have Councels power and Authority interest and influence fit to advance the publick welfare by correcting the distempers and reducing all to a due constitution of health They that is 1. Those Princes or Kings Judges and Chief Magistrates who being themselves vicious or Idolatrous or Hypocrites or vain turning Piety into Policy and Religion into reason of state not onely infect the people by the contagion of an impious example but are willing the people should be as bad as themselves That for their enormities being followed by their Subjects they may seem less by the Imitation and as it were Approbation Kings that rule their people not by Law and Justice but by will and Passion more for their own pleasure than the publick Welfare that are great Oppressors flaying as well as fleecing their people yea breaking their bones and eating their flesh Ruling men not as rational creatures of the same Creator nor as brethren in the same Saviour sons to the same Father of their Countrey but as mere Slaves and Vassals forgetting that every King hath a King in heaven above him to whom he is subject and must give account not onely of the hurt he hath done and the wounds he hath made on the soules and bodies the estates and consciences of his people but also of their Health and good he hath left undone when it was in his place and power like the Sun in the firmament or as a little God among men to have been {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} a Catholick good to Church and state that thousands might have been blessed by them in this world and to eternity blessed God for them Not only the hands but the mouths eyes of Princes are healing of their peoples evils if they will but rebuke and reprove frown upon and discountenance evil doers Mens sins and Accounts enlarge according as their influence and relations ampliate which carry their obligations with them to God and man Great place and power are of all things most to be avoided if they onely serve to aggrandise a mans sins either of omission or commission for to augment his Judgment and Eternall torment 2. Those subordinate Counsellors and inferior Magistrates who are under the command of man and more of God these heal slightly when they are not men of Integrity fearing God and hating Covetousness but crafty Complyers with the inordinate lusts and passions with the illegal commands of either Princes or people contrary to their oaths so by flattery or faction to make way for their Ambition and gain by the undeserved favor of either or dividing one from the other by a most unnatural war and jealousie Such as please man rather than God and love themselves more than their Country or the Church such as prefer their bodies and Estates before their souls and put the healings of the Church and true Religion in the last place or Rear of affaires and when they profess to heal the Irreligion of others by severe Acts and Ordinances against Adultery Swearing Prophaness debauchery drunkenness corruption injustice c. yet themselves are higher by the shoulders than the most of the people in these and other enormities As if Peers or privy-Counsellors or Counsellors of State or Parliament-men had a Priviledg to sin more or to repent and suffer less than other men Nothing weakens the credit and Authority of any publick Lawes so much as when the Law-givers least observe them or are the first that break them like Physicians that prescribe strict diet to their Patients but themselves indulge all manner of Epicurisme Here every one is prone to retort Physician heal thy self The best things are commonly done by the best hands Religio medici Conscience is here required as well as his Science They will hardly do their Country good who care not either to serve God or to save their own souls Men should make conscience of private actions much more of publick adventures which are of grand consequence as the undertakings in war and not to be done rashly slovenly slightly and indifferently Nor may publick Counsellors or Ministers of State like Achitophel think they do wisely or safely because they go with the vogue and stream of times with the winde and tide or humor of some people in their prevalent Factions discontents and clamors by which vote Christ himself was crucified Mark 15.13 Common people in their Paroxismes or fits of discontent like sick and pained patients are ill Dictators to their Physicians who must advise better for them than they would for themselves else they will heal their hurts very slovenly slowly and ill-favouredly to their own sin and reproach as well as others pain and charge Nor is it enough for Aarons excuse to say The people are set upon mischief when they would needs have him make them visible Egyptian Gods to go before them under the figure of a golden calf to be instead of their true and invisible God publick Persons and Honorable Counsellors as Joseph of Arimathea must not go quâ itur sed qua eundum as peoples fury or the prevalent Faction drives them but as the Word of God and the Lawes of the land direct them else they shall bear not onely their own but the iniquity of their people who sin and suffer unwarned and naked hurt and unhealed upon the account of such cowardly Counsellors and corrupt Magistrates or Ministers of State all whose wisdomes will come to nought and they will at length like Achitophel be snared in the halters of their own twisting 3. Those Priests and Prophets those Pastors and Teachers those Bishops and Presbyters who are in Publick Place and sacred Authority as to the things of God the matters of Religion and mens souls good These heal slightly when they do the Work of God negligently when they skin over scandalous publick sins as Ely to his Sons with soft reproof when they sowe pillows under Princes Parliaments and peoples elbowes when they fear the face and offence of men more than of God when they are workmen that need to be ashamed their Lives and Actions confuting their Instructions and their doing making their Doctrine to blush when they heal publick Enormities or calamities by I know not what novel Inventions and magick spels of fine words which are no better than the powder of a post compared to the approved Catholick prescriptions of 1600 years which were soveraign for Clergy and Laity to preserve order and unity soundness of Doctrine and inscandalousness of manners in the Church of Christ under Christian Kings and Queens who were bountifull nursing Fathers and Mothers to the Church of Christ and the Clergy yet not by the Dominion and pomp luxury and tyranny of Bishops nor yet by the Factious and refractory humours of Presbyters much less by the schismatick sauciness of people who cast off both Bishops and Presbyters but by the fatherly
A SERMON PREACHED In St. Pauls Church London before the Right Honourable the Lord Major Lord General Aldermen Common Council and Companies of the Honourable City of London February 28. 1659. BEING A day of solemn Thanksgiving unto God for Restoring of the Secluded Members of Parliament to the House of Commons The Common Council And preserving the City and a Door of Hope thereby opened The fulness and freedom of future Parliaments The most probable means under God for healing the hurts and recovering the health of these three Brittish Kingdomes By JOHN GAVDEN D.D. Ezek. 21.26 27. Thus saith the Lord Remove the Diadem and take off the Crown this shall not be the same exalt him that is low and abase him that is high I will overturn overturn overturn it and it shall be no more untill he come whose it is and I will give it him Restat ut pauciores pluribus cedant hoc uno stant popularia imperia aliter casura H. Gro. Hist. Bet. l. 17. pag. 150. LONDON Printed for Andrew Crook at the Green Dragon in Pauls Church-yard 1660. Aleyn Major A Common Council holden the 29. of February 1659. Ordered that the thanks of this Court be given to Dr. Gauden who preached Yesterday before them at St. Pauls Church And that he from this Court be desired to print this Sermon SADLER To the right Honourable THOMAS ALEYN Lord Mayor of the City OF London THE Court of Aldermen and Common-Counsel AS by your Desire I was induced to preach the following Sermon so by your Order in Common Council I was requested to print what I preached I have obeyed you in both and supererogated in the later adding something prepared but omitted for want of time and a respect due to your expectation of a second and better course on that Festival This I have done not only as compliant with your Christian Commands but as solicitous to conform all my endeavours to the publick Good of your City and our common Countrey which a great part of the Church of Christ and many precious souls as well as mens bodies Lives Liberties Honours and Estates are embarqued All which have for our sins been long engaged in a tempest of War and sea of Blood nor have they been able to make any fair Port or happy Haven these many years since they lost their Pilots and Compass their King and Parliaments by the various Euroclydons of mens passions Lusts and Interests which have tossed them to and fro with every wind made great waste of all that is precious for Religion Justice and Honour besides Estates and Lives of men in the three Kingdomes threatning all either with speedy and utter Shipwrack by forreign Invasion or an everlasting storm by domestick confusions untill the unexpected and undecerned providence of God began to open to your and the Countryes prayers some door of hope by the prudent valiant and succesfull Conduct of the present Lord General Monck from whom all good men expect all good things nor can he deceive them without deceiving and destroying himself and his Countrie Your gratitude to God for this seasonable dawning of Mercy which seems to bespeak a great calm occasion'd your solemn Convention that day and my preaching to you In which work you cannot wonder if I endeavoured to shew my self a Work-man that needed not to be afraid or ashamed being very sensible with you of the great many and long hurts of the daughter of my people both in Church and State I then freely declared them to you I deplored them with you I proposed the methods of cure to you as fully as the time will permit and as freely as became my duty to my God and my conscience As I would not injure any man or fester the times so I abhor to flatter them which is the greatest injury a Preacher can do to Church and State Some I hear were offended then late of Christs of John Baptists and Saint Pauls preaching at the plain dealing I used which possibly was from thier overrawness and soreness more then from my roughness As I aim to do things faithfully personally so decently and discreetly Nor do I think I am to learn of those Censorious Catos how to preach any more then they will learn of me how to buy and sell or how to fight and war No man may wonder if I dare to reprove those sins which some dare to do or approve but dare not hear of or repent The parrhesie or freedom of my speech as a man a Christian and a Preacher was such as became my feeling of the publick miseries my desire of the publick tranquility and my sense of that fidelity I ow to God to my Countrey to you and to my own soul These are not times to palliate and speak smooth or soft things Never age had fouler humours or prouder tumours more felt and more painfull more hard and less mollified These I would help to cure that so we might recover publick health together with our wits and reason our Laws and Religion our good Confidence and Government our Peace and Unanimity all which we have lost since we lost our heads in Church and State Our full and free Parliaments consisting of King Lords and Commons in which the soule and life the honour and happiness of these Nations are bound up And no part of it is more concerned then your famous sometime flourishing and still populous City in whose happiness the whole Nation will be happy and in its misery all must be miserable Since London is not only as a ponderous Byas to the great bowl which draws all parts towards it but it is as the Mistress Lady or Queen to which every Village City and Countrey of the Nation as officious Hand-maids study to present all manner of costly comlyness not only feminine as the superfluity of peace and plenty but also masculine for London like Pallas is furnished as with men of Counsel and Conduct with Treasure and Strength with all sorts of Armes and Aminition being a Camera Imperii Britanii a vast Magazine of men and money a nursery of all Arts Mechanick Ingenuous and Military a great entertainer of Learning and a noble encourager of Religion wanting nothing to make it self and the Nation happy if it have such heroick minds and honest hearts and become so rich so great and so Christian a City 'T is true like plethorick bodies great care must be had how ill humours yea and good ones too are put into motion since the first cannot well be long kept in nor may the second be purged out The first threatning dangerous inflamations the second no less dangereus Evacuations Here Prudence Order Moderation Confidence and Unanimity are required besides Zeal and Courage in order to recover your and our former health in Church and State which was made up of an admirable temper and constitution till sin tumults violence and war cast us into these Feavers Convulsions and Confusions with which
chief Magistrate of a Commonwealth to be similis altissimo as high as the highest in three Kingdoms which unity of this Church those have sought most subtilly to divide whose interests and purposes was to destroy it that by balancing of parties they might better keep up themselves as dancers on the rope are wont to do This restoring of the Church to its pristine unity is to be done by such an harmony of Doctrine as may be publickly owned and confessed by such an uniform way of worship as shall be publickly recommended and encouraged by such an authoritative and orderly Church Government among Bishops Presbyters and People as may carry on the Discipline of the Church for Ordination and Censure with gravity and honor with piety and charity redeeming both holy things and the Ministers of them from that vulgar insolency and Plebeian contempt under which they are fallen and have long lain either by their own indiscretion levity and divisions or by the petulancy force or fraud of others whose aim is to have no Presbyters as well as no Bishops yea and no Churches of the Reformed Religion That lenitive of equanimity forbearance and moderation in respect of consciencious Dissenters from the publique consent customs and constitutions in the Church which Christian charity requires and publique peace with safety may bear will best be prepared and applied when we fully see what is noxious malicious and intolerable what is only inconvenient and imprudent or infirm and venial in mens opinions and pretensions to be sure such a wise method may be used and such a course taken to have able Ministers and honest Magistrates concur in their judgement and joynt endeavors that the Justice of the one and the gentleness of the other the ability and sanctity of both in their places and performances may be such as shall render the established Religion so venerable and conspicuous as will in a few years draw all sober men to it when they shall see nothing in it but what is for the main conformable to Gods Word and necessary either for the being ot wel-being of Humane and Christian Societies As Civil so Ecclesiastical hurts are best that is soonest easiest surest healed revertendo ad leges bonas antiquas by returning as the wounded Hart to Dictamnum to those Laws and Canons wâ— are not therefore bonae quia antiquae but therefore antiquae quia bonae in which the aequum unum bonum make the vetustum Their verity equity and piety gave rise to their antiquity and their antiquity gave reverence and solemnity to their equity or goodness T is certain there can be no compleat health in the body till every part every limb every vein every vessel doth its Office in due time and place irregularities must be rectified defects supplied excesses repressed ill humors purged and all reduced by Law to good order A blessed work and to be done with as much Moderation and gentleness as the fidelity of the cure will permit and the spreading of the disease doth require wherein many parts may by weakness or by nearness to the fons morbi the first peccant or ill affected part have contracted sad distempers which will easily be cured of their anguish if the evil neighborhood be mended Here generous and gracious remissions are just and Christian to misled multitudes and to such whose penitent errors shew they were not of malice but credulity and mistake who are more zealous now for health than ever they were to be debauched and disordered so much to their own and the publique affliction Acts of pardon Amnesty or Oblivion are excellent lenitives Publico bono tam publicae quam privatae simultates injuriae sunt condonandae to pardon as well publique as private losses and injuries to the publique peace to interpret the intent and meaning of either side to have been good who persist not in evil the zeal of some to maintain their Loyalty to the King for which they thought they had the clearest commands of Gods Laws and mans The zeal of others to preserve the lawful priviledges and fixed authority of Parliaments against any thing that by violent overthrowing of those must needs hazard the overthrow of all possibly neither of these parties might be so bad or blameable as to the first intentions but that they may easily be reconciled in the medium which both first professed to intend namely King and Parliament setled laws and established Religion if this had been kept to the quarel had been soon ended in Church and State the misery was that by jealousies and misunderstandings the passions and transports of both sides might so overbear them as to occasion those sad conflicts and consequences upon both which neither of them at first intended but deprecated and detested mean time while humors were in motion new and unexpected diseases got head under the name of interest of State of liberty and common equity which had no law little reason or Religion So between the Episcopal Presbyterian and Independent Parties much of the acidness and sharpness of the humor would be allayed if this Poltice of charitable censure and interpretation were applyed one all sides that the first did but aim to maintaine the order and eminency of presidential Episcopacy which was so universal so antient so primitive so apostolical and so prosperous in the Church of Christ the second designed onely to bring Episcopacy to such a paternal temperament with Presbytery that the whole Clergie of a Diocess and the concerns of Religion might not be exposed to one mans sole jurisdiction without the such joynt counsel consent and assistance of Ministers as is safest for Bishops Presbyters and People the third of Independents or Congregationists which seemed to stickle for the interests of people in religious transactions where their souls are so much concerned what Minister they have and how both he and others of their congregation behave themselves either to the edification and comfort or the scandal and grief of that part or members of the Church with which they actually congregate and communicate It seems but agreable to the ancient usage of the Churches of Christ in St. Cyprians Tertullians and Irenaeus his time that no publique transactions much less impositions touching Religion should be made without fairly aquainting the Clergy and Christian people too with the grounds and reasons of them that Church-government might not seem to be a tyranny or an arbitrary and absolute domineering over the faith and consciences of Christs flock but a mutual and sweet conspiring of the Shepherds with the sheep to make each other happy in truth and love by orderly authority and due subordination I should be glad to see the beams of this candor this kindness this charity shine in all faces from all sides that the Shiboleths of different dialects and designes the carnal and unhappy discriminations of I am of Paul I of Apollos and I