in Erasmus when he saw the stirs and commotions in Germany occasioned thereupon to the grief of all good men thus exprest himself Annon haec mea fuit vox ad primum gustum libellorum Lutheri res redibit ad seditionem and one well notes that however the Rulers of this World have been very jealous of the strength of the Church and very careful to keep that under hatches yet they have suffered Babylon to be built in its full strength though Romes profest principles lead to removal of Magistracy and State commotions Now these jealousies and reproaches might be occasioned two ways 1 By the spiritual pride of professors thinking that the Gospel jubilee freed all servants from obedience to Masters and Subjects from obedience to Princes especially if in the state of Gentilism an opinion which the Devil no doubt leavened the minds of men withall as a learned man speaks Ut inde in odium vocaret Christianam religionem apud Ethnicos quasi ordinis perturbatricem to bring Christianity into disgrace as if a disturber of the peace and order of a Nation 2 From the misapprehended honour of appearing in Religions defence deluded people apprehend they may fight for Religion and cannot die they thinke with greater assurance of honour here and heaven hereafter then when they fall like Zechariah between the Temple and the Altar People like the Turks will receive this Jewish practice of opposing Moses and Aaron into favour when Polititians have once christned it with the name of Zeal for Religion and Liberty But Religion may say as Elizabeth God hath rolled away my reproach for howsoever politick pretenders to Religion that stand by the Altar but to warm their own hands have upon every slight ground opposed lawful Authority and thrown dirt in the face of Governours yet the doctrine of the Gospel warrants no such thing The Pulpit was never intended to be a Circle in which to raise up the evil spirits of sedition and state commotions No Religion in the doctrine of it so greatly secures the power of Kings and the peace of States as the Christian doth We are bidden by the Gospel to be obedient {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} 1 Pet. 2. 18. to the crookedst and frowardst Masters God sets over us so that Religion can never be pretended against Loyalty And therefore when I take a sad review of the evil of our late disturbances I take not so much notice of the loss of King Liberty Property Parliaments Bloud though very great as of the impairing so far the credit of Religion in the violences offered to the person of His sacred Majesty and that by persons so highly pretending to it I am sorry the Papists seem to have now a 30th of Ianuary to return us for a 5th of November But blessed be God who put it into the heart of the Parliament to begin their work at the removal of this stain and blot from Religion not suffering the bloud of a Prince to lie any longer like aquafortis upon Religions credit to corode and eat thereinto We finde their practice justified by the holy Ghost who having told us of King Iehoash being murdered by his servants out of hand tells us who they were that did it 2 Chron. 24. 26. to wit none of the professours of the true Religion none of the Israelites but Zabad the Ammonite and Iehozabad the Moabite that so the honour of Religion might not suffer for a moment in the breast of the Reader and thus our Senatours tell the World as soon as God favours them with an opportunity that it was not Law but Violence not Religion but Pretences not the Nation but a Faction that attempted so unparallell'd a wickedness Secondly This doctrine may serve to give a check to all traiterous attempts against Majesty and Authority There is a threefold treason that falls here under challenge that of the heart of the tongue and of the hand 1 That of the heart of which those were guilty Jude v. 8. who despise dominions and those men of Belial 1 Sam. 10. 21. who despised Saul in their hearts Owl-ey'd creatures that can see nothing in a King but flesh bloud and a little state like children that can see nothing in the rainbow but onely a few fine colours Oh methinks those words by me Kings reign Prov. 8. should strike reverence and religion into every Atheist against those whom the Scripture stiles Gods among men Let us not think slightly of a King when God hath enjoined reverence to himself and him both in a breath in the Old Testament Prov. 24. 21. in the New 1 Pet. 2. 17. Fear God honour the King The murder of common and ordinary men we observe that God makes use of the very birds and beasts to discover but a very thought that impeacheth Majesty that doth not cut off but soil the skirt of a King the Scripture tells us a bird of the air shall discover it Eccl. 10. 20. God at one time or other suffers this sower leaven to breath forth in words or actions to the persons ruine 2 This may give a check to the treason of the tongue to those who speak evill of dignities Jude v. 8. when a King hath given a title of honour to a person all the Subjects must own it and honour him accordingly how much more when God hath given such eminent titles to Kings should we look upon our selves as bound so to do Scripture stiles it {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} an accusation of blasphemie when evil language is used against these Gods upon earth Jud. v. 8. So 1 King 21. 13. he blasphemed God and the King No reason is there as some have done to reckon those titles of Highness Majesty and Lordship given to men in power and place inter soloecismos barbarismos aulicos amongst Court soloecisms and barbarisms which the Scripture useth Psal. 21. 5. The Kings glory is great in thy salvation Honour and Majesty hast thou laid upon him The Jews have a wise proverb Migrandum est ex eo loco in quo Rex non timetur we must go out of that place speedily where the King is not reverenced for we shall generally finde scorn and contempt thrown upon Kings and men in authority either a sad forerunner of some heavy judgement upon the people or else of the removal of the power it self so scorned and therefore these two things Job 12. 21. Gods pouring contempt upon Princes and weakning of their strength and power are joined together and we have seen in our times one of them a constant fore-runer of the other Fear a power is more safe under then contempt 3 This doctrine checks the treason of the hand most of all whether it be the hand of Zimri that of a private person or the hand of Joab that of a multitude in a way of force under one Captain 1 Then let no
us of a temporal reward entailed upon religion and virtue when becoming in any measure national the works of God herein abetting his word Prov. 14. 34. Righteousness exalteth a nation but sin is a reproach to any people Jer. 18. 8. Hos. 14. 8. Nay the very shadow thereof hath proved like Peters healing to a state as hath been noted in the Romane Empire Deus ostendit in praeclaro Romanorum Imperio quantum valerent virtutes civiles etiam sine vera religione August Epist. 5. ad Marcel Thus we see how justifiable the custome of people is to rejoyce when the righteous are in authoritie Secondly The words may be understood as denoting the duty of a people in such an instance of divine favour as the bestowing of a righteous Ruler on them An expression parallel hereunto occurs Prov. 11. 10. When it goeth well with the righteous the city rejoyceth Commonly the generality of men rejoyce little at the happiness of good men but they should rejoyce then it is their sin if they do not so here the people do rejoyce that is they should rejoyce and express a gratefull sense of the mercy vouchsafed them A people should let the world see that the King hath their hearts the heart of a nation being a throne to be reserved onely for God and a good King to rule in we are sometimes commanded to honour bad Princes but never commanded to rejoyce in them Great is the honour God hath now done a nation having given them a King who bears his own image three times over once as he is a man again as he is a Magistrate and a third time as he is a righteous person would we foretell the fate of a people foresee what mercies or judgements God hath in store let us fix our eyes much upon these stars the Rulers and Governours therein and their dispositions and affections Isa. 1. 26. I will restore thy judges as at the first and thy Counsellours as at the beginning afterward thou shalt be called the City of righteousness the faithful City On the other side No such signe of ruine to a people as bad Governours God had a purpose of wrath against the Kingdome of Israel and not one good King had they in the whole Catalogue The more the Jews sinned the more God impaired the goodness and excellency of their government Their government was like that of man in innocency a Theocracie God being their Ruler and immediate Law-giver Provoked by their sins he sets up Kings over them allowed a power little less then absolute then Dukes who were indeed ex gente Judaicâ but in subjection to some foreign power or other Not yet reformed they are governed by Rulers which were aliens but yet in their own Land and with a reservation of some power to themselves in Spirituals and Civils afterward they being deaf to the voice of this rod the Scepter departs from Iuda all form of civil politie is cancell'd they scattered over the face of the earth and left like water in a vessel to take shape figure law from that State or Nation Providence should dispose them in Two things we learn also from this branch of the Text First That there are no such enemies to Prince or people as they who by any evil counsels make a breach upon a Princes righteousness Such persons poyson a fountain A Prince cannot sin at so cheap a rate as common men seldom do such Counsellours go to their graves in peace sometimes they are given up by Prince as a Sacrifice to popular fury to expiate their own guilt sometimes he disgusts them himself A King cannot endure continually to be reproacht and put to the blush by that wickedness which the sight of such persons renews the memory of and therefore at last hates like Amnon the sight of those by whom he hath lost the honour of a constant righteousness See this truth justified in Haman a wicked Counsellour to Ahasuerus destroyed by him Sejanus by Tiberius Empson and Dudley and Wolsey under the Henries and many others occurring in history burning their fingers at last by holding the candle to a Prince whilst walking in ways of darkness Hence one well notes Primum sibi ad ruinam gradum struit qui non reveretur conscientiam Principis The first step to ruine is to bear no reverence to a Princes Conscience Worthy therefore of a Courtiers remembrance is the counsel of Solomon Prov. 28. 23. He that rebuketh a man afterward shall finde more favour then he that flattereth with his lips Nothing procures a man greater favour with his Prince that owns any degree of good Nature then plain and righteous counsel seasonably humbly and constantly given this flows from Nature compliance from Art whereas wicked Counsellours are like bushes and thorns which men run to in a storm but cut up commonly in a calm Secondly Learn we hence what matter of joy the return of so good a Prince to his Crown and Kingdoms hath occasioned who is thereby blest with Sphear large enough to display all his Royal Vertues in We come not now together to rejoice for a Victory gotten in a Civil War the Romans allowed no Triumphs for such victories The eye that is bloud-shot cannot bear the clear and pleasant light of the Sun and truly I question not but many good men since our late unhappy differences could not bear that light of joy and gladness which a victory might otherwise occasion while they had sanguinem civium the bloud of fellow-brethren and Citizens shed on both sides so much in their eyes and thoughts but surely nothing now can be pretended sufficient to interrupt and disturb our joy no harsh string to make our Musick ungrateful except the not gratifying of some few private and particular interests When the foundations of the earth were laid the Morning star sang for joy Iob. 38. 7. all our foundations of Government Religion Law Parliaments were out of Course now that we see God laying them again should we not express a joyful sense of the Mercy and like good members of the body politick rejoice in the welfare of the whole This is a duty God requires at such a time as this Isa. 65. 18. be glad and rejoice for ever in that which I create for behold I create Hierusalem a rejoicing and her people a joy Sure I am if any part of the Nation have matter of joy we in the University more Universities and learned men most flourishing under Kings but especially under righteous Kings It s observable that when there was no King in Israel Iudg. 17. 6. we read v. 10. of a Levite who served for ten shekels of silver by the year a suit of apparel and victuals Pliny long ago noted it that Arts flourish only under good Princes as well knowing that they are learned men that must embalm their names and make them liker to Gods by procuring them a kinde of
righteous King to be our Ruler Our Elder is now like those which stood about the throne Rev. 4. 9. who were clothed in white garments and had crowns on their heads We have a King who is legally righteous one born our King invading no mans right standing upon no mens skulls to be higher then his brethren He sits upon the throne of his Fathers upon a throne that the law makes his when God would prescribe the laws of the King who should be over his own people He first provides for the legality of his title Deut. 17. 15. Thou shalt in any wise set him over thee whom the Lord thy God shall choose Now this is matter of joy to a nation because it rolls away one of the greatest reproaches from it the having of a fellow subject to usurp the throne of Majesty The nation before was under the curse of Cham Gen. 9. 25. being a servant of servants the Church of God in Captivity Grace doth not take away sense of honour thus characters of the misery of her Captivity Lament 5. 8. Servants have ruled over us the crown is fallen from our heads It is a shame for a nation to sit under the shelter of a gourd which came up in a night of war and confusion when a King is taken like Saul from among the stuff the common sort of people Majesty loseth its reverence 1 Sam. 10. 27. and a people their safety Zach. 9. 6. Then again a small measure of charity will warrant us to stile his Majestie religiously righteous For that may be said of him which can of no Prince in the world besides that he hath had evils enough to discover and improve his virtues and enemies under freedome and malice too much to report and greaten his vices if he had been chargeable with any His Majestie in his late Proclamation hath made a practical commentary on those words of Solomon Prov. 14. 35. The Kings favour is toward a wise servant but his wrath is against him that causeth shame Who observeth not his constancy in religion All His injuries from enemies could not conquer his charity all the difficulties He beheld between Himself and his throne tire out his hope nor yet any temptations from Rome stagger his faith What a Christian spirit doth He discover in endeavouring so many ways the union of his people the law of love is once more become {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} a royall law Jam. 2. 8. His Majesties declarations assure us that He would not have us like lines running all to one and the same centre the King yet never touching one another in any hearty love and affection And certainly it is high time for us to think of joyning hearts and hands We well agree in the main religion and loyaltie why should we fall out about mint and cummin It hath alway been the Devils policy to set the people of God at variance about circumstances how hot were the disputes and contentions in the Apostles times about meats and drinks how high the animosities in after ages about the time of the observation of Easter the precedence of their Bishops c. and in our own times about matters which in themselves considered commend no man to God The Devil hath alway endeavoured to choke the Church of God like Adrian with gnats and flies disputes about matters of small moment in religion oh how are we benighted that seem yet ignorant of Satans devices It was the infant state of the Church in which men were set at distance by circumstances Words that stand in regimine in the Hebrew tongue lose a letter or two and yet no breach is made in the sense truly there is no thinking we shall stand long peaceably in regimine in government and order if superiours and inferiors be loth to part with some punctilio's and circumstances in their opinions and practises which may be done without any breach made upon the sense of Creed or Scripture The noble large and ingenuous spirit of the Gospel will accept men every where as God doth Acts 10. 35. for righteousness and innocence sake Admirable is that rule of the Apostle in matters of indifferency Rom. 14. 3. That the strong do not despise the weak nor the weak judge and condemn the strong But to return this consideration also is a matter of very great joy to a people to sit under the wing of so virtuous a Prince When Rulers and Kings rise up and worship the Lord then sing O heavens and be joyfull O earth break forth into singing O mountains Isa. 49. 7 13. God hath not done thus to every nation few virtuous men but fewer virtuous Princes many righteous persons in sheep-skins and goat-skins but few in Ermines And here give me leave to pause a little and to take notice of a considerable because so rare a circumstance in the happiness of his late Majesty of blessed memory even the transmitting to posterity so much of his wisdome and virtue surviving in his issue A great part of that stock of honour many an eminent Monarch hath died possest of his unworthy son who succeeded him hath embezelled Rehoboam the imprudent son of wise Solomon Domitian of Vespasian Commodus of Antoninus Bassianus of Severus Instances in this kinde are so familiar that an historian notes Neminem propè magnorum virorum optimum utilem filium reliquisse denique aut sine liberis eos interiisse aut filios habuisse ut melius fuerit de rebus humanis sine posteritate discedere and that judicious Historian notes it as one reason why the fame and memorie of that eminent Prince Iohn Duke of Saxony continued not so fresh and precious after his death as his virtue discovered in doing and suffering so much did merit quia filios reliquit sui dissimilimos because He left sons which gave the world no assurance that they were his genuine off-spring and Scripture notes it as one special reason why Samuel was rejected of the Israelites because his sons walked not in his ways 1 Sam. 8. 5. But to proceed Fourthly His Majesty is more then a Ruler He is a deliverer to us from the several evils the nation groaned under evils sufficient for a history the nation seemed like that roll Ezek. 2. 10. Written within and without with lamentations and mourning and wo What invasions upon our rights civil and sacred did we long stand sad spectatours of We have seen arms the iron-mole that stained our religion and eat out order and law Astronomy shews us the Dragons Tayl placed as near as may be to Charles-wayn and we beheld the Embleme too plainly expounded in our own nation those which should have been the tayl and not the head to use the Scripture phrase Deut. 28. 13. invading the throne of Sovereignty throwing down the stars the Nobles and Senatours to the ground putting dishonourable abatements into the fairest coats of arms we beheld every common
merit of the persons if frequent upon the Princes disposition then which nothing renders him more ungratefull man being naturally a compassionate creature But it is not mercy alone will establish a throne there must be truth too fidelity open-heartedness He must not be made up totus ex artibus Princes which like-Absalom kiss all men alike seldom succeed happily because they occasion the disappointment of so many which a man cannot so well bear as an expected injury Cruelty and Treachery have gotten many a Throne but they have establisht none Now both these meet most eminently in our Sovereign Mercy though provoked more then ever Prince was he was not in natali imperii born like Esau all over red with the bloud of those who had forfeited their lives to his justice but his first and great I may now add frequentest request to the Houses was that the Act of Indemnity might be as speedily and as comprehensively drawn up as might be His Majestie contents himself with the submission of his adversaries Poenaeque genus vidisse precantes The fears and jealousies of guilty minds no question represented His Majestie as vapours do the rising Sun of a bloudy colour and disposition but he hath defeated not only the hopes but the fears of his adversaries by shewing his greatness as God whose Viceroy he is even by pardoning and forgiving offences And His Majesties whole demeanour assures us that this clemencie is virtus Personae not virtus temporis only and in observance of the old rule mitissima sors est Regnorum sub Rege novo And as eminent is He for Truth no King might as Christ doth write Teste meipso with better confidence then He. Hear what that valiant Scotch Marquess said of him when ready to die and the words of dying especially understanding men I value next to the Scripture For His Majestie now living I believe never people might be more happy in a King his commands to me were most just in nothing that he promiseth will he fail he deals justly with all men I shall close this fifth particular by superadding this one observation It is Gods usual method to suppress and expel a power or people guiltie of such or such a vice by persons eminent for the contrary vertue Thus Salvian takes notice how God punisht the Spaniards a lascivious people by the Vandals a Nation eminent for their chastity and temperance so the Persians a luxurious and riotous generation He overthrew by the Macedonians eminent at that time for their abstinence and moderation in diet and thus God now useth his Majesty to succeed and suppress persons lately in power highly challengeable for the want of Mercy and Truth Mercy we might be well assured they were never designed to build Gods Temple there was such a noise of fatal Axes continually heard in the Nation Truth breaking all the bands like the possest man of Oaths and Covenants wherewithall they had been bound the character of England at that time we might finde in Isa. 59. 14. Iudgement was turned away backward and Justice stood afar off Truth was fallen in the streets and Equity could not enter Sixthly Another token for good is this After great distractions and confusions long in a nation God usually sets upon the throne Princes eminent for success wisdome and courage When a nation is full of distraction and confusion God generally takes one of these three courses with it 1. He sometimes leavs it in confusion suffers the people to be without any settled form of government and to hold up one another till he corrects all thus he dealt with the Israelites Judges 21. 25. When there was no King in Israel but every man was a law to himself God sometimes deals by a nation as they did by the ship Acts 27. 15. cuts the cables and anchours that held it and lets it drive Or 2. He sometimes sets a Tyrant over it as it is an hundred to one but when the ill humours are in motion they gather to an head at last Thus we read in the Iudges he dealt with his own people Or 3. He raiseth up some eminent person whom he qualifies with all Princely dispositions for so great a work as the healing of the breaches in a nation Thus we finde him raising up Moses after the Egyptian oppression Gideon after the Midianitish slavery David after Sauls injustice and Nehemiah and Zorobabel after the Babilonish captivity to become healers to Israel Thus Iulius and Augustus Cesar in the Romane Empire were raised up by God to be repairers of the breaches in that government under which Christ was to be born and afterward Constantine as a shadow from the heat of the ten Persecutions and Charles the great in the West and Queen Elizabeth after many changes both in Church and State and Henry the 7th before her happily curing the issue of bloud the nation had so long laboured under Great and many are the evils which England hath languished under these many years now to use the word of Mordecai to Esther Esther 4. 14. Who knows but his Majesty is come to the Kingdome for such a time as this God hath taken all the forementioned courses with our discomposed nation 1. We were left to the unconstant counsels and giddy determinations of those who stiled themselves Custodes libertatis it would pose a wise man to tell who they were sometimes this party sometime another pretended to the title of the supreme authority of the nation 2. Then he set over us a person that like Adonijah got him chariots and horsmen and said I will reign but now we hope God hath set him over us whom he will make a great blessing to this great people when a nation hath been under many Rulers Solomon tells us how the state thereof must be prolonged Prov. 38. 2. even by the advancement of a man of understanding which we hope God according to the method of his providence hath now blest us withall even a man who shall restore again the Kingdome to its ancient dignity and liberty and the Church to its due honour and discipline If we now lay all these particulars together we shall easily I think see what great cause we have to shout and rejoyce and cry God save the King I have hitherto indeavoured to be the helper of your joy give me leave in a few words to be the directour of it and so conclude Let us take care that our joy be seasoned with sobriety with trembling and with religion With sobriety This passion of joy doth very much expose the soul to indecencies and therefore the greater need of vigilance let us not so dance before the ark as to discover our nakedness so as to allow our selves in any intemperate and unwarrantable transports It had been high indiscretion in Noah and his family when in the ark and perceiving the Dove approaching with an alive branch to have made such a