never flourish'd more in This as long as he enjoyed the Prerogatives which are justly due to the Head of the Church No sooner was His Honour touched but our Faelicity was invaded too especially when Wickedness was so Impudent as to draw the Sword upon Him and to thrust at Him with the Point Our Happiness Declined as His Peace did it kept even pace with our Prince His Fortune the more still That tended to Ruine the Faster He was Hunted to the Scaffold and then it Expired though in hope of a Resurrection when He laid down His Sacred Neck and died a Martyr for Religion and a Victim for His People Great were the Miseries that attended that Unnatural and Devilish Rebellion but as long as the King was Safe the Calamities were the less felt because there was a Prospect of Reparation at least of a speedy End of them Though that Rebellious Faction in Parliament pursued Him like a Partridge upon the Mountains yet we did not give all for lost because they Declared Promised Protested and Swore by all that is Great and Sacred that they intended not to Hurt His Person nor to Invade His Just Rights Throughout that Bloody War there was something still to allay our Pains because we hoped that the Wounds in our Sides were not Mortal Nay though trusting to Mens Compassions He threw himself into the Hands of those Persidious Villains who afterwards set a Price upon His Blood as Judas did upon our Saviour's yet the King Himself did not yet Despair because those Men had vowed in a Solemn League and Covenant of their own and with Hands lifted up to the most High God That they would Preserve His Person Crown and Dignity Nay when those Iscariots at Westminster had bought Him for 200000 Pounds and Cromwell and the rest of those True-Protestant Janizaries had gotten Him in their Clutches though there was reason enough for our Hearts to Sink and Fail us the King Himself being now actually a Captive and Loyalty and Religion in Captivity with Him yet such were the Solemn Professions and Protestations of those Men of Further Addresses to His Majesty and of Personal Treaties with Him that we were still willing to hope that yet we should not sit down by the Rivers of Babel to weep there Once more When the Conspirators carried Him away first to Holmeby thence to Hampton-Court and thence conveyed Him to the Isle of Wight though we fear'd that all their Treaties were nothing but Pretence and Hypocrisie to blind Mens Eyes though they used Majesty with such Indignities as none but that Prince could have born though some of the Faction did now say openly That the King was no more than a Dead Dog though every discerning Man apprehended that the King's Life was now upon the very brink of Destruction yet even then were we willing to hope that all our Happiness was not yet come to a full Period because the Majority of the Parliament enraged at last to see how they had been cheated and out of a just Abhorrence of the intended Wickedness voted That the King's Concessions were Satisfactory and Sufficient Grounds for Peace But when once we saw those Men barred out of the House suddenly after when once we saw that Cursed Vote of the Remaining Faction That the King had taken Arms against the Parliament and was guilty of all the Blood which had been shed in the War and therefore ought to expiate the Crime with His own Blood when once we saw a Phanatick Army that had been used to Blood so Thirsty for more that nothing would satisfie them but Blood Royal when once we saw a Tribunal Erected and some of the Legion of Hell Sitting on it and a Judge appointed whose most Honourable Character is that he was Pontius Pilate the Second when once we saw Majesty treated there with such Barbarousness and Contempt and thence carried through Smoke Spittle and Flouts some of them such as were used at the Condemnation of the Holy Jesus when we saw Him led like a Lamb to be Slaughter'd on a Scaffold at His Palace Door when we saw that as the Presbyterian had clipp'd off His Locks so the Independent had now cut off His Head when the one Faction had Destroyed the King and the other had now murder'd the Man Then then our Hopes were gone and we could not but conclude our selves a Lost a Captivated an Vndone People And while Some were so Barbarous as even to wash their Hands in that Blessed Martyr's Blood the whole Nation was taught to make This Use of the Shedding of it That if ever it should please God after the Death of the Father to Restore the Son it would be our Best Policy to be most Tender not of His Life onely but of His Honour and Peace too it being Impossible so to sever His Interest from our Own but that of necessity we must Stand or Fall with Him Every Man's Welfare is so wrapped up in His that we must take some Share in His Fortune whether it be a Crown of Gold or of Thorns that He wears upon His Head 2. The King being destroyed the Miseries which ensued both in Church and State are not to be written fully but in another Book of Martyrs In the Church our Calamities were such that whosoever had a respect for Conscience for Religion for a God could not but be deeply afflicted to see what Contumelies were thrown upon every thing that was Sacred Indeed the Churches Sufferings began when the Kings Troubles Commenced and so Increased as They did because Traitors saw that the Doctrine Discipline and Government of the Church were such Pillars of State too that 't was Impossible for them to Pull down or Reach the Crown but by stepping first upon the Ruines of Prelacy and all Order in Religion And if we may have leave to make some little Observations 't is somewhat Remarkable That first the Primate and four years after the King of England were both Murder'd in the same Month the one on the Tenth the other on the Thirtieth of January that Great Prelate shewing his Prince the way that even He was to go too somewhat like John the Baptist that was the Forerunner of Christ in his Sufferings as well as Birth and prepared the way for the Prince of Peace not onely into the World but to the Cross also Monarchy followed Episcopacy to the Grave and Religion that was the Mourner dropp'd in at last Good God! What Variety of Sects had we that Martyr'd the very Creed so that some even of the Faction did confess that upon the dissolution of Episcopacy more Sects and Haeresies presently started up than ever were heard of among us before under that Government which was Decried as Antichristian And all these Sects were either Ingendred or Encourag'd by those Rebels who by Dividing the Nation into a great many weak Parties strengthned their own Vsurpations and made each Party both Unable to Rise and Afraid to Mutter
A SERMON Preached on The 30th of January 1684. The Day of MARTYRDOM OF King Charles Of Blessed Memory BY EDWARD PELLING Chaplain to His Grace the Duke of Somerset LONDON Printed for T. M. and are to be sold by Randal Taylor near Stationers-Hall 1685. PSAL. 137. 1. By the Rivers of Babylon there we sat down yea we wept when we remembred Zion THese Words do manifestly relate to the Captive-condition of the Jews after that Remarkable Overthrow of Jerusalem when that Cruel and Barbarous Enemy the Assyrian called expresly the Rod of God's Anger Isa 10. had now taken the City burnt the Temple consumed and dismantled the whole Metropolis slain the Nobles and seized the Person of their King Zedekiah and so carried Him and his Subjects away Captives to Babylon that is into a Land of Confusion so called from the Confusion of Languages in those Parts there to smart a long time for their Incorrigibleness and Wantonness at home that they might Reflect upon their Folly and learn to value their Former Felicities by the Loss of them the onely Discipline that can effectually teach those Obstinate and Ungrateful Wretches that will not learn to be Wise at the Cost of their Ancestors Experience By the Rivers of Babylon there they sat down remote from any Towns or Cities saith S. Chrysostom to spend part of their time as some conceive in draining of the Marshes and to keep away the Rest and so between Labour and Sorrow to wear out that miserable Life for which they had made such a woful Exchange There they wept when 't was too late at the sad remembrance of Zion that is at the thoughts of that Prosperous and Flourishing Condition which once they Enjoyed but were now Deprived of both in Church and State For Mount Sion was the Principal Place both for the Exercises of Religion and for the Administration of Justice There stood the Temple of God and thither the Tribes went up the Tribes of the Lord unto the Testimony of Israel to give thanks unto the Name of the Lord saith the Psalmist Psal 122. 4. And that God and his Anointed might dwell together there also were set the Thrones of Judgment the Thrones of the House of David as it is ver 5. Admirable was the Constitution of the Jews State and they the Happiest of all Nations as well in Sacred as in Civil respects till they Surfeited themselves with Abundance of Prosperity and were so Intoxicated with it under their own Vines and Figtrees that they forgat both the Author and Instruments of their Happiness The Story is of Them the Application of it is for Vs and at the very first view we may easily accommodate this sad Text to this sadder Day For do but Date the Captivity Stylo Novo instead of By the Rivers of Babylon read In a Land of Confusion a Babel in our own Countrey Shift you Pious Thoughts from the Monarch of Jerusalem to the Memory of our Own Soveraign a Greater a Better than Zedekiah the Mirrour of Princes the Noblest of Martyrs the Wonder of Ages and the Honour of Men Lay before your Eyes if yet ye can Endure to behold the Scaffold the Ax the Block and all that Pageantry of Oppression which the Sun never before beheld provided in that Manner and with those Circumstances for a Crowned Head Consider with what Pomp of Inhumanity that Mighty Prince fell how Three Kingdoms fell with Him how He was buried in the Ruines both of Church and State as in the Ruines of a Shattered World Remember those manifold Miseries that were throughout some the Praeface others the Epilogue to the dismal Tragoedy of this Day and then tell me wherein Our Captivity differ'd from that in the Text unless it did in This that 't was more Infamous and Reproachful because at Home and 't was not God be Blessed for Seventy years 't was not so Lasting as Our Sins the Deliverance out of it was too Quick and Hasty for the Repentance of those Miscreants who made us Captives I shall not therefore take much notice of the Miserable Condition of the Jews it being a matter of Foreign consideration but apply my self wholly to the Business of the Day And in the prosecution of it 1. I shall first give you some account of those Miseries which were the Attendants of Our Captivity and then 2. Shall in the second place try if it be possible for me to persuade Men not to be so Improvident again as to suffer themselves to be made Captives the Second time but to Beware in Time and to bethink themselves before it be too Late before they groan again under such another State of Bondage 1. First then That which was the principal Cause or at least the greatest Ingredient of all the Miseries of the Jews was the Captive-condition of their King This they particularly lamented that such as had been brought up in Scarlet did now embrace Dunghills that their King and their Princes were in the hands of the Gentiles that the Crown was fallen from their Head that the Breath of their Nostrils the Anointed of the Lord was taken in the Pits as you find in several places of the Lamentations of Jeremiah And what else was the Undermining and Subverting of Our King's Throne but an effectual Stratagem to overthrow the Prosperity of the whole Kingdom and to let in that huge Army of Miseries which for many years made us not onely the most Calamitous but also the most Contemptible and Infamous Nation under Heaven He that carefully reads the Shameful History of those Times will find that all those Evils which were heaped up upon the Head of our Prince fell down upon our own Pates Though He Felt the Burden yet we Sunk and Perish'd under the weight of it Every Wound which Majesty received did help to let out the Blood and Spirits of the Subject too nor was it possible to Preserve the Welfare of the Body Politick by Weakning and Impairing Him who was the Common Life of the Three Kingdoms Those Artificial and Long-studied Methods which were used to Lessen His Authority to Profane His Honour to Spoil Him of His Peace of all but the Peace of His Conscience and almost of That too to Strip Him of His Prerogatives and at last to Destroy His Sacred Life these Methods I say were the Instruments not more of His than of our own Ruine and as He fell and died by degrees so did the whole Nation gradually Languish and fall into the Pangs of Death with Him Happy had this Land been for many Ages under the Successive Government of Kings especially of such as were Good and none could be ever Better than This. Under the Shadow of His Wings we did Rejoice till His Feathers were clipp'd Peace and Plenty was our Portion and every Man was Easie in his Cottage as long as He sat Easie in the Throne Our Liberties were Secure our Laws had Life and Religion which Exalteth a Nation
under the Common Oppressions We had the Independent the Anabaptist the Fifth-Monarchist the Brownist the Quaker the Seeker the Ranter the Adamite nay the very Atheist himself for Company and all these the Natural Spawn of the Presbyterian that Prolifick and Unruly Leviathan that not content to have taken his Pastime in the Lemain Lake hath troubled the Waters in all Parts of the Christian World So many Sects as there were so many Plagues there were in this little Island and what could we expect would be the Issue of this Complication of Unhappinesses but that the Interest of Religion would be weakned and its Reputation rendred Contemptible so many Bare-fac'd Enemies being Allowed and Encouraged to fall Foul upon the Church pursuant to that Base Example which was given them by a most Unconscionable Parliament Bishops were ready to be torn in pieces as the Limbs of Antichrist Multitudes of the Inferiour Clergy had no other Rewards for all their Labours and Fidelity in the Service of Christ but Sequestrations Imprisonment and all manner of Cruelties beyond the Tyranny even of a True-Protestant Grand Seignior The Vniversities were corrupted with Haeresie and Hypocrisie the Instruments of the Devil having taken his Work out of his Hands by sowing themselves such Tares and Cockle in the Seminaries of Religion as in a little time would have destroyed the very Life and Being of Christianity had not God himself been the Husbandman The Liturgy which they solemnly Protested that they would onely Reform was soon thrown out of doors to make room for Blasphemies and Enthusiasm which made the Worship of God an Abomination Pulpits that were erected for the Sons of the Prophets were made the Trading places of Mechanicks and the Basest of the People who were onely skilful in Cheating Men of their Money and such another Famine was in the Church as was once in Samaria when every Asses Head was sold for Fourscore pieces of Silver Sacraments were neglected and almost given over and the People were so Frighted and Discouraged from their Duty that in some Places of the Kingdom the Holy Communion was not used for almost Twenty years together A Glorious and Blessed Reformation Those Lands which the Piety of our Ancestors had so solemnly set apart for the Encouragement of Learning and for the Edification of Souls were made the Price of Rebellion and Blood and a Booty for the most Faithless and Perjur'd Villains upon the Earth Truth Honesty Justice Obedience Love and other the Essential Parts of Religion were all Trampled under foot and when God and his Worship were thus Scandalously Dishonoured I do not wonder that some of God's Houses were Filthily Polluted too When the Creed was Contaminated when the Lords Prayer was Despised when the Decalogue in all its Parts was Broken when the Orthodox Ministry was Cashier'd when Fonts and Altars were Defiled and when the Church was Plunder'd and Stripp'd within and without it is no marvel that many Oratories were so Profaned too as to be Turn'd at last into Stables for Horses by those Beasts of the People that before had made them Sanctuaries for Traytors Nurseries of Rebels and Regicides and Dens of Thieves 3. Well might we Weep when we remembred Sion whose ways did now mourn because her Children could not come to her Solemn Feast her Gates were desolate her Priests sighed her Virgins were afflicted her Beauty was departed her Princes were pursued like Harts her Persecutors overtook her her Enemies Prosper'd and she her self was in Bitterness as the Prophet spake Lam. 1. But yet the Church did not suffer alone nor was Religion the Onely bleeding Sacrifice though the Wounding of That was infinitely Reproachful to those who sold their very Consciences pretending a Design to Redeem and Rescue it The State went Partnership with the Church in its Losses and we soon saw what it was to want a King whose Loins were not half so heavy as the Little Finger of that Tyrant who Vsurp'd His Throne and was such an Hardned Reprobate as first to Kill and then to take Possession Liberty the Darling of the Nation the Blessing of Kings but the Engine of Traytors Liberty that Fools never think Secure till they sue for it in the Field though they have it in Possession and no Man questions their Title Liberty that was used to Destroy and Pursue Prerogative was at last Confined within the narrow Compass of a Goal and a Dungeon Nor did it fare better with Property neither for no Man enjoyed so much of That as the Beggar and the Bankrupt that had little to be robb'd of but the Latchet of his Shoe Sequestrations Decimations Plunders Forfeitures Contributions Taxes Loans and vast Offerings to the Publick Faith some or all of these devoured all that was either Inheritance or Purchase and we could call nothing our Own but those Sins and Follies that had made us Miserable at least no man could promise himself any long Enjoyment of what he had Violence and Rapine being all over the Nation the great Trade of those Times so that what a Mercenary Souldier Left a Rapacious Committee-man would be Sure to Take unless a man would Barter away his Honour and a Blessed Eternity by giving up his Conscience as a Composition and Ransom for his Estate And the Reason of all this was because the whole Kingdom was Plunder'd of its Birth-right I mean the Law which while it was in the Hands of the King was every ones Security from the Peer to the very Meanest Subject and of this the King was so Tender to the last that just before His Martyrdom when He was offer'd His Life if he would Yield to some Conditions which were Inconsistent with His Conscience and the Laws He answered That He would chuse to die a Thousand Deaths before He would Prostitute His Honour or Betray the Liberties and Rights of His People Every man was Sure of his Right as long as that Religious Prince had His just Authority But when once Vsurpation was the Regent first in the Parliament-House and then in the King's Palace we had no Law but the Pleasure and Lust of Tyrants whose Oppressions were Vnsupportable because their Power was Arbitrary and their Tyranny Boundless What was Magna Charta worth when it hung at the Hilt of the Sword And what did you talk of Laws when Votes were too Hard for Statutes when Tryals were Removed from Westminster-Hall to the Camp and Sentence was given at the Mouth of the Cannon Not that this was the Fate onely of the Honest Royalist Though His Miseries were beyond measure intolerable and he knew not Poor Wretch what to do more but to shed his Tears when his Dread Soveraign the Master of his Dearest Affections had now shed a whole Stream of Blood yet the Generality of the whole Nation began now to be Sensible what a Miserable Bargain was made by the Unhappy Change of the Times God shewing at once his own Justice and Mens Follies by
When Cornet Joyce had Surprised His Majesty at Holmeby bragging of his Exploit he told Cromwell That now he had the King in his Power Well said Cromwell and then I doubt not but I shall have the Parliament in my Pocket And the truth is He never had Money so much at his Command as now he had those who had hitherto been his Masters and kept him in Pay Such was his Diabolical Craft his Monstrous and Superlative Hypocrisie and his Inseparable Interest with a Potent Faction that were linked with him in the Communion of the Highest Crimes that the Traitors which were of a Meaner Size were Manag'd at his Pleasure and 't is observable that by the same Methods and Artifices he Bafled and Outed Them whereby They had Lessened and Destroyed their Soveraign The Parliament was now divided into Presbyterian and Independent and each House strove against the other yet Both clashed within Themselves till the Army-Officers grown now too Hard for their Masters turned their own Arts upon them and got a Victory over them All as they had over their Calamitous but Anointed Lord. Those Lords that Consented to the Exclusion of the Bishops to the taking away of the King 's Negative Voice and to the Vote against all further Addresses to His Majesty were in a short space deprived of their own Negative Votes were Despised in all Proceedings the Commons acting as they pleas'd without them and in the End were turn'd out of Doors leaving nothing behind them in the House but the Memory of having Violated their Honour there by being Unfortunate Instruments of Undoing Him who was the Nobility's Defence against the Rudenesses of the Rabble The Commons could not agree in Peace though they had Confederated in the Guilt of an Unjust War but fell Foul upon one another as they had done upon their Prince till they were by many Purgations Weakned by many Restraints Bafled by many Menaces Overawed and by many Armed Fellow Traytors first Vanquish'd and then Expelled So that their Reward too was onely a Miserable Life to see Privileges destroyed after Prerogative and the Power of the Nation Shifted out of the Hands of a Monarch into the Claws of a Monster whose Early Vices had made him a Beggar whose Contempt of God had made him an Hypocrite whose Ambition had encouraged him to be an Vsurper and whose Sanguinary Spirit made him a Tyrant a Parricide and the Plague of Mankind till God in his Mercy to us put an Unexpected Period to his Life and the Devil whom he had long served carried him away to his Proper Place It is not to be wondred at that an Host of Cockatrices should thus pick out the Eyes of those our Repraesentatives and render their House Desolate and Inhospitable for That was the Cockatrices Nest and when They had warmed the Eggs and Hatched the Creatures there was reason enough to Fear that being once grown up they would infest not the Nation onely but Them too because Rebellion and Treason seldom last long and such is the Justice of God that Villanies though Prosperous for a Time turn at last to a Sad Account both to the Projectors and Instruments of them and so we found the Course of things to go as well in the Management as at the End of that Unhappy War For not the Parliament onely but their Forces and Stipendiaries Suffer'd too the Just God decreeing to Plague the very Ministers and Executioners of Treason though he was pleas'd to Behold their Insolencies a while and then took away his Anointed to let Mad-men see how Happy they might have been had they not been their Own Enemies as well as His. The Armed Independent soon tripp'd up the Presbyterian's Heels though the One marched out in the Front and did cut out the Way yet the Other followed in the Rear and first Cashier'd him and then went away with the Spoil The Reformation of Religion began the Quarrel and the Disciplinarian fought with Zeal for a Wretched Covenant for which he had pawned his Conscience and Soul as well as Plighted his Troth But the Other Sectaries aimed at the total Subversion of the Government in Church and State too and to compass this End the better they Disarm'd the Hands of him whom they knew to be an Hairy but Persidious Brother and so you know the whole Militia was Purged over and over the Army was new-Officer'd Confinding Brethren were put in the room of those Puny Saints that were afraid to go above half way on the Errand and Protested they would Preserve the King and His Dignities though they Destroyed the Establishments of the Church Therefore when the Covenanter had been sufficiently used as a Toel and Property to do a considerable Part of the great Work of Darkness then Others thought it time for Them to slep in to go through with it and so the Silly Kirkmen were for the most part Laugh'd at and Discarded and cheated of their Ends and their Dear Convenant was Cried down as Episcopacy had been before the most Powerful Faction having now Supplanted the Presbyterian as the Presbyterian had Supplanted the Honest Cavalier by which means the Power of the Sword fell into the Hands of a Juncto that hitherto had not been Discovered nor perhaps Suspected and then in stead of a Full Parliament by Westminster-hall you had a Committee of Grandees at Derby-house that Voted Manag'd Destroyed and Ruin'd all neither Sparing nor Reverencing the very Crowned Head Nay to add 〈◊〉 and Disgrace to our Miseries this Faction was molded and made up of those who were Notorious for Debauch'd Principles for Atheistical Spirits for Proffigate Lives for Impure Conscienees for Savage Minds and mostly too for such a Base and Abject Condition that they were not onely the Plague but the very Vermine of the Nation a Pack of Fornicators Bankrupts Blasphemers of the Holy Trinity Beggars and Mechanicks of all sorts Labourers at Furnaces and Stalls and the like these were the Honourable the Right Honourable His Excellence His Highness and such Filth of False Heraldry that they were a Reproach and Blemish to Christianity to Honesty to the Kingdom shall I say nay a Dishonour to the Hangman a Stain and Disgrace to the very Gallows Yet had not these very Regicides neither more Reason to Insalt over the Miseries of Others than to Lament their Own For want of that vigorous Life and Soul which is Infused into all Just Authority that hath Law for its Parent their Power was in a manner Strangled in the Birth and they themselves that Survived it a little were soon made Signal Instances of the Divine Justice which upon a Miraculous Revolution justly overtook them so that an Hateful and Unpitied Death was all the Advantage they gained at the Close of their Unparallell'd Villanies And as for their Posterity and Families they lest behind them such as have made curious Enquiries into the thing have Observed That they bear to this day the