A SERMON Preached to the GENTLEMEN OF YORKSHIRE, At Bow-Church in LONDON, The 24th of June, 1684. Being the Day of their Yearly FEAST. By Tho. Cartwright D. D. Dean of Ripon, and Chaplain in Ordinary to His MAJESTY. London, Printed for Tho. Fl●sher, at the Angel and Crown in St. Paul's Churchyard. 1684. To all my very much Honoured Friends, the respective Natives of the County of YORK; more especially to those of the Late Solemn Meeting, and particularly to the Worthy Stewards of the FEAST, Sir Robert Legard, Sir Thomas Yarburgh, Abstrupas Danby, Richard Thornton, Lionel Richardson, Christopher Todd, George Sayer, John Hatfield, Henry Rapier, David Prole, George Talbot, William Wyler. SIRS, IN an Age wherein Religion and Loyalty have been of late so much out of fashion, I could not but be very well pleased to find such a Discourse as this, so acceptable to a considerable part of the greatest County in the Kingdom, as that You not only gave it the hearing, (though I tried your patience, more than would have become me upon any other Subject than The Whole Duty of Man) but were also pleased una imously to command the Publication of it for the benefit of others who might need the counsel of my Text, more than yourselves. How unfit I was to perform the Task which you laid upon me, my own Reason (though exceeding weak) does sufficiently resolve me; but the Subject is such as will recommend itself, and the weaker my Discourse upon it is, the more pregnant Testimony will it be of my Obsequiousness to your Commands, when I shall have given up it and my Understanding to your Pleasure If it help to make any better Christians or Subjects, I shall think my Pains very well bestowed, and be very thankful for the Honour you have done me in laying your Commands upon me to undertake this Employment, and giving me this fair opportunity of testifying to the World, how ready I am to approve myself, Your most faithful and obedient Servant in all Offices of true Piety and Loyalty, THO. CARTWRIGHT. PROV. 24. 21, 22. My Son, Fear thou the Lord and the King, and meddle not with them that are given to change: For their Calamity shall rise suddenly, and who knoweth the ruin of them both? THE Author of this Advice to a Son, was Solomon, the wisest of Men by the Testimony of Wisdom 1 King. 3. 12. itself; and of all his Divine Proverbs or Aphorisms, this of my Text is the choicest, being a short and select sentence, which he requires his Son to get by heart, and recommends to his practice as the greatest piece of Piety and Policy he could teach him. 'Tis indeed the Whole Duty of Man, which Solomon here preaches and publishes (not in his own Name, and as some would have it in favour of himself as a King, but) in the Name of the God of Wisdom, whose Image and Superscription it bears; 'tis the Language of the Holy Scriptures, and hath the Breathe of the Spirit of God upon it, by whom he was inspired to give this Divine Counsel, not only to Rehoboam the Prince, as his Natural Son; nor to his own Subjects only of Judah and Jerusalem, as his Politic Sons; but as a Divine Prophet, to us also, upon whom the ends of the World are come, as his Spiritual Sons; to all sorts and degrees of Men, but especially to them, who would be thought not to live without God in the World, nor to be Aliens to the Commonwealth of Israel, or Strangers to the Covenant of Grace, but to be the Legitimate Sons of God and Solomon; 'tis to them that he directs his Paternal Counsel, whom he calls his Sons, to show his love to them, as well as his power over them: And to satisfy them that their Father's Precept will be for his Son's Profit, he bids them look upon Obedience to God and the King, not as any servile Yoke put upon their Natural Liberty, which they might watch a fair opportunity to shake off when they could, but to pay the duty of Fear to them both, upon Filial Principles, which is the Glorious Liberty of Rom. 8. 21. the Sons of God, wherewith Christ hath made us free, and in which St. Paul commands us to stand fast, as Gal. 5. 1. well as Solomon. Which is a more seasonable Subject for this Place, and these Times, than any Honest Man could wish it, and that on which the meanest Preacher may speak more with case, than some of his Auditors can hear with patience. In the words of my Text we have, I. A Paternal Precept, My Son, fear thou the Lord and the King; in which I must observe, 1. The Affection which he commands his Son to cherish in his Breast, and that is fear. 2. The Proper Objects of it, and those in Solomon's Judgement are God and the King, in which give me leave to observe two things; 1. The Methodical Order and disposition of the words, First God, and then the King. 2. The close and intimate connexion between God and the King, 'tis the nearest that may be, for there is no disjunctive, but a mere copulative between them, they are joined together by that Wisdom which is from above; even by the Spirit of Wisdom, and none but a Man of Belial will ever attempt to put them asunder. II. A Peremptory Prohibition, Meddle not with them that are given to change; not with Tale-bearers, who do falsely accuse others to the King, nor with them who speak evil of him and his Government to the People. III. The Proper Suggestion upon which that Prohibition is grounded, or the reason of that restraint, which he lays upon his Son, drawn from the Changers, and the Meddlers doom, which is aggravated from Four Particulars. 1. It's certainty, doubt it not, their calamity shall rise. 2. It's suddenness, it shall surprise them suddenly and unexpectedly. 3. It's strangeness, 'tis a Nemo scit, who knows it? 4. It's extent, it will reach to the ruin both of the Changers and Meddlers, for they shall be both ruined, and receive to themselves Damnation both Temporal and Eternal. I know you want a Remembrancer more than an Instructor in this Lesson of Piety and Loyalty; give me leave therefore to stir up that knowledge which is already in you, that so you may go away the more considerate, if not the more intelligent from this Exercise; and to say with St. Peter in the like case, I will not be negligent to put you in remembrance of these things, 2 Pet. 1. 12, 13. though ye know them and be established in the present truth, yea I think it meet to stir you up by putting you in remembrance, of 1. The Paternal Precept, My Son, Fear thou the Lord and the King. Now 1. The affection, which he commands his Son to cherish in his heart is fear; and there is no passion more necessary for all sorts of Men than this of fear, the early want whereof was so visible in our first Parents; for had they feared, they had not fell, but this their Guardian Angel being departed from them, they quickly lost their Innocence and Paradise. The only care must be, that it be placed upon its right objects, and these in Solomon's Judgement are only two, God and the King. 1. He counsels us to fear God with a Filial Fear of Reverence and Circumspection, a Conscientious Fear in Worshipping him, and a Careful Fear of offending him, such as becomes all ingenuous and dutiful Children, who out of love to their Parents are afraid of displeasing them, and of falling short of their duty to them; which Filial Fear, he who is born of God, cannot put off, but he will be fearful of any stone of stumbling in the whole course of his life, which may make him fall into Sin, and will make it his principal care and design to approve the sincerity of his heart to the piercing eye of a jealous God, which Fear discovers itself, not in a trembling amazement, but in a cheerful and uniform Obedience to all his Commandments; which is such a divine fear as never damps his Spirits, or robs him of those succours which Reason would afford him, but makes him as bold as a Lion, and may Prov. 28. 1. therefore be justly termed the beginning or principal Prov. 9 10. part of Wisdom. And indeed what greater folly and madness can the most desperate Malefactor be guilty of, than to commit Capital Crimes in the sight of his Judge? And yet how easily are we tempted to offend the dreadful Majesty of the Omnipresent and Almighty Judge, who observes our closest Actions, and will infallibly call us to account for them, and reward us according to what we have done in the flesh, whether it have been good or evil? When you walk in the ways of Math. 16. 27. Eccl. 11. 9 your own hearts, and in the sight of your eyes, remember that for all these things God will bring you to Judgement. And knowing this terror of the Lord, let me persuade 2 Cor. 5. 11. you, not to let your Lives give your Lips the lie, when you say that you fear him; but consider that you naturally fix your eyes upon that which you fear, and cannot easily get that out of your minds which doth affright you. If therefore you pretend to be afraid of God's displeasure, where is your tenderness of his Honour? Your care to please him, your zeal for his Cause and Service, your delight in his Commands, and your rejoicing to do his Will? You cannot fear his Name, and blaspheme it: If against the clear evidence of his Word, and your own Consciences, you entertain any rebellious thoughts against the Lord whom you should fear, you can neither escape his sight in this life, nor his vengeance in the next. Be not deceived, God is not mocked, by wearing his Livery, and doing the Devil Service; by talking as if you were inspired, and had Cloven Tongues, and yet acting as if you were possessed, as some Cloven Footed Protestants have of late done. There is no way to please God, 2 Cor. 10. 5. Jam. 1. 22. but by bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ: Be ye therefore doers of his Word, and not hearers only: Indent not with him to spare you, no not in your darling sins, but resist them to the blood, because the keeping of some of his Commandments, will not expiate for the breach of the rest: Make no League with any Gibeonite; spare no Agag, no ruling sin, but crucify the Old Man with his affections and lusts; Dash all those Babylonish Brats against the stones, which are Traitors to the Crown and Dignity of the King of Heaven; throw them from you with the same indignation that you would do those loathsome things which you cannot behold without great distemper: Let Christ be your King on Earth, and he will be your Saviour in Heaven: Be as ready to be overruled by him here, as to be rewarded by him hereafter; so shall you prove yourselves to be Solomon's Sons indeed, nay Sons of God, and Heirs of Eternal Glory: always provided, that to this fear of God, you add that of the King. 2. My Son, Fear the King. God commands us to subdue our wills▪ to that will of Man on Earth, that he may the better subdue us to his own will in Heaven; and accordingly our Saviour came into the World to take away the Sins, not the Laws of it. Nor was the Religion he established designed to lose the Reins of Civil Government, but to keep Subjects under the same and greater Obligations than he found them; to make sacred the Persons as well as Offices of Princes, and to establish their just Prerogatives, as being those Visible and Mortal Gods, whom the Almighty had honoured with his Name, and to whom he had deligated his Vicegerent power over us, and bound us, not only for wrath, but also for Conscience sake, to obey and fear them, as ordained of him, and to reverence that Divine Character of Sovereignty, which that his Ordination had impressed upon them: Fear Good Kings as God, Bad Ones for him, though they should strain the necessary and essential Powers of Government beyond its due pitch, and become as very Tyrants, as Nero was, whose Power was from God in St. Paul's Rom. 13. 1. 2. judgement, though the abuse of it were from himself, and his way of attaining it not justifiable: For the Roman Emperors were not by right, but by force then Lords of the World, and yet he commands Every Soul, Omnis anima quoniam ex animo, to be sincerely subject to them; and though they were unworthy of that Authority which they usurped and abused, yet were they not in any case to be resisted under peril of Damnation. 'Twas God made Solomon King over Israel, not the Priest or the People; and he is said to have set him on 2 Chron. 9 8. his own Throne, to let the People know that he did immediately represent his Person, and was in his stead among them, as his Vicegerent and Lieutenant under him. Ind est Imperator unde & homo antequam Imperator, Tertul. inde potestas illi, unde & Spiritus: He made him a King, who made him a Man; and from him had he his Sceptre, from whom he had his Soul. And this was no Court-Complement of Tertullian's, (None of those Love-Tricks which were played between the King and his People in the Honeymoon of His Majesty's Restauration, as the Plato Redivivus, who is not yet out of love with his Commonwealth Principles styles them) nor did he speak it in his own Person, but as the Judgement of the whole Catholic Church, whose Cause he was then defending: So that the King does not Reign it seems in the Judgement of the Primitive Church, either by the Commission of the Pope, or the Courtesy of the People, who can no more choose their Princes, than their Parents; and have as much Reason and Religion on their side to renounce the Authority of the one, as of the other; and if there were any case, in which it might be lawful for us to cast off the Yoke of their Authority, who should be judge of the Fact? Neither the King nor his Subjects, for both are Parties: but Polybius his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the Law of Hands, the longest Sword must be the Arbiter of that Controversy; and how bloody a sentence that will give, on which side soever it light, our Civil Wars, and the fatal period of them, may easily convince us; by which all that we gained at last, was an endless liberty of ruining one another without hope of redress. Though the King should oppose Gods express and immediate Will, and overturn the very Foundations of Religion, yet the Almighty is able to defend his own Cause; nor will He allow the People, whose Passions, Humours and Insolences make them always unfit to become Reformers, without and against his express warrant to usurp so great a Power, as to pretend to any right to restrain the Royal Power which they never gave. Let us therefore as becomes Solomon's Sons, pay the Duty of Subjection to whatsoever Prince God in his overruling Providence shall think fit to set over us: for though he were as bad as Nabuchadnezzar the King of Babylon, we must either serve him, or perish eternally, and they prophesy a lie to you in God's Name who preach any other Doctrine, if the Prophet Jeremiah say true, Jer. 27. 10, 15, 16. With what Alacrity then should we subject ourselves to such a Pious and Gracious King as our is, who if he be not in as much reverence with us, as he is in esteem with God, all our pretended Piety to the Deputer, will never expiate our Disloyalty to his Deputy; which will the better appear, because the Obedience which God commands us to yield the King, is but the payment of an Old Debt, which is due by the Fifth Commandment to the Supreme Father of our Country, to him as next Heir to Adam, the first Monarch of the World, in whom the Supremacy was as large and unlimited as any act of his Will; for God gave him Dominion over the World, and made him Sole Proprietor of it, Gen. 1. 28. And if he had not been so expressly made the Sovereign Lord of the Universe by that Special Commission from the High Court of Heaven, yet all Mankind being sprung from his Loins, were born in Subjection to him by the Law of God and Nature, which invested him with a Patriarchal and Uncontrollable Power, not only over his Children, but also over those who were descended from them, during his life; which being transmitted after his death to his Eldest Son and Successor Seth, (Cain having forfeited his Birthright by the Murder of Abel) and so downwards in the right line, there could never be a time till the Flood when the World was not under such a Monarchical Government. Now when the Universal Deluge had swept away all Mankind but Noah and his Sons; Noah was not Gen. 9 2. Tenant in common with his Sons, as one Lawyer's Opinion is, (who was no better a Friend to the Crown than the Church) for God would never have disinherited so just and pious a Prince as Noah, whom he made the Restorer of all Mankind: And therefore Cedrenus and Eusebius tells us, (as that Antiquary knew well enough) that he by the Right which God and Nature had invested him with, did Twenty Years before his death make a Partition of the World among his Sons, allotting to every one his share, which he confirmed by his last Will, and gave it into the Hands of Sem; and to him over and above his share, after his death, a kind of Supremacy, as Lord in chief over the whole, admonishing them to live peaceably, and not to invade each others Territories. Nor did the Kings lose their Ground, till after Joshuah's time; for then the tame People thought this Prerogative Doctrine, which we now Preach, to be wholesome Divinity, and yet they were neither Evil Counsellors, nor Flattering Courtiers, nor Time-serving Priests who put him upon it; nor was he himself thought a Tyrant for accepting such an Arbitrary Power over them, as this would seem to be through a Pair of Modern Spectacles, Josh. 1. 10, 11. And they answered Joshua, saying, All that thou commandest us we will do, and whithersoever thou sendest us we will go, according as we harkened to Moses in all things, so will he hearken unto thee; and whosoever he be that doth rebel against thy Commandment in all that thou commandest him, he shall be put to death. And that the Kings of England hold their Imperial Crowns (for so Nine several Statutes at least do call them) by the Law of God and Nature, subject to none but the Almighty and only Ruler of Princes, and not by Human Institution, hath been the agreement of all Parliaments, though of different Interest, Religion and Tempers, whom they therefore styled their Supreme Natural Liege Lord, Omnes sub eo & ipse sub nullo nisi tantum sub Deo, saith Bracton, who was Lord Chief Justice in Henry the Third's time, next under God, and inferior to none but him; so that his is Potestas Dei Vicaria, a Ray of God's Majesty, who hath armed him with the Power of Life and Death by his Commission, who alone could put the Sword into his hands for that purpose, as being the sole Arbiter of Life and Death, who only can take it away, because he gave it. For 'tis plain to all who understand any thing but Rebellion, that the People's Consent could not do it, for they have not Power over their own Lives, and so could not transfer that to another which they had not themselves. His Title may well be Dei Gratia, for of God does he hold his Crown in Capite; 'tis by his Grace that Kings are what they are, and our Kings of England have their Crowns unquestionably established by an Inherent and Independent Right Antecedent to their Coronations, by Birthright, by Consent, by Prescription, and by Law, which are all the ways whereby any Right can be legally established; and 'tis the Power of God in their Hands to which we are required to subject ourselves; and the violation of every particular Law made by them, does necessarily draw along with it the violation of the general Law of God, by which he commands Matth. 22. 21. Obedience to them, not with eye-service as men-pleasers, but in singleness of heart fearing God and the King. In which words we are diligently to observe two things. 1. Their Methodical Order and Disposition, Fear them both in their proper Order, but First God; and 'tis 1 Tim. 6. 15. good reason, for He is King of Kings; and Lord of Lords. If the King bids, what God forbids, and so the fear of both become incompatible, you must obey God ●ather than Man, because the Subordinate must yield to the Supreme, God's Minister to the Master and Maker▪ of us all; and therefore though it may be sometimes necessary not to obey the King actively, (as it happened to the Captive Jews under Nabuchadnezzar, and to some of the Apostles under the Roman Emperors,) for they could not obey God and the King too, and then the Case of Conscience was easily resolved, in as much as his Commands were countermanded by an higher and greater Power, and the Obligation of such irregular Precepts rescinded by a more indisputable Authority, and a more indisputable Law than his, even by the clear express word of God, which is the Standard of Obedience both to him and the King; and yet even then a passive Obedience was and is necessary in the Judgement of the first and best Christians, who when they could not obey with Piety, did die with Patience, and lay quietly down under the burden which they durst not bear; they patiently expected a redress of such unusual Emergencies from the good Providence of God, for whose sake they suffered them. But alas! In our Iron-Age a little Loyalty and less Religion serves most men's turns; there is nothing more pretended to, nor any thing less practised than either; and they who are most forward to dispute who is to be feared God or the King, first or most, are usually the Men who (for all their tender Consciences, which serve for nothing but to mischief others and themselves) seldom fear or obey either; for if they did, they would observe, a little better than they do, 2ly, The close Connexion between God and the King, 'tis so near that there is no Disjunctive, but a mere Copulative between them; My Son, fear thou God and the King, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and be disobedient Sept. or contumacious to neither of them. If there were not a God in Heaven, there would be no Gods on Earth; nor would Mankind subject themselves to Government, but that there is something of the Image of God in it, to which they are bound by an Inherent Principle which Religion improves to pay a Natural Homage. Our Civil Peace would soon be turned into a Civil War, if it were not for this; and therefore there never was any Nation so Impolitic and Bruitishly Barbarous, but that they embraced and established some Religion or other among them, as knowing how great Influence it had on the Body Politic. Religion when pure and undefiled, hath always proved a good Friend to Government; and that Religion will at last be found to be best, which befriends and strengthens it most; and the better Christians Men are, the better Subjects they will be: for the Integrity of Christian Loyalty, as Arnobius proves against the Gentiles, is greater than that of any other Religion which was ever received in the World. Vos Conscios timetis, nos Conscientiam: You are subject for fear your Disloyalty should rise up in Judgement against you before Men, but we for fear our Consciences should accuse us before God. 'Tis the fear of him which begets in us the fear of the King, who represents him, and exercises his Authority over us. Our Religion allows not the least opposition to be made by any private Man, or any Body of Men to their Superiors, but strictly and indisponsibly requires our Subjection to the Authority of the Worst Princes, and forbids our laying violent hands on them, though they were Tyrants, and Invaders of the People's Liberties; the very Worst of Men as well as Kings, looks not upon their failings to be any abatement of their Power, nor admits any Asylum for their Assassinates or Murderers. And I may venture to say in all places without the hazard of a Quarrel, That the Principles of the Church of England are as innocent and peaceable, and at least as Auxiliary to the Civil Government, as the Maxims and Articles of any Church under Heaven, and much more than those of the Church of Rome or Geneva, in respect of their extravagant Papal or Popular Power, of the Conclave or Synod, directly or indirectly exercised by either of them in Ordine ad Spiritualia, and the Exemption of their Clergy from the Coercive Power of Princes. Our Principles are, and have in all Ages been truly serviceable to the Government of Civil as well as of Religious Societies; and our Protestant Religion established by Law, hath the promise of this life and that which is to come, and may justly be termed the best Reason of State: Nor can any thing be of greater importance to the Security or Ruin of the Kingdom, than the well or ill Administration of it. Most certain it is, that no Society can be upheld without Oaths, Promises and Engagements, which are the Highest Security of which Mankind is capable; nor can any of them hold, unless Religion bind us to it; and therefore in Machiavel's Judgement, (who was none of the best Friends to it) 'tis of great Importance to a State to preserve a worthy esteem of it. And wise Princes will both in point of Gratitude and Interest cherish the National Religion, which is a part of the Government, and being bred up with it, will be sure never to give it any disturbance, by prohibiting and restraining all strange and new Religions, which will only serve to exercise the King's patience, and keep him in breath with the Disturbances they will create among his Subjects, (of which the late times have been an unhappy instance) for the prevention whereof, God hath put the Sword into his hands, and he must not bear it in vain, but use it whilst he has it, as a proper Instrument for the preservation of Peace and Piety in his Dominions: This is that which makes his Authority so Sovereign, and his Person so sacred, that the Historian hath placed him next to God himself, as well as Solomon, Proximus Diis habetur, per quem Deorum Majestas Justin. 1. vindicatur. There is but one fear in my Text, which is due both to God and the King; the Almighty hath joined them together as well as Solomon, and he would have us do so too: therefore neither the Popes nor the Speakers Chair must be set between Gods and the King's Throne; no just Interposition of any third Person and Power, for our Debt to God and the King commences from our Birth; and the Duties of Obedience to God, and of Allegiance to the King, are of the first and greatest Importance, the Obligation whereof must be first paid, or else an Everlasting Judgement will be entered against us in this Life, and infallibly executed in the next. Now there are three sorts of People who do attempt to disjoin God and the King in this kind; The Papal Jesuit, the Protestant Jesuit, and he who pretends to be a Royalist, and yet disgraces so good a Cause by his profane Life. The two first are Fratres in Malo, Twins of Rebellion, the Elder is of the Ignatian Fraternity, and Roman Conclave, who puts the Pope; the Younger of the Puritanical Assembly or Classis, which puts the People between God and the King; and therefore I call the one a Papal, and the other a Fanatical Jesuit; for I believe them both to be Roman Pensioners, two Parties commanded by one General, because in all times, when the Government hath been charging one of them in the front, the other hath always treacherously attacked it in the rear, (and as much of late as ever) and both proved themselves in the end, Abhorrers of Monarchy, underhand Contrivers, and restless Opposers of it, as they always pretend for Conscience sake, out of a joint design to make the King a Property, and his Government Precarious: Their Names are different, but their Nature is the same in point of Disobedience. And the third, viz. The Profane Liver, who pretends to Loyalty by making no Conscience of his Duty towards God, is also a false Traitor to the King, notwithstanding the many good words he gives him, and the great Honour he vainly boasts in all Companies to bear towards Him. 1. Give me leave to set first to the Bar the Papal Jesuit, who is all for the fear of God, the Propagation of the Catholic Religion, and of the Apostolical See of Rome; but tell him of the fear of the King, and then he leaves you, as if the Pope and He were the Real Defenders of the Faith, and the King only the Nominal and Titular one; and accordingly he teaches his proselytes to weigh out their Obedience to him by Drams and Scruples in a Pair of Jesuitical Scales; makes the Prince stand to the Pope's Allowance for Authority, and take● his leave, who of course exempts all the Clergy from their Obedience to their Natural Sovereign, and makes them pay their Suit and Service to him as their Lord Paramount, as if his Tribunal and Gods were but one; and the Civil Magistrate by becoming the Son of the Church, had lost his Secular Power. An excellent Doctrine to convert Pagan Princes to the Christian Religion, or Protestants to the Popish! The fatal and pernicious Consequences of which Popish Principles, our Parliaments have in all Ages as well before the Reformation as since expressed their just detestation of, as appears by the Statute of Carlisle, made 35 Edw. 1. and by that of Provisoes, made 25 Edw. 3. and by many more in King Henry the Eighth's Reign, who was both Parliamentarily and Synodically invested with the Supremacy in all Causes as well Spiritual as Temporal, which was legally and essentially inherent in the Crown before, the King of England being Supreme Ordinary by the Ancient Common Law of this Kingdom, of which those Statutes were not Introductory, but Declarative: And 'tis a great wonder to me, that every Prince in Christendom is not as much possessed with an Anti-Papal Spirit at this day as ever King Henry the Eighth was, considering what an Implacable Enemy the Pope hath been to the Dignity and Security, to the Powers and Lives of all Princes, especially such as he calls Heretical ones. 2. The Protestant or Fanatical Jesuits, if they would be content to be civil Subjects, yet they will be Ecclesiastical Superiors; they would have a King under them, not over them. The King must Command as they will have him, or he is no King for them; nor will they fear him, but make him fear them, if they can compass their ends. He must do things against his Conscience, Oath and Honour, against the Fundamental Laws of the Land, and the very being of the Government, or else though they speak him as fair as they did his Roayl Father of blessed memory in the Covenant, and so hid the Cloven Foot for a while with their broad Pharisaical Phylacteries, and entrench themselves in the sure retreat of those popular and plausible Pretences of preserving His Majesty's Person, and the Protestant Religion, yet they watch but for a fair opportunity to put off their Hypocritical Vizards, and to make him feel the smart effects of their Implacable Enmity against him, and let him see by woeful experience how little they do either love or fear him, as they did his Royal Father before him, David was a Man after Gods own heart, and had a Conscience truly tender, (I would to God all that are called so in our days were like it) which made him so sensible of his fault in snipping off a small shred of the Skirt of Saul's Coat: But our Dissenters Itching Fingers long to be tampering with the Prerogative, and will cut off as much as they can get into their hands and throw it to the People, as the Men of God did in the late ●● Rebellion, (for so the deluded Multitude called them) though they proved Men of War, fired with Fanatical Zeal against the Most Christian Magistrate in the World, our Martyred Sovereign. The Black Coats of their Schism in stead of being Messengers of Peace, sounded the Treasonable Alarms from such places as these; though the Red Coats fought the Battles, they taught their Congregations to construe the Singulis Major and Vniversis Minor after Buchanan's Translation, and made them believe, That the People (which gins to be as fashionable a word now as it was Forty years since) were as much above the King, as the King is above the meanest of his Subjects. The King (say they) and other Magistrates are but our Servants to protect us from Violence and Mene Tekel, pag. 41. Oppression; and if they break their Trust, the Law of God and Nature allows us to call our Servants to account, and to punish them according to their Demerits, and to turn them out of our Service, (In good time) and out of the World too, as they did the Hist. of In dep. Part 2. Sect. 80, 81, 82. Royal Martyr, as a Traitor to the Sovereignty of the People, (as that Insolent Judge Bradshaw then Impudently styled it) which corrupt and false Principle of placing the Original of Government in our Sovereign Lords the People, is not only derogatory to God, whose Written Word it gives the lie to, but is also destructive to the very being of Humane Society: For if the Power be radically in them, and only passed over by the Conveyance of a Common Consent, with a Power of Revocation upon equitable Conditions expressed or employed, (of which the People shall be Judges) it is but their recalling of that Power, (to which the Unwary Mobile may be easily tempted, for 'tis Neutrum modo, mas modo Vulgus) and the Government is dissolved, and so all our Happiness lies at the Mercy and Will of the Crowd, which will make us a reproach to our Neighbours, and Psal. 79. 4. a scorn and derision (as it hath already done in a great measure) to all that are round about us. We live in an Age wherein Men seem to call themselves Protestant's, not from that solemn and Honourable Protestation which was made by several Princes against the Errors and Superstitions of Rome, and an Edict made in prejudice of the Reformed Religion at Spires in Germany, A. D. 1529. but rather from the Protestations made by the Covenanting Rebels of Scotland, against Gods and the King's Authority, A. D. Hist. of I●dep. Part 2. Sect. 100 & 1 1. 1638. and 1639. First against the Function of Episcopacy as Antichristian, and not long after, against the King, and Kingship itself, which they first voted down, and then abjured. And still their Impenitent Offspring, who are Nursed up too fond amongst us, fear any thing but God and the King, being grown so over-familiar with both as to contemn them. Nimia superbia nihil timent: The Haughty Spirits of our Modern Seditious Dissenters, (the last, but worst Edition of Protestants, and that which needs much Correction and Amendment) scorn to stoop to Authority, and therefore they speak evil of Dignities, and Libel the Government, and do as much as in them lies to scare all the Princes in Christendom from turning Protestants, by reason of whom the Way of Truth, and of the best Religion under Heaven, comes to be evil spoken of, from whence our Calamities do arise; and Solomon says theirs shall suddenly arise. 3ly. He who calls himself a Royalist, and yet disgraces so Good a Cause by his Bad Life, does also disjoin God and the King: He pretends as much to Honour the King, as the other two do to fear God: He will Talk, Drink, and Fight for him, but whilst he makes no Conscience of his duty to God, but lives in all manner of Lewdness and Profaneness, he is not so good a Servant to the King as he would be thought to be; for he does him more hurt by his Sins, than he can do him good by his Sword; and pulls down more Judgements by his Iniquities, than he can ever prevent or remove by his utmost Endeavours: And therefore though you are ready to open your Veins and Purses for him as becomes you upon all Occasions, and as your Loyal Ancestors of Yorkshire did before you for his Father of Blessed Memory; yet unless you, who have rebelled against him by your evil Lives, do reconcile yourselves to the King of Heaven, and make your peace with him, you are but Traitors to his Crown and Dignity; nor can you ever be truly devoted Servants to him, unless you are devout Servants to the Almighty, from whom comes his help. No Man can serve his Prince without Courage and Honesty, and 'tis the Fear of God which is the right Parent of both; and therefore as no true Christian can ever be a Rebel, so neither is any vicious Man a truly Loyal Subject, for how serviceable soever he may be to the King in other Instances, the Iniquities which he cherishes are such, for which 1 Sam. 12. 25. God will destroy both him and the King. So that all National Sins have High Treason in them; and every Combination in such public Enormities is a Conspiracy and Rebellion against our King and Country. Now as great Sinners as the worst of you are, I hope you are all more Men than to prove yourselves such Beasts, as to become Parricides to please a destructive Lust, and to imbrue your Hands in your Prince's Blood, (to whom you pretend so much Duty) rather than to wash them in Innocency for his good and your own. If there be any true Love and Loyalty in you to our Gracious Sovereign Lord and his Royal Family; Any Affection to your Native Country; Any Compassion to your own Souls, amend your Lives speedily, and do not like blind Samson pull down the goodly Fabric of Church and State upon their Heads and your own, by your continued Rebellion against Heaven, but live so in the fear of God, as if you did in earnest desire and hope for better times. Be faithful to the King in your Persons and Purses, but let not your evil Lives conspire against him. If our Enmity against the King of Heaven do not shake his Throne, the Gates of Hell cannot prevail against it. If you agree that God and the King are to be feared, why do you not agree to do it? If either you are Solomon's Sons, or God's Servants; if your Wisdom be from above, or of this World, 'tis more than time that you shown it by putting his Paternal Precept in practice, and taking also the just notice which becomes you of his; secondly Peremptory Prohibition, Meddle not with them that are given to change, with Men of Levity and Humour; for it argues a great Disease and Sickness as well in the Soul as in the Body, whether Natural, Politic or Ecclesiastical, to be continually tossing from one side to the other; Sound Religion, like the Author of it, being yesterday, to day, and the same for ever; and that Form of Government best both in Church and State, into which the Real Interest and Manners of the People have run longest, and with the strongest Current. Let not Inconveniences prevail with you to break Oaths, or to overturn Laws and Ancient Boundaries, for nothing hath so great an Inconvenience in it as that; those are but partial, but this would be a total one. Now all Public Changes are full of difficulty, but those in State or Religion are so full of danger too, that it hath always been thought fit, by Wise Men, to bear with some tolerable Defects and Evils in either, rather than by endeavouring to reform them, to hazard the marring of all the rest. And though Interest in such as desire a change do often make them apprehend more Advantages than really there are, and cover those very Doubts and Dangers they are privy to, for fear of disheartening those Men who are unadvisedly Embarked in their designed Innovations; yet the sharpest eyesight is not able to reach the sad Consequences and fatal End of such Attempts: For either their Counsels must be backed with Arms, or they will prove dangerous to the Undertakers; and so they who have engaged themselves and others in such a desperate design, are reduced before they are ware to the Vicious Necessity of more desperate Remedies, and do often make choice of those, which are much more mischievous than the Diseases which they pretend to cure. There are few Men Engaged in any Faction, who are so wise as to see their own Mistakes, or so ingenuous as to confess them when they see them. Besides, the fear and jealousy of being called to a future account for the breach of the known Laws of the Kingdom, does naturally beget more rebellious Attempts in those Encroaching Subjects, who being conscious to themselves of their having exceeded the limits of Duty and Obedience to their lawful Sovereign, will do what in them lies, to debase the King below the condition of any freeborn Subject, and by factious and seditious Reflections on the Government, will keep the Wounds of the Kingdom open, that they may suck its Blood, and save their own, which has been the unwarrantable practice of some Brokers of Sedition in these days, for whom the King's Bench is a much fit place than the Royal Exchange. By all which it will appear, that the Changing of Religion under any Comprehensive Notion whatsoever, is the most desperate Paroxysm that can happen to a sickly State; and therefore Maecenas in Dio counsels young Octavian to worship God according to his Country custom, and to compel others so to do; but to hate and punish the Bringers in of strange Religions, because they who bring in new Forms of Worship, will also persuade Men to receive other Laws, and bring in as fast as they can new Forms of Government. And therefore when the National Religion comes to be questioned, disputed, and decried, 'tis high time for the Supreme Magistrate to take heed that Popular Tumults and Disturbances do not sit hard upon the Commonwealth; for Schismatics are the Standard-Bearers of Sedition, and the common Barrators of Mankind; Traitors in Masquerade; and if their Power were answerable to their Spirits, they would command Fire from Heaven to burn us all up in an instant. And yet to our shame be it spoken, we English-Men never know when we are well, and are justly reproached by a Proverb for being given to change; our Garbs and our Forms of Religion must be of the new Model, Cut or Fashion: many quarrel at the Principles of that established by Law, and more despise the practice of it. God has made us the Envy, and we live as if we meant to make ourselves the Scorn of the World. Our Laws are good and many, and we live as if we had none: Our Religion is firmly established by them, and we laugh it out of countenance; and the Liberty of Conscience which we are so ready to contend for, is designed for nothing but a Cloak of Maliciousness. I would to God it were not told in Gath, nor published in the streets of Ascalon. Are you grown sick of your Religion and Loyalty, and with an Inconstancy natural to Islanders, do you affect a change for the worse? if not, why do you meddle with them that are given to it, and why do you espouse their Cause as if it were the darling of your own Hearts? or why will you run along with them into real and present, to avoid possible, future and imaginary mischiefs? Would you change a Catholic Church into a sarm of Schismatical Conventicles, a Flourishing Kingdom into a Fading Commonwealth, Uniformity into Confusion, the Ancient Fundamental Laws of the Land into those Bloody ones which the Arbitrary Sword shall give you? a long and lasting peace into a more lasting War? Fullness into Famine, Wives into Widows, Children to Orphans, bring yourselves into your Graves, and leave the English Nation behind you, a hissing and reproach to all that are round about us? Will no Charters please the Body Politic, but such as may enable them to Sin with an high hand against the Father of our Country, from whose bounty they derive all their Freedoms and Privileges? for all Corporations are the Creatures of the Crown, and when their high Stomaches will not be satisfied, unless they may devour their Maker's Prerogative, they need a Charter of Pardon in stead of that of Freedom. Alas, that Golden Liberty which you have been vainly taught to hope for by some busy Incendiaries who are now under the lash of the Law, you would have found (as the just reward of your easy credulity) to have been nothing else but the Iron Fetters of the most Arbitrary Slaves in the World under the worst of Algerines, your own fellow Subjects, the gilded Antidote which these State-Mountebanks offered you, would have proved a deadly poison; and it concerns you as much as your happiness comes to, to take great heed, lest by boggling at the shadow of Popery, placed only in your own deceitful imaginations, you open the door before you are ware to let in the Substance. He that would see what will be, let him seriously consider what hath been; let him sum up the Total Account of the profit of all that Blood and Treasure which was spent in our late unhappy Wars, for promoting the Good old Cause (Religion and Property the ordinary Common Places upon which Rebels declaim) and satisfy himself that there are the same Desires, Humours and Interests drove on in this age that were in the former, and much more furiously now than then, by hands and mouths as like to those in Forty Eight as one Egg can be to another. The grand design of our late saucy Clamorous Petitioners, was the putting of the Government all out of Order, and making so many gaps and divisions in the Public Fences of the Kingdom, that any seditious Person might leap over them, or break through them at pleasure. You had been filled ere this with your own desires, if God and the King had not been merciful to you beyond your deserts, and whatsoever you then vainly dreamed of, when you are once perfectly awake, you will find ten Rebels in Masquerade for one Romanist in Masquerade, or else there would never have been so many Mechanical and Female Politicians, so many Blue and White Aprons (for the former are influenced by the later) to inform and advise the King and his Privy Council when to call Parliaments, and how to govern us: How can you betray greater ingratitude to God and the King for the peace and plenty you now do, and have so long jnjoyed, than by anticipating future evils, and prejudging future providence, and for preventing imaginary mischiefs running headlong into real ones? They fright the common people out of their Wits and Duty together, by fly-blowing their Heads with the buzzing of Plots and Designs in the Air against their Lives and Liberties, by which 'tis to be feared they design to teach them at last to pinion their own Happiness, and to bring our Gracious Sovereign (whom God long preserve) to the same fatal Scaffold that they did King Charles the Martyr, which no good Man can think of without the greatest abhorrence imaginable. These Intestine Incendiaries are set on underhand by the Court of Rome, and perhaps by another Court too, both whose Interests depend on our Divisions and Distractions, to disperse and foment Jealousies between the King and the Country, by bespattering him with a design of Introducing Popery and Arbitrary Government, and branding Men of more Sobriety, Justice and Charity, of much better Principles than themselves, with Nicknames not fit to be mentioned here, and endeavouring to run down the best Men and Counsellors with Noise and Tumult, beyond all shame and reason, as they attempted to do some of our Noble Countrymen, who are the Glory of the North, and their Reputation the more Glorious after such a Resurrection as God and the King have given it. Things were lately come to that pass, that he who was not factiously bend against his Majesty's Prerogative and the Church's Patrimony, and would not be such a thoroughpaced Protestant as not only to forsake and oppose Rome, but also to take his Freedom at Amsterdam, was stigmatised as a dangerous person who designed the Slavery of Englishmen, and the Ruin and Extirpation of the True Protestant Religion. Take heed to yourselves whilst you may, before your Happiness be fled too far out of distance to be retrieved; Meddle not with them who do not fear God and the King, fear not their fear, be not afraid without a cause, but let the Isai. 8. 12. Lord be your fear, lest you involve yourselves and others in the same Mischiefs which Solomon foretells will infallibly light upon the Heads of them who are given to change, and of the Meddlers too, which never were nor will be good for any thing till they are rotten; which brings me in the last place to the 3. Proper Suggestion upon which his Prohibition is grounded, or the reason of this restraint laid upon his Son, drawn from the Changers and Meddlers doom, for their calamity shall rise suddenly, and who knows the ruin of them both? & detrahentis & ei feventis eorum detractiones libenter audiendo, of him who robs the King of the Honour due to him, and of him who lends an itching ear to the disloyal Detractor; for the Receiver is as bad as the Thief, and he who does not apprehend and discover him whom he finds robbing the King of his Good Name and of his Subjects Hearts shall far no better than he. When God and the King exert their Power, their Enemy's ruin will be certain, whether they be Changers or Meddlers, which is the first aggravation of their Judgement, drawn 1. A Certitudine; doubt it not, their Calamity shall rise, and they who would not in time fear, shall then infallibly feel the just effects of their displeasure. Be not deceived, God is not mocked, for whatsoever a Man Gal. 6. 7. sows, that shall he also reap; for he is no respecter of persons, but his Judgements are true and righteous altogether, Psal. 19 1. so that it must needs be a fearful and fatal thing for a Traitor to fall into the hands of the living God, who hates Rebellion as the Sin of Witchcraft, and will revenge it accordingly. No Policy, Plot, or Strength of any created thing shall be able to rescue or reprieve them, when once his Vengeance hath appointed their execution, all their Slights and Tricks shall fail them at a dead lift; an Ignoramus Jury cannot serve their turns, for the sentence of this great Judge is irrevocable, they shall soon be cut off as the grass, and whither Psal. 37. 2. as the green herb. The Authority of God and the King must at any rate be redeemed from contempt by the due execution of the Laws of both against obstinate Offenders, and incorrigible Villains, which is the Reputation and Life of the Government; and therefore Kings do not only participate of God's Power and Patience, but must also imitate him in his Justice, and his manner of proceeding against obstinate Rebels. Whatsoever is necessary, is also just, and that must be done which cannot be avoided. Without Government there would be no Communities of Men, and without Coercive Power there would be no Government; and as it is (not Persecution, but) an Act of Mercy to cut off a gangrened Arm from the Body Natural to preserve the Man from perishing; so is it no less to the Body Politic to cut off those corrupt Members of the Commonwealth, which hinder the Kingdom from flourishing, & to prevent those growing Mischiefs of which the Ringleaders of Rebellion are ambitious to be the Authors, by smiting those with the Sword of Justice, who smote the King and their fellow Subjects with the Fist of Violence. 'Tis Power that begets Fear, and Fear that makes Gods, and Rules the World; and accordingly the Pulse of the Government beats high or low with that of the Supreme Magistrate, whose remissness and connivance does prognostic the decay of an unsettled Government. Toleration, as harmless and reasonable a thing as it now seems, was once thought intolerable by them who now earnestly plead for it, and will be found, if ever tried, (as I hope it never will) to be the cause of many more Evils than we can easily foresee, and will render the Diseases and Distempers of the State as well as of the Church more strong and powerful than any Remedies; and that King who will make his Enemies believe that he is afraid of danger in the discharge of his Trust, shall never live without it. 'Tis better to venture some trouble at hand, and run the hazard of Legal Executions, than to fall under certain ruin, though somewhat farther distant. The Crowd is rather to be awed than reasoned with by Lawyers, it being Fear and not Love or Judgement which is their proper Passion: for though none are so bold and insolent in their Juncto's and Cabals as they, yet none so faint-hearted and fearful apart. 'Twere well if Love could, but 'tis necessary that Fear should Rule the World; and therefore 'tis safer to work upon them by a Power which may cure the one, than by any advantage that may excite the other, which they will perversely impute to unavoidable good Nature, Fear, Oversight, or Weakness; and if any of them seem converted by it, and are wrought over into a better mind, or put by Preferment into an hot fit of Loyalty, they will cool on a sudden, and prove like Witches able to do hurt, but no good at all to the Government, to raise the Devil of Discontent and Rebellion, but not to lay it; whereas if the Prince punish them by the severity of the Law, he will oblige them or others to the observance of it ever after; nor will they love him for his Clemency, till he have first taught them to fear him for his Justice and Resolution. 'Tis impossible ever to oblige them, for they will make one Concession only the Foundation of another Request; and having used themselves to desire more than in duty becomes them, they will never think themselves safe without the Sword and Sceptre, as well as the Crosier and Mitre in their Hands. It will but elevate them in their Hopes, and make them more insolent in their Demands. Having offended the King, they will never think themselves safe till they are above his reach, and have either so disarmed him, or armed themselves as not to fear him: And for as much as it hath been always found by experience that they who least consider danger in the doing their Duty far best still, therefore does it concern the King, and all who are put in Authority under him, to crash this Cockatrice in the Egg as soon as they discover it. Serò Medicina paratur cum mala per long as conval●êre moras. Blessed are they that Psal. 106. 3. keep Judgement, and he that does Righteousness at all times. Fiat Justitia ruat Coelum, is as good a Maxim in times of Peace as War; and they who do their Duty without disputing the success, shall never answer for those accidental Effects which are contingent to their Orderly Proceed. You shall not be afraid of the face Deut. 1. 17. of Man, for the Judgement is Gods, (says Moses) and you are the Ministers of God to the People for good, Rom. 1●. 1. 14. and Revengers to execute wrath upon them that do evil, says St. Paul, for they who resist shall receive to themselves Damnation, as sure as there is a God in Heaven; and their Calamity shall rise suddenly, if Solomon say true, which is the second Aggravation of their Judgement, drawn 2. A Celeritate: Their fall shall be sudden and unexpected; Their Destruction shall come as a Whirlwind, as a thing which they never looked for; They shall be confounded and sore vexed, they shall be turned back and Psal. 6. 10. put to shame suddenly. They shall, like the Old World, be washed away in an instant, and consumed like Sodom when they never dreamed on't: Before the Pots can feel the Thorns, he shall take them away as with a Whirlwind, Psal. 58. 9 both living and in his anger, God will send forth his Warriors, and destroy those Traitors, and they shall descend alive into Hell, whose Judgement does also admit of a third Aggravation, drawn 3ly, From the strangeness of it. 'Tis a Nemo scit, says Solomon, Who knows their ruin, or the manner of it? Is not Destruction to the Wicked, and a strange Job 31. 3. Punishment to the Workers of Iniquity? Traitor's shall die an Untimely, Unnatural, and Accursed Death. If they would have believed Moses, they would also have believed Solomon, for he told them long before that Rebels should not die the common death of all Men, but perish by a more dreadful and remarkable Judgement. If Corah, Dathan and Abiram enter into a Covenant with Men as wicked as themselves, to mutiny Numb. 16. 32, 33 against Moses and Aaron, the thirsty Earth shall open her mouth and swallow them, and all the Men and Goods which appertain unto them shall perish. If Absalon steal away the Hearts of the People from his and their lawful Sovereign, the Officious Oak shall take him off 2 Sam. 18. 9, 14. from his Mule by his rebellious Head, and hang him up between Heaven and Earth, as unworthy of either: Rather than the Traitor shall escape, it shall play the part of Gallows, Halter and Hang man, and Joab shall be sent for to thrust three Darts through his false Heart, to let out that corrupt Blood at a triple Orifice, which had been stained with Disobedience to his Parent, Treason to his Prince, and Hypocrisy to his God. If Sheba, or such another Man of Belial, blow the Trumpet of Rebellion against David, the People shall cut 2 Sam. 20. 22. off his Head, and throw it out to Joab. Had Zimri Peace who slew his Master? He Fired the King's House, 1 King. 16. 18. but himself was also burned in it. Their own Hands 2 King. 9 31 shall become their Executioners, their own Blasphemous Tongues shall make them to fall, their own Complices and Confederates shall rise up in Judgement against them, and their ruin shall be very strange, both as to the manner, and also 4ly, As to the extent of it, for one Punishment shall tread upon the heels of another, and where Old go off, New Scenes of Miseries shall take their turns. They shall pass from one Torment to another, from Temporal to Eternal, and so go down by steps to Hell. I counsel thee (says our Wise Man) to keep the King's Eccl. 8. 3, 4. Commandment, and that in regard of the Oath of God. Be not hasty to go out of his sight, stand not in an evil thing, for he doth whatsoever pleaseth him. You may as well allow Children to rise up against their Parents, Servants against their Masters, and Common Soldiers against their Commander's, as Subjects in any case against their Sovereign, their Power being but Inferior Branches of that Sovereignty which is rooted in him, as the common Parent, great Master, and Supreme Commander of us all. Where the Word of a King is, there is Power, and who may say unto him, What dost thou? Who may not, when every Tradesman thinks it a part of his Freedom to intermeddle with the King's proper Business; and yet they who contradict and control him, shall at long running smart severely for it, their Names shall be loaded with Infamy and Reproach to Posterity, their Blood stained and attainted, and their Families ruined. Nay, if they speak evil of the King, Eccl. 10. 20. though but in their Hearts, God, whose Person he represents, and whose place he here supplies, hath threatened both to disclose it, and to be avenged of him for it. Let them cover their Crimes with all the subtlety they can from Men, there is a God above all the Tricks both of Changers and Meddlers, who will find them and their rebellious Designs out at last, and discover their Villainies to Men and Angels; and notwithstanding all the Snow-water with which they have washed their Hands, to make them look like Loyal Subjects and good Protestants, he will for the filthiness of their rebellious Hearts plunge them into the bottomless Pit, out of which there is no redemption: His Anger shall smoak against them in this Life, and they shall suffer the Vengeance of Eternal Fire in that to come; after a Temporal Death, an Eternal Damnation. Rebels do usually promise themselves and other credulous People, great Matters in the Golden Age of Reformation, if they can overcome the King; but they shall become Felo's de se, they shall Damn themselves by their Projects, for God will never be Friends with them who are Enemies to the King; and except they obey both, they shall be punished as if they had obeyed Rom. 13. 2. neither, and receive to themselves Damnation. And therefore, My Son, fear God and the King, not only for fear of Temporal Punishment, which some Daring Traitors have undergone and contemned, and other Prosperous Rebels have avoided and escaped by an Act of Indemnity or Pardon, but in Obedience to the Constitution of God, whose Officer he is, and in reference to your own Eternal Salvation, which you will thereby infallibly forfeit, though you should be comprehended in an Act of Oblivion, or a General Pardon. I hope I have said more than enough to convince all that hear me this day of the Obligation which lies upon them to take the Wise Man's Advice in my Text; and that You, my very Honoured Friends, for whose sake I have pressed it, will declare by your Exemplary Piety and Loyalty, your approbation of it. No County in all his Majesty's Dominions was ever yet Corrival with Yorkshire for Greatness or Goodness; None have more Lords, Knights, and Gentlemen of the best Quality in it, of which they proffered, as became dutiful Subjects, to raise King CHARLES the Martyr a Lifeguard for his Royal Person, which in confidence of their Loyalty he graciously accepted, and honoured them, by making the Prince of Wales, our present Gracious Sovereign, (whom God long preserve) the Captain of it. The then Loyal City of York received his Sacred Majesty, when he was driven out of This by Seditious Tumults, and thither did he assemble his great Council. And if I had not trespassed already too much upon your Patience, or did in the least suspect that you needed more Motives to Loyalty than those which this Text, and my Discourse on it, hath already afforded you, I should descend to some Local and Personal Obligations which lie more upon You, than other Men, to engage you to it. I could easily reckon up many Towns and Fields in your County, besides your Metropolis, in which your Loyal Ancestors did sacrifice their Lives for his Service; especially at the fatal Battle of Marston-More: Nor can I forget those who died Martyrs for their Loyalty on Tower-Hill, whose Loyal Blood runs still in the Veins of their Children. I dare not be so uncharitable as suspect that you Inherit the Estates of your Loyal Ancestors without their Virtues; and I hope you will convince the World that Yorkshire Men are born in too free an Air to have their Spirits tainted with Schism or Sedition, which are the most pernicious Pests and Plagues of any County where they reign, for which things sake the Wrath of God comes upon the Children of Disobedience. There never was such a Superfoetation of those Brats in any Age as in this, (to our shame be it spoken) wherein Men lately acted, as if they designed to put Loyalty out of Countenance, and ridicule it out of the Kindgdom. If any of You were unhappily seduced into such Disloyal Conspiracies, I hope you have asked God and the King Pardon for it, and that you will always do as much as in you lies to show yourselves thankful for their Mercies. I know how ill it becomes me to give my Betters that, which I need too much myself; and therefore I shall refer you to the Counsel of a Great Countryman of your own, who is now placed above censure, and being dead does yet speak, Sir John Packering Lord Chancellor of England in Queen Elizabeth's Reign, that which he then gave the Parliament in that Glorious Age of Reformation, I hope I may without offence to all good Men repeat to you, whose Advice was this: Listen not to the wearisome Solicitations of the new-fangled Refiners, commonly called Puritan, who disturb the good Repose of Church and Commonwealth, whom you will find more dangerous than the Jesuits in poisoning the Hearts of good Subjects, under Pretence of Conscience to withdraw them from their Obedience; with whom though in other Points they pretend to differ, yet do they join and concur with them in separation of themselves from the Unity of their fellow Subjects, and in abasing the sacred Authority and Majesty of their Prince, which 'tis the Common Interest and Advantage of Mankind to uphold and honour. I am sure 'tis both our Duty and Interest to hazard our Lives in his Majesty's Service against all Rebellious Opposers whatsoever, before they be tamely taken from us, (as we know whose were) by Usurping Insolent Traitors. We shall have lived too long, if we outlive the Loyalty of Englishmen, which is the Privilege and Glory of freeborn Subjects, and should be the Security of our Gracious Sovereign in his Just Prerogatives. Nature teaches all Men to guard the Head, even with the hazard of the other Members; and can we so easily forget how sound we were fleeced by Usurping Tyrants, that we will twice in an Age listen to those Countrymen of Public Spirits, (as they did then, and do still call themselves) who shall tempt us to refuse what is just and necessary for the support of the Government under a lawful Prince, who requires less than every good Subject is cordially willing to contribute upon such Honourable Emergencies? They who will not part with half so much for a Common Good as they will prodigally spend upon a Boon Companion, or a Common Miss, do neither fear God nor the King as they ought to do. If there be any thing in Fame worthy of your Ambition, True Piety and Loyalty (the Methods prescribed you in my Text) are the shortest and surest way to it: for Posterity will reflect upon your Actions without Prejudice or Interest, and Canonize the best Christians and Subjects for the Greatest Men of the Age; This is the Beauty of that Image in which we were made, the fairest Vestment that our Souls can be adorned with till they are Clothed with Immortality; and if you wear this Livery, the King of Heaven will make you free of a better City than this, One not made with Hands, free Denizens of the New Jerusalem. As therefore you tender the Glory of God, the Credit and Increase of your Religion by Law established, your own Temporal and Spiritual Happiness here, and your Eternal hereafter, withdraw yourselves from the Society of Men of Rebellious Principles, whether they bring them from Rome or Geneva, from the Conclave or a Conventicle, and be as active to maintain the King in his Just Rights and Royalties, as the Roman or Republican Agitators have been to undermine them; and unless you are Sick of your Religion, Laws and Liberties, (and I pray God we prove not so, beyond all hopes of recovery) let us all show as much Zeal in defending them against the Kings and Gods Enemies, as they do Earnestness in assaulting them, and him through their sides. If not for Honour and Loyalty sake, as we desire to hear in other Nations, and After-Ages; if not for Wrath, and fear of ruin to ourselves and Families; yet for our Oaths and Gods sake, for the Churches, Conscience, Posterity and Peace sake, let us sincerely practise Subjection to God and the King as becomes good Christians and Subjects for our Blessed Saviour's sake, that Great Patron and Pattern of Obedience, and pray unto him that he would scatter all His and the King's cruel Enemies that delight in Blood; Infatuate the Counsels of their Achitophel's, and root out all those Babylonian, Antichristian, and Anti-Monarchical Rebels, who have decreed in their Hearts and Cabals against our Gracious Sovereign as the Aramites did against the King of Israel; Fight neither against small nor 1 King. 22. 31 great, but only against the King of Great Britain; and said of our Jerusalem the Church of England, Pull down the Fences of it, raze it even to the Ground, that the Confusions of Babel may be heard no more among us, but we become like Jerusalem a City at Unity within itself. Let this thine Almightly Work, O King of Kings, and only Ruler of Princes, appear unto thy Servants, and the Glory of it to their Children; So we thy People will give thee thanks for ever, and will be always showing forth thy Praise from Generation to Generation, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. FINIS.