A pressing Argument to â—nforce the Caution taken from the â—wift Vengeance that shall surprize such 〈◊〉 men and the unknown Miseries into which both they and their Associates may tumble headlong For their Caâ—…mity shall rise suddenly and who knoweth â—…e Ruine of them both Before we consider each of these Particulars distinctly and by it self it may not be amiss to take along with us some â—rief Remarks upon the close Conâ—exion of them in the same Rule or â—recept We see here at the first View Religion and Loyalty the Fear of God and the Fear of the King do very well consist together Solomon exhorts to both in the same breath and St. Peter hath also done the same in almost the same words that Solomon speaks 1 Pet. 2. 17. Fear God Honour the King And what God hath joyned let not vain Man think to put asunder The most subtle Heads of our separating Factions cannot separate these one from the other They cannot indeed break off one Link from the inviolable Chain of Truths and Vertues The greatest Fomenters of Division can breed no Jars nor Oppositions where there is an innate Union an essential Harmony an eternal Concord The men that are most of all given to change can never alter the Nature of Things We see here Loyalty to our Prince is a thing commanded by God himself together with Piety and Devotion towards himself yea and commanded in the very next place to it so that the one is a part an inseparable part a very considerable part of the other And it follows from hence by apparent consequence that mens Disloyalty is a cleaâ— Indication of their Irreligion If they fear not the King they fear not God If any man seem to be religious and bridleth not his Tongue from speaking evil of Dignities or higher Powers that mans Religion is vain and it is much more so if he holdeth not his hands from Resisting those Powers In like manner on the other side if any man seem to be loyal if he profess the most awful Veneration the most dutiful Affection to the King yet if he be void of Religion his Allegiance is very uncertain He that is a bold Rebel against Heaven and a false Traytor to his Maker is not like to be true and faithful to his Prince He may indeed be Loyal for a Time so long as his Interest or his Humour inclines him to it but when he hath an Opportunity to rebel with advantage all his Allegiance will be cast off Here also we may perceive in order to the preserving a due Fear and Reverence towards God and the King how necessary it is that People should be forewarned of ill men that they should be cautioned against associating with dangerous Persons particularly those that are given to change those that are for Alterations and Innovations those factious Male-contents who being weary of the good and ancient Constitutions ordained by God and the King make it their Study and Endeavour to undermine and Subvert the established Religion and Government And since both they and their Accomplices shall be pursued with Vengeance since none can tell what severe Chastisements a Provoked God and an angry Prince may prepare for them it cleary follows that those who joyn with the Seditious are very ill advised and have no true Regard to Self-Preservation while to prevent imaginary and fictitious Dangers they throw themselves into real and certain Misery But to come to a more distinct consideration of each Particular observed in the Text I begin with the first the Exhortation to Religion My Son fear thou the Lord. Of which Fear I shall briefly consider The Nature The Degrees The Effects and The Contraries First As for the Nature of the Fear we owe to God it is not a slavish Dread joined with Anguish Hatred and Despair but a filial Reverence mix'd with Hope and Love It is such an awful Apprehension of Gods infinite Greatness in himself and his absolute Dominion over us as is accompanied with a delightful Sense of the transcendent Goodness of his Nature and his admirable Kindness to us If we could behold nothing in God but irresistible Power soveraign Will and Severities of Justice our case would be like that of the Devils our Fear would then be nothing but pure Dread and Horror and the only Product of our Faith would be to make us tremble But although the Majesty of God Almighty hath such an overpowring Glory in it as dazles and confounds all Mortal Creatures and makes the very Seraphims cover their Faces yet since the astonishing Terror of it is allayed and mitigated by his Goodness and since we believe him to be the Lord God merciful and gracious that Fear which we are to have of him is not pure solitary Fear but Reverence or Veneration which suffers Love to cohabite But then Secondly as for the Degrees of this Reverential Fear they ought to be the highest and the greatest that the Soul of man is capable of The very highest Measures of Fear are most due most fit to be payed to Gods absolute Soveraignty over us and lower measures can never secure our Obedience to him For if I may take the liberty to borrow some Demonstration of this from a late excellent Divine suppose we fear any Thing or Person in all the World more than God then when ever there happens a Competition between the Fear of that Thing or that Person and the Fear of God the greater Fear will overcome the less and so cause a Neglect or Violation of our Duty to him But where the Fear of God is predominant there it will secure our Duty there it will be attended with sincere Obedience And this in the Third Place is the natural and proper Effect of such a Fear If our Fear of another be in any eminent degree it will command and exact from us the same degree of Care and Study to serve and please the Person feared Fear implies an Apprehension of Danger and Danger so far as 't is apprehended will so far excite us to use and employ the best Means we can for our Preservation If we chuse to disobey God it is because we do not fear his Threatnings and if they are not feared it is because they are either not believed or not considered But the clear and firm Belief joyned with the serious consideration of the Miserie 's threatned to Disobedience cannot but restrain and deter us from it We cannot indulge our selves in Sin unless we enjoy some Pleasure in it and we can enjoy no Pleasure in it unless we forget or disbelieve the everlasting Punishments which Almighty God hath prepared for it While men have real and settled Apprehensions of those Punishments and while the Remembrance of them keeps them under the Awe of Fear and Dread their Sins will appear so grievous to them that they will be forced to abstain from them for their own Ease and Satisfaction
with those who would exchange this sober rational well-tempered Religion either for the Extravagancies of Enthusiasm or the Follies of Superstition the Delusions of the Sectaries or the Idolatries of the Romanists Shall we joyn with those who would exchange decent and duly regulated Ceremonies either for rude and unseemly Gestures on the one side or for a Multitude of ridiculous and pompous Rites on the other who would turn pious and primitive Discipline into lawless liberty or intolerable Impositions sound and ancient Doctrine in all Points agreeable to the written Word of God either into uncertain and unwritten Traditions or into novel Enthusiastick Divinity and serious well compos'd Forms of Prayer understood by the People either into mere Battologies and Extemporary Effusions or into unedifying Masses in an unknown Tongue It is a great and a most true commendation of our Religion worthy to be ever remembred which was given by his late Sacred Majesty in some of his last Words to the then Prince of Wales our now most Gracious Soveraign His words are these I do require and intreat you as your Father and your King that you never suffer your Heart to receive the least check against or Disaffection from the true Religion established in the Church of England I tell you I have tried it and after much Search and many Disputes have concluded it to be the best in the World not only in the Community as Christian but also in the special Notion as Reformed keeping the middle way between the Pomp of Superstitious Tyranny and the Meanness of Fantastick Anarchy And as for the Government over us if Reason and Scripture may be heard it is the most excellent Form of Government It is a Monarchy and the best sort of Monarchy not a Despotical and Arbitrary but a Political or Paternal Monarchy such as is administred by Just and equal Laws not an Elective but an Hereditary Monarchy free from all Interregnum and from many Mischiefs to which Elective Kingdoms are subject It is such a Monarchy as by an adadmirable Temperament preserves at once both the just Liberty of the Subject and the Soveraign Majesty of the King It is a Monarchy of great Antiquity We have been under the Government of Kings beyond the utmost Records of all History Of Kings we may justly boast more than any other Nation in the World For it was our Island that yielded the first King and the first Emperor that ever embraced the Faith of Christ Lucius and Constantine Princes who in the Glory and Stability of their Actions abundantly answered the significant Omens of their Illustrious Names One of our Kings also was the first who cast of the Antichristian Usurpations of the Church of Rome and settled the Reformation by a Law And it hath been ever since under the same good Conduct of Kings that the true Christian Reformed Religion hath been hitherto preserved among us Shall we then be so unwise as to hearken to the Antimonarchical Insinuations of those restless Demagogues who would alter and change subvert and destroy this most excellent this most ancient Form of Government And what if some Men will not or cannot apprehend that our Government deserves to be thus extolled What if they suppose this Constitution to be none of the best Yet every plain Country-man may understand That the Mischiefs of a Change are unspeakable A Change of Government cannot ordinarily be introduced without a Rebellion and all the fatal Consequences that attend it a Rebellion which commonly begins with factious Combinations under Pretence of Defending Religion Liberty and Property proceeds by armed Force and all the Ways of secret Stratagem or open Assault and ends in Blood and Slaughter Spoil and Devastation Rapine and Plunder Oppression and Sacriledge a Rebellion I say which if prosperous and successful make a great Change indeed overturns all Order and Rule and licenses all the Injustice in the World lays the Reins upon mens necks and takes off the Restraints of their Appetites throws down the Fences of Law and leaves all open to the Incursions of Violence gathers mens Lusts into a common Storm and fills all things with Horror and Confusion breaks up the Foundations of the Earth and lets in a kind of Hell upon us All these dire Effects of Subverting the Government this Nation hath sadly felt and if we took any Notice of the Black and Fatal Day in the last week they must needs at this Time be fresh in our Memories But perhaps all this doth not discourage the men that are given to Change The seditious Incendiaries care not although the whole Kingdom be in a Flame if they can but warm themselves at the Fire and at the End of all this Blood-shed Ruine and Devastation they expect nothing less than the rich Spoils of a happy Victory and the Glory of Triumph I shall therefore consider in the last Place what may abundantly confute and confound such vain Hopes The dismal Presage in my Text concerning the swift Vengeance that shall surprize such ill Men and the unknown Misery into which both they and their Associates may tumble headlong For their Calamity shall rise suddenly and who knoweth the Ruine of them both that is both of them that are given to change and those that joyn with them Or else it may be understood of the Destruction that shall come upon them both from the Lord and the King Who can tell what terrible Judgment what heavy Punishment both God and his Vicegerent may inflict upon them Who can measure the divine Vengeance which is armed with infinite Power Who can limite or appease the Wrath of a King which is as the Roaring of a Lyon or as a Messenger of Death Kings are said to have long Hands and God hath longer and heavier which can soon reach and will most severely chastise such Disturbers and Overturners of Peace and Government In the Thirteenth to the Romans St. Paul hath very plainly foretold their Fate that they shall receive to themselves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Judgment or as we render it Damnation If we take the Word in the mildest Sense the meaning is that according to the ordinary Course of Gods Providence they shall receive some grievous Punishment here in this World They seldom die the common Death of men nor are they visited after the visitation of all men but are usually cut off by the visible Strokes of Vindictive Justice And their Punishment is as signal as their Villany They resist the Ordinance of God and they receive a Punishment worthy of God Every Age hath afforded Examples of this but I will only instance in the Judgments which followed the first notorious Sedition that happened in World and the last great Rebellion in our own Nation That first Sedition of which we have a large and full Account in the sixteen Chapter of Numbers was the Insurrection of Corah and his Accomplices against Moses and Aaron under pretence of
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
asserting the Rights and Liberties of the People in Opposition to the arbitrary Government of Moses whom they accused of Tyranny as Josephus expresly saith agreeably to what the Scripture it self doth imply and the freeing themselves from the Incroachments upon their spiritual Priviledges by the Usurpations of Aaron and the Priesthood Which specious Designs drew into the Conspiracy a great Number of Considerable Persons even two hundred and fifty Princes of the Assembly famous in the Congregation Men of Renown But notwithstanding their Popular Pretences which were for substance the very same that gave the first Rise and Birth to our late Confusions and although they acted under some shew of Authority when such an Assembly of Princes and Great Men joyned with them as our Rebels also endeavoured to justifie their Proceedings by the pretended Power of a Parliament although I say they had such fair Colours for what they did and such Eminent Men on their side they were made to suffer the just desert of their Sin Both Earth and Heaven conspired to punish them and their Destruction was no less terrible than sudden They had disturbed the Earth by their Faction and the Earth as it were moved with Indignation against them rent asunder and opened its Mouth to swallow those in its Bowels who were unworthy to live upon the Face of it When they had been dividing the People the very Ground divides it self under their feet and breaks into a Chasm in the Place where they stood that they might go down quick into the Pit of Destruction Death and the Grave both seizing them at once And those two hundred and fifty of the Seditious Incendiaries that offered Incense were as swiftly consumed by Fire from Heaven So suitable were their Punishments both to the Nature and the Degree of their Crimes And when the Israelites instead of learning their Duty by these dreadful Spectacles took upon them the next Day in another Insurrection to justifie the Plea of Corah to own those Rebels as the People of the Lord and to charge Moses and Aaron as being guilty of their Blood the Wrath of God went out against them and consumed them as in a moment with such a quick dispatch that although Aaron with all possible Haste made an Atonement for them there were destroyed by the Plague no less than Fourteen thousand and seven hundred But to come to the Instance nearer home What I pray were the Effects of the late Rebellion in our Native Land Was it not in the Event most pernicious and destructive to the Rebels themselves at least to the Chiefest of them Did not their Calamity arise suddenly so suddenly that themselves scarce sore-saw it Those malignant Comets having blazed a little while quickly expired in Stench Their Rise was sudden and their Fall too Their restless Ambition made them violently introduce a Change of Government but what a Change did themselves meet with when they were thrown down from the Top of all their vain False Glory to be the Hatred and the Hissing of the People They had divided the Kingdom and embroiled it in a Destructive War God therefore divided them among themselves and made them their own Scourges like an Army of Philistines still beating and threshing down one another until the Restauration of his sacred Majesty when the Hand of God was illustriously visible both in bringing him to the Throne of his Father and the principal Rebels and Murderers to Publick Justice Some indeed there were who had no small share in the Guilt and yet escaped the Punishment But they may thank their most Gracious and Merciful Prince whose matchless Clemency hath been greater than the greatest of their Bloody Villanies And after such a Pardon of such Guilt if any Subjects of this Crown have a mind to rebel again let them take heed lest they sin beyond all Possibility of Forgiveness and barr themselves eternally not only from the Mercies of the King but also from the Mercies of God Almighty As for our selves if we suspect or perceive any Factious Men to have designs against the Government let not our Souls come into their Secret Let us not meddle in the least with such Sons of Corah except it be by all lawful means to detect oppose and suppress them Let us no way joyn with them in their Cursed Attempts and Machinations unless we desire to fall with them in their Ruine and Calamity But as it was Prophesied by Hosea of the Children of Israel That after their Captivity they should return and seek the Lord their God and David their King still David their King although it was then some hundreds of years after David's Reign because the Succession was still in the Family of David so God grant that we and our Posterity may fear and honour and obey the Lord our God and our David our most Gracious Soveraign and all his Lawful Successors without any change of our excellently established Religion or our happy Constitution of Government to the End of the World JUST ABHORRENCE OF USURPING REPUBLICANS SERMON III. Preached Jan. 30. 16 83 84. Prov. XXVIII 2. For the transgression of a Land many are the Princes thereof But by a man of understanding and knowledge the State thereof shall be prolonged IF the great Blessings and Calamities of a Nation be not thrown into it at all adventure by the uncertain cast of blind Contingency nor irresistibly thrust upon it by the over-bearing force of inevitable Fate if they proceed not from the confused and forâ—uitous Concourse of various Smooth-shap'd or Ill-figured Atoms nor from the predominant Influences of auspicious or malignant Stars or Planets but are both of them the certain Effects of an intelligent and voluntary Providential Administration a Divine Power Wisdom and Justice ruling in the Kingdoms of Men if the one be the benigne Favours of Almighty God the liberal Emanations of his Immense Goodness wherewith he rewards and encourages Piety and Virtue if the other be his penal Srokes the awakening Thunder-bolts of that Righteous Indignation which Mens Sins have provoked from hence it wil follow that we have most just and real occasions for Solemn Days of publick Thansgiving for the one and Humiliations under the other which sort of Days tho' sometimes illegally consecrated by Factious Powers and hypocritically celebrated with Mock-devotions to sanctifie Treason and Rebellion ought to be so much the more sincerely so much the more religiously observed by us when our lawful Superiors have advisedly appointed them And from hence it will particularly follow that we have still great reason with Weeping Fasting and Prayer thus annually to commemorate the Fatal Period of Time in which our multiplyed Sins and over-flowing Transgressions after they had deprived us of all the Blessings with which a just and peaceful Monarchy could make us happy and introduced the plentiful Calamities of a Civil War together with the numerous Plagues of many Princes many Tyrannical Usurpers of Royal Authority swell'd
of Rods the Scorpions of Usurpers with the heaviest Stripes the Lashes of base-bred and new-rais'd Tyrants In this case Fire hath come out of the Bramble to consume the Cedars of Lebanon or to speak plainly zealous Incendiaries those crackling blazing Thorns being all in a flame have burnt down the Royal Palaces and put whole Kingdoms into a combustion On this occasion the very Abyss of Sedition hath been opened the Smoke of hellish Faction hath ascended and the Sun and the Air have been darkened by reason of the Smoke and out of the Smoke there have come Locusts Their Faces have been as the Faces of Men and their Hair as the Hair of Women but their Teeth as the Teeth of Lions They have carried kindness and humanity in their Countenances and smooth fairness in their Pretences but their Actions have been Savage and Cruel They have seemed to have only Breast-plates of Iron and defensive Armour but their sound hath been as of many Horses and Chariots running to the Battel loudly proclaiming an offensive War And they have had Tails like unto Scorpions and Stings in their Tails with Power to hurt Men certain Months and Years They have had a King too a King like the Angel of the bottomless Pit in Hebrew Abaddon in Greek Apollyon Such horrible Plagues as these have been sometimes used to chastise a Land when she hath filled up the measure of her Iniquities And an impious People have the more Reason to expect these or such like Judgments from Heaven according to the degree of their Guilt because publick Societies of States and Kingdoms can suffer no other Punishments but only such as are inflicted in this present Life Particular Sinners who shall receive their Doom at the last Day may sometimes pass thorow this world with Impunity But all Political Bodies and Communities of Men will be dissolved before the final Judgment and therefore the Holy and Righteous God hath always a time sooner or later to punish sinful Nations here upon Earth unless his just Vengeance be prevented by a general Repentance Neither are these Calamities only sent down from the Justice of Divine Providence they also naturally spring up from the Transgression of a Land The prevalency of Vice and the general dissoluteness of Manners doth in its own Nature produce many great and publick Mischiefs Pride and Self-conceit Ambition and Covetousness Uncharitableness and Animosity Hatred and Envy Malice and Revenge are the very Seed and Spawn of all Factions and Seditions Treasons and Conspiracies Insurrections and Rebellions Subversions of Government and Changes of Governours Whence come Wars and Fightings among you saith St. James are they not hence even from your Lusts which war in your Members When Men have dethroned their Reason that private Monarch which God hath set up within them to rule â—ll their inferior Powers and suffer'd the promiscuous Democratical Crowd of â—ebellious Passions to usurp that Royal â—uthority it is no wonder that being â—laves to so many Lords and Tyrants within themselves they desire to bring â—â—eir Country under as many and as 〈◊〉 Princes too it is no wonder that â—…ey are then so turbulent and vexaâ—…us in humane Societies so zealous for â—â—lling down the publick Soveraign alâ—… and for placing themselves and others of their own Rank in his room The restless Lusts of Men if predoâ—â—nant and generally raging in a Nation must inevitably excite and foment mutual Enmities and Discords intestine Commotions Civil Wars and various Disturbances in which the tossing and wavering Government hath no fixed Establishment but is continuly new modelled changed and altered by every Faction that can usurp it The wicked are like the troubled Sea when it cannot rest whose Waters cast up mire and dirt Isa 57. 20. Wickedness brings a Land into such an unquiet and tumultuous State that the very mire and dirt the vile dregs of the Populace do often times get uppermost Thus we plainly see that the Tyranny of many Princes and numerous Usurpers is both the just Punishment and the natural Effect of the reigning Power the over-spreading Dominion of men Lusts and Sins It remains that I consider the two last Observables in the Text the National Mercy or the Happiness of a Lanâ— under a well settled Monarchy wheâ— by one Soveraign Prince When by 〈◊〉 man of understanding and knowledge the State thereof is prolonged and the principal means whereby so great a Mercy is procured The Wisdom of the Monarch his understanding and knowledge But that I may not be thought guilty my self of a bold Usurpation in detaining you too long beyond my Commission I shall omit what I had prepared to speak upon these copious Heads of Discourse and shall only conclude with some brief Application First then if many Princes be publick Evils and for the most part National Judgments the penal Indications of the Wrath of God for the Transgression of a Land how great is the Folly of their Wickedness who desire and chuse Gods Plagues who contend and wrestle for the Vengeance of Heaven and will not be content without it We have lived in an Age in which men have Fasted and Prayed and Fought for the procuring of Divine Judgments for the subversion of our Lawful Government the extirpation of our excellently tempered Monarchy and the setting up the Usurping Powers of a many-headed Democracy We have had Bon-fires in our Streets and loud Thansgivings in our Pulpits when the desired Calamities have been obtained when the raving Petitions of such bewitched Enthusiasts have in just Punishment been granted them yea some of their Lay-Preachers solemnly praised God for that very prodigious Sin and Judgment which was the cause of this days Fasting and Humiliation Such was the infatuating perverseness the senseless extravagance the impudent wildness of their monstrous Impiety And is it not strange that even now after the Impostures of Religious Rebels have been so plainly detected after all that our Eyes have seen and our Ears heard of the Miseries and Calamities which Seditious Republicans have brought upon us Men should attempt the dissolving the Ligaments of the Monarchy a second time and the opening a Door to let in another Scene of numerous Usurpers to enslave and ruine us That the Machinations of the late Conspirators had a direct tendency this way needs no Proof And all Wise men can easily judge whether the cutting the great Cable that holds the Government or the violating the Fundamental Hereditary Right of Lineal Succession to this Imperial Crown would not be like to have the very same pernicious Effects Will our Fears of our Roman Adversaries justifie a Contrivance so manifestly contrary to Law and Equity to our most Solemn Oaths both of Allegiance and Supremacy and to those very Interests of Peace and Religion which are supposed to be in danger Is not this the ready way to introduce Wars and Confusions in which we shall have many Religions without the settlement of any in
which we shall have many Princes and no Government but all contending for the Supremacy one to obtain his just Right others to acquire or to hold an unjust Possession Is the imitating of the Papists themselves in some of the worst of their wicked Practices a good Expedient to keep out Popery Or can this sinful Nation reasonably hope to prevent those Judgments of Almighty God which may be still hanging over us for the execrable Murder of the Royal Father by another high Injustice in disinheriting the Son And what if it should be granted that the Cause of mens Fears and Jealousies concerning the Future State of a Kingdom is true and real The worst that any good man can fear from any lawful Soveraign whatsoever is suffering under him but it is far better to suffer wrong than to do it And when suffering cannot be avoided as in this World it sometimes cannot 't is far more tolerable to suffer under the severest Government of one rightful Prince than under the illegal Tyranny of numerous Invaders who assume the greatest and most unbounded Power without the least right to any Authority Secondly do we desire never more to behold the infinite Outrages of an Army of Rebels with all the calamitous Appendages of Civil Broyls Are we unwilling to change again the Golden Scepter of our Ancient Monarchy into the Iron Rods of Republican Usurpers Let us then unfeignedly lament and in our Places endeavour to remove the crying Sins of our Land the indubitable Causes of such great and National Plagues And let us not think that Sedition and Treason are the only sins that destroy Kings and Governments and bring Confusions upon a People Although these more immediately do Execution yet there be others that make us liable to Condemnation If Atheism and Profaneness Swearing and Cursing Drunkenness and Debauchery Fraud and Oppression abound among us shall not God visit for such Transgressions as these especially when men glory in them and make them the Marks and Badges of their Loyalty as if they could not be good Subjects without Rioting and Ranting Tearing and Hectoring This Goddamming Tribe whatever their Pretensions or Intentions be are as real Enemies to their Soveraign and their Country as any of the Papists or Phanaticks For men may fight against their Prince though they be not up in Arms and give him a fatal Blow though they never Assassinate him All great and National Vices have Treason in them and are not only levelled against the Honour and Majesty of God Almighty but also against the Crown and Dignitie of the King and the Peace and Safety of the Kingdom Let us not therefore joyn with any Wicked men in their God-provoking and King-killing Sins whereby we shall contract at once the complicated Guilt Infamy and Misery of being Promoters of the Common Ruine But let us all unanimously according to the Station in which God hath placed us avoid discountenance and suppress all manner of Wickedness and Irreligion At least let us abate the Publick Guilt by lessening the Number of our own Sins Lastly since it is by a Wise Monarch by a man of understanding and knowledge that the happy State of a Nation is prolonged let us bless and praise God for remembring Mercy in the midst of Wrath for restoring our Gracious Soveraign after a long Exile to sit upon the Throne of his Father for wonderfully delivering him from all Hellish Plots and Conspiracies and for lengthening out our Tranquility under his most just and gentle and prudent Government humbly imploring the same Divine Protection over him for the future to establish his Throne and strengthen what hath been wrought for him that as our Church prays He may still continue to be a Religious Defender of the true Christian Faith a mighty Protector of his People and a Glorious Conqueror over all his Enemies that when he hath reigned many and many years with all Prosperity and Honour he may receive an immortal Crown and leave Flourishing Kingdoms to his Successor and Peaceful Times to his Subjects DUE AFFECTION TO THE MONARCHY SERMON IV. Preached May 29. 1684. Prov. XXVIII 2. But by a Man of understanding and knowledge the State thereof shall be prolonged ON the last Anniversary of our late Soveraign's Martyrdom the former part of this Verse which begins thus For the Transgression of a Land many are the the Princes thereof gave me occasion to consider the Plagues and Mischiefs of numerous Usurpers and many-headed Republican Factions together with the corrupt Fountain from whence they spring Arguments suitable to that Day of Darkness that Day of trouble and rebuke and blasphemy The latter Part of it will now furnish me with no less suitable matter of Discourse on this Day of Joy and Thanksgiving for the Birth and Happy Return of our present most August Monarch by whom through the great Blessing of Almighty God the flourishing condition of these Kingdoms was most auspiciously restored and hath been hitherto preserved In the whole Verse I noted these four things First the ill State of a Nation under Polyarchy or Plurality of Supreme Governours When many are the Princes thereof Secondly the notorious Cause of such a Judgment 't is expresly ascribed to the Wickedness of a People the Transgression of a Land Thirdly the opposite National Mercy or the Happiness of a Nation under a well settled Monarchy When by a man of understanding and knowledge the State thereof is prolonged Fourthly the principal means whereby so great a Mercy is procured The Wisdom of the Monarch his understanding and knowledge The Two former of these I have already discoursed of and now come to the Third of them The National Mercy or the Happiness of a Nation under a well settled Monarchy when by a man of understanding and knowledge the State thereof is prolonged By a Man that is to say by one Man one Soveraign Prince in opposition to the many Princes before mentioned And how great a Blessing a well settled Monarchy must needs be unto any Nation we may more than conjecture from the following Particulars in which I shall endeavour to give some account of its incomparable Dignity and Excellency beyond all other Models of Government First Monarchy is the Government whereby God himself hath always governed Angels and Men and all Creatures ever since they had a Being and always will govern them so long as any of them shall continue in Being God is a Great Monarch the King of all Kings and Lord of Lords the only absolute illimited and Supreme Potentate the one Almighty independent and eternal Rector of the Universe who ever did doth and shall rule and command all other Beings who alone hath all Power of himself and is the Fountain from whence all Dominion in any other is derived Thine O Lord saith David is the Greatness and the Power and the Glory and the Victory and the Majesty for all that is in the Heaven and the Earth