not to know this and how far it is true For if the constant exercise and practice of Religion Justice and Clemency be not Princely Obligations sufficiently commanding all dutiful and grateful returns from reasonable and good Men Subjects who are not these will never nor ought by any endeavours to be otherwise wonne because the Prince who would gratifie unreasonable Men in so doing knoweth himself to offend against the Rules of Peace God is thereby made angry and good Men to mourn and innumerable must the mischiefs be which will of necessity follow If those Acts of Magnanimity do not Influence them a descent from his Majesty which will render him less Honoured will not purchase him more Love Those bold Men from whose ill representations the most Heroick Vertues are Traduced need not much use of Art to bring compliances under contempt For they must either be assented to through want of Judgment or Tumultuarily Forced And in either Case new Breaches will be made and former made wider Subjects who shall find the advantage they have gotten over their Prince cannot as I said Love him the more because they will less Reverence him neither can they think themselves safe who must alway expect Revenge either of the Blemish left upon reputation then which nothing hath a deeper impression when discovered or the undutiful carriage which hath presumed to take his Throne lower then his Ancestours But still the thoughts of Religion seem to urge an extraordinary care by reason of the manifest dangers said to threaten it And indeed the concerns thereof are so transcendently high that they justly demand all our skill and utmost vigilancy to be employed for its preservation Peace with present and the hopes of our future welfare being all enjoyments which are Religions Blessings Neither can any man truely love his Prince his Neighbour or himself who liveth indifferent and carelesly contented with any thing that beareth that Name whether true or false because such an one hath somewhat which he prizeth at an higher rate in the enjoyment whereof if disturbed or in danger of disturbance he will not scruple as he shall be able to act to the violation of Vnion Nothing certainly more conduceth to Peace then an earnest Zeal for Religion which seeth the State enervated by every Faction that maketh Eruptions in the Church and dareth object all its powers to its exclusion Nevertheless this Zeal must be according to knowledge and the power it useth must be lawful otherwise when it is erroneous and blind it is also head-strong and outragious and so is an adversary to Peace and when it transgresseth the limits of the power the Law prescribeth it undertaketh to defend Religion by Impiety And how acceptable that persons services are who bringeth to the Altar Offerings of Abominations is easie to judge Now the most undoubted powers of contending against Faction and Innovation which every man is allowed and enjoyned equally to use are devout Prayers and Innocence of life Which if duely practised by the professed Children of the Church would alone make her Victorious and prevent all solicitous Counsels of disappointing her Adversaries And it is to be feared that the greatest difficulty is in daring to use and confide in the successes of these best defensive Armes yet if these be not chiefly relyed upon other means afford little or no help When therefore I hear so much daily said of Religion and its Preservation and see these most necessary coercives of attempts upon it so altogether slighted by them who seem most Zealous I cannot sufficiently admire why they undertake so great a work who are most ignorant how to effect it Especially strange it is to observe so much action and fury both condemnable the first for want of Commission the later as contradictory to the Principles of Christianity And to all that are serious the event is foretold when these Agents for Truth are considered for they are either men destitute of Piety having not so much as the Form or else such as proceed to exalt her in the very methods which they condemn in others as tending to her depression By the joynt assistance of most Atheistical Debauches and notorious Hypocrites we are great with expectation of a glorious Church I confess I do not so much wonder at the impudence of the principal Conductors as that many pretending to be and fortunately esteemed Men of Sobriety should be led aside with an opinion and hope of these Mens counsels notwithstanding apparently pernicious For neither Peace nor Religion can stand upon these frames made up of materials unlawfully and unskilfully cast together and disagreeing from what they are to support Religion is not to be modelled by every man who fancieth himself a Workman for that purpose nor if that established by Law happen at any time to be erroneous or deficient in some parts may Subjects without especial Commission for that very end attempt alteration or amendment Every man is bound to be well satisfied of the Truth of what himself professeth but must abstein from what is the Office of Supream Authority only unless that be pleased to impower him to inquire into and correct what shall merit a rectifying inspection Otherwise although they should be never so urgent Religion tolerateth not a relief of her necessities by private mens invading the Kingly Power and Prerogative It is Disobedience from which she will not own assistance Subjects may desire and pray and some few of the wisest and most remarkably Loyal may modestly and privately Petition their King that he would graciously remedy and prevent such evils as the Church susteineth or feareth But in either case they ought evidently to shew the complaints to be of inconveniencies really incumbent and their jealousies to be just and weighty otherwise they give him just suspition of their either Wisdom or Integrity that they are themselves ensnared by ill designing men or would ensnare him No Assembly of men although met together in Council by his Majesties especial Command are to meddle with matters of Religion more then concerneth Piety in the practise any farther then their Master recommendeth it to their care to consider of it and report to him the results of their Consultations To Act Vote or Resolve herein without his leave and direction is to disown his Authority in matters Ecclesiastical and make themselves a Supream Constitutive Power If some very meek Addresses be as I said before modestly and privately made of their
prejudicing the general Welfare Men of unsetled but self-confident Councels think themselves great and able for the most eminent Atchievements and sufficient for the highest flight if but bedeckt withsome of the Ealges Plumes but being too feeble for the work and consequent weight of envy do shame their undertakings and followers whom some Name of reproach signifying their folly and crime distinguisheth from the rest of mankind Additions to them or at least fortifications of such as impairing time hath in any part enfeebled are looked upon by all that judiciously mind their own preservation to be continually necessary For the Prerogative of the Crown rendred infirm do inevitably cause to halt the Priviledges of the Members which may peradventure swell high but then speak their Sickliness and Fate and that they then incline most to Dissolution Without doubt that Kingdom is most Happy where Discourses of this nature are least heard But on the other hand it much more conduceth to the publick Good that the Prince be rigourous even to the brink of Tyranny then addicted to Lenity and easie Concessions of Popular demands The errors of the first sort are little felt and scarce discernible those of the latter are universally and apparently pernicious But in no part are the Prerogatives more dangerously intrench'd upon then in those which concern Religion wherein the People by seeking and the Prince by yeilding do the same as when Fond Parents to their crying Children allow the handling of R-zours and Lances In this case a sharp reprehension conserveth the peace and hindreth a certain effusion of Blood For Protestations Leagues and Covenants and projectures of impossible Vnions have no tendency to what they speak but to what is most contrary these terms being taken up premeditatly to the Dissolution of the most inviolable and Sacred Obligations without the Religious observance of which Vnion hath no consistence Where are the wise Contrivers of them Or what Bonds can unite those to the Church whom Rebellion Blood and Devastation hath separated from her Such Vnitings are the Debauches of Religion and the directest courses to the Subverting Monarchy and Hierarchy What Fury did before Act is now required to have a legal Introduction And although we abhorr the Murderers of Kings and Prince and give Sacrilegious men their merited Epithites yet that these be by opinion admitted into the great Employes of State and Bosome of the Church no Contrition or desires of Reconciliation preceding is the best prescribed Rule of Preservation and Canon of Ecclesiastical Communion In fine the much applauded Projectors of our Constitutions of Peace do no otherwise then tell us that to prevent the Potency of such as are feared will spare neither King nor Church our only course is to promote and Impower those whose hatred to both is known and implacable It is not to be doubted but that the Indulgences and Connivances of these times have raised to this height of Insolence as their accustomed gratitude the Spirits of these Zealots and thence is to be conjectured their future deportment upon a Toleration fortified with Legality Reason not assisted by the sadest Domestick Experiences sheweth any Toleration of diversities of Religions to be of ill consequence but that inevitably destructive to Monarchy which ceaseth to be a favour and standing guarded with one Law is enabled to command more and at length what it will All these mischiefs which the humourous Multitude led by some Pestilent Councellors esteem their Happiness till the pungent sting of their enjoyments sharpen them to an apprehension of their folly Good Subjects resolutely oppose yet behold with pitty to see Religious Assemblies void of Piety Kingdoms whose Administrator of Justice hath his hands bound and Obedience Charity Humility and all other Virtues dwindle into names only stir up their magnanimous Souls by commiseration to cares of Relief And this they discern no way to be effected but by restoring and confirming their King to and in His Royal Prerogatives by promoting his Peace that by it all may live a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty And as they are herein zealous so constant not apt to be diverted by the gawdy hopes of Change nor disencouraged either by suspition of disrespected merit or apparentcy of good services ill repay'd They Act knowingly and so are above Change and their generous minds admit not the torments of Suspition unless of deficiency in themselves And this same temper inclineth them to an assurance that besides his Princly inclinations the Kings Interest diverseth him from remunerating Loyally with injuries which if at any time thy befal a Good Subject he considereth and findeth them to proceed from the ill representation of envious Detractours a sort of State Moths which cannot without great difficulty be kept out of the Linings of the Crown Reward is least in their desires except that great one the innocent Glory of well performing and nothing but omission of duty can afflict them thence they are stedfast and unmoveable knowing that their labour is not in vain but that their recompence and inheritance shall be for ever And now that Peace and Love may unite us under our Head by the virtuous government of our selves let us work His Security By vitious living all mischief is propagated that introduceth ruine of Subjects and bringeth contempt upon Princes who become not Governours of Men but Kings of Beasts and God angry that his inesteemable Pearls are cast before Swine surrendereth them to the possession of the Legion That insuperable Goodness which magnifieth its power most chiefly in shewing mercy and pity is wearied and made deficient by ingratitude nay more is converted into fury by our misguided and corrupted affections It is from this cause that the clamours and murmurings too much heard in our Land do proceed Vices abounding encrease Suspitions prepare men for strifes and multiply disorders then these make mens minds like the troubled Sea to cast up mire and dirt And indeed God seemeth to have abandoned a great part of this wretched Nation to the Curse of their own follies and imaginations to delight in Seduction and to believe Lies because they would not retain the discipline and order of holy Peace and Joy Continually leading Lives contrary to Divine Obligations and their own Professions they were brought first to suspect what they knew afterward to believe what they suspected They have lost their Reason by becoming enemies to Virtue its illustrious Guardian so that the reclaiming them is an impossibility to all but a miraculous Compassion This happening to many ought to be the more exemplary to others All of us who see their miscarriges and the cause should be as quicksighted into the ways of duty and keep our selves happy by loving and esteeming Peace that is by an holy care of continning affectionatly zealous of Gods Honour obeying his Ordinance with true Love and a pure Conscience Let us therefore duely offer up our Thanksgivings for what we enjoy and perfect them by Obedience by the humility and sincerity of which let us aspire each man to an Immortal Crown magnanimously raising our Subjection to Heaven by imitating the Lowliness and Meekness of the King of Kings Amen FINIS London Printed for the Author and are to be Sold by Ben. Harris at the Stationers Arms under the Piazza of the Royal-Exchange 1681.