was right in his own eyes Right in their own eyes it might be but wrong enough in the eyes of God and all good men Gross Idolatry in Religion the most odious Savageness in Conversation as the Sequele attests Such are the barbarous products of loose times Hitherto the Princes Soveraignty and the Subjects Safety his Augustness their happiness as those wings of the Cherubims over the mercy-seat they meet and embrace each other What God has thus exemplarily put together 't is pity that man should attempt or dare to put asunder The relative Titles which our ancient Laws with so much sageness use may further confirm us in this point Pater patriae Medicus Maritus regni The Soveraign is the common Father of the Country He the Physician we the weak Patients he the Husband the Kingdom his Spouse betroth'd to him with a solemn Coronation-Ring His absence makes us a Family of desolate Orphans an Hospital of languishing Patients and the whole Kingdom a solitary helpless Widow expos'd to endless Oppressions Such a Prince did we lose and such were the Calamities that ensued upon it 'T is true all specious perswasions were us'd to raise that wretched War against the King nothing but golden Declarations set forth to reform Church and State to remove evil Counsellors to redress Grievances and to secure Liberty and Property to the People Dajustum sanctumque videri So fair the pretence it seems must needs be But alas this Angel of Light soon vanished as a personated appearance and the issue prov'd such as we have but small joy to relate A wilde Scepticism in Religion an utter Subversion of Government such excessive Taxes and Impositions such fifth and twentieth parts such Sequestrations and Decimations such Views and Reviews such plundring of Loyal Subjects and illegal sales of their Estates such vast expence of Bloud and Treasure as England till then had not known These sore pressures by degrees fill'd the whole Land with sighings Vtinam viveret Oh that the King were alive and upon his Throne again for then was it better with us than it is now Our sin became our punishment In the day that we rebelled against our Soveraign in that day we laid violent hands upon our own Happiness 3. The violence this day committed 't was a most open Violation of all Laws both Divine and Humane whatever may be the sinews of boisterous War we are sure good Laws are the sinews of all civil Society and Peace where they fall we also fall with them Plebs sine lege ruit That God who hath created man a reasonable creature hath thereby shewed his intentions to govern us by such moral Ductures his holy Commands and Laws but these we wretchedly cast behind our backs As our soveraign Legislator he hath set over us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Supreme Powers The persons commissionated are honourably stil'd the Ministers of God and the Commission intrusted in their hands no less than the Ordinance of God thus issued forth for our good And all this while Princes were then open Pagans with this severe caution added to the convert Christians of those times That resisting this power 't would be a confronting the Eutaxie the Oeconomie and good Order of Heaven a supplanting the true jus divinum a despising not the Delegate but the Original not man but God Lord how apocryphal were these great Doctrines of the Gospel esteemed in our late Rebellion Or rather what unchristian Christians were we then grown Solomon tells us Where the word of a King is there is power that is Authority and Majesty and who may say unto him What dost thou 'T is not for every clownish Peasant 't is not for every pragmatical Mechanick rudely to censure his Princes actions Non potest ad rationes vocari He is a Person too high to be cited before their Tribunal Thus our English Laws in all humble reverence of the Divine tread plainly in the very same steps Omnis sub Rege ipse sub nullo nisi tantum Deo We are Subjects to the King he a Subject to none but God If we do ill the King is a Revenger to execute wrath upon us if he does ill Reges in ipsos imperium est Jovis God himself will take cognizance of that matter in a Superiour Court Satisque ad poenam quod Deum habet ultorem This is the check in his case God stands ready both to inspect and punish his faults But that we might not incroach upon Gods Prerogative we have Angels set as it were with flaming Swords before us Touch not mine Anointed curse not the King no not in thy thought In the nearest Harmony wherewith our own Laws have most religiously determined The very thoughts of evil against the King though never spoken they are treason and could they be proved they would be death Hence it is that so strict care is taken for the Person the Life the Crown and Dignity of the Soveraign in the Oath of Allegiance which by Act of Parliament is to be administred to all forts of persons that the Oath of God might make us the better Subjects to our King The same pious sence our Parliaments have as loyally from time to time expressed to our Kings The Crown of England hath been so free at all times that it hath been in no Earthly subjection but immediately subject to God So one Parliament at another time The King hath no Peers in his Land and cannot be judged And in King James's time the Parliament having agnized upon the knees of their hearts their constant Faith Loyalty and Obedience to the King and his Royal Progeny they proceed in all lowliness to this further Address We recognize as we are bound by the Law of God and man that the Realm of England and the Imperial Crown thereof doth belong to You by inherent Birthright Which they beseech the King to accept as the first-Fruits of their Loyalty and Faith to his Majesty and his Posterity for ever And well had it been for us had we kept these sacred Memorials this sense of our bounden Duty truly engraven upon our hearts The Soveraign had not then been so heavy a Sufferer the Subject had not then been so hainous a Criminal but both eminently happy in Gods blessing The Counsel was certainly good and well worthy his Robe who then gave it Hold to the Laws and the great Body recovers forsake them and it will certainly perish Men and Brethren we have thus far made our Preparations for some penitential Sorrow We have now to sit down together as Job's three Friends every one with our Mantle rent and Dust upon our heads making our confession as Joseph's Brethren Verily we are guilty concerning our Soveraign's blood Methinks we may see him religiously preparing himself the better to receive this bitter Cup solemnly taking that divine Cordial our Spiritual Viaticum the blessed Sacrament in commemoration of
the same sad story tells us all Israel is smitten in another We may humourously attempt to divide but in all History they live or die together While the Prophet thus weeps over the Calamities of Gods Zion and Jerusalem Graviter gemitus imo de pectore ducens he breaks forth into this of the Text as a memorial of sorrow never to be forgotten by him The breath of our nostrils the anointed of the Lord c. In the verse we have to consider 1. The person spoken of who it is the Prophet here means 2. The Calamity into which he fell he was taken in their pits 3. The honorary Character here given him the Anointed of the Lord. 4. The Jews concern in his weal or woe he was the breath of their nostrils under whose shadow they might have liv'd among the heathen I. The person spoken of who that should be I answer Not Josiah as some have conceiv'd he was already gathered to his fathers in peace honourably interr'd amongst the royal Sepulchres of his Ancestors his eyes clos'd with all due Funeral-rites some time before these tragick evils so fatally broke forth Our several seasons of life and death when we enter the Stage and when we go off they are all in Gods hands Three Kings had now successively reigned after Josiah Zedekiah the third in whose time all these amazing miseries so pathetically here described befel Jerusalem Whatever personal failures might be in Zedekiah Rex tamen typus Christi says one no great favourer otherwise of Monarchy Zedekiah was nevertheless a crowned Head and Type of Christ Soveraign of the true 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the City of the great King the Imperial Princess among the Provinces Such was the Person no Plebeian but one of Royal Extraction of the true House and Linage of David and now raised though in a tempestuous conjuncture of Affairs to sit on the Throne of his pious Father Josiah And has our Prophet such tears of Loyalty wherewith to condole this Princes Fall Certainly my Brethren our eyes must not be dry 1. If Israels Zedekiah fell 't was not without great personal blemishes in himself He did says the Text that which was evil in the sight of the Lord. But our late Soveraign a person of that stupendious exemplariness so amiable in whatever might become him as a Christian in whatever might adorn him as a Prince that his Piety became at last his Crime his Love to Gods Church the ground of his Hatred with the Rabble He is ston'd for his good works He is invidiously aspers'd as affected to Popery yet dies in the professed Communion of this Reformed Church The Defender of it a Martyr for it He is odiously upbraided as designing Arbitrary ways of Empire and Tyranny yet dies because he could not in conscience give up those great things of Church and State Religion and Law our true Magna Charta the Body of our ancient English Government to the tumultuous wills of violent and unreasonable men 2. If Zedekiah fell 't was at Babylon above six hundred miles from his own Kingdom The very place was no less than Exile and the distance a most certain exposure to all inevitable dangers But lo here though under different circumstances a far sadder story Our Soveraign after an Iliad of other preceding indignities is murdered at his own Royal Gates in the very face of his Court and Palace He is first barbarously driven away by rude Tumults after that forcibly brought back again by bloody Souldiers full often as himself so lively expresseth it did he change his Keepers and Prison but not his Captive condition And at last the woful upshot proves as David said concerning Ishbosheth Wicked men came upon this righteous person and slew him even in his own house the walls and windows being the sad Spectators both of his Fall and our Treason 3. If Zedekiah fell 't was by the hands of prophane Pagans Nebuchadnezzar's unruly Janizaries not by his own Subjects Zedekiah's Murderers their very temper was Cruelty their nature Rage verifying the sowre character Gods Prophet gives of them A bitter and hasty nation They breath'd out no better than Blood and Slaughter In this case the utmost Inhumanities could be no Surprize all manner of Misery and Death it self the fairest Quarter that could be expected where the Turtle was amongst such ravening Vultures and the Lamb in the midst of such savage Lions But lo here horresco referens our Soveraign falls under far other hands With civiliz'd Nations the mildness of their Education is accounted security enough against the irruptions of Violence where Government is receiv'd the Laws yield Protection where the sacred profession of Christian Religion takes place we are still bound to a far better behaviour of the quietest peacefulness in our places But alas all these divine Bands were here contemptuously broken asunder and then of course upon the violation of them this execrable and horrible thing became committed in our Land 'T was not an Enemy that did it 't would then have been more easily born 'T was the servant who had eat of his Masters bread that here lift up his heel 't was the Subject who had solemnly sworn to bear true Homage and Fealty that now Zimri-like conspir'd and slew his Soveraign Oh what Declarations and Protestations as the language of those times then went that they would make him a most glorious Prince What solemn Appeals to God and the world touching the Loyalty and Integrity of their hearts Now what danger can possibly be suspected where so much kindness is pretended In ipso sceleris molimine Tereus creditur esse pius No such Friends in words yet no such Foes in deeds Oh how wretchedly did we then dissemble both with God and man staining as well our holy Profession as our own Names to all Posterity But no words can express these Villanies so lively as his who suffered them I die says his sacred Majesty a King by the hands of my own Subjects a violent sudden and barbarous death in the strength of my years in the midst of my Kingdom my Friends and loving Subjects being helpless Spectators my Enemies insolent Revilers and Triumphers over me His comfort was as himself so composedly relates it If he thus died a violent death with his Saviour the sequele would be happily this Mortality would be thereby crown'd with Martyrdom 4. If Zedekiah fell yet we read not of any indecent measures used toward him in matters of Religion When the King of Assyria had carried away Israel not long before captive and had transplanted another people into the Holy Land we finde he gave express order that a Priest from among the Captives should go and dwell at Bethel to teach and observe the stated Rites of Religion formerly used amongst them But with us the case strangely alters Many can impetuously demand liberty of Conscience for themselves as the immediate Redress to all our
Grievances the onely Salve to every Sore a Kindness that should be with-held from none Yet after all these oily words to please the deluded people we may finde our Soveraign in his Restraint entreating the attendance and comfort of his Chaplains whom for their Function he reverenced and for their Fidelity he was pleased to say he loved them But alas he is churlishly denied He often requested it as himself tells us hoping that by the help of their Learning Piety and Prayers he might the better sustain the want of all other Enjoyments But still he receives no better than harsh Repulses to his most Christian harmless Desires What was so modestly ask'd by so great a person in so distressed a condition might it seems by no means be heard God keep all Princes from lying at such Subjects mercies Nor would they indeed suffer so much as a book of Divine Service to be allowed him for his own private use The Gates were thrown wide open to take in the Trojan Horse the utmost licentiousness to all wilde novel Opinions but no liberty for that Divine Service so advisedly established so often confirmed by fundamental Laws Lord what Monsters are Subjects when once Rebels II. Concerning the Calamity into which Zedekiah fell 't is said he was taken in their pits as the Bird into the Fowlers Snare as the chased Deer into the Hunters Toil. The Hunters were the Babylonians the Game they pursued and sought for was Zedekiah He fell into their hands as into a pit of destruction from whence he never came forth again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so the Septuagint a word which the Grecians use in the immediate sence of the Text 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so Demost. Zedekiah fell into the fatal Slaughter-house where he was dispoil'd of Life and Crown inhumanely butcher'd and made away Several Transactions of Remark passed between Zedekiah and our Prophet during the Siege of Jerusalem by the Babylonians as we finde Jer. 37. but the sad issue prov'd Hostis habet muros the rude Enemy at last entred into the Sanctuary Gods Holy Temple was now defil'd and Jerusalem made an heap of Stones The Prince himself taken and bound in Chains carried Prisoner to Riblah where his Children were first slain before his face then his eyes most barbarously plucked out and after that his royal person drag'd with all circumstances of scorn as an abject Captive to Babylon So true is that ancient Proverb The tenderest Mercies of some men are little better than savage Cruelties Oh what sore and unexpected measures may even Majesty it self meet with from the hands of cruel and blood-thirsty men Heaven onely yields what Earth cannot a perfect Freedom from all Violence Thrones the highest of Seats have their dangers Happy are those Princes who wrapping up themselves in Gods Grace and their own Innocency can say as our late Soveraign They are not sollicitous what wrong they suffer from man while they retain in their own Souls what is right in the sight of God III. The Honourary Character here given him 't is this The Anointed of the Lord. One sever'd from the rest of the people and advanced to Soveraignty 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Lords Messiah the Lord Christ. Such high such honourable Language does our Prophet think meet to mention his Prince in 'T is not the coarse Northern Salute Good morrow King Jeamy for all day nor is it the Southern Quakerism more demurely canted Plain Charles Steward A good Nathan his gestures and words shall freely declare the profound Reverence his very Heart bears to Majesty And Nathan bowed himself before the King with his face to the ground and said My Lord oh King Certainly Rudeness is not Religion The same God that has anointed his own Son as our Spiritual Messiahs for our eternal Salvation in Heaven has likewise anointed Princes as our Civil Messiah for our temporal Preservation here on Earth This divine Unction 't was aromatick and fragrant rich and costly significant and instructive poured forth as a mysterious inauguration in token of those Princely Endowments in testimony of that transcendent Majesty which God herewith convey'd 'T was Armour of proof for Safety a Robe of Honour for Royalty And there needed no more to bespeak the deepest Reverence to attract the highest Love to exact the awfullest Respects or to fix the truest Allegiance than this single consideration Gods Anointed 'T was this that swayed so far with David while Saul was yet alive And David said to Abishai Destroy him not for who can stretch forth his hand against the Lords anointed and be guiltless He speaks as in a holy passion as one greatly mov'd at the hainousness of this bold Sollicitation Nolo hanc mihi extorqueri obedientiam as if David had said No no Abishai thou seemest my friend but art my foe Get thee behinde me Satan I will never suffer my Loyalty to be thus wrested out of my hands This fair advantage before me may serve to cleer my Innocence but it shall never tempt me to Rebellion Saul is the Lords Anointed to me and I must be a true Liege-Subject to him 'T was this that aggravated the case so highly when Saul was soon after slain And David said to him that is to the young man the Amalekite How wast thou not afraid to stretch forth thine hand to destroy the Lords Anointed Saul had fairly spared the Amalekites to his own ruine That very people whom he had so far shelter'd contrary to Gods express command even they can now afford the person that shall destroy him Whoso is wise will consider it prudent and he will lay these weighty Memoires of Holy Scripture seriously to heart The Jewish Writers tell us this young man was the Son of Doeg that cruel wretch who imbrued his hands in the blood of above fourscore Priests the Ministers of the Lord that wore a linen Ephod for no other fault than the innocent discharge of their sacred Function The very Ministry and the faithful Services of it are crime enough in some mens eyes Doeg himself as divers circumstances seem to imply was at this time Saul's Armour-bearer who seeing the issues of that fatal battel on Mount Gilboa and foreseeing how little favour he could expect from David whom he had so highly offended in the depth of despair falls upon his own Sword But before he thus dies with his Master he calls his Son to him he gives him Saul's Crown and Bracelets that by these Presents he might make his peace with David when he himself was dead and gone But now see my Brethren behold and see the wakefulness of divine Vengeance Lo the severe hand of a just God upon the bloody malicious Family That terrible Prediction which had hung for some time as a drawn-sword over Doeg and his House was now visibly fulfill'd God shall destroy thee for ever he shall take thee away and
in this particular I shall therefore that I may the better promote that great humiliation which the day so earnestly calls for lay before you these few aggravating considerations 1. The violence this day committed 't was a most high affront to that Signature of Sacredness wherewith God hath invested the persons of Princes He hath said and certainly he hath not said it in vain Ye are God A kind of terrestrial Angels Heavens Viceroys sitting as was said of Solomon upon the throne of the Lord. 'T was Solomon's Throne and yet God's 'T was God's Throne and yet Solomon's 'T was God's in way of donation Solomon's in way of possession And this in a true propriety of speech Sic omnes throni Principum Dei throni dici possunt Neither was this Solomon's single prerogative The Thrones of all other Kings the Thrones of our Kings they are no less than the Thrones of God that we might always look with the more aweful reverence upon them The Jews tell us that man in his primitive condition had a bright mark set upon him which they called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pavor at the sight whereof all inferiour Creatures stood in awe and became subject to him And this upon mans Apostacy they say became in a great measure lost We may safely say this orient Signature 't is fairly visible upon the persons of Princes that their Subjects might fear and tremble before them Oh let not us by our Rebellions attempt to deface it 'T is of some moment this way what we finde reported concerning our own Realm If a Villain pursued by his mean Lord could but come and prostrate himself ad sacra vestigia that is at the Kings sacred feet he was then esteem'd as one safe at Sanctuary his Pursuer might now trouble him no further And is the royal presence such an unquestionable Asylum to others Oh then let Reason and Modesty judge how Sacred must the royal person it self be to the Consciences of all good men From the deep sense of this Sacredness it is that the Addresses of religious persons to Majesty are usually tender'd in Holy Scripture with the utmost lowliness As an Angel of God so is my Lord the King The Princes Sphere 't is an Angelical Sphere and in our access to such we stand before those who are already 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Angels of God Holy men of old were far from contriving the base Artifices how to expose Majesty as cheap in the eyes of the People They thought not fit to say to a King Thou art wicked or to Princes Ye are ungodly Their Language and Carriage savor'd of a far better Spirit Whether their Affairs went smooth or rough they were still at this good frame My Lord the King is as an Angel of God These impressions were then indelible when temptations were most busie with David and all outward circumstances concurrent to have made him if possible a bad Kings-man yet then even then he retains his Loyalty and Veneration for his Prince as high as ever God forbid that I should stretch forth mine hand against the Lords Anointed This Sacredness of the Soveraigns person was held inviolable in the Jewish Church where their express Doctrine was that no creature may judge the King this judgement 't is left to the holy and blessed God alone Thus hath God set bounds as at Mount Sinai that the people might not rudely break through or rush with insolencies upon those whose persons he hath made sacred 2. The violence this day committed 't was a most unnatural breach of that neer connexion wherein God hath knit Prince and People together The welfare of the one 't is the welfare of the other the distress of either the danger of both This 't is the plain language of the Text He that runs may read it Zedekiah's Calamity 't is all Israel's Lamentation Any evil befalling him 't is most deeply laid to heart by them We have in the Prophet Ezechiel an aenigmatical passage of this nature Fire is gone out of a rod of her branches which hath devour'd her fruit so that she hath no strong rod to be a scepter to rule this is a lamentation and shall be for a lamentation The Prophets phrase 't is metaphorical Zedekiah and his Sons were now miserably destroy'd and slain the other Branches of the Royal Family inhumanely cut off The first part of this dismal Tragedy 't was acted by Nebuchadnezzar at Riblah and Babylon The second part wherein fire is said to have gone out of a rod of her Branches and to have devour'd her fruit so that she had no strong rod to be a Scepter to rule this may possibly relate to Ishmael mentioned in the 41 of Jeremy who being of the Seed-royal might be not improperly called one of the Rods of those Branches Sure we are fire came out from him and devoured Gedaliah and 70 other eminent persons as that Chapter sadly attests so that there seem'd now no strong Rod left to be a Scepter to rule Hereupon the Prophet so pathetically cries out This is a Lamentation and for a Lamentation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so the 70 it is and it shall be a proverbial mourning a precedent a leading case to future Ages Ad suos usque nepotes as if the Prophet had said While time lives this sorrow will scarce die 'T is not The King is taken away the Government broken up and what care we no no the Church resents it with a far deeper sympathy the Funeral may be his but the Mourning must be ours both ours and our Childrens after us We must go down sorrowing to the Grave The joy of our heart is ceased the crown is fallen from our head May this Piety in Subjects toward their Soveraign live for ever 'T is thus in the natural body He that wounds the Head endangers the whole man 'T is thus in the civil body The smiting of the Shepherd 't is the scattering of the whole Flock We have the brighter side of this Truth fairly exemplified in Solomon's case where his Greatness and his Peoples Happiness his Grandeur and their Welfare went hand in hand kissing and congratulating each other Solomon he reigns over Israel and they brought presents and served Solomon all the days of his life Nor was Israel at all eclipsed by it And Judah and Israel dwelt safely every man under his Vine and under his Fig-tree from Dan to Beersheba all the days of Solomon Here needs be no envying The Princes Felicities they are as Aaron's rich Ointment which presently ran down to the skirts of his Garments where the Head is thus honour'd the whole Body shares and of course rejoyces with it The sadder the darker side of the Cloud we see that too fully verified in the unhappy interregnums under the Judges In those days there was no King in Israel but every man did that which