of it And whereas this day five years past all the Protestants in this Kingdome and we especially of this City were destined to be sacrificed and slaughtered and sent as an Holâ—â—â—st or whole burnt-offering from the holy Father to the infernal God as many thousands of our Brethren were then and since yet by the love of God towards us we are still preserved alive that we might serve him and love him again And what more shall I say but cry out with the Psalmist O how plentiful is thy goodness which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee Psal 31.21 and that thou hast prepared for them that put their trust in thee even before the Sons of men for thou hast shewed us Marvellous great kindness I cannot say in a strong City but I say in a weak City and delivering us from strong Enemies whose Subtilty and Cruelty Treachery and Perfidiousness would require the head of the best experienced converted Jesuite to express it I had rather preach of Gods Love than treat of their Malicâ— and to talk of his Goodness rather than their wickedness and that great goodness The Lord Marquess of Ormond which he hath so lately shewed in delivering our most Excellent Governour so often from that malicious wickedness of the Sons of Belial so perfidiously intended against him is not the least Testimony of Gods Love to us all especially if we consider that what was intended this day 5 years had now questionless been executed if God had not broken the Snare of the Fowler and by delivering him redeemed us all from the Sword of Malice and from the Jawes of death and therefore this ought to be rightly weighed and duly remembred in our Thanksgiving among the many great undeserved and unexpected Preservations that our good God hath wrought for us And because his Excellency trusteth not in Lying Vanities but putteth his Trust in the Lord and in the Mercy of the Most High therefore he shall not miscarry But indeed this Love of God to us hath been so great and his Blessings in our Deliverances have been so many that if I should go about to enumerate them I might as well tell the Stars for as the Prophet saith they are more in number than I am able to expresse and therefore I will now conclude with our hearty thanks and Praise unto our good God for all his Love and Favours and Deliverances that he hath shewed unto us through Jesus Christ our Lord who is blessed for evermore Labilis memoria hominis How easily and how soon men forget good things the memory of man is very frail and slippery especially in the retention of all good things for though as the Poet saith Scribit in marmore laesus we write injuries in marble and never forget nor forgive the least ill turn that is done against us yet we write all benefits and all good instructions in the sands where the waves of forgetfulness do soon wash all away as the children of Israel regarded not the wonders that God wrought in Aegypt neither kept they his great goodness in remembrance Psal 106.7 13 21. but soon forgot his works yea and forgat God their Saviour which had done so great things in Aegypt wondrous works in the Land of Ham and fearful things by the Red Sea therefore lest you should forget the first part of this text before you heard the second I thougt it high time to proceed to those points which the time prevented me to inlarge not the last time I was in this place but the last time I treated of this verse and I hope you do remember that I told you this text was a text of love and of a twofold love 1. The love of God to man And 2. The love of man to God And In the first I noted these four things 1. The lover God 2. The affection Love He loved us first 3. The beloved Us. 4. The time First And I have done with the first three and therefore not to stand upon any further repetition I am now to proceed to shew you the fourth point that is the time when he loved us 4 The time when God loved us first 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he loved us first i.e. before we would or could love him for love is one of the affections and the affections are seated in the heart and the heart is placed in the midst of the body and the body could not contain the heart nor the heart cast forth the affections nor the affections produce love before our loves Jer. 31.3 God loved us from everlasting before our Creation and affections and hearts and bodies had their being But God loved us before we were created and before we could have the least thought of our very being for I have loved thee with an everlasting love therefore with loving kindness have I drawn thee saith the Lord and this love was everlasting as well a parte ante from the time past as a parte post for the time to come and this love will appear the greater if we consider how freely and how undeservedly he hath loved us for the object of love is good either that which is really so indeed or seeming so to be And S. Aug. reasoneth most truly that antequam creati eramus nihil boni merebamur before we were made we could do no good we could merit no reward we could deserve no love And yet before we had received any being the love of God towards us had received a beginning and when our souls were unbreathed our bodies unframed and all this glorious structure laid in the dust before ever we beheld the light or the light was brought out of darkness or the darkness was upon the face of the deep our bodies and our souls were affected by God and we had a deep interest in the love of God when as then the earth was created for our habitation the creatures were produced for our service and the heavens were appointed for our comfort So God loved us before our Generation before we were before we had our being and after our transgression God loved us after our transgression John 8. when as God had made us his sons like himself and we had made our selves like our Father the devil there was cause enough of hate but none of love for then we found a way to run away from God we invented garments to hide our shame and to cover our nakedness from the eyes of men but to make us most loathsome in the eyes of God and we became 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 haters of God that laboured with the old Gyants 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to fight and war with God to unthrone him and to ungod him when we desired to make our selves like Gods nay the only Gods and he should be no God at all unless we might have our wills and not his will to be done in heaven as we do in earth Yet then when
he devised the way to depose her and to set the Crown upon the right Heirs Head whose example we ought all to follow when opportunity serveth Or were I not so that we must renounce usurped power how shall we protect and maintain the just and lawful authority 2 Sam. 15 16. surely the people that followed Abso lon when he had the power to trample Justice under foot to possesse the royal City and to drive the lawful King to flie from place to place and the followers of those perfideous Rebels of Killkenney that so barbarously massacred the poor Protestants and so foully so falsely deluded both the good King and all the Kings friends and have now as themselves pretend the great power in this Kingdom may well be justified not to have offended if this doctrine may be defended that usurped authority is not to be resisted but to be obeyed when its power is most prevalent But the Apostle tells us plainly Rom. 14.2 that whatsoever is not of faith is sin and with what faith I pray you can I obey that power and submit my self to that authority which my conscience tells me to be against truth and without Justice But Tertull. ad Scapulam makes this most clear where he sheweth how tender the Christians were to preserve the right to the lawful Emperours and therefore though Albinus was most powerful in the West and Pisen Niger in the East yet the Christians would be nec Albiniani nec Cassiani nec Nigriani Yet this much I must tell you that where the right heir is not apparent as it was not amongst many of the Primitive Emperours who were often lifted up to that royal dignity by none other right than the Sword of the tumultuous Souldiers and unconstant cohorts and were therefore obeyed by the good Christians because they knew not of any other that had any better right unto the Empire the same as yet being unsetled to continue in any hereditary line or when the just Title to the Crown is not cleered as perhaps it was not to all the Subjects in the time of Hen. 4. Edw. 4. and Rich. 3. and the like doubtful claimes then it is not for every private mechanick or ignorant Rustick to determine the right to the Crown and decide the equity or the iniquity of such powers but as the Apostle saith and as it was most learnedly handled by a most Reverend and a most learned Prelate of our Church not long since in this place they ought to study to be quiet to follow their own Trades 1 Thes 4 11. and to do their own business and not to polupragmatize in matters so transcendent and so metaphysical to their Mechanick and Rustick capacities And in this qualified sence you must understand and not mistake the meaning of the same most Reverend Prelate in this place upon our last Kings day that when it is doubtful to whom the right of the Soveraign Power should belong or who hath right unto the Soveraignty then all ignorant and private men are excused though they resist not the Government that hath the present power over them but do obey the same especially by their passive obedience and likewise by their active obedience in all honest and lawful demands All which with all that I said before I say to clear the integrity of the said Reverend Prelates intention from any sinister apprehension of misunderstanding hearers But where the right is indubitable and the soveraignty not to be questioned whose it is as it is with our most gracious King whom all the Irish Rebels of Kilkenny and all the other Rebels of these three Kingdoms deny not to be their lawful Soveraign I say that what Power soever exalteth it self above him or against him which the Parliament of England doth not when it challengeth only a kind of co-ordination with him we are not to yield any obedience unto the same especially if the same command or require any thing contrary to his commands because as the Son of Syrach saith We are to stand with the right and in the truth and as our Saviour saith To continue faithful therein unto death if we desire to enjoy the Crown of life And therefore though the dumb devil may hold my tongue Rev. 2.10 so that I shall be able to say nothing of what truth should be delivered yet all the power of hell shall never open my mouth and cause me to say that untruth which my conscience telleth me cannot be justified because this love to the truth of Scripture is a singular Testimony of our love to God 3. The next sign of the love of God is to love the honour of God without which we cannot be said to love God 2 To love Gods honour 4. The next sign is to love Gods Image that is Man 5. To observe Gods Precepts 6. To hate Sin 7. A longing desire to be with God to have an Union and Communion with him for it is an impregnable property of a person loving to desire to be united to the person loved and therefore Pyramus loving Thisbe cries out to the wall that hindered them to meet together Invide dicebat paries quid amantibus obstas Many other signs of Gods love I should shew unto you and the impediments that hinders us to love God such as are 1. The ignorance of the incomprehensible sweetness and unspeakable goodness of God 2. The too much love of our selves and of our carnal desires 3. The bewitching allurements of the pleasures profits and other vanities of this present world and the like that do hinder blind and suffocate our love to God And then last of all I should shew unto you the helps and furtherances to beget and to nourish the love of God in us such as are 1. The continual meditation of Gods goodness towards us and his excellencies in himself 2. The daily reading and hearing of Gods Word and the reading of other godly Books that do incite and invite us to love the Lord above all the things of this World 3. Continual Prayers to God for Grace and the assistance of his Holy Spirit to encline our hearts to love him 4. Often discourse and conference with good and holy men about the goodness of God and heavenly things and the like All which I should more fully and amply inlarge unto you but that the time binds me to defer the same to a fitter opportunity and in the interim to pray to God for grace to abandon the love of this World and to love God and to encrease in our love to him more and more through Jesus Christ our Lord To whom be Glory and Honour and Thanks now and for evermore Amen Jehovae Liberatori THE DECLARATION OF THE Just Judgments of GOD. THE Man that was according to God's own heart the best Subject that ever we read of and the greatest Ring that ever Israel saw David the Son of Jesse saith that the LORD is righteous in
bond or free Nahum 1.7 so God knoweth them that trust in him saith the Prophet and he shall say of them I know them and I will acknowledge them to be mine my sheep and my servants wheresoever they are and in what state or condition soever they be And therefore they follow me and study to be holy as I am holy which is their sanctification and the third part of these words 3. Christ told his Apostles at the first that if any man would be his Disciple Tertia part they follow me Luke 9.23 The following of Christ twofold 1. In suffering Esay 53.3 and so his sheep to hear his voice and to learn of him he must take up his cross and follow him And this following of him as you see by these words must be twofold 1. In patiendo in suffering as he suffered 2. In agendo in doing as he did For 1. Our Shepherd Christ was vir dolorum a man of sorrows as the Prophet calls him that had experience of infirmities and his whole life from his Cradle to his Cross was but a life of suffering the scornful reproofs of the wealthy and the despitefulness of the proud who did all that either tongues or hands could do against him and yet as a Lamb before his shearer is dumb so he opened not his mouth V. 7. but forgave them all their indignities and prayed for them that crucified him which was an example of suffering without example and beyond all examples And our Saviour tells us the Disciple must not be above his Master he must not look to walk on flowers when his Master walks through the bryars but where the Master goeth before the servant should follow after And yet we may justly say with S. Bernard Quam pauci O Domius Jesu post te ire volunt cum tamen ad te pervenire nemo sit quinesit hoc scitutibus cunctis qua delectationes in dextratnausque ad finem How few O Lord Jesu there are which will come after thee when as to come unto thee there is no man but is willing because where thou art and in thy right hand there is fulness of joy and abundance of pleasures for evermore Et propterea saith that Father Volâ—â—t omnes te frai at non ita intitari conregnare cupiunt sed non compati And therefore all men would enjoy thee but not so as to follow thee they would Reign with thee but they will not suffer with thee they can be concented with the Apostle to build Tabernacles and to abide with him on mount Tabor where he was transfigured in Glory but they can all forsake him on mount Calvarie when he was overwhelmed with sorrow and confusion went over his face This is the common course of the world to follow him close in prosperity and to seem zealous of his honour and of his service Cum benefecerit illis when as the Prophet David saith Their corn and wine and oyle encreaseth and they prosper in their successes but if they should be ejected suppressed and persecuted for serving him then will they start aside like a broken bow and like the children of Ephraint that being harnessed and carrying bowes and so being enabled by their learning wealth and friends to do God good service do turn their backs to him in the day of battel when there is most need of their help and they could most chiefly follow him But the true sheep of Christ and the faithfull servants of God will follow him Per mare per saxa per ignes and will say Who shall separate us from the love of Christ or withdraw us from the service of our God and following after our Shepherd or shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword No sure in all these things they are more then Conquerours through him that loved them so that neither Death nor life nor Angels nor Principalities nor Powers nor Things present Rom. 8.35 v. 38.39 nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other creature shall be able to separate them from the love of God and from following their Master Jesus Christ our Lord. And they that cannot truly say thus or they that love Father or Mother or Son or Daughter or any other thing in this world even their own life more then Christ they are not worthy of Christ Mat. 10.37 as Christ himself doth testifie And therefore seeing that to suffer with Christ and for Christ his Service is an especial gift and grace of God Phil 1.29 1 Pet. 3.14 Mat. 5.11 as the Apostle sheweth and that they are happy and blessed that suffer persecution for righteousness sake and when men shall revile them and say all manner of evil against them falsly for Christ his sake I say with the Poet Componite mentes Lucan Phars Ad magnae virtutis opus magnosque labores And as our Saviour saith when you suffer all that can be suffered and all that your enemies can impose upon you Mat. 11. v. 12. rejoice and be glad yea and be exceeding glad because your reward shall be great in heaven and let not your sufferings trouble you Nec enim fortuna querenda Ovid Met. l. ulâ— sab 44. Sola tua est similes aliorum respice casus Mitius istaferes For this is not your case alone but if you look what happened to other men you shall finde that as our Saviour saith So persecuted they the Prophets that were before you and so are many of your brethren persecuted as well as you and perhaps more then you which should teach you Mitius ista ferre to follow Christ in his sufferings the more patiently and contentedly without any manner of muttering 2. 2 In Doings As we are to follow our Shepherd Christ in his Sufferings so we are to follow him in his Doings that is to imitate him in our actions and to make him the Exemplar and the Pattern of all our doings for though we should live by Rules and not by Examples yet the Example of Christ is beyond all Rules Et validior est vox operis quam oris Bern in Cant. Ser. 59. and morall operations are more forcible then all the logicall demonstrations in the world But you must understand that the Acts and Doings of Christ are of two sorts 1. Unimitable 2. Imitable And The first he did as God to approve his Office and to confirm our Faith that we might believe him to be the Son of God and the Messias that should come to be the Saviour of the world for so he saith himself The works that I doe do testifie and beare witnesse of me And herein we are not required to follow him and we are not able to imitate him neither should we attempt to doe it for when he saith Learn of me he meaneth not saith Saint Augustine that thou shouldst learn of him Aut mundos fabricare aut mortuos suscitare
saith Lex non justior ulla est Quam necis Artifices arte perire sua There cannot be a juster Law 2 In retaliation of good for good then for him that diggeth a Pit to fall into it himself or that he that loveth War should perish in the War and he that sheddeth mans Blood should have his Blood shed by man so in the retaliation of good for good the same Law holdeth most just and more especially 1. In Giving 2. In Suffering 3. In Loving For For 1. 1 In giving Is it not just that we should give to him that hath given all to us And what have we that we have not received from God Why then should we think much either to give the Tenth to God or our Almes unto the Poor when the Lord himself professeth he that giveth unto the poor lendeth unto the Lord and whatsoever you do to these you do to Him 2. 2 In suffering Is it not as just that we should be ready to suffer for him that hath suffered so much for us The Apostle saith that Christ exinanivit seipsum though he thought it no Robbery to be equal with God Phil. 2.6 yet he emptied himself of all his Royal Dignities and suffered all the Indignities that could be laid upon him for our sake and shall we grudge to suffer the Losse of a little Worldly Trash or the bearing of some Light Affliction for him and for the Defence of his Truth and True Service that hath suffered all Sufferings for us No no when we suffer any thing for the Faith of Christ or our Loyalty to our King let us but consider what Christ hath suffered for us and what our good King hath suffered for the Defence of our Faith because he will not yield to deface the Church of Christ and to destroy the True Service of God and this will support us in all our Sufferings we suffer a little for him that suffered much for us 3. Because all men have not wealth to give 3 In loving and all men have not the patience to suffer yet all men have hearts to love God and they can have no excuse if they love him not because he hath so dearly loved them for if you consider all the Motives and procurements of Love which are very many as Beauty Benignity Bounty Wisdom Valour and the like yet there is none of these nor all these nor any other thing in the world so powerful to beget Love as Love it self neither is there any thing so available to encrease or to continue Love as Love it self Therefore the Poets feign that when Venus the Goddess of Love brought forth her first begotten Son she called him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Love and when she saw he thrived not but was still lean meager and bloodless How Venus consulted with Themis about her son Eros she consulted with Themis the Goddess of Justice which was Mother to Minerva the Goddess of Wisdom to know the reason of the sad condition of her Son and she told her that she must bring forth another Son which she did and called him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i.e. Love for Love and then both her Children prospered and became exceeding beautiful and lovely So among men when we prosecute any one with Love it is impossible that Love should be lasting if at no time in no measure it should be requited with Love again for as the Coales Conjoyned will preserve the heat but when they are scattered will be soon extinguished so debet amor laesus irasci love when it is deserted and forsaken or left alone will be soon lost And therefore if we desire the Love of God to continue towards us we must resolve to shew our Love to God again for I will love them that love me and shew mercy unto Thousands of them that loue me saith the Lord Prov. 8.17 And so the Apostle saith we love him because he loved us first that is seeing he hath loved us therefore we are bound to love him where you may observe 1. The Persons We. We love him 2. The Act Love We love him 3 Parts 3. The Object Him We love him 1. The persons here said to love God are not the Angels 1 The persons that love God We. though they do exceedingly love him when as the Script saith He maketh his angels spirits and his ministers a flame of fire where you may see three most admirable and transcendent excellencies of the Angels as 1. Purity of substance because they are Spirits 2. Readiness of obedience because they are his Angels and his Ministers Three excellent properties of the Angels and such as for their swift execution of Gods commands are compared to the wings of the wind 3. Ferventness of charity or burning love not only of one towards another but especially towards God because they are flames of fire but the persons here meant are men we love him i.e. we that are the sons of Adam do love him seeing mans love to God is but Radius divini amoris erga homines in deum reflexus a beam of Gods love towards man reflected from man to God again as Zanchius saith and seeing that where so powerfull a cause doth exist the subsequent effect must needs follow Therefore seeing God loveth all men it must needs be that all men How all men do love God Acts 17. in some measure do love God again that is as God is their Creator Preserver and Cause in whom they live and move and have their being and from whom they have and do receive all the good that they have so the Jews Turks and Heathens Worldlings Rebels and Traytors and all the wicked men in the world doe love God But seeing this love is too general and too base for all Christians scarce worthy of the name of love it will not serve the turn to make us happy but will deceive and destroy those lovers that have none other love to God but this poor confused general love Therefore 2. To proceed unto the stricter discussion of the act or the affection of love 2 The act love The Original cause of love twofold 1. General We love him you must note the same to be according to the original cause and ground thereof And that is two-fold 1. General as the many manifold benefits that we continually receive from God as he is the faithful Creator a wise Preserver and a bountiful Bestower of abundance of all good gifts upon his Creatures So the Reprobates love God 2. Special and in this respect the very Reprobates as I told you cannot chuse but love the Lord that is their Creator and Preserver 2. Special as the serious apprehension of our own infinite wants and miseries and of those Miracles of Love and Mercies which God hath performed to cure our souls from those Miseries Thus the Saints only love God by sending his only Son to
SEVEN TREATISES Very necessary to be observed in these very bad Days To prevent the Seven last Vials of God's Wrath that the Seven Angels are to pour down upon the Earth Revel xvi I. The Monstrous Murder of the most righteous King Paralel'd to the Murder of King CHARLES the First Act. vii 52. II. The Tragedy of Zimri that slew his King that was his Master 2. Reg. ix 31. III. God's War with the wicked Rebels Murderers c. Esay lvii 21. IV. The lively Picture of these lewd times Jeremy xiv 10. V. The four Chiefest Duties of every Christian Man 1. Peter ii 17. VI. The true Properties and Prerogatives of the true Saints John x. 27. VII The Chiefest Cause why we should love God 1. John iv 19. Whereunto is annexed The DECLARATION of the just Judgment of GOD 1. Upon our late King's Friends that neglected him 2. Upon the King's Enemies that rebelled and warred against him I. The perfideous Scots II. The bloody Irish III. The Anti-Christian Presbyterians and Parliament that killed the two Witnesses of Jesus Christ Moses and Aaron Magistrates and Ministers 1. In general upon all the Long Parliament and especially upon the Rump-Parliament so termed 2. In particular upon many of the most wicked Limbs of the great Anti-Christ and the Members of that Parliament AND The superabundant Grace and great Mercy of God shewed towards this good King CHARLES the First I. In his Life II. In his Death III. After his Death 1. In his Honour 2. In his Children and Posterity 3. In all his Friends and loyal Subjects By Gr. Williams Ld. Bishop of Ossory LONDON Printed for the Authour 1661. The Resolution of the Authour By the Grace of God and the assistance of his blessed Spirit I will flatter no man I do fear none nor any danger but God I desire nothing of any man but Love I covet no Preferment but to keep what the blessed King and my most gracious Master at the Motion of my ever Honoured Lord the Earl of Pembroke hath given me And He gave me all that I have and to lose all for his sake that gave me all I never cared I can have no long time to live being now full Seventy and four years old I will speak nothing to my knowledge but truth and if I perish I perish as Qu. Hester said Let God's will be done Jehovae Liberatori GR. OSSORY TO THE KINGS Most Excellent MAJESTIE And to the now-Convened PARLIAMENT and all Posterity The Humble Remonstrance of Gruffith Williams Lord Bishop of Ossorie Sheweth THAT he is most strictly obliged and indispensably bound as he is sent a messenger from God to instruct his people and called by His late Majesty his most gracious Master and now most Glorious Martyr Charles the first of ever blessed memory to be the Bishop of Ossorie to declare and make Remonstrance unto Your Majesty to the now-Convened Parliament and to all Posterity these few Subsequent things As First that ever since 1625. I lived with my ever-honoured Lord and Master the Earl of Pembroke and Mountgomery for the most part in His Majestie 's house at the Cock-Pit about the space of eighteen years together and about seven years of that time in His Majestie 's service and in that respect I had fitter opportunity to observe His Majestie and to understand the affairs and Trans-actions of the Court better then most others of His Majestie 's Chaplains that waited only their accustomed Moneth and then returned to their residence And mine Obligations to His late Majestie are so many and so great that I cannot with the best of mine endeavours discharge the Dimidium of those duties that low to the blessed memory of that King for he gave me all that I had and all that I have and had not the late Arch Bishop of Canterbury provided and commended to His Majestie a far better and abler man every way then my self His Majestie intended to make me the Teacher and Tutour to Your Majestie as I heard it from His own mouth when my ever Honoured Lord and Master the Earl of Pembroke and Mountgomery brought me to examine His Son and my Scholar the Lord Charles Herbert before His Majestie And therefore I conceive that I am more obliged and bound in Conscience to declare what I do infallibly know to be truth to perpetuate the understanding thereof unto Posterities and to undeceive the Ignorant and Simplest sort of people that know not things aright but in hearing the lying reports of most Malicious men do swallow down the same for truths then many others of His late Majestie 's Chaplains And I call the great God of Heaven and the Searcher of all hearts to be my witness that what I do is neither out of Envie Hatred or Malice to any particular man or to Flatter and to Insinuate my self into the favour of any one the greatest man living or for the hope and expectation of any benefit or Preferment in the World whereas I never did nor ever intended to desire any thing of Your Majestie or of any other but onely to retain and to enjoy what our late Pious King and my most gracious Master hath given me because that although I was Plundered in England and Plundered in Wales and Sequestred of all my Means both in England and Wales and had not left me one peny of any Ecclesiastical Means nor twenty Pound per annum in all the World to maintain my self and my Servants of any Temporal Estate so that I was forced for these twelve last years and more to live upon a little Tenement for which I payed fifty shillings rent to Sir Gr. Williams and four Pound land by the year of mine own poorer then poor Curates with Oaten-Bread and Barly-Bread and a little Butter-Milk or Glas-Door and sometimes Water being not able to keep any drop of Ale or Beer in my house for these two lustra's of years and more as all my Neighbours know and to go attired in very mean Country Cloaths and to do many servile works my self about my House Garden and Cattel for want of means to hire labourers yet for all this my sad condition lest I should be ensnared and hindred to discharge my duty and my tongue entangled with such Bird-lime I resolved to accept of no means benevolence or maintenance from the Usurpers Rebels and the Robbers of the Church of Christ and of their brethren whatsoever they should offer unto me and how great soever my wants should be as being contented with the Apostle with any state or condition whatsoever and hoping that as the Poet said of Pompey Non me videre superbum Prospera fatorum so Nec fractum adversa videbunt But what I say herein I do it onely to demonstrate the truth of things not to those that knew His Majestie which were needless but to those that knew Him not and upon mis-apprehension of His Majesties action's related by Malicious Adversaries misunderstood the same
Marble And therefore we are all obliged as specially to Your Sacred Majesty that brought our Peace and Restauration to all that we have so Secondly to the Adventurers that laid out their Moneys and to the Soldiers that ventured their Lives and endured hardship to restore us unto our Rights But if they adventured either life or money to drive out the Rebels and to get both their Lands and ours that never offended unto themselves as many of the Soldiers do about Kilkenny then we owe them no thanks and they do no better then as the Thieves robbed us so they rob the Thieves not for the love of Justice to make Restitution to the Owners but to enrich themselves and how God likes of this keeping the right Owners from their Lands and Houses let the Adventurers Soldiers and Buyers of them judge themselves the Lord will judge it at another Day All which and many more Distempers that might be seen in that unsettled Kingdom and the Distresses of many unrelieved pillaged Protestants that are continued through the unbridled Fury of the Presbyterians and the blinde illimited Zeal of the Anabaptists Quakers and other Sectaries that have swarmed in this place as appeareth by this Catalogue of them that were presented by the Church-wardens of one Parish for their unlawful Conventicles That is to say William Burgess of Kilkenny Esquire Thomas Wilson Esq Thomas Fox Gent. Thomas Fonyver Merchant John Ball Merchant Francis Mitchel Merchant Thomas Newman Esq Richard Inwood Innkeeper William Hays Gent. John Beaver Merchant Edward Evans Tanner William Waters Taylor Francis Hamblyn George Dawson William Mitchel Gardiner Charles Duke Gent. Thomas Collins Gent. I thought it my Duty in all Humbleness and Fidelity to declare and remonstrate unto Your Majesty and to Your most Honourable Parliament and all others that desire to be informed herein leaving it to Your Majestie 's most wise and pious Consideration and their religious Care of God's Service and Servants to do what to Your Majesty seemeth best herein and most humbly craving Pardon if in these things I have done any thing that in the least way might offend Your Majesty whom I so truly honour and will ever as faithfully serve as any Subject within Your Kingdoms not onely as You are my King but especially as You are the gracious Son of so glorious a Father as is that blessed King CHARLES the First whose Name and Memory shall ever be like the Composition of the most pretious Oyntment that is made by the Art of the Apothecary So I rest Your MAJESTIES most loyal faithful and obedient Subject and Oratour GR. OSSORY THE FIRST TREATISE Acts 7.52 Which of the Prophets have not your Fathers persecuted And they have slain them which shewed before of the coming of the Just One of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers THE occasion of this our meeting and congregating our selves together at this time in Gods House is to confess our Great sins to declare our Sorrows and to testify our Humiliation as for all Other our transgressions so Especially for the high Rebellion and malicious Deliberate murder which our Fathers our Brethren and the Rest of the people of these Dominions have committed against their Own most Pious Just and Lawfull King CHARLES the First And I know not any waies how to do the same better then by parelleling the Transcendent murder of our King with that Vnexpressible murder of the King of the Jews and our blessed Saviour Jesus Christ For the performance of which Duty I shall desire you to give Attendauce to the Word of God which you may find written in Acts 7.52 These Words that I have read unto you are the Words of the protoMartyr Saint Stephen the first Witness that lost his Life for Preaching the Truth and testifying the Faith and death of Jesus Christ And they do contain a three fold Act or three speciall steps descending down-wards towards hell which with the assistance of God I intend to handle not to direct you the way thither but to divert all men from those dangerous pathes whose ends must be so dolefull unto them without end And they are 1. Persecutio Prophetarum the persecution of the Prophets Three parts 2. Occisio Praedicatorum the killing of the Preachers 3. Perditio interfectio justi Regis the betraying and murdering of a most just and the most righteous King the King of the Jews The three fowlest facts that could be acted by any men and would never have been done by any but by Jews or worse than Jews 1. The wisest amongst the sons of men saith Surely that you need not doubt it Eccles 7.7 oppression maketh a wise man mad and therefore likely it maketh simple men and fooles more mad and oppression which the Grecians call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is nothing else but violenta pressura a violent pressure and a pinching of their bodies or a sore pressing upon their estates and impoverishing them by Taxes impositions and services more than by the Laws ought to be imposed or that they be well able to bear And yet as the Poet saith Clamitat ad Coelum Vox oppressorum mercesque retenta laborum This oppression of the poor crieth loud in the eares of God for vengeance against the oppressors Psal 9.9 Prov. 22.23 Amos 5.21 and God promiseth to be a refuge for the oppressed and He threatneth to punish all the oppressors of the poor yea and to spoyle the soul of those that spoyle them and therefore the great men of this world should take heed that they oppress not the poor the fatherless and the widow that have least shelter to preserve them from oppression But if Oppression be so haynous a vice and so loud a crying sin what shall we think of Persecution for persecution that is derived of persequor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifieth ad extremum usque sequi to follow and pursue his desire to the uttermost execution is of a far higher strain and a close following after the person of any one to do him some great and apparant mischief either to take away his Liberty or to bereave him of his Life as Cain did to Abel Gent 4.8 1 Sam. 13.14 and as Saul persecuted David and hunted after him even as a Patridge is hunted upon the mountain from place to place And thus did the Fathers of these Jews persecute the Prophets For the better understanding of which point Three things observable in the 1. part i.e. The persecution of the Prophets I humbly beseech you to observe these three things 1. The persecutors their Fathers 2. The persecuted the Prophets 3. The extent and generality of their persecution Quem Prophetarum 1. 1 The persecutors The persecutors are said to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their fathers and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dicitur quasi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ex se genitos servans the keeper and preserver of those that are
Crucifie him 5. When to so milde a King that said none otherwise to his servant Math. 26 6â— So they beheaded King Charles where they used the baiting of Bears and other beasts in the common-way that arch-traytor which betrayed him but Friend wherefore art thou come they shall scornfully say to him The Prisoner or this fellow 6. When they carry him out to Golgotha a place fitter to bait beasts than to execute Kings there in a common high-way to lose his life 7. When as they go to Golgotha they cause him that was whipped and scourged and wearied in posting of him from place to place to carry his own heavy cross upon his shoulders 8. When they not only numbred him among the wicked but also crucified him betwixt two thieves in the midst of the wicked as if he had been the chiefest of all wicked men When the Colonel that brought him to his execution commanded his Souldiers to shoot any one that pâ—lled off his hâ—â— or shewed any reverence or spake any word for the honour of the King 3 How he was spit upon Joh. 19.29 And thus they bespitted King Charles with all kind of calumnies that had none but the wicked on every side of him 9. When as now disrobed of all Royalties and fastned to an accursed cross where he was induring intolerable pains not one that loved him durst speak a word but his enemies flouted him and wagged their heads at him and when he thirsted for our salvation they filled his mouth with sharp Vinegar as they did his ears with shameless taunts 10. When after he was dead they would not afford him a place of burial but he must be laid in another mans Sepulcher And were not all these and much more that might be collected most spightful usages of an innocent man and a glorious King Yet the Evangelist adds one thing more that I must not omit that they would spit upon him a note of the thing that we do most abominate as it seems their King was the chiefest thing that they did most hate and abhor But a man may be said to be spit upon figuratively when his enemies spit out their venome against him even bitter words And so Christ their King was most shamefully spit upon when by their Declarations and Remonstrances and other scurrilous Pamplets they proclaimed him to the World to be a Deceiver of the trust reposed in him and a Traytor because he perverted the people and drew them on to their destruction So they called him a Samaritane a Drunkard a Demoniak an upholder of Sinners a breaker of the Sabbath a Conjurer and what not Their tongues were swords that killed his Honour before they crucified his Person and they were the poyson of Aspes that spat out all these slanderous calumnies upon their King And this was bad enough and too much indignitie for a King Yet the Souldiers did not only thus Rhetorically spit upon him but Grammatically disgorged the scum of their ulcerous lungs in his glorious face and it is reported that a Souldier going under the name of a Christian did the like to a most Christian King which if true let him repent lest God should spue him out of his mouth And though it be the rule of the very Heathens De mortuis nil nisi bene We ought to speak nothing but good of the dead because as the Poet saith Livor post fata quiescit Yet these beasts like devils Saeva sed in manes manibus arma dabant degenerating from mankind are not content to kill their King but will murder him again and again after that he is both dead and buried and that not only in his Lovers and Followers whom they are resolved not to extenuate but to extirpate but especially in his fame his glory and his honour which is to all good men as the savour of the sweetest perfume that is made by the art of the Apothecarie and which they like stinking flies endeavour by all means to corrupt and defame and to destroy all those that truly preach or publish any truth redounding to his honour as you may plainly see it in the acts of his Apostles whom they threatned and terrified for speaking any good of him Though as the Poet saith Tu ne cede malis sed contrà audentior ito So the more these murderers sought to hinder it the more the glory and goodness of this King was spread abroad to their indelible shame throughout all the World when as the vertues of every just and pious man are as the palme-trees the more forcibly they are suppressed the more gloriously they will be exalted So you see how spightfully and how trayterously and bloodily and basely these miscreant Jews have used and abused killed and murdered their own King Now 2. 2 How causelessely they condâ—mned him John 10.32 You are to consider how causelessely and how unjustly they did all this unto him for the Prophet in the person of this King saith Oderunt me gratis They hated me indeed but without a cause and himself saith unto the Jews Many good works have I shewed you from my father For which of them do you now go about to kill me So in truth there was great cause to love and honour this good King that had done so much good unto them but no cause why they should either hate or abuse much lesse to kill or murder this their own King Yet we find several causes set down by the Evangelists that moved these Jews to kill their King and they are of two sorts 1. Pretended to the people 2. Real to themselves And 1. 1 The pretended causes to murder their King Their pretended cause is specially twofold 1. Cultus Dei 2. Salus populi the usual pretences of all Traytors and if they were true there could not be better And therefore this fair colour deceives the buyers of this bad cloth and these pretences made the people to commit on Christ this execrable Fact to hate and crucifie the son of God their own King But to proceed to examine these fair colours 1. As generally the raisers of any people to rebellion 1 Innovation of Religion taxe their Governours with innovation or destruction of Religion because all men even the superstitious and licentious and prophane worlding would fain seem to embrace the true Religion so these perswade the silly vulgar that this their King closely and cunningly laboureth to alter and innovate the true service of God as 1. That he was too loose in observing the Sabbath 2. Too strict in the reverence to be shewed in the material Temple Mark 2.24 Matth. 21.12 c 19. The very same things were objected against King Charles Matth. 5.17 1. Objection answered Mark 2.27 3. Too severe in abridging them the liberty of divorces and the like But to this our King answereth first in generall that they do wrong him by this their unjust charge and accusation because he came
be numbered inter pessimos being an Adulterer a Tyrant and a Sacrilegious King that neither spared man in his fury nor woman in his lust and yet this Kingdom then had never a Zimri in it to take away his life for all his wickedness Bodinus de repub l. 2. c. 5. Not to resist our King though he should be a Tyrant Peter Martyr in 1 Sam c. 26. And Bodin saith the most learned Divines are of opinion that it is so far from being lawful for subjects to kill their King under colour of Tyranny that they are expressely forbidden to speak ill of them And Peter Martyr saith that Religious David made no doubt but that King Saul was a Tyrant yet he abstained from killing him when he might most easily do it because he saw that he could not lawfully do it and if it was not lawful for him that was by God's appointment and the ministery of God's Prophet Samuel annointed to be King after him then surely no other man might have done it Camer l. 2. c. 10. And Camerarius demands if there could be a worse Prince than Nero and yet saith he The Apostles S. Paul and S. Peter are so far from advising the Christians to conspire against him as they command them to use all obedience to him and that not for fear only but also for conscience sake Chrysost in Epist ad Thessal And S. Chrysostome saith That Theodosius destroyed Thessalonica and spared neither Sex nor Age neither young nor old man nor woman but took upon him so much as he listed to satisfie his own furious will and yet howsoever parendum est obedience must be given him saith this holy father And if the King becomes an Idolater Not to resist our King though he should be an Idolater and doth with Manasses command his subjects to worship Idols as Hen. 8. commanded the observation of the 6. Articles wherein they were to adore the Breaden god yet in this case no Zimri should presume to kill his King but the rule of the Apostles ought to be followed to obey God rather than man and not to do what God forbids though the King command it to be done yet no wayes to take armes against him but to follow the examples of the Saints and Martyrs of God Vt supra rather to suffer death than to offer any resistance and whatsoever becomes of our bodies to possesse our souls in patience saith Camerarius And though the King should prove a wicked Heretick yet we must not rise against him saith the same Author but with the weapons of prayer desire of God to convert him for so the true Christians followed the Emperour Constantius Not to resist our King though he should be an Heretick that was an Arian and they followed Julian the Apostata in his wars and expeditions though they were never so far and never intended to rebel against him And as the Jews and Christians were of this opinion that it is not lawful in any case for any subject to kill his King So the Gentiles also seem to be of the same mind for when the Jews cryed to have our Saviour crucified Pilate demands of them Shall I crucifie your King as if he should have said What was there ever such a Nation so wicked and so abominable before God and all good men as to desire to crucifie their King Why this desire seemeth The Jews confess that no Nation should desire to be the death of their King not only strange and admirable but also abominable and so incredible unto me that you should in good earnest desire to crucifie your King and it seems by their answer to this question of Pilate that they rightly apprehended his mind and did also approve his sense that for any Nation or People to desire to crucifie their King was most abominable and wicked and therefore they absolutely deny that they were his subjects and say We have no King but Caesar For They were not ignorant how the heathens honoured their Kings and how the Egyptians Aubanus de Africa l. 1. p 39. Osor de instit regis l. 4. P. 106. whose manners they knew well enough did bear so much good will and love unto their Kings that as Boemus Aubanus saith Non solum sacerdotibus sed etiam singulis Aegyptiis major regis quam uxorum filiorumque aut aliorum principum salutis inesset cura and Osorius saith Persae quidom aliquid caeleste atque divinum in regibus inesse statuebant and Q. Curtius tells us that the Persians had such a divine estimation of their King and bore so much love unto him that Alexander could not perswade them either for fear or reward to tell him whither their King was gone or to reveal any of his intentions or to do any other thing that might any wayes prejudice the life or the affaires of their King and Herodotus saith that when Xerxes fled from Greece in a vessel that was so full of men of war that it was impossible for him to be saved without casting some part of them into the Sea he said unto them O ye men of Persia let some among you testifie that he hath care of his King whose safety is in your disposition Then the Nobility which accompanied him having adored him did cast themselves into the sea till the vessell was unburthened and so the King preserved And Justin tells us that the Sicilians did bear so great a respect unto the last Will and Testament of Anaxilaus their deceased King Justin l. â— that they disdained not to obey a slave whom he had appointed Regent during the minority of his son And Plutarch saith that when certain men came to Tyribastus to have taken him he defended himself so stoutly that they were not able to come near him but when the apprehenders said They came from the King Plut. de superstit he had such a reverent respect unto his Majesty that he presently laid down his Cimiter and yielded himself unto them And for the Examples and Precedents that those learned Orators do produce at the conference to shew how divers kingdomes as England France Spain and many more have cast off some Kings whom they disliked and put to death some others that had deserved it I answer that I have read all the nine Speeches over and over and am sorry that learned men which have read so many Histories both domestick and forreign should like the Spider suck the poysonous examples of those books and alledge them for imitation in such transcendent impiety and I am more sorry that they should passe at a conference of men that were chosen of their countrey for most grave and wise and did professe themselves most religious without a supercilious and a plenary answer which they might very briefly do and with a lesse then the tenth part of the pains these Oratours or Lawyers if they were such for divines I am sure they
Lions the Hogs and the Dogs qui mori pro dominis parati sunt which for a crust of bread are ready to die for their Masters can love their kind and live in unity among themselves and do good service unto man and shew themselves kind and curteous unto him as the Ravens brought food unto Elias and the hungry Lions did no hurt unto Daniel when he was thrown into their Den to be devoured by them And yet wicked men will plunder rob fight wound and kill one another Wherefore the holy Martyr Cyprian in serm de oratione Dom. S. Cyprian cryeth out O detestandam humanae malitiae crudelitatem aves pascunt ferae parcunt homines saeviunt O the most hateful cruelty of humane malice the fowles of the air do feed us and the wild beasts do spare us and serve us and men that are of our own flesh and blood perhaps our kindred or our brethren will destroy us and prove Wolves and Lions one to another And so as our Prophet saith The wicked have no peace with men but are lawing one with another and our fighting and our warring makes this point plain enough that we are a wicked generation because there is no peace amongst us 2. As the wicked have no peace with men 2 The wicked have no peace with God Esay 1.24 Aug. Confess l. 10. c. 43. so they have lesse peace with God for he professeth that they are his enemies saying Ah I will ease me of mine adversaries and avenge me of mine enemies and whereas Christ came down from Heaven to be our peace and to become the Mediatour between the mortal sinner and the immortal God and so to make our peace with God And as the Apostle saith to be peace as well to them that were afar off as to them that were nigh that is as S. Hierom expoundeth it Hierom. in loc Ephes 2.17 as well to us that were Gentiles and so far from the Covenant of Grace as to the Jews that were the children of Abraham to whom the Covenant was made that he would be his God and the God of his seed Gen. 17.17 But Christ is no Christ to the wicked for if any man hath not the Spirit of Christ the same is none of his and the Spirit of Christ flieth from deceit and dwelleth not in the body that is subject unto sin And Christ tells us plainly that if we be his sheep and would have him to be our Christ our Mediatour and our peace then we must hâ—ar his voice and follow him that is John 10.27 to be as he is meek and lowly in heart loving one another and ready to lay down their lives the one for the other even as he laid down his life for us all But the wicked will neither hear his voice to believe it and to obey it nor follow him in any grace or goodness but as the Jews followed him to Mount Calvary to crucifie him and to take away the life of his members and true followers as now you may see they do in every place And therefore as Linacrus reading the Sermon of Christ in the Mount set down in the 5th 6th and 7th Chapters of S. Math. and considering the wicked lives oppressions and wrongs that were practised among the people in every place by all degrees of men he threw away the Book and cryed out Certè aut hoc non est Evangelium Christi aut nos nonsumus Christiani Either this is not the Gospel of Christ or we be no Christians So I seeing how wickedly men do live and do proceed in their wicked wayes from bad to worse from worse to worst of all must needs conclude they neither have nor can have any peace with God for there is no peace to the wicked saith my God and especially so long as they do thus continue wicked 3. As the wicked will have no peace with men 3 The wicked have no peace with themselves Bernard l. de conscient sect 2. fol. 1784. That there are four kinds of consciences 1. The good yet not quiet conscience and can have no peace with God so they have no peace with themselves that is no quiet minds nor peace of conscience Where not with standing you must observe that as S. Bernard saith there is a fourfold conscience as 1. A good but not quiet 2. A quiet but not good 3. Both good and quiet 4. Neither good nor quiet Whereof the first that is the good conscience but not quiet and the third that is the good and quiet conscience do both belong unto the godly and the true servants of Jesus Christ that have made their peace with God and yet may they sometimes be troubled with many doubts and fears for some offences and infirmities which their consciences tell them have offended God And though these doubts and fears may disturb their consciences The fears of the godly produce very good effects and abate their joy and lessen their assurance of Gods love and their peace with God for a time yet will they bring no great damage unto them but rather produce very good effects and fruits of grace as to make them sorry for those offences that are past and do now trouble them and to be more careful to prevent the like to come But 2. They that have a good conscience and a quiet one have 2 The good quiet conscience Hoâ—atius Greg. super Ezeck hom 6. as Solomon saith a continual feast and a Heaven upon Earth And the very Heathen can tell us that Murus aheneus esto nil conscire sibi And therefore S. Gregory saith Quid poterit obesse si omnes derogent sola conscientia defendat What hurt is it to us though all men blame us if our conscience doth defend us Aug. cont lit petil For Vt malam conscientiam laudantis praeconium non sanat ita nec bonam vulnerat conv tium As all the praise in the world cannot heal a bad conscience so all the aspersions and dispraise can no wayes wound a good conscience But as these two kinds of consciences do appertain unto the godly so the other two appertain unto the wicked that is 1. A bad conscience and yet quiet which is a seared conscience that tells them the truth like Cassandra and shews them what evils they have done and what they are like to suffer for it but they like the careless Trojans will give no ear thereunto And this conscience is like that sickness that takes away from the patient all the sense of his sickness which is therefore the more dangerous because it is insensible and we cannot perswade the sick man Aug. confes l. 1. c. 13. which is ready to die that he is sick at all And quid potest esse miserius misero non miserante seipsum What can be more miserable than a miserable man Bern. Epist 2. not understanding his own miseries And therefore S.
death in any other Country where they should be but like Jonas among the Ninivites meer strangers Yet thus was Jeremy used and thus are we 3. This our Prophet was not only a Jew preaching unto the Jews 3 He was a dear lover of them for so many a man as Cateline among the Romans Vortigern among the Britains Speed l. 7. c. 4. and Simon Jason and others among the Jews and some others nearer home have betrayed their own Country 2 Machab. 4. the trust that their Country reposed in them but he was a faithful Patriot a hearty lover and no hater of his people Tertullian noteth how dearly Moses loved this Nation of the Israelites when rather than God should destroy them he earnestly requested that his own name might be blotted out of the Book of Life S. Paul sheweth the like love unto the Jews when he saith he could wish himself accursed from Christ Rom. 9.3 for his brethren and kinsmen according to the flesh And this our Prophet sheweth no lesse love unto them than the other as you may easily see by this his Prophesie and his Preaching to them and his Lamentation for them Yet all the love of these men and put all together was not comparable to the love of Christ who gave himself for them and prayed for them when they Crucified him And therefore well might he say Greater love than this hath no man John 15.13 that a man lay down his life for his friends which none of all the Prophets nor of the Apostles nor of the Martyrs that died all for themselves and suffered death for their own sins did lay down their life for others as our Saviour Christ did lay down his life not for himself but for his enemies and yet they loved them very much and very dear as I shewed to you before And so must all the Messengers of Christ and Preachers of God's Word How the Ministers and Preachers of Gods Word should love their people imitate these holy men to love Gods people for that the people can hardly reap any good from them whom they perceive not to love them but as we suspect the gifts of an enemy to be as the Belt of Ajax was to Hector and Hectors Sword to him in like sort the death of each other So we dis esteem and regard not the words of them that love us not But you see how the true Prophets and Servants of God loved this people and laboured all that ever they could for the good of the people to bring them unto God and to turn away Gods anger from them And what reward did this people render to these and to the rest of Gods Messengers and Teachers for all the love that they shewed unto them and the pains they had undertaken for them The very Heathen tells us that Amor amoris magnes durus est qui amorem non rependit Love is a Loadstone to draw love again and if we will do nothing else yet we can do no lesse than love them that do so dearly love us The very publicans and sinners do the same Yet behold The ingratitude of the Jews O Heavens and wonder O Earth at this ungrateful people who rendered to Gods Messengers evil for good and instead of loving them stoned them For they murmured against Moses rebelled against David persecuted Elias beheaded John the Baptist and as our Saviour saith they killed the Prophets Luke 13.34 and stoned them that were sent unto them And it is no strange thing for us to find many men walking in the same wayes and treading in the same steps as these Jews have done but it were very strange that we should be used any better than those better Messengers that were sent before us Luke 10.3 For our Saviour tells us with an Ecce Behold and consider it well I send you forth as lambs into the midst of wolves And you know the Fable how the silly lamb procul infrà bibens for drinking far enough below the wolfe was notwithstanding torn all to pieces by that cruel wolfe upon pretence that he stopt the current which was impossible for him to do 2. 2 The parties to whom this Message was sent The Parties to whom the Message was sent are shewed in these words this people and that is the people of the Jews that were then flos florum medulla mundi the choisest and the noblest of all the people of the world for You only have I known that is acknowledged for mine own people Amos 3.2 and mine own peculiar inheritance of all the families of the earth saith the Lord. And God shewed his great love towards them by the wonderful works that he had done for them For as the Prophet saith He eased their shoulders from their burdens Psal and their hands from making the pots and he delivered them out of that Egyptian-bondage and from the tyranny of cruel Pharaoh The great favours of God unto the Jews Then he gave them such Laws so holy and so just as neither Solon nor Lycurgus nor any other Nation of the World had the like And he fed them in the Wildernesse 40. years together with Manna that was the bread of Heaven and the Angels food and after that he thrust out 7. other Nations to make room for them and he gave them the labours of the people in possession and planted them in Canaan which was a Land that flowed with milk and honey and there he hedged them about as we were of late hedged here with all kind of blessings beneficia nimis copiosa most ample benefits And as the Schools say Privativa positiva for they had plenty in peace and victory in war and what was it not that this people had not And yet this people this peculiar people of God must hear this hard Message and they must undergo this sharp censure For as the Lord saith of Coniah Jeremy 22.24 were he as the signet upon my right hand yet would I pluck him thence and give him into the hands of those that seek his life So will he do with this people and with any other when they do prevaricate and offend him He will cut them off and cast them from him were they formerly never so precious in his sight How God dealeth with his dearest children when they depart from his service for no priviledge no prerogative no former piety can prevail with God to prevent his judgements when with this people they love to wander and refrain not their feet from their evil wayes But as these his dearly beloved people the Jews were cast off when they did cast off the true service of God and as those seven Churches of Asia Ephesus Smyrna Pergamos Thyatira Sardis Philadelphia and Laodicea that were planted by the Apostles and watered with the blood of Martyrs had their Candlesticks removed and themselves delivered up to groan under the Turkish tyranny
and to have the blasphemous Alcoran of that accursed false Prophet Mahomet for their Bible instead of the Glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ and all this because they had forsaken their First-love to the true service of their God So will the just and jealous God do with any other Church or people that seems never so dear unto him when they are so wavering and so ready to wander with this people from the true service of God and to forsake their first-first-love with those Asiatick Churches and to derogate from the first faith that they have received And as the Jews protestation that they did all for the worship of God and therefore cryed The Temple of the Lord Jer. 7.4 three times re-iterated in the same Chapter could not preserve them from this just judgement So the pretence of erecting a Gospel-discipline and the gathering of pure Churches out of Christ his Church contrary to the Doctrine of the true Church will hardly serve the turn to turn away Gods anger from us when upon these and the like pretended shews of sanctity more than ordinary we love to wander from the old way of Gods true Worship 3. The Person that is the sender of this Message is the Lord for 3 The Person that is the sender of this Message thus saith the Lord unto this people and that is the Lord which professeth himself to be slow to anger and abundant in goodness and in truth and that his mercy endureth for ever and is like the boundless and the bottomless Ocean that cannot be drawn dry Yet here this gracious God doth as it were disrobe himself of his mercy and lay aside his loving kindness and put on judgement as a garment that he might render vengeance to them that abuse his patience and prefer their own humours before his holy Worship and like the Scribes and Pharisees perswade themselves and the world that they are the only Saints when Christ knows they are the only hypocrites and so the vilest in Gods sight of all other sinners whatsoever as it appeareth by those many woes that Christ denounceth against these holy hypocrites more than against all the Publicans and Sinners which though they be open and apparent offenders yet are they sooner converted and brought to Christ and shall sooner obtain mercy at the hands of God than these outward Saints that inwardly are Devils That as our Saviour saith do come unto you in sheeps-cloathing with fair speeches and nothing but Scripture-phrases in their mouths but inwardly they are ravening wolves and devour the poor the fatherless and the widows under these holy shews But here as we know the Lord is merciful in his judgements and Ezra 9.13 as Ezra saith punisheth us less than our iniquites deserve and is also just in his mercies because he is righteous in all his works and holy in all his wayes So we must remember and we may assure our selves the Judge of all the earth will do right and will not destroy the righteous with the wicked Gen. 18 25. And therefore you must understand 1. Cui bonus to whom the Lord sheweth himself merciful and gratious 2. Cui justus to whom he will shew himself angry and just For To whom God sheweth himself merciful and to whom just As Christ saith that we must not give the childrens bread unto dogs nor a Scorpion to those children that call for Fish nor a Stone to them that desire Bread but we must give to every one his own portion and that in due season that is mercy and favour to the godly and to pardon the penitent sinner and so in like manner indignation and wrath and the heavy judgement of God upon the oppressors of their brethren and upon those that offend of malicious wickedness and that with this people here spoken of do love to wander out of the right way of Gods service to worship him after the new Mode and direction of the false Prophets And this may serve for an exceeding comfort unto the godly and constant worshippers of God that the Lord is so gratious and so just How God preserveth his servants in the midst of judgements as not to to destroy the righteous with the wicked But as he preserved Noah when all the World perished and delivered Lot out of Sodom when he rained fire and brimstone upon it and upon the other Cities So when a thousand shall fall besides thee and ten thousands on thy right hand yet will he give his Angels charge over thee Ps 91.11 and they shall keep thee in all thy waies that thou hurt not thy foot against a stone Or if it be as it somtimes happeneth that the good and godly men living among the wicked do partake of some punishments and afflictions with the wicked The different effects of Gods punishments upon the godly and upon the wicked as the good and bad sayling in the same Ship must be liable to the same Tempest yet the same troubles crosses and afflictions whether they be Plague Famine War or the like do not proceed from God either in the same manner or for the same end against the godly as they do against the wicked for they are but his fatherly chastisements unto his children but they are the signall testimonies of his wrath and fury against the wicked and therefore they drive the Godly to repentance and amendment of life or do translate them to everlasting happiness but they fill the wicked with rage and fury and drive them with despaire from one sin to another untill they descend to eternall torments 4. 4 The message comprehendeth two things The message that God sendeth unto this people containeth two speciall things 1. The doings of this people 2. The doome of this people 1. 1 The doings of this people In their doings you may observe these four particulars 1. Their Errors and transgressions they wandred 2. Four things wherein are considerable Their Love of Errors they loved to wander 3. The Manner of their wandering thus that is from one sin to another from one error to another from bad to worse from worse to worst of all 4. Their Greediness to proceed without any stop or stay in their wicked waies They refrained not their feet 1. 1 Their wandering Diligrunt evagari saith Tremelius And a vagrant is he that knoweth not where he is nor whither he goeth diligunt errare saith the vulgar Latin they love to erre And Errare est extra viam ire to wander is to walk or to run out of the way and I take the word wandering here in the largest sense What M. Calvin takes their wandering to be and not restrain it as M. Calvin doth to one particular sin which he understands to be their wavering minds and unconstancy in Gods service now serving him after the old manner set down by Moses and prescribed by God himself and by and by serving him after the new
the Lord and then to set up the service of Baal to persecute the true Prophets and then to magnify the false teachers 400 of them must be royally fed on Jezabels table when she would not entertain one true Prophet 1 King 18.19 And when as the Prophet saith corruit in platea veritas truth is fallen and shall be troden down as mire in the streets then lies and falshoods errors and heresies and all blasphemies shall be generally apprehended and the broachers thereof not worthy the name of Preachers shall be liberally maintained as they were by Queen Jezabel and are now by our Parliament-governours in every place Therefore though the Prophet saith It was a wonderfull and a horrible thing Jer. 5.30 that the Prophets should Prophesy falsly yet I think it was a greater wonder for the people to love to have it so to hire them so dearly and maintain them so bountifully for Prophesying falsly and teaching lies unto them For if Ahab and Jezabel had not magnified and so bountifully maintained those false Prophets and the people had not loved to hear them Prophesying lies and falshoods unto them it is like enough they would not have been so ready to broach so many errors and heresies unto them But what wonder is it for men to wander when they love to wander and to erre when they desire to erre for as Theognis saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So we may as truly say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For as another saith Quisquis amat ranam ranam putat esse Dianam He that loves a Black-moore thinks her to be as fair as Venus he that loves an Idol makes it his good god and he that loves lies errors and heresies embraceth them for divine verities But is it not a wonderful and a horrible thing that men endued with reason and understanding and men that pretend and seem to be wise and religious should notwithstanding be so brutish and sottish as to love to wander and love to be deceived and guided out of the service of God to follow after the vain fancies of the false Prophets Yet you see our Prophet tells us it is so with this people Why the people love to follow their false teachers rather then the true Preachers and you shall find it so with many more for as the wicked love the world better then the godly do love the Lord so the Schismatick and Heretick the Quaker the Anabaptist the Presbyterians the Independants and the Papists are more ready to maintain and more affectionate in their love to the false teachers then the true Protestants are to relieve the true and faithful Preachers And the reason hereof is two-fold 1. Because the false Prophets are more sedulous to gain Proselytes Reason 1 then the true Preachers are to make Christians for so our Saviour tells us that while the husband-man slept the envious man sowed tares Matth. 13.25 and while the faithful disciples slumbered the traytor Judas was very watchful and ran from Christ to the high Priests and from them back again into the garden and never rested untill he had finished his intended treason and delivered the King of heaven into the hands of his own sinfull subjects to be crucified And the second reason of this their more eager desire Reason 2 and more earnest love to errour then love to truth is because as our Saviour saith The children of this world are wiser in their generation then the children of light For though as our Prophet saith This people were foolish and sottish children that had no understanding to do good yet they were wise to do evill Je. 4.22 And so are all the children of this world and that makes them more secret in their plots more studious in their doings and more subtle in all their actions then are the children of God and when they have done any foul fact and committed some great offence then as the Tragedian saith Scelera sceleribus tuenda their horrible acts are upheld by far more horrible projects and as thieves to conceal their robberies do commit murder and lyars to justifie their lies will forswear themselves so will all wicked men uphold and maintain their wickedesse by greater wickednesse and as Medea saith Quae scelere pacta est scelere rumpatur fides the covenant which they have wickedly made they will as wickedly break and the faith which they have deceitfully given they will as readily frustrate And thus as Demodicus said of the Milesians that they were no fools but they did the very same things that fools did so the wicked politicians and the hypocritical Saints of this world they are no Jews but they do the verie same things that those Jews did they wander and erre from the truth because they love to wander And I would to God we would take as much pains to go to heaven as they do to run to hell and that we would as zealously love the true service of God as they love to wander from this right worship of God 3. For the manner of their doings it is set down in the word thus 3 The manner of their doings or after this sort and it is likewise implyed in this word wanders for he that wanders stands not still but still goeth on from the thickets unto the briers and from the briers unto the bogges and so from one errour unto another So you see we are here in a wilderness where this people went astray and I must follow them with the best Method I can to declare unto you their wandring courses but as Moses sets down only their principal stations and not every step that they made in the wildernesse of Sinai so will I follow his example and shew you only their principal aberrations in the wilderness of sin and because their sin is morbus complicatus a twisted and a decompound wickednesse containing many severall branches I will rank them into these three heads 1. Their aberrations principally consisted in three things Their abuse of Gods service 2. Their rebellion against their Governours 3. Their injuries unto their neighbours The which threefold sin is circulus diaboli the very circle of the devil wherein he driveth the wicked to run their round 1. 1 The abuse of Gods service Their abuse of Gods service was in their idolatry and idolatrous worship of God for so the Prophet saith According to the number of thy Cities were thy gods O Juda and according to the number of the streets of Jerusalem Jer. 11.13 have ye set up altars to that shameful thing Where you may observe That as there is but one God so this God should be served in every City and in every street of every city and as God is the same in every place That the same God should have the same worship in all places in every city and in every street of the city so should his service be the same in every place And to
their sins were suddenly destroyed and their punishment was not delayed that others by their example might be affraid to offend God lest his wrath should as suddenly consume them as it had done the others before they had any time to cry for pardon Yet sometimes he beareth long before he seems to be angry as the punishment of the Ninivits was to be deferred forty daies which forty daies were extended to forty years before Ninivy felt the smart and of the Israelits the Lord saith Forty years was I grieved with this Generation and to the old world he gave one hundred and twenty years to repent before he punished them and to the Amorits 400 years and which is more to be admired that the punishment of such a transcendent sin should be so long deferred The Jews that murdered their King the son of God remained full forty years before Jerusalem was destroyed and the death of Candaules slain by Gyges was not punished untill the daies of Craesus which was four Generations after as Herodotus saith out of the mouth of the oracle as the Prophet saith the like of Jehu for the slaughter that he committed so the Murderers of King Charles and of his Loyall subjects may perhaps escape for some time and yet their punishment may come at last and it may be with them as it was with Joab for the murder of Amasa and Abner So wounderfull is the long suffering and the patience of our God which he useth as the Apostle sheweth that he might lead them by that great patience unto repentance or if they repented not that they might be without excuse and that as Lactantius saith the long sufferance of God in expecting their amendment might be recompensed with the severity of vengeance in their punishment for the offendors must not think that because their payment is deferred therefore it shall be lessened or that the Lord hath forgotten it because they think not of it but as the longer you keep the Vsurers money the more interest he expecteth and the more debt is on your score and the higher you lift up your hand the heavier the blow will fall so the longer God beareth with the wicked transgressors of his laws before their punishment cometh the sorer and the severer will be their punishment when it cometh The deferring of Gods help no argument of Gods hate And therefore the long deferring of Gods aide and help to relieve his distressed servants and their often over-throws in their just defence is no argument that God hath forsaken them and will not help them no more then he forsook holy Job when he seemed to leave him destitute of all help or the ten Tribes when they fought and were twice beaten by the Tribe of Benjamin and the long flourishing of the wicked their good successes in all their bad causes The long prosperity of the wicked no argument of Gods speciall love Job 21.13 their prevailing against the righteous and their freedome of all punishment in this life but especially the deferring of their punishment is no token of Gods love unto them or especially of his acceptance of them no more then it was to Dives that without any rubs ran all his race in pleasure or to them whereof Job speaketh that spend their daies in wealth and in a moment go down to the grave because God dealeth with the wicked herein as Claudian saith he did with Ruffinus Tolluntur in altum Vt lapsu graviore ruant God lifteth them up and they abusing that favour he casteth them down and destroyeth them But the Prophet David seems to tell us the very set time The very time when God most commonly useth both to help and to relieve those that serve him and to punish and destroy those that prophane his fervice and continue in their wickedness under the Hypocriticall shew of holiness for he saith that the Lord is Deus in opportunitatibus a God in the needfull time of trouble that is as a holy Father expounds it Tum incipit auxilium divinum 1 When God helpeth his servants cum desinit auxilium humanum God will then help us when we cannot help our selves and when we are as Moses was at the red sea betwixt two huge Mountains and the raging sea before him and Pharaohs mighty host behind him ready to be destroyed either drowned in the waters or slain by the sword or break their necks if they assaid to climb those rocky Mountains or as the disciples of Christ were in the ship ready to perish as themselves confess When they see no hope of any human help then will God shew himself and send them help out of his holy place as he did to Job to restore his health when all his friends could not ease his pain and delivered Daniel out of the Lions den when the King himself could not free him from it And so will he do to all them that serve him and put their trust in him send them deliverance when man seeth no hope of assistance as he doth many times raise the sick when the Physitian giveth him over And the reason of this manner of his proceeding Why God deserreth and the long deferring of his help is to teach us with Moses Gideon Daniel Job Jonas and the rest of Gods servants to ascribe all the glory of our wonderfull and extraordinary deliverances to God and not to our selves nor to any other creature but to God Psal 115.1 and so to say with the psalmist Not unto us not unto us but unto thy name give the praise And for the time 2 When he punisheth the wicked when God usually punisheth the transgressors of his Laws the same Prophet saith When the ungodly are green as the grass and when all the workers of wickedness do flourish then shall they be destroyed for ever Psal 92 7. that is when they have brought all their projects to their own wished ends subdued their adversaries trampled the just harmless men under feet and perhaps with Ahab killed and taken possession too of poor Naboth's Vineyard and with the rich man in the Gospel pulled down their old barns and cottages and builded large Palaces filled their coffers and laid up store for many years and now thought to eat drink and be merry then suddenly when they look not for it will the Lord awake as a Giant out of sleep and will smite his enemies upon the cheek bone and put them to perpetuall shame and say unto them as he did to that fool in the Gospell This night shall they fetch away your souls from you and your lives shall pay for the lives of them that you have murdered and then Who shall have those treasures that you have so unjustly scraped together and those possessions that you have so wrongfully plucked and detained from the right owners And you your selves might have observed within these few lustra's many famous men that have been suddenly taken away
〈◊〉 the Lord shall deliver him in the time of trouble much more blessed shall he be that helpeth and relieveth the oppressed and especially those that have formerly wronged and oppressed him he shall be doubly blessed 1. Because he relieveth his wants And 2. Because he remitteth his faults and revengeth not his own wrongs And so you see how we are to honor to esteem and to love all men 2. As we are to honor all men in generall 2 What love we owe to the Brother-hood so more especially we are to love the Brother-hood in particular where observe 1. The Act. 2. The Extent 1. The Act is love and love saith the Schoolman is Bene velle amato but that is no more then Amor affectivus and the Apostle speaks not here de amore affectivo tantum sed de amore effectivo simul of the inward affection only but also of that love which is declared by the effects in outward actions and therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arist Aethic l. 9. c. 5. To love is to will that which we esteem good to any one and to the uttermost of our power to procure that good unto him as Aristotle saith So that this our love to the brother-hood comprehendeth 1. An hearty affection without dissimulation 1 Joh. 3.18 not only in tongue and in word but in deed and verity i. e. from the heart 2. An actuall performance of all the good that we can do unto them as praying for them comforting them and administring to their necessities not only with our purses but also with our words with our labours Crysost in Ro. 12. ho. 21. and with any thing that lieth in our power to stand them in any stead This is the act that we are to do And 2. For the Extent of it we are to do it most especially saith the Apostle to the Brother-hood Touching which point of Fraternity or Brother-hood you must observe that there is a two fold Brother-hood whereof you must hate the one and love the other That there is a two fold fraeternity As The 1. Is in Evil and from the Devil The 2. Is in Good and from God For 1. Simeon and Levi were brethren but it was in the evil 1 The evill Brother-hood saith the Scripture when the instruments of cruelty were in their habitations and therefore cursed was their brother-hood Gâ—n 49.5 7.7 and their unity was to be divided in Jacob and to be scattered in Israel And so the wicked at all times Faciunt unitatem coutra unitatem do as S. Augustine saith unite themselves together against verity and against the unity that should be among Cristians Psal 2.1 2. which is the unity of faith and religion and as the Prophet David saith the Heathen do furiously rage together How the wicked like the Scots and the Parliament do combine and covenant together and the people do imagine a vain thing and all take counsell together and plot against the Lord and against his annointed so Pilate and Herod though at ods among themselves for other things yet they can be reconciled and agree together to crucify Christ And so Solomon tels us how the Congregation of the ungodly do confederate and Covenant as now they do together to strengthen themselves in their wickedness saying one to anothe Come let us cast our lots together let us have but one purse that is one common treasure amongst us all Prov. 1.11 14. and let us undergo the same fortune be the same good or bad And therefore it is no new thing for Traytors Rebels and Robbers and other the like wicked men though of different sects and severall opinions yet to unite themselves together and to take oathes and make covenants confederacies and conspiracies against the professors of the true Religion and against those that they are bound Salust Conjurat Caâ—el X â—â—â—phâ—n de ascend Cyri. by former oaths to obey as it was in the conspiracy of Cateline which Salust relateth and in the confederacy of the Grecians when they went up with Cyrus the younger against Artaxerxes which Zenophon setteth down at large and the covenant of the holy leaguers of France against their King and the like But you must remember to do what God commandeth you to do in such confederacies saying My son walk not thou in the way with them resrain thy fâ—ot from their path Prov. 1.15 for their feet run to evil and make hast to shed blood as you may read in the foresaid Authors what abundance of innocent blood those wicked covenants and confederacies have caused to be spilt And therefore this being not the Brother-hood that you should love if you love God and your own souls you must hate the same as you do the gates of hell because that as the Psalmist saith in covenanting against right and against the truth they are confederates against thee O God and against thy servants And what created power under Heaven How hard it is to escaâ—e the mischief of subtile confederates is able to unty that knot and to escape that malice which villany subtilty and cruelty have combined to bring to pass Or what man is able to withstand a multitude of united enemies that have strength and wealth enough and have covenanted and sworne to fight against him untill they have destroyed him Surely when their plots are so subtile their power so great their wealth of Gold and Silver so much and the confederates of sworne brethren so many it is impossible to prevent their mischief and to escape out of their hands if the Lord himself doth not stand to help his servants and as the Prophet saith if he that dwelleth in heaven laugheth not these covenanters to scorne if the Lord have them not in derision yea if he speaks not to them in his wrath and vexeth them in his sore displeasure 2. 2 The good Brother-hood The other brother-hood is good among the good and in good in faith to God in obedience to our King and in love towards all men and this brother-hood is many fold as specially 1. Is four fold Naturall 2. Nationall 3. Politicall 4. Spirituall 1. 1 The naturall Brother-hood Naturall brethren begotten of the same parents bred in the same house and after the same manner should not be like the off-spring of Cain that killed his own and his only brother Abel and as Romulus killed his own brother Remus and Antoninus murdered his brother Geta in his mother's lap 2 Chr. 21.4 and King Joram slew six of his own naturall brethren the sons of Jehosaphat Jâ—seph de Ant. l. 14. c. 2. deinceps with the sword when as such miscreants are unworthy to live on earth neither should they jar hate or envy one another as Jacob and Esau did and Jacobs children did their brother Joseph and as the dissention of Hyrcanus and Aristobulus made way for
Herod an Idumean to become King of Jurie The great love and humility of Scipio Africanus to his younger brother Lucius Scipio but they should live like Moses and Aaron and should love one another as Plutarch relateth P. Cornelius Scipio Africanus and his brother Lucius Scipio did for notwithstanding he was the African by name that had overcome Hannibal and had triumphed over the Carthaginians and excelled all others in the praise of Martiall discipline yet of his own good nature he made himself inferior and was contented to be Lieutenant to his younger brother Plutarch in vitâ Scip. Afr. that his brother might have the honor of obtaining the Government of that Province from Laelius that was his fellow Consul and the like love or rather more fervent we find to be in Castor and Pollux for when Castor was slain by Ida How deerly brethren loved one another in former times Pollux besought Jupiter that he might impart half his own life unto his brother which being granted the Poet saith Sic fratrem Pollux alterna morte redemit And these celestial signs that have their denomination from these brethren do shine in heaven Alternis vicibus by turns as the Astrologers do observe in token of that great love of these brethren And if the time would give me leave I could tell you of two Roman Brethren whereof the one was in Sertorius Army and the other in the adverse Party and of many others that did so exceedingly love one another in former times that each of them loved the other as himself But now Rara est concordia fratrum in our time the love of Brethren is waxen cold and so frozen that many of them are degenerated and become most unnatural one towards another that it is even a shame to see it 2. There is a National Brother-hood a brotherly love 2 The National Brother-hood Exod. 2.11 betwixt those men that are born and bred in the same Country and are as it were sprung from the same Stock for so Moses is said to have gone to see his Brethren and spying an Egyptian smiting an Hebrew one of his Brethren he slew the Egyptian and when he saw an Hebrew striving with an Hebrew he said Sirs Act. 7.26 you are brethren Why do ye wrong one to another And the Lord sheweth that all the children of Israel though strangers one to another yet were they Brethren for he saith If thy brother be waxen poor and fallen in decay with thee then thou shalt relieve him yea though he be a stranger Levit. 25.35 36.39 Deut. 23.19 or a sojourner that he may live with thee And so in many-many places the Lord calleth all the Jews and all the Israelites Brethren And the very Heathens deemed their Countrymen that were of the same Nation to be Brethren and loved one another even as Brethren And the Romans held the Trojans to be their Brethren because they were descended from them And Scipio Africanus esteemed better of him that preserved the life of one Roman his Countryman than of him that had slain ten of his enemies that were Barbarians And what a shame is it then for men of the same Country of the same Nation yea and of the same kindred to be set as the Scripture speaketh of an Egyptian against an Egyptian or as the Souldiers in Senacheribs Army when the Angel caused them to bathe their swords in the blood of each other Is it not a pitiful thing to see an Irish man killing Irish-men or an English-man making his sword drunk in the blood of English-men Surely any War is lamentable and as the Poet saith heu miseri qui bella gerunt They are wretched men that do wage War But of all Wars Lucan Pharsal l. 2. And therefore Claudian saith Cum Gallica valgo Praelia jactaret tacuit Pharsalica Caesar Namque inter socias acies cognataque signa Vt vinci miser m nunquam vicisse decâ—rum Claud de 6. consulat Honorii 3. The Political Brother-hood Summum Brute nesas civilia bella fatemur That is the worst and most lamentable when a Kingdom is divided against it self and the men of the same Nation shall fight and kill one another like enemies that should love and live together like brethren And therefore what pretences soever they have I know not how those men in our Kingdoms that to make themselves great have and do involve these Nations in their own-blood will answer for it Cum surrexerit ad judicandum Deus When God shall come and shall make inquisition for all the blood that they have caused to be unjustly spilt 3. The Political Brother-hood is when either two or three or more Friends or Cities or Nations shall covenant and confederate to help and assist one another in all just and honest things against all those that shall seek unjustly to wrong them and oppresse them And this is a commendable Brother-hood and ought to be loved and inviolably to be observed as it was by Damon and Pythias Pylades and Orestes and by the Ancient Romans to all their Colleagues and Confederates 4. 4 The Spiritual Christian Brother-hood The last best and chiefest Brother-hood is that which is spiritual and which therefore ought to be preferred and loved rather than any other Brother-hood whatsoever For as there are degrees and difference in Gods love when though he loveth all the things that he hath made yet he loveth Man better than any of all the things that he made yea better than he loved the Angels when he is styled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but is no where found to be termed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And among men though he loveth them all as they are his creatures and the works of his hands yet he loveth the godly far better than all the rest that are wicked and of all that are godly he loveth best his well-beloved Son in whom he is well pleased and next to him he loves them best We ought to order our love as God loveth that are most conformable to the Image of his Son that is in goodness in holiness and righteousness So we ought to order our love towards all men and to each Brother-hood that they may have the best share in our love which ought to have the best and that is the Brother-hood which is spiritual For though the Apostle bids us to do good unto all men and so to love each Brother-hood yet he tells us that we ought to do it more especially Galat. 6.10 to them that are of the houshold of faith that is to relieve the good sooner than the bad a Christian before a Pagan and a Saint rather than a sinner And therefore though we may and ought to love each of the foresaid Brother-hoods that is in good and especially the Brother-hood of flesh and blood which nature teacheth every man to do when they are like Hypocrates Twins and should have idem velle and idem
nolle and the Scripture sheweth how good and joyful a thing it is for to see such brethren to love one another and to live together in unity yet the Brother-hood whereof the Apostle speaketh and is to be loved above all other Brother-hoods whatsoever Christians ought to love one another better than natural brethren that are not Christians is to be understood de fraternitate Spiritus of our spiritual Brother-hood whereby we are regenerated and made all the sons of God and so Brethren by adoption and grace For this fraternity of the Spirit unites men more and tyeth them better to love one another than the fraternity of flesh and blood Because as S. Augustine saith The natural Brother-hood similitudinem corpor is refert sheweth the likeness and coherence of the body but this Brother-hood of the Spirit unanimitatem cordis demonstrat declareth the unity and unanimity of the heart and that is interdum sibi inimica sometimes breaking out to deadly hate as it did betwixt Cyrus the younger and Artaxerxes But this is sine intermissione pacificâ alwayes remaining in perfect love And therefore ut Religio derivatur à religando as Religion is so termed because Religion tyeth all that are of the same Religion to love one another it tyeth and knitteth men together by fervent love among themselves and by a constant faith to God So we find that men of the same Faith and Religion have loved and relieved one another and stuck together better and firmer than any other kind of men whatsoever And so they are here required and commanded to do by the Apostle Love the Brother-hood that is love them especially and above all others that are of the same faith and do profess the same Religion of Jesus Christ as you do For you see all Hereticks and Sectaries and the professors of false religions do so and why should not you that are true Christians and do professe the true Religion of Christ much rather do the same But here we ought to be very careful A special Observation and to take special heed that we be not too censorious and too rash judges to set down the bounds of this Brother-hood and so straighten the extent and diminish the number of the Brethren by our determining who be those sons of God in Christ which we may and ought to love and relieve rather than the rest of men which we suppose we are not to love so well For you must know which our precise Saints will not know that the Brother-hood which the Apostle meaneth here Who are here understood by this Brother-hood and those that S. Paul termeth the houshold of faith and in other places the Saints of God is to be understood of all Christians and doth comprehend all those that were baptized and did professe the Gospel of Jesus Christ And these might then as they may also now be easily discerned and distinguished from the rest of the Pâ—gans and Infidels that did not believe the Gospel of God Because the one sort had the Fathers name written in their foreheads when they were baptized and so received the outward sign and badge of Christianity Revelat. 14.1 which they professed and were not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ Rom. 1. And the other sort refused the profession of Christ and would not embrace the Gospel and receive the badge of Christianity but either persecuted the Christians or at best slighted and rejected the Faith of Christ But where all men are baptized and do professe to believe the Gospel and to do service unto Christ to distinguish the sound branches of the true Vine and the faithful members of Christs body from the rotten boughs and hypocritical professors and so to determine which are the Brother hood and which not is such a presumption of men as can no wayes be warranted by the Word of God for Conscientiae latebras hominibus scire non permissum est We cannot search into the hearts of men and God suffereth not men to know the thoughts of other men and the secrets that are lurking in their consciences which is the proper work of God who only is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hierom. epist 5. The searcher of the heart and reins saith S. Hierom. And therefore we must confesse that as the Apostle saith 2 Tim. 2.19 The Lord only knoweth who are his and can discriminate the lively branches from the rotten boughes and the truly regenerated Brother-hood from the soly outward professors of the Faith of Christ And we can judge no otherwise of any men than by their fruits that is by their actions and outward appearance We are often deceived by the outward appearance of things and that appearance when we judge of inward things by the outward doth oftentimes deceive us when as Multa sunt quae non videntur ita multa videntur quae non sunt Many things are which are not seen so many things are seen to be which are not As the falling-Stars seem to be Stars and yet are not And the hypocrites that like Water-men do row one way and look another way seem to be good Christians and yet are not So many men have the fear of God in their hearts and do love God and are the true children of God though these graces are not seen but are as we see the Sun is sometimes over-clouded with those sins that proceed from the frailty of the flesh And therefore our Saviour bids us not to judge according to the outward appearance that is not to judge of the inward things by the outward John 7.24 but to judge righteous judgement But you will say How can that be Quest or how can we judge righteous judgement if we can judge no further than the outward appearance or if Interiora non cognoscuntur per exteriora The inward things may not be known by the outward signs I answer That many times indeed Respon the inward things do cohere with the outward appearance as the heat sheweth there is a fire which we see not but this is not alwayes and therefore not infallible And I say that when our Saviour bids us to judge righteous judgement he meaneth not hereby that we should enter into the hidden things of the heart How we ought not to judge of our Brethren or search into the secrets of God and so positively and rightly to determine and judge as our Gnostick Sectaries seem to do who are Gods chosen Saints and who are wicked Reprobates Who are the Brother hood that are to be loved and who are the limbs of the Beast that are to be rejected which we cannot do But he meaneth that we should not judge of inward hidden and secret things by the superficial shew of outward things Or that we should not judge of the secret intention of the heart when we see but the outward action of the hand or as Saint Augustine saith he willeth that we should not
but will notwithstanding all the promises of the Gospel and all the threatnings of the Law most fearlessely run to all kind of wickeduess And although the servil-fear hath for its object malum poenae 1 Of the servil-fear the evil of punishment and the filial-fear hath malum culpa the evil of sin Qâ—ia in illo timetur ne incidatur in tormentum supplicii August in isto ne amittatur gratia beneficii because that by the first we fear the torments of Hell-fire and by the second we fear to lose the joyes of Heaven Gregor in pass Et quem à prava actione formidata poena prohibet formidantis animum nulla spiritus libertas tenet nam si poenam non metueret culpam proculdubiò perpetraret And he that abstaineth from evil only for fear of the punishment is not refrained by the freedom of Gods Spirit because he would certainly commit the sin if he were not withheld by the fear of punishment And so as S. Augustine saith Aug. l. 2. contâ—a pelag Qui timore poena non amore justitiae fit bonus nondum bene fit bonus nec fit in corde quod fierâ— videtur in opere quando mallet bonnm non facere si posset impune He that doth good for fear of the rod more than for the love of goodness doth not that good so well as he ought to do it neither is that done in the heart which seems to be done in the work when he had rather not do it if he might leave it undone without punishment Yet this servil-fear is very good and very necessary for most men That the servil fear is good and how because that as the needle draweth the threed after it so this fear entring first into the heart maketh way for the other fear to follow after and when this keepeth us from the evil it maketh us by little and little to fall in love with the good for as nemo repente fit pessimus but the sinner falleth into Hell by certain steps and degrees so we ascend to Heaven per scalas gratiarum by passing on from faith to faith and from one grace unto another that is from the weaker still unto the stronger and from the lesse perfect unto that which is more excellent The Scripture perswadeth us to this servil-fear Exod. 20.20 And therefore we are perswaded to this fear both in the Old and New Testaments As 1. Moses saith unto the Israelites God is come to prove you that his fear may be before your faces that ye sin not And the Prophet Esay saith Sanctifie the Lord of Hosts himself and let him be your fear Esay 8.13 and let him be your dread And the Prophet Jeremy saith Fear ye not me saith the Lord and Will ye not tremble at my presence Pavor vester terror vester Jer. 5.22 which have placed the sand for the bound of the Sea by a perpetual decree that it cannot passe it though the waves thereof tosse themselves yet can they not provaâ—l though they roar yet can they not pafs over it 2. Our Saviour saith Fear not them which kill the body Math. 10.28 but are not able to kill the soul but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell Which very thing is further amplified Luke 2.5 and the Precept reiterated by S. Luke And S. Paul saith Heb. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God And therefore the Prophet biddeth us to kisse the Son lest he be angry and so we should perish from the right way And yet such is the nature and so great is the sottishness of foolish man that he will be afraid where no fear is he will startle at his own shadow he will suggest fears and raise jealousies unto himself as we see the English Rebels have done out of nothing We fear every vain thing more than we fear God for they dreamed they were undone when they were most happy and they made the World believe the King raised War against his Parliament when we saw the Parliament caused the King to flee away to save his life Thus we fear flies and tremble at the sight of feathers and the great God that is a consuming fire whose voice teareth the Mountains dryeth up the Seas and shaketh the Wildernesse we are no whit afraid to provoke him every day for though he chargeth us with a sub-pae-na as we shall answer it at his dreadful Judgement To honour all men to wrong no man to obey the King and to do to all men as we would they should do to us yet Revenge against our neighbours Rebellion against our King Robbing the poor Killing the innocent and the like are things of no more account than killing flies So much do we fear our God! But against this every man will say that he feareth God and what he doth he doth it for his service So the grand Rebels Corah Dathan and Abiram tell Moses All the Congregation is holy So that Arch-hypocrite Saul saith I have performed the Command of the Lord and when Samuel reproved him that he had not obeyed the voice of the Lord he stiffely justifieth himself 1 Sam. 13.15 20. and saith yea I have obeyed the voice of the Lord and have gone the way which the Lord sent me and if any thing be amisse it is not I that am to be blamed for it but the people which took of the spoil and they took it to none other end but for the service of God that they might sacrifice unto him in Gilgal Even so all Rebels and all hypocrites justifie themselves under the spâ—cious pretexts of doing all for Gods honour and the good of the Gospel and if any thing be amisse it is that which they cannot help it is the fault of their unruly followers which also cannot so much be condemned because they intend all for the glory of God and by the spoil of the Bishops and Recusants to set up a Preaching-Presbytery which will be a very acceptable sacrifice unto God and a far better service than now is used And therefore I do very ill to taxe them that they fear not God And so the case standeth Marcus ait Scaurus negat I affirm it and they deny it But in truth though it is the property of all hypocrites to cloak their wickednesse under the pretence of bettering things Yet God likes better of what Himself requireth than of what these Will-worshippers think to be more honourable for him And as Samuel was faign to convince Saul by the bleating of the sheep and the lowing of the oxen so to prove these Rebels to be void of the fear of God I must say Si non creditis oraculis credite oculis If you will not believe my words look into their deeds for as the Tree is known by the fruits The two things that the fear of God doth 1. To
that we might fear him and he addeth which brought thee out of the land of Egypt that we might love him And in lege precandi he teacheth us to say Our Father that we might love him and he addeth which art in Heaven that we might fear him And in lege credendi we are taught to say I believe in God the Father that we might love him and to add Almighty maker of Heaven and Earth that we might fear him And besides all this we find that these two Graces Fear and Love 1. Are injoyned by the same Law 2. Do proceed from the same Cause 3. Do produce the same Effects And 4. Shall obtain the same Reward For 1. Moses that was faithful in all Gods house saith And now Israel What doth the Lord thy God require of thee Deut. 10.12 but to fear the Lord thy God to walk in his wayes and to love him Where you see fear and love so equally required that whosoever neglecteth the fearing of him though he should love him or omitteth the loving of him though he should fear him if he could do the one and not the other yet he is a transgressor and liable to the breach of this Commandment 2. As none denieth but mercy should procure love therefore Moses after he had rehearsed the great mercies of God towards the Israelites Deut. 10.11 21 22. Josh 23.9 11. Psal 130.4 addeth Therefore thou shalt love the Lord thy God And Joshua doth the like so David after he had considered his own vileness saith With thee there is mercy therefore shalt thou be feared Where you see the mercy of God is the foundation of this fear of God as well as of the love of God And as the mercy of God so the justice of God produceth both â—ffects the one as well as the other For my flesh trembleth for fear of thee and I am afraid of thy judgements saith the Prophet And though justice seems as oil to continue the burning of this lamp of fear and as water to quench the fire of love yet as lime which is naturally cold doth notwithstanding retain a fiery quality ex aqua incenditur ex qua omnis ignis extinguitur and is inflamed by water which doth extinguish all fire So the love of the Saints is kindled by the judgements of God Therefore the Prophet saith Seven times a day do I praise thee because of thy righteous judgements Psal 119.164 Psal 119.52 And again I remembred thy judgements of old and have received comfort 3. As love inflameth the desire to do what is acceptable unto God so fear hateth to do what is abominable unto him and as love keepeth his Precepts so fear loatheth to break his Commandments and as love mitigateth the sorrow which fear causeth so fear qualifieth the joy which love produceth And as S. John saith God is love so Jacob calleth him the fear of his father Isaac And as S. Paul saith Love is the fulfilling of the Law Gal. 6.2 Eccles 12. So Solomon saith The end of all things is the fear of God and the keeping of his Commandments 4. As the mercy of God is shewed upon thousands of them that love him Exod. 20. Luke 1.50 and keep his Commandments So it is no lesse upon them that fear him But as the Psalmist saith Blessed is the man that feareth the Lord he shall be mighty upon earth Gloria divitae in domo ejus And as the son of Sirach saith Timor Domini gloria gloriatio laetitia corona exultationis Because as the Prophet saith Dat haereditatem timentibus nomen suum Yea Psal 61.5 Psal 145.19 he will fulfil the desire of them that fear him and look whatsoever they do it shall prosper And as eternal life is promised to them that love God So eternal death shall never seize on them that fear God And in brief whatsoever attendeth the one becometh a follower of the other and no marvel because that in love fear is included and in fear love is implied And while we are in this world both grow together in the heart of every true Believer And as the Poet saith of another kind of love so I may more truly say of this Divine love Res est soliciti plena timoris Amor. This love of God is full not of distrustful but of careful fear Quia timentes Deum non erunt incredibles verbo Illius saith the son of Sirach Ecclus. 2. But the wicked have neither true fear nor perfect love For though Cain Esau and Judas had a kind of fear yet was it false because it wanted love And though the Pharisees and Simon Magus had a kind of love yet was it but counterfeit because it wanted fear for if the former had had love they would have desired favour and should have obtained grace and if the other had had fear they would have aimed at Gods glory and not have sought their own praise which did work their own confusion And therefore well might S. Peter enjoyn every Saint that loveth God to fear God And as the love of God so the fear of God is sometimes put for a part of Gods Service and sometimes for the whole Service of God and so it is in this place as in the first of Job and in Luke 1.50 and in the Psalms in many places As where he saith Come ye children hearken unto me and I will teach you the fear of the Lord where the fear of God signifieth the whole Worship of God to honour him obey him trust in him pray unto him and what duty soever else we owe unto him And thus the fear of God is the rarest Jewel and the most excellent thing in the World No riches no honour no preferment like unto it No evil shall happen to them that fear the Lord but God shall preserve them in temptation liberabit eos à malis Ecclus 33. saith Siracides And his mercy is on them that fear him from generation to generation but mischief and unhappinesse and all evil shall continually attend and overtake them that fear not God to bring them to shame beggary and confusion as you may see it manifested in the Story of the sons of Israel who while they feared God were replenished with a thousand blessings preserved from a thousand misfortunes and delivered out of the Egyptian slavery by a thousand prodigies the Lord dividing the Sea to make way for them and closing the same again to destroy their enemies Drawing waters out of the Rocks to quench their thirst and feeding them with the food of Angels But when they did cast off the fear of God then God sent flying Serpents and stirred up enemies and powred down his vengeance upon their heads still plaguing them more and more untill they should be either quite consumed or happily reduced to embrace the fear of God again And not to search farre for any further presidents How happy weâ—e
we while we feared and served God we may easily perceive if we be not wilfully blind how we our selves that live in these Kingdomes while we feared God and observed his service were more happy then any of all our Neighbour-Nations both in regard of those many many deliverances that God hath wonderfully wrought for us far beyond usual favâ—urs both in the dayes of Queen Elizabeth and of King James as that Reverend Bishop Carleton hath collected and compiled them together and also in powring down so many inestimable blessings upon us bâ—â—a si sua norint Agricolae had we but the grace to acknowledge them as I dare confidently affirm it of our selves as Moses doth of the Israelites no Kingdome under heaven had the like as chiefly the purest preachâ—ng of the Gâ—spel the most learned Clergy the gravest and I believe the most uncorrupted Judges the wisest and the meekest Governours and above all the upholder of all the best and most pious Protestant King that ever these Kingdomes enjoyed O that we were wise and would consider these things and would understand these loving kindnesses of the Lord. But when How miserable did we be come when we did cast off the fear of God as Moses said of the Israelites dilectus meus impinguatus we began to surfet of these great blessings to loath Manna and to cast off the fear of God to deem the highest of Gods messengers not worthy to eat with the dogs of our flocks not fit for any thing but to be trodden under feet as mire and clay in the streets when we make our strength to become the Law of Justice when we despise Governours and speak great swelling words against authority yea and raise a Rebellion as odious as I shewed our King is pious then you see and I pray God you do not still feel what mischiefs and miseries do succeed and are like to continue in the chiefest of these three Kingdomes the house of God is made a den of thieves the Priests are made out of the basest of the people the Pulpits are filled with Heresies Treasons and Blasphemies the highest Courts of Justice are turned to be the shops of all oppressions and wrongs and Gods Annointed is persecuted more then any other yea and the whole Kingdome is made the butcherie and slaughter-house of the Kings best subjects and Gods most faithful servants and all this and much more because there is no fear of God before our eyes And therefore let not these holy Rebels under the pretence of their great love to God cast away the fear of God and let them not think they do him service by persecuting his servants or that that is Christian Religion which breaks forth into Rebellion because they cannot obtain their Petition but as Solomon begins his Proverbs with the fear of the Lord and the beginning of wisdom and ends his Ecclesiastes with Fear God and keep his Commandemets so I say that we and they should begin and end all that we take in hand with the fear of God and then all of us shall be blessed and whatsoever we take in hand it shall prosper But as S Gregory saith Probatio dilectionis exhibitio est operis and our love to God must be manifested by our love to our neighbours so our fear of God must be principally proved by that honour which we shew unto the King because as S. John saith it is impossible for us to love God and to hate his Image so it is impossible that any man should fear God which doth not honour the King because the same Spirit that saith fear God saith also honour the King and therefore S. Peter knowing how inseparably these duties go together after he had bidden us to fear God doth immediately adde honour the King which is the fourth branch of this Text. 4. Honour the King where I desire you to observe 4 Branch 1. Point and to observe it carefully when you had never more need to observe it then now 1. Who is to be honoured 2. What is the honour that is due unto him 3. Who are injoyned to honour him And all these are included in these word Honour the King 1. It is the King in the singular number and not Kings Homer Iliad 2. that every man is bound to honour for one man cannot serve two Masters much lesse can he honour two Kings but he must despise the one when he cleaves unto the other And therefore as it was like false Latine when Lamec said Hearken unto me ye wives of Lameâ— so it had been very incongruous for the Apostle to have said to any man honour thy Kings because as the Poet saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Isocrat in Nicol. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nec multos regnare bonam Rex unicus esto And so not only Isocrates Lucan l. 1. after he had disputed much of all sorts of governments concludeth peremptorily 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that no kind of government is better then the Monarchy but also Plato-Aristotle Plutarch Herodotus Philostratus Cassius Patricius Sigonius and all the wisest men that have written of Government have proved Monarchical Government to be the best form agreeable to nature wherein God founded it and is the first Government that ever was most consonant to Gods own Government and the most universally received throughout the whole world even from the beginning of the Creation to this very day C. 3. p. 20. as I have most fully proved in my Treatise of the Rights of Kings Therefore Serâ—nus writeth that when Craesus raigned over the Lydians he would have taken his brother to be his associate in the Government but one of the wisest Lydians rose up and said Or all the good things O King that are in earth there is none greater or better then the Sâ—n without which nothing could be seen nothing could remain on earth yet if there were two Suns periculum immineret ne omnia constagrantia pâ—ssum irent we should find the danger to have all things consumed with too much heat even so the Lydians do most willingly embrace one King and most faithfully believe and acknowledge him to be their Saviour and deliverer duos vero simul tolerare non possunt but they can no wayes endure two at once and Plutarch saith that Alexander gave the like answer unto Darius when he sent word that he should raign with him saying nec terram duos Soles neque A am duos Reges ferre pâ—sse that Asia could no more abide two Kings then the earth could endure two Suns because as Caelius saith Nulla sancia societas nec fides regni est Caelius l. 24. c. 11. Omnisque potestas impatiens consortis erit And I believe this very Kingdome hath found the difference betwixt two Lords-Justices and one Lord Lievtenant even as the Poet saith Tu causa malorum Facta tribus Dominis communis Roma Lucan l. 1. nec unquam In turbam missi
all places and at all times we have such Sichemites and Gibeonites as deceive the world and do blind the eyes of men by making them to believe they are the only Saints of God and do all for the honour of God but the Lord knoweth them not for any such Saints and Christ doth not acknowledge them for any of his sheep but though they shall say to Christ Lord Lord have we not prophesied in thy Name and in thy Name have cast out devils and in thy Name done wonderful works that is preached and fasted and prayed and fought for thy service and the like evidences of our faithfulness unto thee yet Christ that knoweth very well they did all these things for their own ends Mat. 7.22 23. will profess unto them I never knew you depart from me ye that work iniquity And S. Luke is more ample in setting out the discourse and Dialogue betwixt Christ and these men at the last day saying When once the Master of the house is risen up How S. Luke describes the hypocrites and hath shut the door and they standing without shall knock at the door saying Lord Lord open to us and he shall answer and say unto them I know you not whence you are then shall they begin to say we have eaten and drunk in thy presence that is when they received the blessed Sacrament of his Body and Blood at his own Table and thou hast taught in our streets and we were daily hearers of those Sermons that were preached though but in Chambers or in Barns or in the streets but he shall say I tell you as being angry for their presumption and hypocrisie I know you not whence you are depart from me all ye workers of iniquity there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth when they shall see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the Prophets and the rest of Gods faithful servants whom they persecuted in the Kingdome of God Luke 13.25 26 27 28. and themselves thrust out of doors But can they perswade themselves that our Saviour Christ will not know them when as they seem to be so zealous of his worship How hardly it is to perswade hypocrites to acknowledge themselves to be hypocrites and profess themselves so earnestly and so strictly to observe his will and to do nothing without a warrant from his written Word Surely no they cannot be perswaded hereunto but it is easier to convert the drunkards adulterers and harlots then to perswade these hypocritical Saints that they are sinners save in that general notion that we are all sinners for as decipimur specie recti we are deceived in them and the world is blinded through that shew of piety and profession of Religion which they make so they deceive themselves hereby Fallit enim vitium specie virtutis umbra For it is most certain that vice deceives the owner under the shew and shadow of virtue when as our Saviour saith to his Apostles they shall persecute you and imprison you Lament 4.5 Was there ever any time wherein this was more truly fulfilled then now in our daies and scourge you silence you and rob you of your means and maintenance and as the Prophet Jeremy saith cause those that did feed delicately to lie desolate in the streets and those that were brought up in Scarlet to imbrace dunghills and yet they that do these things shall not be Infidels and Pagans but such as shall think themselves very good Christians and to do God herein very good service to persecute his servan s. And what a cruel deceit is this to beguile their own hearts and to deceive their own souls to think they have God Almighty by the hand when the devil holds them fast by the toes and to perswade themselves they are the sheep of Christ when Christ professeth he knows them not to be his sheep but knoweth them to be the Wolves of Satan But can any thing be unknown to God or be hid from him which knoweth the secrets of our hearts and understandeth our thoughts long before he knoweth what is in the deep Sea and how far the world extendeth he knoweth the number of the stars and calleth them all by their names and he knoweth the height of heaven the depth of the Sea and the length of all the Spheres and doth he not know these men Indeed we know them not they are such Camelions that can change themselves into all colours saving white that is put on all manner of shews and shapes but that which is virtuous and honest but God knoweth them very well intus in cute both within and without for so the Lord professeth I know their works and their thoughts Esay 66.18 And therefore you must understand there is a twofold knowledge in God 1. The one general or universal 2. The other special or particular The first is over all the things in the world as they are his creatures The twofold knowledge of God and the works of his hands and so he knoweth all men good and bad and all creatures both in heaven and in earth The other is only over his Church that is his children whom he hath chosen and loveth and which therefore do love honour and obey him in doing his will and keeping his Commandments And thus he knoweth not the wicked hypocrites How God knoweth both the godly and the wicked oppressors extortioners and the like sinful generation and brood of Vipers as John Baptist calls them to be his children but knoweth that they are none of his children but rather the children of their Father the Devil for as a Father knoweth his Son and as he is his Son provideth for him an inheritance and knoweth his servant but knoweth him not for his Son and therefore provideth no inheritance for him but appointeth him to do some drudgery and keepeth him for his service So Christ knoweth his sheep and as they are his sheep he provideth for them eternal life and he knoweth the Goats the Wolves and the Foxes and knoweth them not to be his sheep and therefore provideth no inheritance for them but wil severely punish them because they neither follow him nor hear his voice but as the Lord saith Refused his counsel and despised his reproof Prov. 1.30 And this should be an exceeding grief and terrour unto the wicked when God shall say unto them as a Father doth to his disobedient Son I will not know him that is I will not acknowledge him for my son so God will not own nor acknowledge these men for his children though he knoweth them and knoweth their works well enough And on the other side this is an exceeding comfort and joy unto the godly when as a friend shall say of his friend I will know him wheresoever I see him before friend and foe and I will acknowledge him my friend and my self his friend in what state or condition soever he be rich or poor
aut per maria ambulare Aug. de bonis Câ—njugal c. 37. Non in quantum sil dei sed in quant filius hominis Id. de sanctitat Virginit c. 27. aut coecos illuminare but learn of me that I am meek and lowly in heart Therefore The second sort of the Acts and Doings of Christ are such as he did as man and are imitable to be imitated by us that are men and would be counted the Sheep and Servants of Christ and herein we should follow him And therein also we are to follow him 1. In respect of the Manner 2. In respect of the Matter For 1. What vertuous or pious act soever we desire to do 1 Sincerely 2. Totally 3. Diligently 4. Constantly 5. Humbly Diabolus dux nobis fuit ad superbiam Aug. ho. 12. Phil. 2.7 and to imitate Christ therein we must strive to do it to the uttermost of our power Modo forma in the same manner as Christ did it and that is 1. In sincerity without hypocrisie 2. For Gods glory and not for our own commodity 3. In a discreet knowledge and not in a blinde zeale Without the observation of which rules the Acts that we do may be good in themselves and yet quite spoyled from yielding any great good to us by our ill manner of doing them As 1. To fast and pray and to pay Tythes of Mynt and Annyse 1 Boni videri volunt sed non esse Bern. in cant Ser. 66. 1 Chr. 28.9 Prov. 21.1 Psal 51. Ad novercae tumulâ—m flere Hieron in Esa l. 6. How horrible it is to do villanies under the pretence of Piety Erasm in simil were very good deeds commended and commanded to be done by God himself yet because the Scribes and Pharisees did them in hypocrisie to be seen of men and to make the world believe they were Saints and the onely religious men our Saviour denounceth many a bitter woe against them and tells us that they have their reward and that is as Saint Hierom saith Gloriam mercenariam supplicia peccatorum So they that proclaim dayes of Humiliation and practise nothing but Oppression that pray to God to blesse them and prey upon the poor that curse them do but as the Greek Adage saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to weep for the death of our Stepmother and double their sin in the sight of God Quia levius est in alium aperte peccare quam simulare sanctitatem because the professed thief that robs by the high-way-side is not so bad as the holy Saint that under the shew of Religion takes away mine Estate saith Saint Hierome for as Wine mingled with Water doth sooner provoke vomite then either Water alone or pure Wine Ita intolerabilior est nequitia pietatatis simulatione condita quam simplex aperta malitia so any wickedness that is covered with the Cloak of Religion is a great deal more intolerable then if the same were plainly committed without any pretence of Piety saith Erasmus So horrible a sin it is to cloath Sin in the garment of Holiness as to put the Coat of Christ upon Judas his back 2. As it was an acceptable service unto God 2 Many doe Gods work for their own end as to subdue the rebels to get their lands for themselves The continual course of all worldlings in the service of God and a very good work to root out the house of Ahab for his Idolatry and prophaning Gods Service yet because Jehis did it rather to get the Kingdom unto himself and destroyed all the Kings children the better to secure himself in his Kingdome then to satisfie Gods justice for Ahabs Impiety the Lord saith that he will require the blood of Ahab on the house of Jehu even so they that destroy any Offenders root out the Transgressors of Gods Lawes and punish the Corrupters of Gods Worship be they whom you will the Work may be good and just yet if the doers thereof do it not so much to execute Gods Will as to satisfie their own Malice to suppress whom they hate or according to their ambition to make themselves great and to get their Estates and Possessions to themselves and their Posterity God will never accept of this work for any service done to him but will most severely punish it at the last And I think that the making of themselves great as Jehu did by the service that men pretend to do to God doth sufficiently cause many others to doubt whether they have done those things onely for Gods glory or for a conjuncture likewise of their own profit and I conceive you may be sure the jealous God will not regard that service which is done to him with a sinister aspect and respect to our own profit because he will not give his glory unto another he will not yield any part of his service to any of them that do the service but though he will certainly reward every man that doth him service yet as our Saviour explaineth the words of Moses it is written The shalt worship the Lord thy God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and him onely shalt thou serve and not thy self with him in the service that thou dost to him so he will neither accept nor reward that service which thou dost to thy self as well as to God or rather to thy self then to God And therefore I would advise all those that in doing service unto God by pulling down the Transgressors of his Lawes have raised themselves to such great Polsessions I would the Rebels would consider this to look well to their intention progression and execution of their work lest that for the service they believe they do to God they receive the reward of the Scribes and Pharisees or of Jehn that pulled down King Ahab to make himself King of Israel 3. 3 Many do good in a blind zeal Num. 11.28 2 Sam. 16.9 The love of Joshna to Moses when Eldad and Medad prophesied was good and so was the love of Abishai to David when Shimei cursed him and of James and John to Christ when they would have called for fire out of heaven to destroy the Samaritans for not receiving Christ but the love of them was in a blind Zeal without knowledge and therefore instead of being commended they were much reproved for their indiscretion even as Saint Paul persecuted the Saints when his blind zeal perswaded him that he destroyed Gods enemies And as Aiax in his frenzy is reported to have slain his own children by taking them for Ulisses and Agamemnon so many men in their blind Zeal destroy the true Ambassadors of Christ and the Pastors of Gods people by taking them for Popish Prelates Origen in ep ad Rom. Zelus ad mortem Amb. in Ps 119. and therein think they do God good service as the Jews thought when they crucified Christ for as Origen saith Putant se zelum Dei habere sed quia non secundum
consumed to ashes and reduced to nothing their power weakness their prudence folly and their excellency base in respect of that boundless Omnipotencie infinite Wisdome and incomprehensible transcendent excellencies of God For if he is not barren that imparteth fecundity unto others nor he poor that can make many rich then surely he must needs be most beautiful that can adorn the poor Lilies of the field with a far more glorious mantle then any of those choicest robes that covered the body of the wisest Solomon For though fields and gardens and Palaces and the bodies of men and women and so the Heavens and the Angels and the whole frame of this Universe which the Grecians called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because it is so admirably beautified and composed in number weight and measure are all innamelled with abundance of beauty yet all these beauties proceeds from him and reside in him and are comprized in him in a far more eminent degree of excellency How eminently all perfections are in God then they are in the best of these creatures themselves because that in these creatures they are all limited in Essence and hedged within the narrow bounds of natural perfections But in God all the Attributes of his bounty simplicity verity charity justice mercy benignity and all other amiable colours and most glorious beauties of his perfections which the Angels rejoyce to behold the blessed Saints contemplate and we poor wandring Pilgrimes do all aspire to see are all illimited infinite and boundless And befides all this if we consider him truly he is whatsoever is desirable or can be desired by any one as Omnipotency to him that affecteth power Omnisciency to him that desireth knowledge and the Antient of daies to him that desighteth in antiquity And as S. Ambrose saith Siesuris ipse est panis if thou art hungry he is the Bread of Life Whatsoever we desire we may have the same in God if thou art thirsty he is the Fountain of Living Water if thou art naked he is the Garment of Righteousness if thou art sick he is a heavenly Physitian if thou art in prison he is with thee as he was with Joseph if thou art in danger he is a present help in trouble if thou beest dead he can restore thee to life for he is life which is of all things so infinitely desired and he is light which is so much admired he is truth which is so much commended he is the God of Peace which is the Mother of all plenty he is the God of Unity which is the honour of all Brethren he is the God of Constancy which is the Crown of all Friendship and he is the God of Wisdome which is the glory of every man And to be brief all things that are good are in him and derived from him who is goodness it self And therefore causa diligendi Deum Deut est this only consideration that he is God and such a God is a sufficient cause of loving God as S. Bern. saith because these are excellencies enough to attract love from the stoniest hearts quae genuere ferae which the most salvage men have produced if they did but truly consider them And yet this is not that which the Apostle setteth down here to be the ground and cause of our loving God but seeing our weakness could not ascend so high as to conceive the excellent brightness of this everlasting glory therefore his goodness was pleased to descend so low as to express that which is neerer unto us and doth more feelingly concern our selves Whom men do naturally love best that is the love of God towards us and the great good that we receive from that love for the Apostle knew that all men were naturally inclined to love their benefactors and to love them best which do profit them most And albeit very often this kind of love is but base and vitious yet being guided with reason Iob 1. and ruled by charity it may prove good and virtuous therefore as the devil maliciously suggested of holy Job that he served not God for nought so the Apostle wisely doth here intimate that we love not God without cause especially if we consider that great and real love of God which hath and doth continually so infinitely profit us for we love him because he loved us first Touching which words though our love to God is first set down in the series of these words yet seeing by the order of nature causa precedit effectum the cause doth ever precede the effect I will by Gods help speak 1. Of that great love which God hath shewed unto us 2. Of that love which in requital thereof we owe unto God And the first shall be the subject of my whole discourse at this time wherein you may observe as many parts 1 In Gods love to us four things observable as there be words 1. The Lover he He loved us first 2. The affection loved He loved us first 3. 1 The Lover Divers pretend to love us The beloved us He loved us first 4. The time first He loved us first 1. Who is this He that loveth us for there be very many that pretend to love us and yet in very deed do love us not at all especially 1. The Devil 1 How the Devil professeth to love us 2. The World 3. Our own selves 1. In the third of Hosea v. 1. Diabolus Dicitur amicus saith a Father Satan is said to be the lover of the seduced soul even as the lascivious loves the Harlot for the Devil comes unto us as he came unto Adam and saith You shall be as gods and I will make you happy and you shall be victorious when he means to plunge us into all miseries and to hurl us headlong into hell And to that end we can intend nothing nor resolve upon any good action What manner of love the Devil beareth to us wherein this dissembling Lover is not alwayes ready to intrap us as Progne did to Tereus proponendo quod delectabile supponendo quod exitiale by giving us like the Whore of Babylon a drink of deadly poyson in a golden Cup to teach us Heresies out of the holy Scriptures to set up a meer Anarchy under the glorious title of a Gospel-Government and to raise a most odious rebellion under the name of King and Parliament and under the pretence of Faith and Religion But O good God is it possible that tantum potuit Religio suadere malorum No no God will tell us this is nothing else but Satans plot who desires our ruine and he desires not only thus to fill us up with evil but also to infect all our good for if we pray he casteth wandring thoughts into our minds and when our hearts should think most of God he will guide our eyes to withdraw them to some other object as S. Hierom confesseth of himself that while his tongue was talking with God in
her will No force can prevail against the will and actual sins have so much dependency upon the hearts approbation as that the same alone can either vitiate or excuse the action and no outward force hath any power over mine inward mind unless my self do give it him as all the power of the Kingdome cannot force my heart to hate my King or to love his enemies they may tear this poor body all to pieces but they can never force the mind to do but what it will And yet such is the deceit of our own flesh that if the devil should be absent from us our own frailties would be his tempting deputies and when we have none other foe we will become the greatest foes unto our selves as Apollodorus the Tyrant dreamd that he was flead by the Scythians and that his heart thrown into a boyling caldron should say unto him That it was the cause of all his miseries and so every man that is undone hath indeed undone himself for Perditio tua exte thy destruction is from thy self saith the Prophet yea the very best men Hos 13.9 by whomsoever wronged yet wrong themselves as now it is with our gracious King for as Valentine the Emperour when he cut off his best Commander and demanding of his best Counselour what he thought of it had this answer given him That he had cut off his own right arm with his left hand so when the good King seduced and over-perswaded gave way though against his will to make an Everlasting Parliament he then gave away the Sword out his own hand So I could tell you of a very good man that is brought to very great exigency by parting with his owne strength and giving his sword out of his own hand and when he excluded the Bishops out of the House of Peers he parted with so much of his own strength and brought himself thereby to be weaker then he was before and so it will be with every one of us and it may be in a higher misprision then with our King if we look not well unto our selves and take heed lest in seeking to preserve our bodies we destroy our own souls or to save our estates we make shipwrack of our faith or especially to uphold an earthly Rule or Kingdome we expose to ruine the spiritual Kingdome of Christ which is the Church of God as you know how the Parliament do it at this day And therefore the Spaniards prayer is very good Dios mi guarda mi de mi O my God defend me from my self that I do not destroy my self and Saint Augustine upon the words of the Psalmist Deliver me from the wicked man demanding who was that wicked man Answ it was a seipso and so the wisest Philosophers have given us many Precepts to beware of our selves And he that can do so Latius regnat avidum domando Spiritum Horatius quam si lybiam remotis Gadibus jungat uterque paenus Serviat uni doth more and ruleth better then he that reigneth from the Southern Lybia to the Northern Pole so hard it is for man under all the cope of Heaven to find any one that truly loves him But God is Verax veritas true and the truth it self and as Hugo saith Veritas est sine fallacia faelicitas sine miseria he is Truth without Deceit that neither can deceive not be deceived and as this our Apostle saith God is love and the Fountain of all true love and he is sweet he is wise and he is strong 1 John 4.8 How God loveth us and how sweet and gracious his love is therefore S. Bern. saith that he loveth sweetly wisely and strongly Dulciter quia carnem induit sapienter quia culpam cavit fortiter quia mortem sustinuit sweetly because he was made man to have a fellow-feeling of our miseries wisely because he did avoid sin that he might be able to help us and strongly because his love was as strong as death when rather then he would lessen his love unto us he would lose his life for us And therefore of all that pretend to love us God alone is the onely pure and truly perfect lover 2. For the affection it is love for God loved us and love 2 The affection Love comprehendeth three things as it is in the creatures is a passion better perceived by the lover then it can be expressed by any other and it comprehendeth three things 1. A liking to the thing beloved 2. A desire to enjoy it And 3. A contentment in it as when the Father saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased because 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 derived of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or as others think of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth to be fully and perfectly satisfied in the thing loved as Phavorinus testifieth And so though the affection of love is not the same in God as it is in us because he is a Spirit most simple without passion and we are often-times transported and swallowed up of this affection yet in the love of God we finde these three things most perfectly contained 3 Things contained in the love of God 1. An Eternal benevolence or purpose to do good unto his creatures 2. An Actual beneficence and performance of that good unto them 3. A Delightful complacency or contented delight in the things beloved as the Lord loveth him that followeth after righteousness that is he taketh delight and pleasure in all righteous livers and as he hateth the ungodly so he loveth the righteous and taketh delight in them and in their just and righteous dealing But because love is an inward affection that can hardly be discerned without some outward demonstration of the same and that as S. Gregory saith Probatio dilectionis exhibitio est operis the trial of our love is seen by our actions which testifie our love far better then our words How God imanifesteth his love many wayes when we see too too many that profess to love us when they labour to destroy us as the rebels pray for the King when they fight against him so finely can the Devil deceive us therefore God manifested his love by many manifold arguments As 1. Way 1 By screating things of nothing and making them so perfectly good that when himself had considered them all he saw that they were all exceeding good 2. Way 2 By preserving all things that they return not to nothing Quia fundavit Deus mundum supranihilum ut mundus fundaret se supra Deum because God laid the foundations of the world upon nothing that the world might wholly rely upon God who is the basis that beareth up all things with his mighty word and more particularly in preserving not onely the righteous but even the wicked also from many evils both of Sin and Punishment for did not God withhold and restrain the very reprobates even
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 more and above all other his creatures whatsoever And here you must observe also that amongst men as the glory of all Starres or the beauty of all Flowers is not the same when as every Star is not a Phoebus and every Flower is not a Lilly so the love of God doth not appear alike to all men for I love them that love me and I will shew mercy on them that love me and keep my commandements saith the Lord but the ungodly and him that delighteth in wickedness doth his soul abhor And thus not onely the Elect are beloved better then the Reprobates and the Saints better then Sinners but among the very chosen Saints God loveth some better then others for every like loveth his like and therefore God embraceth them with a greater love whom he vouchsafeth to make and findeth them willing and most yielding to be the more like unto himself and so he loveth those that are the better more then those that are less good as the more we excell in Vertue and Goodnesse the more dearly doth God love us so he loved Abraham among the Patriarchs Moses among the Prophets David among the Kings and this beloved Disciple among the Apostles more as it seemeth then any other and so the blessed Virgin whom all generations shall call blessed was highly beloved and loved more then any of all the daughters of men And of this gradation of Gods love S. Aug. saith Omnia diligit Deus quae fecit God loveth all that he made and among them he loveth rather the reasonable creatures and of these he loveth them more which are the members of his Son and most of all his onely begotten Son And this greater love of God to some men more then to others besides those internal graces of Faith Hope Love Patience and the like which he giveth to the Elect Mark 4.11 and not to the Reprobates Quia vobis datum est because it is given to you to know the mysteries of the Kingdome of heaven but to others not because they will not accept of them when they are offered God manifesteth the same to all men by two outward infallible demonstrations 1. The donation of his graces 2. The preservation of their persons For 1. There is no man but might consider how God hath bestowed more excellent gifts and graces on himself 1 God giveth his Gifts and Graces severally and differently then he hath done to many others as either Health or Wealth or Honour or some other gift that the meanest man hath which many others have not or if not yet seeing God out of his greater love to some men more then to others bestoweth on some five Talents when he bestoweth on others but two or but one and maketh some men Princes and others Peasants or indueth some men with Learning and Knowledge when he leaveth others ignorant and foolish and so maketh some men rich when as many others are very poor Why should our eyes be evil because he is good For Cum huic fit misericordia tibi non fit injuria when as herein he doth but shew mercy unto one and injury unto none Why should we not rather consider that he may love whom he will and shew mercy on whom he will have mercy and so do what he will with his own especially seeing we know not why he doth what he doth 2. God doth guide some men with his counsel that they run not with the wicked Ps 37.24 Rom. 1. into the same excess of riot as they do for seeing by nature we are all equally indifferent and equally inclined to all sins Repleti omni injustitia saith the Apostle How comes it to pass that some men abstain from odious Rebellions and other impious abominations and abominable impieties that many wicked men do perpetrate Is it from out selves and from the goodness of our Natures or the sweetness of our dispositions No no it is from God that giveth his grace and holy Spirit unto some that are willing and ready to receive it when God offereth it unto them rather then to others that refuse to answer when he calleth and to accept his gifts and graces when he offereth the same unto them so God preserved Noah from partaking with the wickedness of the old world Lot from following after the abominations of the Sodomites Joseph from consenting to the lewd inticements of his Mistress and the like and so he doth preserve them that he loves from imitating the wicked in their odious sins because these men love God again are ready and willing to be preserved by God for did not the blessed God work this happy change in our souls and the Father of Lights illuminate our minds with a more distinct knowledge of his grace we might have groped and flumbled in a thicker mist of stupidity then now befools our unnurtured brethren and whatsoever is either odious or ridiculons in them might have beene farre more prodigious in us And so S. Aug. doth most excellently confess it saying tentator defuit Satan was away and time and place was wanting to do the deed but this was thy doing to preserve me the Tempter came in time and place convenient Aug. Soliloqu L. 16. but then thou withheldest me from consenting So when I had a will I wanted ability and when I had ability I wanted opportunity and all this was from thy blessed Spirit that preserved me And this preservation of us from evil Prov. 1. is offered by the goodness of God unto the wicked but that they refuse it as the wise man sheweth and the Scripture testifieth in many places And as God preserveth those that he loveth from the sins so he delivereth them also from the punishments of sin for though misfortune shall slay the ungodly yet as the Prophet saith God preserveth the righteous And though the plagues of God shall range and rage so far against the wicked that thousands of them shall fall besides the godly and ten thousands on his right hand yet it shall not come nigh him because God giveth his Angels charge over those that he loveth and they do preserve them in all their wayes that they dash not their foot against a stone And here in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the persons on whom God shewed so many testimonies of his abundant love to some more then to others I may and must put our selves before many thousands of others that perhaps deserved the same far better then we do For whereas all other places that had the truth of the Protestant Religion amongst them have now their Candlesticks removed and the true publick service of God metamorphosed and corrupted with lyes heresies and blasphemies we alone of all our Kings Dominion have the true light and the publick service of God shining in the right Candlestick and with Authority maintained And I humbly beseech Almighty God that our sins unthankfulness and unworthiness do not ere long deprive us
save us from all our sins And thus the true Saints that do hate their sins and lay hold on Christ do only love the Lord and the wicked that delight in sin and perceive not the sweetness of their Saviour cannot be said to love God for as the whole have no need of the Physitian and give no thanks for his Physick so they that feel not the sense of their own miseries and perceive not their Obligation to their Deliverer can have no love to God their Saviour Therefore seeing as the Poet saith Quod latet ignotum est ignoti nulla cupido And as S. Bern. saith non potes aut amare quem non noveris aut habere quem non amaveris we cannot love whom we know not nor enjoy whom we love not it behoveth us to search into our spirits to look into our own states to consider the multitude of our own sins and to bethink our selves in what need we stand of a Deliverer to see if this will not bring us in love with God our Saviour And then I beseech you Two special Points to be considered let us consider 1. What manner of Love we ought to have 2. How great a love it ought to be towards him And 1. I presume theâ—e is no man in this Assembly but he would think himself much injured 1 What manner of Lovewe ought to have if it were but imagined that he did not love God his Saviour and iâ— is not my desire to dishearten any when I wish from my heart that every the least sparke of your love to God might prove a Glorious Flame Yet I fear there be very many men that come into the world they know not why and live therein they care not how and go out of it again they cannot tell where but do live in it without a God and then die without any hope And others there be that dream of happiness and their hopes being but dreams they do therein but deceive themselves like those that dream they are at a pleasant Banquet yet when they awake their soul is hungry For as the Jews in our Saviours time did indeed persecute him because they were so blinded that they could not apprehend him to be the Son of God but for God himself they made full account that they alone and none but they did love him and for Moses vvhose very Name vvas the Glory of their Nation they professed to love him beyond measure so that vvhosoever spake any blasphemous vvords against Moses vvas thought vvorthy to be stoned to death Acts 6.11 John 5.42 V. 45. And yet our Saviour tels them I know you that you have not the love of God in you and that Moses in vvhom they trusted should accuse them before God So many Christians at the last day shall profess that they have prophesied in Christ's Name cast out Devils done many wonderful works in his Name rebelled against their ovvn King and killed their own Brethren and starved their own Shepherds and hazarded their own Lives for his sake and yet he shall protest unto them I never knew you i. e. to love me or to do these things for my sake but for your own ends and to satisfie your own desires and therefore depart from me ye Workers of Iniquity And the reason is Two sorts of the Lovers of Christ 1. Formal 2. Real that there are two sorts of the lovers of Christ and two kinds of professors of Christianity 1. General 2. Special That formal this real that in shew this in deed that ingendred by Education by Country by Custome by conformity to the Laws and Fashions of them with whom they live and by a common sence of Gods outward favours for Christ his sake unto them and this infused by an inward operation of Gods Spirit in the heart in all sincerity and truth and is continually preserved and encreased by a lively sence of Gods special favour unto them through Jesus Christ And you know that S. Paul tells us he is not a Jew which is one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in that which appeareth outwardly in the flesh i.e. which is but only born and bred a Jew of the seed of Abraham of the visible Synagogue and partaker of all the external Covenants of grace but he only is the right Jew which is one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 inwardly in the secrets of the heart so he is not a Christian that is but only born a Christian and doth but outwardly profess Christianity to come to the Church to hear Sermons to receive the Sacraments Who is the true Christian and to accustome himself to all the outward formalities of Christianity but he is the true Christian that is so made by his second birth and by that internal grace which is indeed invisible unto others but most sensible unto himself and who as the Evangelist saith John 1.13 is born not of bloud nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man but of God And therefore seeing God is not mocked and that he requireth truth in the inward parts and the exactest kind of love that can be imagined let us not mock our selves by any presumptuous conceits of our love to God and so deceive our own hearts and betray our own souls which is the usual practice of too too many men for if we love God as we ought then our love must be as the Apostle speaketh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in purity in simplicity or as the word signifieth in incorruption i.e. such as neither the most honourable nor the most profitable nor the most delectable things in this world can ever be able to lessen or diminish the least jot of our love to God when with the Apostle we disesteem our preferments and our honours and whatsoever else the world could confer upon us and account them all but as dung in comparison of our love to God and the discharging of that duty which we owe unto him for so Abraham forsook his Country neglected his honour and was ready to facrifice his only Son in obedience to the commands of God and so will all they do that do truly love the Lord as they out to love him 2. For the extent and quantity of our love to God S. Augustine saith Aug. de moribus Ecclesiae that Modus diligendi Deum est ut diligatur quantum potest diligi quanto plus diligitur tanto est dilectio melior And St. Bernard saith that Modus diligendi Deum est sine modo The measure of our love to God should be beyond measure so much that we should prefer his Love his Honour and his Service before our Father or Mother or Wife or Husband or Children or Pleasure or Profit or any other thing in this World yea before our own life which we should be ready and willing to lay down for the love of him and the defence of his truth and service Qui
post nummos Haec Janus summus ab imo perdocet Haec recinunt juvenes dictata senesque Which made Euripides to present one in an humor that neglected all things and all reproaches for wealth because said he men seld om or never ask how good or how honest is such a one but how rich is he and each man is that which he possesseth and is so esteemed according as he is worth and no more And therefore most men I mean worldly men love their gold as their God and this God hath their love And yet riches in their own nature have neither honour nor knowledge nor power nor valour nor any other good nor evil in themselves more than that whereunto they that do possesse them do direct them but they are like the water Riches like the waters of Feneo of the lake Feneo whereof the Arcadians do report that whosoever drinketh of it in the night he falleth sick but whosoever taketh it in the day time he becometh well so riches used for the works of darknesse to oppresse the poor to subdue our Prince to uphold pride to maintain Idolatry rebellion and the like are very poyson unto our Souls but if we imploy them for the deeds of light How riches do evil and how they may do good to uphold the right to relieve the poor to defend the innocent they are as antidotes against all evil for neither is the rich man condemned nor the poor man saved because the one is rich and the other poor but as both may be saved so beth may be condemned because the rich man abuseth his wealth and the poor man his poverty And as most men hunt after riches so I might shew you how others affect authority and others are drunk with the desire of honours but the time would be too short for me to go about to cut off the head of this monstrous Hydra of misordered love and most men do professe to know that as S. John saith 1 Joh. 2.15 Whosoever loveth the World the love of the Father is not in him and that this world is full of snares and thorns and vanities and vexation of spirit and that the lovers of this world are none other than the Servants of the Devil and they do likewise confesse that God hath done and doth all those great things for them which we have set down and therefore that they are no worldlings but do love God with all their hearts and do think themselves much wronged if they should be otherwise suspected Yet because 2 Thes 3.2 as the Apostle saith all men have not faith so all men have not love What we must do if we love God especially such love as they ought to have therefore lest we should deceive our selves herein and so destroy our Souls we must know that God is truth and therefore he that loves God loves truth and whosoever loves lies and falsehoods loves not God and God is Justice therefore he that loves God loves that which is right and just and he that loves to do wrong loves not God and so God is Wisdom and God is Mercy and therefore he that loves God loves Wisdom and sheweth mercy and they that are foolish as all the wicked are and do shew cruelty unto their brethren as do the blood thirsty men that do now seaze and kill and slay the innocent that never offended them cannot be said to love God But for the fuller manifestation of our love to God 1. Two things to be done I will set down some of the most infallible signs of this true love of God the best of them that are collected 2. Lest upon the discussion of these truths we find our selves destitute of this love I will briefly and as the time will give me leave shew the impediments and set down the furtherances of our love to God 1 The infallible signs of our true love of God The Image of of Love how anciently painted And why And 1. I find amongst the Antient Hieroglyphicks that the Image of Love was painted in the shape of a beautiful woman cloathed in a green vesture wherein was written these two words prope procul far and nigh in the breast were ingraven life and death in the borders of her garment were set Winter and Summer and in her side a wound so wide and so largely opened that all her inward parts were transparent And those Sages that pourtrayed Love thus did it for these reasons 1. In the shape of a woman to shew the vehemencie of this affection The explanation of the hierogliphick 2 Sam. 1.26 because women by reason of their weaknesse to bridle their passions as they are more violent in their hate so are they more fervent in their love and more vehement in all their desires than men therefore David expressing the great love of Jonathan towards him saith that his love passed the love of women 2. Of a beautiful woman to shew that Love is an alluring subject and is sweet and delectable even to them that are troubled with Love 3. In a green vesture to shew that true love ought alwayes to be fresh and fair and never withered nor waxen old because it never faileth 1 Cor. 13.8 as the Apostle testifieth 4. In the words far and nigh that were set in the forehead of that Image was signified that contrary to the common practice of the world to follow that old Proverb Qui procul ab oculis procul est a limine cordis Out of sight out of mind true love remaineth firm as well in the absence as in the presence of them that we love when as neither length of time nor distance of place can any wayes alter the constancie or lessen the affection of a true Lover 5. In life and death that were ingraven on the breast was shewed that Cant. 8.6 as Solomon saith love is as strong as death Ecl. 49.1 and cannot be extinguished even by death it self but we will love the very names and memories of them whom we loved as the Son of Syrach saith of Josias 6. By the Winter and Summer that were set in the borders of her garment was signified that true love is permanent and durable as well in adversity as in prosperity for though as the Poet saith of worldly lovers Donec eris felix While prosperity lasteth and thy table is well furnished thou shalt want no friends nor misse of any guests but if adversity cometh thy friends will fail and thy guests will be gone so the Prophet tells us there be many men that will love God and praise him too cum lucrum accidit illis when they receive any benefit from him and when as David saith their corn and wine and oyl increaseth Psal 4.8 Job 1.11 but if any great losse or sud calamity should happen unto them then what the Devil said falsely of holy Job may be truely said of these worldly men they will
curse God to his face and therefore God may justly say to them as S. Augustine saith of the like you have shewed me love indeed and in some things kept my commandments but it was for your own profits sake non quia me pure diligebatis Aug. despeculo humanae miseriae sed quia a me lucrari volebatis not because you did Sincerely love me but because you desired to be inriched and exalted by me like those Jews that followed Christ not because they saw his miracles and were edified by his heavenly doctrine but because they did eat of the loaves and were filled i. e. for his temporal blessings John 6.26 and not for the love of his spiritual graces or like S. Peter that would build tabernacles unto Christ upon Mount Tabor where he was transfigured in glory but did forsake him on Mount Calvary when he was oppressed with calamities and overladed with injuries just like too many of the servants of our now gracious King that could serve and extoll him in White-hall while he sate on his throne of Majestie and yet now serve and magnifie his oppressors and opponents when he is compassed with afflictions which is to love in Summer and not in the cold of Winter yet I say the true lovers of God will as truely love him in the Winter of adversity and persecution Job 2.10 as in the Summer of prosperity and exaltation and will say with holy Job shall we receive good at the hands of God and shall we not receive evill or shall we rejoyce at our advancement and shall we not be contented at our abasement 7. And lastly by the wound that she had opened in her side is shewed that true love revealeth the very secrets of the heart to his beloved so will they that love God confesse all their sins with Daniel and lay open all their wants with David unto God and they need not be ashamed to confesse them when as before their confession they are all patent to his eyes as the Apostle sheweth But because all these are signes of any true love to any object therefore I will shew you some more proper signs of our love to God and The 1. Acts 7.48 is to love Gods house for though as S. Steven saith God dwelleth not in houses made wiah hands but as the Poet saith Enter praesenter The chiefest Signs of our Love to God 1. To love Gods House Deus est ubique potenter That is in the Prophets phrase he filleth all places yet as he chooseth a Seventh day for his service when as all dayes are his and challengeth a tenth part of our goods for his servants when as all we have is at his disposing so he requireth a Church and a material house to be served in when as all the houses and all the places in the World Psal 27.4 Psal 84.2 cannot comprehend his Majesty therefore the Prophet David saith one thing have I required of God which I will desire that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the dayes of my life and again my Soul longeth yea even fainteth for the Courts of the Lord Hag. 1.4 and the Prophet doth extreamly tax them that dwell themselves in seiled houses and suffer the house of God to be wast fit for nothing but as I see it now in many places to lodge beasts and birds and they may be as much and more blamed that neglecting his consecrated house do think their polluted barns to be good enough to serve our God Secondly 2 To love Gods Word Psal 119.79 47. 72. VVhat we understand by Gods word To love Gods Word is another sign of our love to God therefore the Prophet David saith O how do I love thy Law my delight is in thy Commandements and again thy testimonies are better unto me than thousands of gold and silver But here you must observe that because every one pretendeth to love Gods Word as they do professe to love God by Gods Word we understand not the bare Written letter but the truth of the holy Scripture for as the Hereticks in Tertull. time credebant Scripturis ut crederent adversus Scripturas believed not the Scripture but what themselves pleased out of the Scriptures so now and oftentimes alwayes the Word of God is perverted and mis-interpreted especially by two sorts of men as S. Peter noteth 1. 2 Pet. 3.16 Two sorts of men pervert Gods word Those that are unlearned and have not knowledge enough to undestand the truth of these high Mysteries 2. Those that are unstable and unconstant and therefore change the sense of Scriptures as they see the times and occasions change As for example 1. Mat. 20.26 27 The words of Christ whosoever will be great among you let him be your Minister and whosoever will be chief among you let him be your Servant the Presbyterians allegde them to prove a parity of orders and an equality amongst all the Ministers of Gods Church and yet the very same words are produced by all the Fathers and all the most learned Divines to shew the diversity of our callings and the superiority of some of them above the others which is indeed the very truth because otherwise he would never have said whosoever will be chief but he would have told them plainly and briefly they were all equal and none was chief or none was greater than the rest but in saying whosoever will be chief let him be your Servant he sheweth the duty and humility that should be in him which was to have the priority and doth sufficiently confirm the superiority of some above the rest 2. Mat. 26.26 The words of the consecration of the Eucharist take eate this is my body are interpretd by Bellarm. and all the Church of Rome that quote the Authors of all ages to prove the Transubstantiation of that holy bread into the very body of Christ and yet the very same words are expounded by the Lutherans to prove their consubstantiation and by the Fathers rightly understood as they are amply quoted by Pet. Martyr and by the most learned of our Church do prove not the oral or corporal eating but the spiritual and sacramental eating of the body of Christ by Faith which is indeed there really but ineffably eaten and should be so believed to be without any further searching into these Divine Mysteries lest with the men of Bethshemesh we be justly smitten for peeping too narrowly into the Ark of the Lord. 3. The very same Scriptures to the number of forty places were alleged by the Arians to prove their Damnable Heresie that Christ was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the like nature with his Father as were produced by the Orthodox to prove him to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the same essence with God 4. That Scripture which commandeth us Matth. 22.21 to render unto Caesar what is Caesars and to God what is Gods is truly
are not able to seed the poor ' nor scarce our selves and some for other longer time reserving onely some small rent for the succeeding Bishops as in my Diocess theat Lordship was set for 10. l. yearly that is well-nigh worth a 200. l. and that was set for 4. l. that is worth a 100. l. and the like And therefore seeing the Bishops themselves did so unjustly destroy their succeeding Bishops what wonder is it that the just God should suffer the haters of the Bishops and the Enemies of all goodness to destroy them And therefore not to do my self what I blame in others lest God should justly condem me out of mine own mouth I have resolved and do pray to God continually to give me the grace to perform it and do hope that God will grant it me That I will take no Fine for any Lands or Lordships belonging to my Bishoprick while I live that I may not wrong any of my succeeding Bishops nor lessen the Revenue of the Church of Christ but to take heed and beware of covetousness which is the cause of much and many evils especially in all Church-men as you see it was the root that sprang to the destruction of Judas and to cause Demas to apostatize from the Ministery of Christ Secondly For the discharging of the Episcâ—pal duties which is a very great charge onus Angelicis humeris formidandum as a Father calls it if Revelat. ii 14. with the Church of Ephesus we have not forsaken our first love and grown cold in our care to promote the gospel of Christ yet I fear the Bishops had amongst them those that held the Doctrine of Balaam who taught Balac to set a stumbling-block before the Children of Israel that is as the Apostle expoundeth it to love the wages of unrighteousness and for the love of worldly honour wealth and other sinister respects to grow cold in the love of truth which made a Preacher at Paul's cross to pray that God would be pleased to make the Lords Temporal more spiritual and the Lords Spiritual less temporal and it grieves me much to set down how the Bishops Courts were generally complained of how justly or how unjustly I cannot tell as the greatest Oprressours of the People and the publique grievance of the Kingdom their delays unsufferable their excommunications unreasonable Corn. Agâ—ippa De vanitâ—ue Scientâ—arum cap. 61. their Fees intolerable and often times their injustice no ways to be excused which made the Lay people to exclaim against the Bishops and their Courts as much and in like manner as Cornelius Agrippa and our Presbyterians do against the Romish Bishops And if they say as they do the Courts belonged to their Chancellours that were learned men Doctours of the Civil and Canon Laws and of honourable repute among all Nations and what they did should not be imputed to the Bishop's fault It may be answered Qui facit per alium idem est quasi faceret per seipsum he that offends by his Proctor shall suffer by himself And we must confess the Courts were the Bishops Courts and the Chancellours were but their Deputies and they should have rectified the Abuses of their own Courts Yet I must ingenuously confess that I can accuse none of the Bishops for this fault but that this is the complaint of the People how truly I know not unless the Chancellour might say to the Bishop as it was said to the Pope of the like Officer Vendere jure potest emerat ille prius He had paid him dear for his place therefore he must take great Fees and sell justice or he shall lose much by the Bargain for indeed he cannot sell cheap that buyeth dear and be a saves thereby nor can he prove but very seldom an upright Judge that hath bought his office and by corruption obtained his place and therefore this selling of the Chancellour's office and other places in the Bishops Courts was the root of all the corruption that were of those Courts and so the Bishops that did this even for these faults besides the neglect to redress their other abuses can not in my judgement be any ways excused But I will shew you yet To ordain unworthy persons to be Priests a great fault to the shame of some greater Abomination which I have often bemoaned when I considered how some of the Bishops not following Saint Paul's counsel in the ordination of Priests and Deacons to lay hands on no man rashly but to see the Persons to be admitted to Holy Orders should be no Novices and no ways unworthy of that high Calling but every way qualified both for life and doctrine so as the word of God doth require have notwithstanding Vide Englands Reprover pag. 67. either by the solicitation of friends or for some other respects and perhaps worser corruption many times made young Novices illiterate men and which is worse men of corrupt minds and bad life the Priests of the most high Gods to wait at his Altar that were not worthy to wait on our Tables and therefore as the Bishops that did this did herein falsifie their faith to God and betrayed his Service to these unworthy men so the just God hath most rightly suffered these perfidious men to betray their Makers to spit in their Father's faces and to combine with the Enemies of God to destroy the Bishops of Christ and so as the Poët saith in another kind Ignavum fucos pecus à praesepibus arcent Neither was this all the Bishops fault to ordain these to drive away themselves but as it was said of old Rector eris praestò Men obtained their livings four manner of ways de sanguine Praesulis esto or as another saith Quattuor Ecclesias portis intratur in omnes Prima patet magnis nummatis altera tertia charis Quarta sed paucis solet patere Dei So to put weapons into their hands to enable them to war with their Bishops it was the practice of some of the Bishops if we may believe the common report of the Country Mercury to bestow Livings Rectories Prebends and other preferments not on such worthy Scholars and Academicks as best deserved them but either upon their own Friends Children Kinsmen or Servants or on such as according to the old riddle could tell them who was Melchisedec's Father and his Mother too and could say Saint Peter's Lesson Aurum argentum non est mihi the clean contrary way And this very practice of those Bishops that did so bred ill blood and many corrupt humours against the Episcopal function as especially First A disdain of them amongst those worthy men that were so carelessly neglected Secondly A neglect of God's People and leaving them untaught and unguided by those unworthy men that were thus promoted Thirdly A general distast of the people against all the Bishops when they resented these distempers that were onely caused by very few And all these things cryed to God for redress and
righteous and just Secondly I say that there is crudelitas parcens misericordia puniens a sparing which is cruelty and a punishment that is a great mercie and such are the troubles pressures and punishments of God's Children mercies rather then judgments because they proceed not from God's Wrath but as the chastisements of a Father to his Children so do these come from the love of God towards his servants for their good whom he afflicteth here for a moment that they should be bettered and not be condemned with the Wicked hereafter for ever Thirdly I say that the Miseries Crosses and Calamities Reason 1 that the Faithfull suffer in this World are not always so much a punishment for their Sins Reason 2 though their Sins deserve much more Reason 3 and Sin is the root from whence all miseries do spring as trials and probations of their Faith and Constancie in God's love and service for so the Scripture saith that God tempted Abraham not temptatione deceptionis to deceive him as Satan tempteth us but temptatione probationis to try him whether he would obey the Commandment of God or not when he commanded him to offer his Son his onely Son Isaac for a Sacrifice unto God and so he tried the Israelites at the waters of Strife and as Moses saith in their Fourty years wandring through the Wilderness to see whether they would love the Lord their God and cleave unto him and continue faithfull in his service and so he doth plainly tell the Church of Smyrna that the Devil should cast some of them into Prison that they might be tryed and they should have Tribulation ten dayes and that is either ten years as Junius expounds it or else several times as others think yet all to this end that they might be tryed whether they would continue faithfull unto death or not and such were the afflictions of Job and of many other of the Saints of God they were justly deserved by their Sins and God in mercie sent them for their trial What the former Doctrine teaching the us And therefore whatsoever and how great soever a measure of Miseries Crosses and Troubles we have or shall suffer yet let us not faint nor be affraid of them and let not the Children of God be like the Children of Ephraim that being Harnessed and carrying Bows and so well prepared for the fight yet turned themselves back in the day of Battaile when there was most need of their assistance but as we have loved our King and have suffered all the calamities and burthens that are layd upon us for our faithfulness to him and the preservance of a good conscience so let us continue unto the end and never comply with any of the King's Enemies in the abatement of the least jot of our love and good opinion of the deceased King or with the Factious Non-conformists in the dis-service of God and the new invented Religion of our upstart Schismaticks let neither weight of trouble nor length of time change our minds because perseverance in Faith and Virtue is that which crowneth all the other Virtues and if at any time even at the last we forsake our first love and change our Faith we lose all the reward of all the former good that we have done and do by our revolt testifie that we were not good for the love of goodness nor adhered to the truth for righteousness sake but for some other by-respects for our own ends that never brings any to a good end and therefore the primitive Christians could never by any means be drawn to alter the least point of their Faith Prudent De Vincéntio and the right service of God but as Prudentius saith Tormenta carcer ungulae Stridénsque flammis lamina Atque ipsa paenarum ultima Mors Christianis ludus est All the Torments and Terrours of the World could never move them to change their mindes But some man may say Objection Providence hath decided the Controversy the King is dead Victrix causa Dits placuit and the Parliament hath prevailed against him and all his Friends and therefore what should I do now but comply with the stronger side and use that religion which they profess and that form of worship which they prescribe and so redeem the time that I have lost and repair some losses that I have sustained I answer Solution that our Saviour Christ to prevent this very Objection that the Jews might make to terrifie the Christians and to with-hold them from the faith of Christ because they had killed him and he was dead and therefore to what purpose should they adhere to a dead Saviour and hazard their lives and their fortunes to maintain the honour of a dead man that could not preserve his own life because a Living Dog is better then a dead Lion saith unto his Servant John I am he that liveth and was dead and behold or mark it well I am alive for evermore Amen and therefore let not my death deterr any man from following me or believing in me so I say that faith and truth are still alive and though oftentimes suppressed and afflicted yet not killed and therefore the Poet saith Dispaire not yet though truth be hidden oft Because at last she shall be set aloft And as another saith Terra fremat regna alta crepent ruet ortus orcus Si modo firma fides nulla ruina nocet And for King Charles I say though he is dead yet he is still alive many ways and that his blood like Abel's blood being dead yet speaketh and speaks aloud not onely to God These things were written and preached by the Author in the time of Oliver but also to every one of them that loved him that they should not so soon forget their faith and love to him that lost his life for their defence and the defence of the true Catholick Faith and though he be dead he is still alive alive with Christ in Heaven for evermore and alive with us on earth in the good that he did bring to us in the love that he shewed towards us and in the good that he left amongst us and shall we leave him and leave our love to him and our remembrance of him and forsake our faith and prove perfidious both to God and to the honour and to the memory of our deceased King and cleave to them to say and do as they say and do that have bereft us of him and would have destroyed us with him No no let us abhor them and their evil doings detest their false Faith and hate their Wickedness with a perfect hatred And though we have suffered much and may suffer much more at the hands of these Tyrants that are our new Masters yet let us submit our selves unto them but as Daniel and the rest of God's people did unto the Chaldeans full sore against their wills Iames v 11. Job lxii 12. and let us yield none otherwise to this present Government
himself alone for he like a wise man judged that man which doth all things out of his own head superbum magÃs quà m sapientem esse rather a proud man then a wise man as Titus Livius saith Charles Stuart our now most gracious King therefore I make no question had his Counsellours then and as we finde it by the Transactions of business in Jersy and Breda he was in his greatest affairs guided by them the more fault theirs if they misguided him though the more dammage his neither yet can he be excused from all fault if he was misguided by them the great God that governs all things and crowns events according to their deserts hath made it manifest to the world Laertius in Solon that his Counsellours have not fully followed the old rule in Laertius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Consule non quae suavissima sed quae optima Counsel not those things that seem most sweet and pleasant but those things which are best and most honest for these Ductores Principis Counsellours of this young Prince consulting with flesh and blood and considering what was likest to advance his design and not considering what was most agreeable to God's Will have in the Judgment of some not so well advised their good Master and had he not been as it seemeth another Jedidia beloved of God by following their Counsel in the Course that he took he might have been taken in a snare to his utter ruine That is in Worcester Fight But what was the Counsel that they gave him it appeareth by the tryal of Master Love and by the event of those treatises betwixt the Scots Commissioners and the Presbyterian Agents out of England Captain Titus Drake and the rest and the Prince that they perswaded him to comply with the Scots for that by this means he should peaceably gain the Crown of Scotland and with the Strength of Scotland joined with the Presbyterian Party of England which were very considerable he might easily gain the Kingdom of England and then Ireland must needs yield An unquestionable uncontroulable way in the judgement of man but it seemed not so with God as the event did make it clear and therefore as when the Counsellours of Rheoboam differed in their advice the one sort saying Si loquaris verba lenia speak to this people fair and they will be thy Servants and the other sort bidding him to tell them that His Father whipped them with rods but he would scourge them with Scorpions Rheâ—boam should have had the Discretion to know which was the best to follow for herein consisteth the greatest wisdom of any Prince in the Election of his Counsel because it is most likely that among many wise men both the best and the worst Counsel will be propounded And it is a point of great wisdom to be able to follow the best to choose the good and to refuse the evil and the wisest man in the world may easily fail herein especially in great matters whose future and contingent events are so doubtful And therefore it is no wonder nor any fault-unexcuseable for the best traveller to mistake his way in the dark or in a wilderness among the thickets But could any wise man that remembered the former passages betwixt the Scots and the late pious King think or any good Christian believe that God whose ways are always right as the Prophet speaketh and the just shall walk in them but the transgressors shall fall therein would prosper the counsel that leadeth to any erroneous course no no this cannot be And therefore as I conceive the Counsellors of this good Prince failed though not in their love and faithfulness to their Master but in their advice in directing him the best way and he not knowing which way was best Incidit in Scyllam cupiens vitare Charibdim By seeking to escape the Lions it may be the Irish Catholicks he fell among Bears if I may so call the Scottish Presbytery whose feet Rev. xiii 2. the holy Scripture tells us are as the feet of a Bear But his Counsellors may answer as a very learned Scotchman discoursing hereof answered me that their purpose was right and their intention exceeding good aiming at the same end as is now blessed be God for it come to pass But I say the just God will not approve of our intentions to do good if we go about to effect that good by an evil way for as the Scholes tell us si bonum feceris malâ intentione non imputabitur tibi pro bono if thou doest good with an ill intent it shall not be imputed to thee for good so in like manner si malum feceris boná intentione non imputabitur tibi pro bono if thou doest evil though thou meanest never so well and thine intention be never so good yet shall it not be imputed to thee for good because the God that is most perfect in all his ways and in every thing doth require that the good which we do should be perfectly good ex omni parte on all sides and in every respect for as the Prophet speaketh He requireth truth in the inward parts and will have heart and hand minde and tongue to go together and therefore we may not do evil that good may come thereof or to enable us to do good Job xiii 7. neither may we speak wickedly for God nor talk deceitfully for him as Job speaketh much less may we do the same for the greatest preferment in the World And therefore if this good Prince had been well informed and throughly given to understand all the former passages and proceedings of those Scots that so undutifully so unkindly and so treacherously dealt with his good Father and for what ends they did it I believe he would have never wandred those ways that he travelled unto them but he having thus mistaken his way he missed of his end and the Presbyterians that had made a Covenant with death as the Prophet speaks of the Jews and an agreement with Hell it self did not stand any ways to further his design but when the overflowing Scourge did pass through then were they troden down by it and he had been likewise troden down himself or taken which had been worst had not the eye of Heaven which saw the innocency of his heart not wittingly offending in any way watched over him and as he did when he led Jacob to Padan-Aram that he might escape his Brother's wrath so it guided him most miraculously in man's judgment to the haven where he would be that so he might escape the treachery of some professed friends and be delivered from the malice of his cruel enemies for I fear we may say with Obadiah All the men of thy confedracy have brought thee even to the border Obadiah v. 7. the men that were at peace with thee have deceived thee and they that eat thy bread have layd a wound under thee that is his own counsellours by perswading him to take
the Presbyterian way I am confident and sure that God never approveth of their courses nor for a man to accept of his own right by an indirect way and therefore I finde not that he blessed any of the Scots designs but as Nahum saith of Niniveh Nahum 3.13 so we may say of them thy people in the midest of thee are Women the gates of thy land shall be set wide open unto thine enemies and the fire shall devour thy barrs and I think they have found it true themselves through their Kingdom when the Lion and his Bears the Tyrant and his Whelps came amongst them And therefore this deliverance of the Prince being of the like nature as those wonderful deliverances that God wrought for other good Princes which are set down by Camerar libro secundo capite decimo being such a special act of God's favour and so wonderful in our eyes and as I believe with these former praecedentia fore-passed things will be a warning to him and to all others to amend future things and to detest and abandon this Presbyterian way which I am confident the Lord hateth and do assure my self will never bless it nor them that cordially follow it if they do rightly understand it howsoever he may in his secret Counsel suffer them as he doth many other Sinners and great offendours for a time to tyrannise over his children and to prosper in this World which is but as the Prophet saith a slippery station when as Claudian speaking of Ruffinus and his confederates saith tolluntur in altum Vt lapsu graviori ruant God lifteth them up to throw them down which makes their overthrow the greater by how much their exaltation is the higher for Qui jacet in terra non habet unde cadat He that walketh upon the ground can have no great fall but as Horace saith Saepius ventis agitatur ingens pinus celsae graviori casu decidunt turres feriuntque summos ful◠ura montes And so I believe their fall will be ere long which now ride on other men's palfreys and jet it up and down in pride in their Brethren's garments because as Job saith Job 20.5 27. The triumphing of the Wicked is but short and the joy of the Hypocrite is but for a moment when as the heavens shall reveile his iniquity and the earth shall rise up against him Secondly for the rest of the Scottish nation Mr. Hall a Counsellour for the Common-Wealth of England The trial of Mr. Love pag 76. How the Scots have been always avers and great enemies to the English-Nation in the triall of Mr. Love saieth that Master Love held Intelligence with the Scottish-Nation which truely saith he I do conceive hardly an English man that had the blood of an English man running in his Veins would joyn in confederacy with that Nation of all the Nations in the World against the Common-Wealth a Nation that hath been known to have been a constant enemy to this nation in all ages through the memory of all Histories whereby * If this be true you may guess how worthy they are to have an union with this Nation and how wisely we do to submit our selves by an indissoluble Covenant to their Scottish-discipline and therefore touching the now distressed and subdued subjects of Scotland especially those that Covenanted with the Parliament of England to overthrow the established Government of our Church and to set up the beggerly Presbytery I may most truely say lex non justior ulla Quam Artifices tales arte perire suâ Never Nation was more justly dealt withall then they be by what Crumwell brought upon them for though according to the Apostles warrant saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Cretians are always lyars I might justly say there are national sins as well as personal and you know that punica fides Titus 1.12 grew to be a Proverb among the Romans to note out a perfidions person so I might truely tell you that from Fergusius the renowned King of the Scots that first entred Ireland and afterwards was drowned at Carreg-fergus now corruptly called Knoc-fargus in that Kingdom their own Chronicles do testify how this Nation have been always such as Saint Stephen saith the Jews were a stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears that have allways resisted the Holy Ghost even as their Fathers did so did they so were the Scots a stiff-necked stubborn and rebellious people that have always resisted their own lawful Princes by deposing some and killing others whom they disliked and whom I could easily name if it were not for fear to be too tedious unto you out of their own Chronicles And though they had many brave Commanders and gallant Soldiers amongst them and some great Schollars as furious Knox Antimonarchical Buchanan That the Scots have been ever a most rebellious Nation in his Junius Brutus and De Jure regni apud Scotos and the like not a few yet as a little colloquintida spoileth all the whole pot of pottage so their treachery and Rebellion against their Kings obscureth all the good parts that can be in them It is a rare commendation that Quintus Curtius gives unto the Persians for their love and faithfullness unto Darius their King in his dejected Fortunes when they would rather lose their own lives then betray their King and Damianus a Goes tells us that many Infidels among the Indians were not inferiours to the best nations in their Obedience and Loyalty to their Kings and yet the Scots of all other Nations are as they say clean contrary for to go no further then our times it is not unknown to both Kingdoms how many signal favours were conferred upon men of all sorts both the nobles Gentles and Plebeyans of Scotland by King James that made himself poor How liberal and bountiful King James hath been unto the Scots to make them rich and many times emptied his own Exchequer to fill their purses and how King Charles never imposed any heavy burthen upon them but was no small benefactour to them preferring them in his own house to places of the greatest honour and best profit and those that came with their staff like Jacob over the Tweed and in their blew Bonnets into England they were in a short space enriched Knighted and ennobled in the King 's Court. But least that this Commemoration of benefits should be taken for an exprobration as the Comick speaketh I will not name those great persons that have been made great by this good King and that I could have set down for unthankful retributours of such great favours yet in general I would that all men knew how they have all rewarded their deserving Prince for that blessed man in his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith The Scots are a Nation The King in his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 How lovingly King Charles used the Scots upon whom I have not onely tyes of nature sovereignty and bounty with my Father of blessed
Punishment which should be a warning to all Transgressors to fear the Vengeance of Allmighty God Thirdly The Lord Brooks The next Member of the Long Parliament that I shall set down in my Catalogue of disloyal Subjects is the Lord Brooks a man whose former life and Conversation which I knew by his own penitent Epistles and Letters that from beyond the Seas he wrote to his Unckle Sir Fulk Grevil afterwards Lord Brooks who shewed them unto me was very loose and dissolute and how in a short time by some strange Conversion far unlike Saint Paul's he passed from one extream to another Four remarkable things concerning the Lord Brooks from a very dissolute Youth to a most resolute Saint I know not but out of many remarkable things written of him immediately after his death I shall onely set down here these few particulars First That as in his former looseness he wholly neglected the Commands and grave Counsels of his Unckle Sir Fulke Grevil that was his Governour loco Parentis his Maintainer and upon my Knowledge a very bountiful Maintainer of him too so afterwards in his too much preciseness he did in like manner wholly reject his Duty and Obedience to his King that was Pater Patriae and a very gracious King to him too yea he became a very obstinate violent and a most virulent Opposer of his King as if he could not be a Saint in the Service of God except the became as a rebel to oppose his King but so it is most commonly seen that they which are undutyful to their Parents and Governors will seldom prove faithful to their Kings or Princes Secondly I observed that our of his superabundant zeal which he pretended to God's Honour he extremely hated and persecuted the Governours of God's Church and the chief Upholders of God's Service the reverend Bishops and and all the grave and learned Doctours of God's word and he was no less a Profaner of God's House which is the material Temple and the place where God's Honour dwelleth while the Saints are Pilgrims in the Wilderness of this World Thirdly It is not unknown to most that knew him that he could not endure to have this Epithete and Title of Saint to be given either to Evangelist or Apostle and especially to any other departed Saint or Servant of God as Saint Augustine Saint Ambrose and the like though he could not deny them to be with God in Heaven as if the Saints in Heaven for fear of Idolatry or Superstition were not to be acknowledged for Saints now on earth but that this Sanctity must be appropriated onely to themselves that are such furious Zelots against the reverend esteem we bear to the Saints in Heaven though we neither invocate them for help nor adore the best of them with the Church of Rome no more then they but knowing that not one is in Heaven but he is a Saint we give this Title of Saint to them of whom we doubt not of their being blessed with God Fourthly He had another property no less injurious to himself and the Servants of God on earth then the former was to the Saints in Heaven for that excellent Prayer in our Letany and the holy desire of God's Servants that it would please God to deliver them from sudden Death which all good Divines and faithfull Servants of God did ever acknowledge for a temporary Judgement of God and therefore prayed that whensoever it pleased him to call for their Souls out of this earthly Tabernacle he would be pleased to grant them some time and space to call upon him for the forgiveness of their Sins and to commend their Souls into his Hands and so forth Yet this Lord could not away with the Prayer nor abide to hear of this Petition but would have every man at all times to be so prepared for death that he needed not at any time to pray against sudden death and we say likewise that every man ought to expect death in every place and to do his best endeavour to be prepared for death at all times yet that neither this Lord nor the best Saint on earth can be so well prepared at any time but that he ought as he hath need to pray for pardon of the Defects and Imperfection of his Preparation and therefore to pray for time to make that Prayer and then as for time to dispose and fit himself for God and to make his peace with him through Christ so to set his House in order as the â—rophet saith to Ezechias and to settle his Estate among those that depend upon him which hath been ever held to be as it is indeed a Blessing and a great favour granted from God to preserve love and to continue peace and amity amongst a man's Children and the rest of his Friends and Posterity But here in this Lord we may behold and adore the Judgment of the just God how that as Goliah's Head was cut off with his own Sword so Judicium suum super caput suum this man's Judgment and his practice fell upon his own head and the Stone that he threw at another lighted upon his own Pate for in the Prosecution of his hate against his King as a just reward of that Service his Lordship being in Litchfield on Saint Chad's day the Founder of that Church while he viewed the College or Close as they tearm it and Church of Saint Chad to batter them down with his Canons for the Fideliy and Allegiance of that Fraternity unto their King being all harnessed Cap-a-pâ— from top to toe as he lifted up his Helmet to see the same more clearly behold you and see the just hand of God directing the hand of a youth that was a Prebend's Son with a Fowling-Piece to hit him just in the eye that as formerly he could not see the truth so now he could see nothing but fell suddenly dead and never spake word no not so much as Lord have mercy upon me so the Lord God shewed himself just and righteous in his Judgments and holy in all his ways and let all the Sons of men acknowledge the same and all wicked men fear his Justice Fourthly The next man Fourth Man that I shall bring upon the Stage to answer at the Bar of Justice is Master John Pym a man that was in an Office of great trust and of much profit and gain under the King and because as the Proverb goeth Much would have more his Covetousness egged forward by his Ambition to be great snatching at more then was just laid him open to lose what was due and to be deprived of his place that was so good Then he like the unjust Steward spoken of in the Gospel took unjuster Courses against his Master for he not onely advised with himself to detain more of his Master's goods in his hands and to deceive him of so much as might well enable him to live well and in good sort as his false fellow-Steward
that Christ speakes of had shewed him the way before but as after Ages grew more subtle so they became more wicked then the former times even so this unjust and unthankful Servant became more wicked then before for now he layeth up such hatred and malice against his King and sealeth it in the depth of his Heart wherein the same boyled like new Wine that wanted vent so that it was like meat and drink to an hungry Stomach for him to finde any Opportunity to broach the same against the King And the Long Parliament that consisted of very many discontented Persons and men both disaffected to his Majesty and distasting his present Government made him a fair way to lay open all his Malice and what he formerly vented in his private Discourse by retail he doth it publickly now in gross and he doth it to the full and having a tongue apt to speak and not unskilful in the art of Rhetorick he begins first to make his Oration against the Earl of Strafford as knowing that whatsoever evil was proved or conceived against him the same reflected most upon the King then after the taking of this great Earl and prudent Counsellour of the King out of the way making more bitter Invectives against his Majesty then ever Cicero's Philippicks were against Marcus Antoninius or his Actions against Verres he so still passed on till he had poysoned the greater part of that House and the seditious vulgar that understood his Proceedings with an evil conceit against the good King And now seeing himself back'd with the wilde part of the House and the strength of the rude multitude no mean revenge will serve his turn but with his Rhetorical Orations and Speeches filled with Gall against the King though as yet somewhat obliquely he labours to disrobe and rob the King of all his chief Friends under the Notion of evil Counsellours and withall secretly complies with the Scots to assist him and the rest of his seditious Compeers against his Majesty But the King having full intelligence both of his and his partners vile practice against his Majesty laboured to bring them to their Tryal in the usual legal way for their underhand Treachery and Confederacy with the Scots to bring a foreign Army to invade his Dominion and then to save himself and the rest they fly to the City of London and in a short space drew the Citizens and with them the whole Kingdom to engage themselves in a desperate civil War against their lawful Sovereign Then the King found himself too weak to bring this strong Rebel to any trial yet the hand of God was not to short to fetch him out of his guarded Palace for he is the Lord of Hosts and hath as well his great Army of little ones as the Rats and Mice that devoured Popiel the second King of Polonia in anno 830. for his treacherous poysoning of his Unckles the Moales that undermined a City in Thessaly and the Worms that destroyed Herod the King as also his strong Army of great ones as the earth to swallow up Corah Dathan and Abiram the Sea to overwhelm Pharaoh and all his Hoast the Stars in their Order too fight against Sisera and his Angels to be at his Command to overthrow his enemies And therefore he sent his Serjeant to arrest him and to fetch him out of his strong hold that he should do no further Mischief against his Anointed And how he died I leave to the Report of them that knew the manner of his death better then I can set it down I did intend further to shew unto you the just Judgment of God upon Colonel Hamden that for his disloyalty to his King was shot whereof he dyed on the same Plot of ground where he first mustered his Souldiers against his King even as the Lord threatened the like Judgment against Ahab And upon the Mayor of York that on that day twelve-Moneth that our King lost his life made a Bone-fire for joy that the King had so lost his life but on the same day twelve-Moneth after hanged himself And especially upon Colonel Axtel that hath been the ruine of so many Churches and the Suppressour of so many honest conformable Ministers and other good Protestants and plaid so many Tyrannical parts about Kilkenny and in my Diocess of Ossory as I am not able in a short time and with few words to express it and upon divers others but my Occasions at this time will not give me leave to perfect what I have begun And therefore I must now here make an End and commend us all to God through Jesus Christ our Lord to whom be all glory and honour for evermore Amen Jehovae Liberatori The Authour's Prayer after he had finished the Reparation of the Chancel and Quire of the Cathedral Church of Kilkenny OEternal Almighty and most merciful Lord God that hast created all things by thy Power governest them by thy Wisdom and preservest them by thy Goodness and hast disposed all thy Creatures to be for the Service of man the Sun to give him light by day and the Moon by night the Earth to feed him and the Angels of Heaven to attend him that he dash not his foot against a Stone for all which great love and bounty of thine towards man thou requirest no more but that he should be thankful unto thee and praise thee for thy goodness and declare the wonders that thou doest for the Children of men and as Moses saith what doth the Lord our God require of us but to fear the Lord our God to walk in all his ways and to love him and to serve the Lord our God with all our hearts and with all our souls and to keep his Commandments and Statutes which he commanded us for our good for the discharging of which duties and the performance of our Service unto the Lord our God though as Saint Stephen saith the most High dwelleth not in Temples made with hands when as the heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain him which is above the heavens and below the earth and filleth all places and beyond all places with his Presence yet our fore-Fathers most religiously according to the President that King Solomon left us and the good Examples that the Primitive Christians gave us have erected Oratories and built Temples and Churches where the Saints and Servants of God might meet to praise the Lord for his manifold mercies to beg his favour and graces to help and to supply their wants and necessities to understand his Will and to know his Commands and to do all other the best Service that they could do to the Lord their God and to that onely end they have set them apart and alienated them from all secular and prophane uses dedicated them wholly for God's Service and consecrated them by Prayers to be Sanctuaries for them and their Posterities to serve and to honour God in But O Lord our God we confess and