being almost Ship-wrackt and sincking it had been a very preposterous zeal to have left the vessel to have contended with the Rocks and Sands by a superdevout diligence to save the lading or goods in it Alas we had been much to seek for a reformed Church in a ruined State Your discreet and orderly diligence took the right method in making way for religion by civil justice nor need you fear the dictates frownes and censures of any Anastarchusses whose piety like Jacobs might hope to have supplanted this just necessary and honest policy of restoring our civil laws and royal authority by which our Religion as Cristian and reformed was best established The setling or reforming of religion in all its duties and devotions discipline and decencies together with its order and Government is a work which requires not only time but that leisure which is attended with a calme and steddy posture of civil affaires Men cannot build Gods Temple till they have first washed their hands and purged the land of innocent blood No prudent piety can think such a storme as we were in was a meet season for Church reformation It would only fit those who might hope to fish best for their parties opinions in troubled waters knowing their projects and models to be less consistent with the true interests and pristine welfare of this Church and State doubtless they must have made strange work of Church and reformation before ever they had owned and restored the Master-builder the King who is supream Governour of it under Christ as to all extern order and Authority We hope and pray that God will shortly give both his Majesty his Parliaments and his loyall people such rest on every side as may be most apt for those sacred and serious concernments of the Church and true Religion which require first Justice as to the rights of Christ and his Church both Bishops Presbyters and People Secondly they require mercy as to that remission moderation and condescention in things not necessary to the being and well being of religion which either tender consciences or weak but humble and harmless Christians do require yea and expect agreeable to Christs care of his little ones and the Apostles regard to weak brethren yea and the Kings gracious expressions touching his regard to such that they may not be needlesly offended superciliously despised or rigorously oppressed in matters that are neither of faith nor morality Lastly Religious composures require an unfeined humility and self denying as the proper rule and measure and of all Church-work that nothing may swell out beyond the plumline of verity and charity order and decency use and edification either in the substances or circumstances of Religion nor yet in the controversies of it In all which blessed counsels and endeavours there will be need and use of the assistance of the best heads the honestest hearts and the softest hands which the Church of England affords not only in the Nobility and Gentry the Lords and Commons but also among the Clergy who are no doubt the Angels or Intelligences most proper for those motions and that spheare of Religion But we hope by the good hand of our good God upon his Majesty and your loyal counsels for the best of blessings a wise constitution and well ordered administration of religion both as Christian and reformed which will be the greatest glory and stability of all estates As you have given to Cesar the things that are Cesars so no doubt you will be ready to give to God the things that are Gods In which just and humble retributions you will both shew mercy to many thousands of souls and obtain mercies for your own for which ends as you have the prayers and thanks of all worthy persons so you shall never want mine whose freedome in speaking and writing I presume your sound minds can bear as abhoring to keep your Ministers like Parots in a cage as at no great charge so only for the pleasure to hear them speak Your honor is that you hear and know and do the will of God in which that you may enjoy his eternal rewards is the Prayer of Your humble servant in Christ I. GAVDEN May 12. 1660. Books written by Dr. Gauden and sold by Andrew Crook at the green Dragon in St. Pauls Church-yard 1. HIeraspistes A Defence for the Ministry and Ministers of the Church of England 2. Three Sermons preached on publick occasions 3. Funerals made Cordials in a Sermon preached at the Interment of the Corps of Robert Rich Heir apparent to the Earldom of Warwick 4. A sermon preached at the Funeral of Dr. Ralph Brounrig Bishop of Excester Decemb. 17. 1659. with an account of his Life and Death 5. A Petitionary Remonstrace in the behalf of many thousand Ministers and Scholars {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} sive Medicastri Slight healers of publique hurts set forth in a Sermon Preached in St. Pauls Church London before the right honorable Lord Mayor Lord General Aldermen Common-Council Companies of the honorable City of London Febr. 28. 1659. being a day of Solemn thanksgiving unto God for restoring the Secluded Members of Parliament to the house of Commons And for preserving the City as a Door of Hope thereby opened to the fulness and freedom of future Parliaments The most probable means under God for healing the Hurts and recovering the health of these three Brittish Kingdoms Magna Dei postulata Gods great Demonstrations and Demands Set forth in A Sermon preached at a Solemn Fast April 30. 1660. before the Honorable House of Commons Upon MICAH 6.8 He hath shewed thee O man what is good and what doth the Lord require of thee but to do Iustice to love Mercy and to walk humbly with thy God I Am not so ignorant of my infirmities Right Honorable and Beloved as to have adventured on so great a province before so noble an Assembly in such an important time and on so short warning if my obedience to Gods call in your commands had not swayed more with me than any confidence of my own sufficiency whose greatest ambition is to walk humbly with my God in the amplest services I were able to do for his glory his Churches peace and my Countries welfare I well understand the great importance of this Parliamentary Convention as to the peace and setling of this Church and State all things sacred and civil are imbarqued in your counsels and adventured on your Justice and Mercy your piety and Humility your Equanimity and Moderation You under God are the Ark in which the weather-beaten and scattered remains of our Religion Laws Estates Liberties Peace Honors and Lives are deposited so much of them as hath escaped the tedious tempest and the terrible deluge of our sad troubles and confusions these last score of years in which the windows of heaven the just wrath of God and the fountains of the great deep the lusts and passions of mens
the bargain thou even thou must so repent by making restitution of unjust acquisitions as may make thee capable of Gods pardon who will not be mocked by lame and crackt titles nor may be robbed without making the curse threatned to light on such injurious presumptuous sinners who neither fear God nor reverence man though great and rich and many though Courts and Councils and Armies and whole Nations conspire to do injustly yet will God be a swift witness against them and bring his Justice upon them 6. Of thee O godly gull and holy-cheat who pleadest an hypocritical nonplus and a state necessity of doing somthings both injust and cruel in order to do good to advance Justice to glorifie God to reform Church and State as if the reasons and interests of both Religion and Justice did sometimes want unjust proceedings as pills to keep them in health which Aristides pleaded by way of Irony to those who impatient of exact Justice forced him somtimes to deviate from it by their popular peevishness he told them he did it {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} in order to the publick good God will discover these impudent fallacies and so punish the presumption of doing evil that good may come thereby that all men shall shall hear and fear and confess there is a God that judgeth the earth when they shall see vengeance to overtake these men and the iniquity of their heels to compass them about Better to follow Gods counsel by doing Justice though we perish with Lazarus on a dung-hill and suffer the last strokes of humane Justice in this world than to fall under Gods eternal and inexerable Justice which will strip thee of all the goods thou gettest and bring upon thee infinitely more evil than that which by unjust and wicked means thou soughtest to escape there is no necessity scelera sceleribus tueri to make evil deeds good by doing worser it is the Devils hardning Maxim to damn souls by desperation as if a theif should plead it necessary to kill that man whom he hath robbed lest he be pursued and taken by him 7. Of thee O Minister of the Church and Pastor of souls God requires first to do justice to thy brother of the same tribe and calling by not intruding thy self into his work against right and reason and law that thou mayst have a plea or pretence to the profits of his living and so thou mayst feed thy self by feeding anothers flock against his will when Justice requires us not onely to eat our own bread but to do our own business and not {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} to Vsurp on anothers either emolument or employment which they are able and willing to performe Of thee O Church-man great small God requires this Justice to God to Christ to the Church to peoples souls to the holy word and worship of God to the truth of Doctrine to the solemnity of his service to the necessity of mens souls by feeding them with wholesome food by giving them their portion in due season by not denying the children their bread for fear of dogs eating it by administring the blessed Sacraments duly and reverently according as the Church in which thou servest hath appointed thee not setting up and urging thy own fancies and whimseys thy novel inventions and schismatical partialities thy humane traditions and unauthentick because uncatholick observations instead of Christs institutions not so shy and startling at the shadow of some decent and innocent rites or circumstances and ceremonies in religion as to fly from the unity order harmony and authority of the whole Church by a supercilious unjust and merciless severity which savors too much of pride and self conceit hereby shaking and overthrowing the faith of many poor souls who are ignorant weak and instable by the perturbatious thy pragmatique and popular activity gives them 8. Lastly of thee O whole Palestina O Church and State O my native County and Nation both in thy latitude and diffusion and in thy Parliamentary Epitome or representation of thee the Lord requires not only to do justice but to shew mercy there where is the cryingest injustice and cruelty in the world There is a voyce from abroad and at home which crys Oro miserere laborum Tantorum miserere animi non digna ferentis O do not approve confirm or adopt that pride injustice and cruelty of some sons of Belial who lifted up themselves above all that is called God all Laws of God and man all duty to their betters and Superiors If what hath been done in this sorely afflicted and abused nation with expence of so much blood and treasures with so much terror and extravagancy be well and worthily done it will be an act of your Justice to assert it and of your Mercy to absolve other of us poor scrupulous souls of those scruples of conscience which we have of those fears and jealousies lest the Nation lying under so great sins may be exposed to Gods sorest judgements even to an utter vastation But if it appear to your wisdom piety Justice and Mercy to have been a violent and unparalleld method of presumptuous wickedness of unjust cruelty and most cruel injustice in which was neither matter nor form essential of Justice under the formality of high justice if men have killed and cosened and taken possession even the spoil and price of blood I doubt not but you will so far remember Gods Demonstrations and demands as to do Justice to God to your Country to your Laws to your Superior to Soveraign power to the whole Nation and to all mankind as to testifie a just abhorrence and perfect detestation of those things to which as you would not have been Fathers so I believe you will not be Godfathers It is an usual saying among Statists to excuse their excentricities and deviations from the exact rules of justice Nullum magnum exemplum justitiae sive aliqua injustitia I am sure we have known magnum exemplum injustitiae sine aliqua justitia a transcendent injustice which had not any grains of justice in it in the vindication of which I do not so urge the rigor of justice as not to require also such temperament of mercy as may distinguish between the flower and the bran the vile and precious the pertinacious and penitent such as sinned with malitious wickedness with an high hand and those that were only carried down the rapid torrent and strong delusions of times There is yet one instance of doing justice and shewing Mercy to the whole Nation which I cannot but recommend to my Country and to you the Fathers of our families and heads of our Tribes which is in reference to the souls of many poor people that in a land of plenty they may not be famished for want of able and industrious Preachers which cannot be had or expected whatever verbal severities are pretended of Reformation of Religion and propagation
happy and free people in a glorious and reformed way of Religion laws and liberties It is a saying of that great Orator as acute as true Totius injustitiae nulla est capitalior quam eorum qui quum maximè fallunt ita tamen agunt nt viri boni videantur No men are more criminally injust than those who when they most deceive and oppress yet then boast of their justice and piety What have been the effects of some mens justice mercy and humility all the English yea British world hath seen and your selves have felt to whom have some mens factious and Phanatick humors shewed any tokens of these vertues except to themselves and their complices to others who are persons far more righteous then themselves their very mercies have been cruel and their highest justice the highest injuries to the publique indeed it is of the Lords mercys that we have not been all consumed that a remnant is escaped to see the Salvation of the Lord in the land of the living O with what pride petulancy haughtiness and disdain have mean men and vile persons carried themselves against the honorable far their betters and superiors yea against the whole honor and Majesty of this Nation how have we seen servants riding on horseback and Princes going on foot this is their humility they have flattered both Prince and People in their sore distresses as if they would relieve them when they proved at last Physitians of no value miserable comforters very severe exactors and tragical destroyers This is their mercy They have subverted all law order and government troubled the fountaines cut off the conduits and inverted all the course of civil Justice and ecclesiastical authority as well as unity this is their Justice Can a Nation be sick of its health and weary of its happiness or thus dayly and bitterly complain if it injoyed such a glorious state of Justice and mercy by the humility and sanctity of its Governours as some have pretended Why doth the whole land cry out of burthens and bloodshed of its oppressors and exactors of its endless troubles and terrors if our estate were so setled and blessed as some men have told us why as Dromedaries do they every month so traverse their ways destroying what they build and building what they destroy like so many foolish builders it is strange that neither these Baalams nor their asses which carry them in the ways and after vvages of iniquity can yet see the Angel of the Lord vvith a dravvn svvord stopping their vvay all lavvs of God and man all good mens votes and prayers are against their madness pride presumption cruelty hypocrity and injustice by vvhich they have brought shame and dishonour a blot and great reproach upon the nation and the reformed Religion You have enough to do honorable and worthy to undo vvhat some men have done amiss to rectifie their crookedness to bring to the standard of Justice and rule of mercy vvhat their injurious cruelty and vvanton vvickedness have perverted and distracted as their pride ambition and various lusts have driven them You vvork is not only as Josuah to fall dovvn before the Lord as ye do this day but to Arise and to do the work of God of the Church and of the State vvith justice mercy and humility For if you still fast for strife and oppression to smite vvith the fist of wickedness and to bind heavy burdens on us you vvill be found mockers of God as others have been your prayers vvill be turned into sin and your counsels vvill turn to confusion The appeals and petitions of all honest-minded people next God are to your prudence justice and charity that you vvould judge betvveen the daughter of your people and her shameless ravishers her cruel vvounders and endless oppressors Three antient and sometimes flourishing Kingdomes and the adjacent Dominions call to you for mercy and you cannot shevv them greater mercy then to do them justice in restoring them to their former happy governments and excellent constitutions All estates of Soveranity Nobility Gentry Clergy Commonalty call upon you for justice and mercy so the poor and rich the City and Country so God himself and your Saviour so true Religion and its novv so deformed Reformation so your ovvn and your posterities interests do dayly importune it vvill be your justice and mercy to them all and us not to bring upon all our heads the guilt of that innocent blood which the cruelty pride and injustice of some men have shed even the blood of War in a time of peace and after a long Treaty When God makes inquisition for this blood let him not find it and avenge it upon you and your Children by your not expiating deprecating and detesting of that sin with infinite horror and abhorence to leave it unexamined and unpunished is every day to contract the guilt of a new regicide The Soveraign fountain of honor civil power and secular authority in Church and State calls for and expects your Justice where it hath been injured your Mercy where unrelieved your humble subjection where duly established The House of Peers cannot but own your Justice Modesty and Humility in removing those obstructions which some mens pride and injurious insolency had for many years put in the way of that House which was ever one of the highest points of this Kingdoms Wisdom Honor stability and happiness The House of Commons also and whatever becomes the dignity and freedom of a Parliament of England calls to your Justice and Mercy to redeem that almost sacred Senate than which in its full constitution the world had not any thing more august and venerable when Lords Spiritual and Temporal when the Gentry and Commons all concurred to advance next the glory of God the majesty of this Empire and the Throne of its Soveraign to redeem this I say from those abominable desolations of tumultuary and military insolencies which for many years have made that house a Charnel house or a kind of Augean stable full of all faction fury and and fanatick filthiness Our Church and Religion our Bishops and Presbyters our Ministers and Ministry all call to your Justice and Mercy to redeem them from popular dependencies from vulgar impudence and usurpation at least to relieve them from those Harpyes which have driven them to and defiled them with so many shameful disorders divisions and distractions unbecoming men much more Christians and Ministers who are pretenders to Reformation The famous Vniversities and all Nurseries of good literature implore your Justice and Mercy to defend these eyes of the Nation from those birds of prey foraign and domestick vultures which hope when these are pulled out to seize upon the blind and deformed Nation with greater freedom of Romish superstition and fanatick Vsurpation who gape to devour all that is lest of the civil or sacred patrimony of Gods or the Kings the Churches or the Crowns portion We have once again by Gods wonderful