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A41745
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Three sermons preached at the cathedral in Norwich, and a fourth at a parochial church in Norfolk humbly recommending I. True reformation of our selves, II. Pious reverence toward God and the King, III. Just abhorrence of usurping republicans, and, IV. Due affection to the monarchy / by John Graile ...
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Graile, John.
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1685
(1685)
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Wing G1479; ESTC R38763
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64,056
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194
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when by selling that Power which they must shortly resign and bartering away the publick Interest together with it they purchase a higher and a more durable Grandeur than otherwise they could ever have obtained And now let any one judge whether this Form of Government in which many have a Copartnership be so great a Happiness to a People as some have pretended it to be Secondly if by many Princes we understand many Usurpers of the Government it will be much more evident that they are the Rods and Scourges of Heaven the Plagues and Judgments of a provoked God with which he Visits a sinful People Usurpers are such men as are neither born to Empire nor legally chosen to it but being inspired by insatiable Ambition possess'd with unbounded Hopes and mounted on the soaring Wings of Arrogance and Presumption raise themselves with an insuperable boldness and violently invade the Seat of Majesty They acquire their Power by the most wicked and unlawful means and by the same evil Arts keep and maintain it by treasonable Leagues and Bonds of Iniquity by Hypocrisie and Dissimulation Perjury and Cruelty Blood and Slaughter and the total subversion of all Lawful Government Right and Justice Peace and Order They inveigle the giddy Multitude with specious Declamations against many pretended miscarriages in the whole conduct of Publick Affairs that by exciting the wild Commotion of Popular Fury and the restless Ferment of blind and bitter Zeal they may have Instruments and Tools ready whet and prepared for the great Work of a thorow Reformation that is to say of hewing down and cutting in pieces of pulling up Root and Branch whatever hath not the luck to please them They fill all places with false Fears and groundless Jealousies of Arbritary Government that when their successful and triumphant Rebellion hath dethroned their Rightful Prince themselves may Reign in his stead with the greatest Heights of Arbitrariness And when they have Lorded and Tyrannized a little while others get up and depose them And these also in a short time are forced to give place to stronger Rebels and greater Villains perhaps to some of their own Creatures and Servants by whose help themselves were raised Thus the Government of a Nation being once removed from its right Basis is toss'd about from one to another and various Usurpers successively possess themselves of it as this or that Faction grows predominant But O the Insolencies the Oppressions the Sacriledge the Murders Desolations and Confusions the Crimes and Calamities of all sorts that such a Land must suffer under How deplorable is the Condition of that People where such dire Revolutions do happen How terribly are they shaken by these State-Tempests How do they reel to and fro and stagger like a drunken man and are even at their wits end How distressed must be the case of all that have any Conscience any Principles any Faith any Honesty to keep yea any Estates any Honour any Lives to lose What Preys and Sacrifices must they be to those great Thieves and Oppressors under the glorious Titles of Patriots and Protectors those bloody Murderers in the room of Nursing Fathers those ravenous Wolves in the Shepherd's place O the sudden Convulsions surprizing Paroxysms insupportable Agonies of the Body Politick when she is forced to be the Patient of such cruel Physitians who pretend to heal her Breaches by giving her the widest and deepest Wounds and to restore her to a sound and healthful Constitution by drawing forth her very Heart-Blood and vital Spirits This this is the lamentable State of a Nation when Usurpers when many Usurpers have Dominion over her Of all This the execrable Occasion of the present mournful Solemnity affords the most convincing Proofs Of all This our own Native Country had a long a sad Experience for neer twenty years together And although more than twenty be past since our happy Deliverance from these Miseries and the just Vengeance of Heaven upon the Authors of them yet we see the same Faction begins now to lift up its head again the same Antimonarchical Spirit is revived and under the same Pretensions too of securing our Religion Liberty and Property of keeping out Popery Slavery and Arbitrary Government Witness the late horrid Phanatick Conspiracy against His Majesties Sacred Person his Royal Brother and this Hereditary Monarchy I never took delight in calling to remembrance the impious Follies of any sort of Men. Would to God they might have been buried in the deepest Oblivion without any hope of a Refurrection But since the same Generation of men instead of forgetting the Practice of them are still returning to the same and since we have still cause to humble our selves under the Hand of God which so severely chastised us by them I must crave your Patience while I briefly reflect on the Plagues and Mischiefs of those old Treasons and Usurpations that we may be the more awakened by all lawful means vigorously to oppose the first beginnings of any new ones And here I must present you with a dismal Scene of things For whoever shall consider our numerous Calamities under the Infamous Reign of our numerous Usurpers those before the Murder of the King that horrid Fact it self the very Center of all the rest and those that followed after will soon perceive that the Flood-Gates of Ruine were set wide open and that all manner of Confusion and Destruction came in upon us with an overwhelming Deluge Our Usurpers began their Tyranny as such generally do by a bloody Rebellion For Rebels and Usurpers are of the same Species Rebels are Usurpers Militant and Usurpers are Rebels Triumphant As soon as the Faction of the long Parliament departed from their Allegiance to him on whom all their Authority depended and instead of offering their humble Advice in dutiful Counsels endeavoured to obtrude their imperious Dictates by an overbearing Force our Land was immediately under many Princes one Lawful Soveraign and as many Invaders of the Regal Power as there were Seditious Members in either of the two Houses These heady Demagogues after they had reproached the Government in contumelious Harangues and injuriously Impeached the Chief Ministers of State that the most able and faithful Servants being removed they might more easily wound their Lord and Master after they had largly Remonstrated the Nations Grievances among which they reckoned all the Complaints that Malecontents with whom the easiest subjection is a Yoke and Bondage could frame or imagine after they had thrown down the Mitres that the Crown might fall with them excluded the Bishops from their Rights of sitting in the House of Lords and affronted the King with the highest Irreverences animating the insolent and clamorous Crowd in great Numbers to assault his Majesty with their unreasonable Demands and tumultuous Petitions until His Sacred Person and Life being in danger he was forced to withdraw in his own defence they at length formed an Army commenced their unnatural War actually resisted
And if the Fear of God be considered as it is a filial Reverence compounded with Love it will be much more powerful to move and excite Obedience to him Reverence willingly offers readily pays and chearfully performs what was forced and constrained by meer Fear If Awe and Affection be united in a devout Veneration of the God whom we serve his Service which before was a Yoak and a Burden then becomes perfect Freedom so pleasant and so natural to us that to refuse it will be an Extinguishing of our own Joys a Resisting oâ— our own Desires and a Violence to ourselves A man that highly reveres another is as much inclined to please him as he is to please himself and as unwilling to offend him as he is to wound his own Breast Obedience therefore is an Inseparable Effect of filial Fear or Reverence And that which is so is the most certainâ— Mark of the Truth and Reality oâ— our Religion We all profess Religion and the Fear of God we all pretend the highest Awe and Reverence to his divine Majesty But do we sincerely endeavour to serve and please him Are we guilty of no wilful disobedience no chosen and deliberate violations of his holy Laws If we indulge any of these the true Fear of God is not in us For it is fourthly to be noted That these are the Contraries and Opposites unto this Fear All wilful and presumptuous Sins are perfectly repugnant to it These are Affronts and Contempts bold and Impudent Practices which carry the Marks of great Irreverence clearly written upon their Brow When men deliberately chuse to do those things which they plainly see and know to be contrary to the Divine Laws this is a manifest Discovery that there is no Fear of God before their eyes Let us therefore prove the truth of our Religion by the sincerity of our Obedience particularly by our Obedience to those Commands of God which require us to be Loyal to our Prince That we may fully shew what an Awful Sense we have of the Majesty and Soveraignty of the most high God both in our Words and in our Actions let both our Words and Actions declare how much we revere his Power and Authority not onely in himself but in those also whom he hath set over us And so I come to the second part of Solomon's Advice wherein we are admonished unto the Fear of God to subjoyn the Fear of the King who is Gods Vicegerent Of which I shall discourse in the same Method as I have done of the former by considering its Nature Degrees Effects and Contraries First As for the Nature of the Fear which we owe unto the King 't is very much of the same nature with that Fear which is due to God himself onely 't is inferior and subordinate to it For Kings are honoured in holy Scripture with the adorable Name of God And the Laws of England looking upon the King as a God upon Earth do attribute unto him in some Analogy diverse Excellencies that belong properly to God alone such as are a kind of Omnipotency in raising men from Death to life by pardoning whom the Law hath condemned a certain Omnipresency by his numerous Officers who every where represent him and little less than an Infallibility and an absolute Perfection of Wisdom and Righteousness For our Law will have no Error no Injustice no Folly no Imperfection whatsoever to be found in the King The Fear therefore which we owe to our dread Soveraign even like that which we render to the divine Majesty is a most profound Reverence for an high Esteem of and a most humble and dutiful Affection unto his Sacred Person and Authority It is a filial Fear compounded of Dread and Love For the King is the Father of our Country by whose Providence and Protection we are supported and defended by whose vigilant Care and Conduct we quietly enjoy all that we possess Of this as St. Jerom hath observed even the Philistines were so sensible that it was a constant Custom among them to call all their Princes by the name of Abimelech which signifies both Father and King And it was the Promise of God to his Church that in the Times of the Gospel Kings should be her nursing Fathers and Queens her nursing Mothers Which great Blessing hath been and is most visibly enjoyed by us in this Nation as much as by any People under Heaven Since then by being born the Kings Subjects we have the Happiness to be his Children the very law of Nature doth oblige us to pay him all the Awfulness and Affection and Duty of Children If I be a Father saith God where is mine Honour If I be a Master where is my Fear Now the King next and immediately under God is the great and common Father the supreme Lord and Master of us all And therefore secondly The Degrees and Measures of Honour and Fear which are due to the King are the very highest and the greatest next unto those that are due to God himself The supreme Power and Authority under God being lodged in the sacred Person of the Soveraign Prince he may justly demand the supreme Honour Within his own Dominions he is only less and lower than God he is greater and higher than all Ranks and Orders of Men. Yea all the States of the Realm joyned together all the Nobles and Commons and the whole Body of the People have not a Power and Authority equal to his All his Subjects whether Publick Magistrates or private men not only severally and apart but joyntly and together are under his Command For otherwise he would not be the King of a Kingdom or a Political Society united under one Form of Government but only a King of single men separately taken and so he would be a strange kind of Chimerical and imaginary Prince a King of nothing but a Rope of sands In the first Epistle of St. Peter Chap. 2. ver 13 and 14. that great Apostle makes this plain Distinction between our Subjection to the King and to all other Magistrates whether taken collectively or distributively We are to submit to the King as Supreme to all others as his Officers and Delegates Sent and Commissioned by him all of them together as well as each of them apart having received all their Power and Authority from him and he having received his from God alone For the King is no Substitute of the People but the Minister of God and his Power is the Ordinance of God This is the Voice of Scripture and of Reason and this I may with the greatest Confidence because I can with the strongest Evidence affirm it being not only the unanimous Opinion of all the Wisest Politicians and Statesmen in the World but also the Catholick Doctrine of the Christian Church for many hundreds of years together that a Monarch or Soveraign in his own Dominions hath no Superior but God Almighty And indeed it would be