A SERMON Preached at St. Sepulchers, ON Monday the 30th. of January, 1693/3.   

Imprimatur,  
R. Barker, R. R. in Christo Patri ac Domino Domino Johanni Archiep. Cant. à Sacris Domest.  
Martii 21 more. 1693/4.   

A SERMON Preached in the Parish-Church of St. Sepulchers, ON Monday the 30th. of January, 1693/4.  
BEING THE Anniversary Solemnity For the MARTYRDOM of King Charles I.  
By Richard Newman, late Vicar of Kynton in ; and now Preacher of the Evening Lecture at St. Ann'swithin Aldersgate.  
London, Printed for Randal Taylor, near Stationers-Hall, 1694.   

2 Sam. I. ver. 14. And David said unto him, How, wast thou not afraid to stretch forth thine hand, to destroy the Lord's Anointed?  
THIS whole Chapter contains in it an Eminent Relation of certain Remarkable Passages, concerning the fatal Death of King Saul, and the humble Carriage of Holy David there-upon. The whole History whereof seems to be Recorded on purpose, for the Vindication of the Holyman, from the unjust Imputation, of designing to bereave Saul of his Life, by the defensive Arms which he had formerly borne against him.  
And Three Particulars are therein very Remarkable, as Evidences of his Innocence.  
First, His unfeigned Grief for the lamentable Death which he understood had befallen him, ver. 12.  
Secondly, His Indignation against, and Justice upon the Person, who was so audacious, as to profess he had been the Instrument to hasten it, ver. 13, to 17.  
Thirdly, His pious Endeavour to perpetuate the Memory of his deceased Sovereign, in a mournful Ditty composed by himself, and appointed, in succeeding Ages, to be Sung, in a solemn manner, by the Children of Judah.  
Nor was this of David's Example altogether Barren; for we find it afterwards followed by the Godly Jews, upon the Occasion of the unhappy Death of good Josiah; they Mourned so truly, and so hearty for him, that the greatness of their Sorrow, in after-Ages, grew into a Proverb, Zech. 12.11. where 'tis said, As the Mourning of Hadadrimon in the Valley of Megiddon. And among their solemn Lamentations, had One kept on Record to Posterity, penned by an Holy Prophet, Lam. 4.20. and perpetuated the solemn Remembrance of that heavy Stroak, by public Command; for so you have it expressed at large in 2 Chron. 35.24, 25. All Judah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah. And Jeremiah lamented for Josiah, and all the singing-men, and singing-women spoke of Josiah in their Lamentations to this day, and made them an Ordinance in Israel, and behold they are written in the Lamentations.  
And afterwards, when Gedaliah the good Governor, left by Nebuzeradon, was treacherously slain by Ishmael, Jer. 41.1, 2. we find there was an Annual Fast appointed and observed, till the Return from Captivity, upon the very Month wherein he was Slain, as the most judicious Interpreters expound the Fast of the Seventh Month, Zech. 7.5. Which Examples loudly call for the like deep and solemn Impressions, and Expressions of heartiest Sorrow, from all Loyal Subjects, upon like Accidents, and abundantly justify the Annual Solemnity of this Day; especially, if we consider how great a Loss these Kingdoms suffered, and how great a Gild they contracted, by the lamentable Providence, that occasioned it: Of which, I shall speak more plentifully in my ensuing Discourse.  
I confess indeed, the Tears of Subjects are the best Spices to embalm a Sovereign's Memory withal; nor can there be a louder Attestation to the Deserts of a Prince, than that his Loss is bewailed, as a common Calamity. Upon which Account it is, That the Almighty promises it, as a signal Mercy to the hopeful Son of wicked Jeroboam, That all Israel shall mourn for him, 1 Kings 14.13. and threatens it as a heavy Judgement on Jehoiakim, the wicked Son of good Josiah, That he should be buried with the burial of an Ass; thrown in a Ditch, without any one to mourn or lament for him, neither Brother, nor Sister, nor Subject, Jer. 22.18, 19 And this may suffice for a short Justification of the Annual Solemnity of this Day.  
I now come to the Text itself, which are the Words of Holy David to this wicked Amalekite, How, wast thou not afraid to stretch forth thine hand to destroy the Lords Anointed?  
In which Words I shall observe these things:  
First, The Person that committed this horrid Fact. Thou, who oughtest to have avoided it with an holy Fear, and that under a Twofold Capacity:  
1st, As a Private Man.  
2dly, As a Subject; and, at that time, in a more especial Relation, as being then a Soldier under King Saul.  
Secondly, The Person on whom this horrid Crime was committed; and who ought to have been otherwise dealt with, if considered in this Twofold Capacity:  
1. In Relation to his Civil Quality. He was Unctus, a Person who had received Regal Unction, and so was thereby separated from the Vulgus, or common sort of Men; a King that was solemnly inaugurated, The Anointed.  
2. In Respect of his Sacred Relation; and so he was the Lord's Anointed, God's Deputy and Vicegerent, by 'special Commission.  
Thirdly, The Fact itself; which was,  
First, In its own Nature, Bloody, He destroyed Him.  
Secondly, In its Principle, Voluntary, He stretched forth his Hand; which implys a purposed Resolution of Heart to do it.  
Thirdly, In its manner, it was without Fear, He was not afraid to do that Act, which he should have trembled at.  
Of these, by God's Assistance, in their Order.  
First, In that he was a private Man; and for him to execute a Power of Life, and Death, was an high Presumption, and would amount to no less than horrid Murder, if acted upon the meanest Person in the World; but when, to the Privateness of the Condition, is added the highest Subjection also, this enhances it to be a far greater Aggravation. Had the Amalekite Slain his Equal, he had been a Murderer; but the Slaying his Superior, to whom he had sworn Faith, and true Allegiance, rendered him a Parricide. And therefore, the horrid Sin, of Subjects Murdering their Prince, upon this bare Account, amounts to no less than to a Usurpation of a Jurisdiction, inconsistent with all Principles of Right Reason and Laws, both of God, and Man; and renders the Person that is so Guilty, superlatively Criminal, as one who forfeits his Soul to God, and his Life to Man, by the Gild of the highest Praemunire that can be incurred.  
Thus have I done with the First Emphatical Aggravation of the Fact, from the Person committing it. And though Saul had deserved to die never so justly; yet what Commission had the Amalekite, a private Person, and his own Subject, to Kill him? And so Holy David tells him, How, was thou, etc.  
Secondly, The Fact is rendered extremely more heinous, by the Second Emphatical Aggravation in the Text, which is taken from the Person Slain, namely Saul, under a double Consideration: 

I. Vnctus.  
II. Vnctus Domini.    
First, He was Vnctus in his Civil Quality. He was a Person solemnly separated, and set-apart from other Men, an Anointed King. Anointing, or whatever the Ceremony of Investiture is; (by the Customs of several Nations equivalent thereunto) it puts a Note of highest Difference and Distinction between the Persons dignified therewith, and Others: For Three high and honourable Functions, we read in Scripture, were conferred by this distinguishing Ceremony of Anointing; and all of them fenced and privileged from Injuries, by Virtue of that Holy Oil; namely, the Priestly, Prophetical, and Royal Offices. Not to instance in the Two former, as not suitable to our present Occasion; yet were it easy to prove, That the Almighty has Written a Nolite Tangere, a Privilege from common Handling, especially the last. The Royal is so highly secured by the Holy Scriptures, That they exact from Subjects such a 'special Awe and Reverence towards KINGS, as not only binds the Hand and Tongue, but even the Heart also, to its good Behaviour.  
And in the Case of this very King Saul, when he was once Anointed KING, the Holy-Ghost imposes the Brand of Sons of Belial, (that is, Sons of the Devil,) upon all those who despised, or spoke contumeliously of Him, 1 Sam. 10.27. And Solomon, the Wisest of all Mortals, strictly chargeth us, Not to curse [or wish evil to] the King, no, not in our Thoughts, Eccles. 10.20. So that this Consideration was extremely conducing to the Aggravation of the Amalekite's Sin in my Text; and in him, of every King-Killer's Offence. For, if the lesser Injury may not be done to KINGS, surely the greater may not: If our Tongues, nay, Thoughts, are not to injure them, How much less our Hands?  
Secondly, To strengthen this Consideration yet further, Holy David calls him not only Vnctus, Anointed; but Vnctum Domini, the Lord's Anointed; which Title particularly relates Him to God, as his Vicegerent, and enhanceth the Sin of every one that shall presume to lay violent Hands upon the Lord's Anointed, to the Gild of High-Treason, even against GOD Himself. That the Title of the Lord's Anointed is attributed, and belongs to other Kings besides Saul, as to all the Jewish Kings, yea, and besides, even Heathenish Kings also, is evident from that instance of Cyrus, Isa. 41.1. And argues, that the same Security belongs to all other Kings, as being no less related to God, and commissioned under Him, according to that in the Proverbs, By me Kings Reign.  
And so I come to the Third Aggravation, taken from the Fact itself, and that is represented notoriously Foul, in Three Respects:  
First, That it was in its own Nature, Bloody; He destroyed the Lord's Anointed. It was not a Murder intended only, nor a Murder barely attempted, without Success; but an actual and real Murder: And yet, had he not effected it, the very Attempt, considering the Quality of the Person, had been so heinous a Crime, that the Laws of Nature, and Nations, would have punished it with Death: But here the Gild is infinitely aggravated, by the Execution of that which had been so highly Criminal, but to attempt. For a King, however attempted against, whilst he is in Being, fills the Royal Seat, and heads the Commonwealth, and animates all Courts of Justice, by the Authority of his Name; yea, lays some restraint upon the most Lawless and dissolute Persons, on the Account of a Possibility of being called to Account for their Outrages and Enormities; but the actual taking away of a King's Life, exposeth the empty Throne to the next potent Usurper, silenceth the Laws, annuleth all deputed Powers, by the Expiration of their Commissions, renders every Man, in a sort, his own Master, and sets up, for the Time, as many Lords of misrule in a Nation, as there are evil disposed Persons in it: And therefore the Fact of this Amalekite was the more heinous, as being an actual destroying of the Lord's Anointed. But,  
Secondly, It was a voluntary and wilful Act; for, He stretched forth his Hand, and that with a purpose to destroy the King. Had the King accidentally rushed upon his drawn Sword, or had his armed Hand, by Impression from some external Force, been made the instrumental Cause of taking away the Life of the Lord's Anointed, or any other like Accident, had rendered him the Destroyer of the King, though besides his Intention; yet had it been an Infelicity to have been bewailed all the Days of his Life.  
And this, I hope, to make further appear, if you please to consider, with me, the Person, whose Death we this Day commemorate, compared with King Saul in my Text; I mean, our late Gracious, and now Glorious Sovereign: A Person (by what I have read, and heard of Him) of a Temper so far different from Saul's, that as the One seemed to be composed of Cruelty; so the Other (by all the Relation that I ever met with) seemed to have nothing in his Constitution, but Clemency: A Person in both Capacities, (both of Man, and King) so free, not only from the Gild, but even from the Suspicion of any enormous Crime, that even the Malice of his Accusers themselves, could find nothing to stuff out that black Charge, which they unjustly laid against Him; but the unhappy Contests between Himself, and his Subjects, which indeed were his great Infelicity, but their Gild who first made the unhappy Breach; and afterwards (as much as in them lay) hindered the making it up; because their own Consciences (of having unpardonably offended Him) told them, they could expect no Security, but in his Ruin.  
A Person, and King, of so elevated a size, both of Intellectual and Moral Endowments, that I may be bold to say, the Stature of his inward Man as much overtopped and surpassed the most accomplished of his Subjects, as King Saul's outward Man did overlook the rest of the Israelites, 1 Sam. 10.23.  
For his Intellectuals, He was endowed with such an height of Fancy, as would deservedly have won him the Laurel, in a Commonwealth of Poets. He was Master of so sublime a Grandeur of Language, and stately Majesticalness, joined with an amiable Fluency of Style, as might have challenged a Dictator's-ship amongst the best of Orators; of which, his Royal Remains are an indisputable Evidence. And for his soundness of Judgement, both in Points of Controversy, and Cases of Conscience, he might have challenged the Theological Chair, upon the Account of mere worth; and have sat not only Regius Professor, but Rex Professorum, in both Universities.  
For his Morals, He was Just, Valiant, Temperate, , Merciful, and what not? and that even to such a Proportion, as that he might have set the very best of his Subjects a Copy of Virtue, in his own Example. Indeed he was a Prince, that might have passed clear, with the universal Reputation, Of the best of English Kings; had he not been so unhappy, as to Reign in the worst of Times; wherein the English Manners were so extremely debauched with the Blandishments of a long continued Tranquillity, and Plenty, and their Judgements so miserably intoxicated with Prejudice, and Censoriousness, that too too many neither loved the Practice of Virtue themselves, nor would willingly allow the Reputation of it in others. A King, whom if we had not, by our Sins, rendered ourselves unworthy to enjoy longer, we had been (it may be) in doubt of nothing more, than being surfeited with our own Felicity; and that we enjoyed Him not, all the World must bear Him Witness, it was not his Fault; seeing, at that last and Fatal Treaty, as Providence made it, at Newport, He there showed so great a Desire, in his Gracious Condescensions, to make his People Happy, that he even forgot he had any share of his Own to challenge among them; having indeed given them all, but what he could not part with; I mean, That Sovereign Goodness of Disposition, which was the only thing almost that he had left, besides the redintigrated Affections of his People; divers of whom began then to know Him better, and therefore valued Him the more, out of Conviction, that they had ignorantly persecuted Him, under a mistaken Zeal, to support his Throne withal: So that, I think, I may truly say, It was the fatal Infatuation and Infelicity of these Nations, that they knew not, in the Day of their Visitation, The things that belonged to their Peace; and therefore, were they, (by the Righteous Judgement of God) for a full Decad of Years, and more, justly hid from their Eyes: 
O fortunatos nimium bona si sua nôssent  
Anglicolas!—   
And for his Religion, this I think may safely be said of Him, without Exception from any, but such as all Religion may blush to own, That if the Employment of his serene Hours were of a piece with the Entertainment of his Solitudes and Sufferings; that Man is not enough Christian himself, who can admit a Dispute in his own Bosom, whether he ought not to be ranked amongst the chiefest of Christians: And, indeed, whatever we thought of Him Living, as to his Religion; the Consequences of his Death too sadly Evidenced, how much the Protestant Cause was concerned in his Preservation; and especially the sad Face of this Orphan Church of England, after the unhappy Death of this its Nursing Father; which, from that Time forwards, became the most woeful Scene of Anarchy and Confusion, that ever was seen in the Christian World, if we may at all give Credit to the best of Histories; not excepting even Munster itself, which saw but the Prologue to our Fatal Tragedy: For, who knows not, whatever Persons or Parties stepped up in his vacant Seat, made it the Masterpiece of their Policy, like self-interested Surgeons, to keep our Wounds open, that they might keep themselves in Practice, and to maintain opposite Factions, to peck at one another; that whilst the People were busied in private Contests, they might be the less sensible of their Oppressions; insomuch, that the Revival of old Heresies and Schisms, every one of which, carried a Legion of new Ones in its Belly; together, with the apparent Dangers of Extirpation to the true Protestant Religion, and all its Professors, for many Years together (since our Sins removed Him from us;) have convinced not a few, that he was not so much to blame, as was too commonly thought, for not giving his Consent to those violent and sudden Changes, which their misguided Zeal, (amongst many others alike misled) in those unhappy Times, too importunately called for.  
In the mean while, If what I have said concerning the Person, whose Funeral-Anniversary this Day is appointed to solemnize, and, I am afraid, I have rather injured his blessed Memory, by saying too little, than the Truth, by saying too much of Him; I say, if you find yourselves, in any measure, sensible of the Loss you suffered by his violent Removal; I hope than you will be the better prepared to entertain the next Consideration, wherein this accursed Parricide exceeded that of King Saul's, in my Text, if we consider the Persons who committed this horrid Fact.  
And so I come to run the Parallel between the Persons Murdered, The Death of King Saul, and the sad Occasion of this Day's Solemnity.  
And indeed, many King's Deaths are Recorded in Holy Scripture, and divers of them Violent, and Bloody, and many of them brought about by the Hands of Rebellious and Traitorous Subjects: But, to equal all the heinous Circumstances of the most execrable Murder committed this Day, on King Charles the First, of ever Blessed Memory, I know no Example that can in the least pretend to outvie it.  
'Tis true indeed, that both of them were Kings Anointed, and the Lord's Anointed, and both Murdered by Subjects; but the Difference of them so vastly distant, that no Power of Invention can ever bring them to an equal Parallel. As,  
First, They were not Native-Forreigners, as the Amalekite in my Text, was; but these Parricides were his Majesty's Native Subjects, that had drawn their first Breath in his Hereditary Dominions; and to this natural Bond of Allegiance, had voluntary added divers stronger Ties of Religious Oaths, Protestations, and Covenants; yea, some of them that lifted up not their Heads only, but their Hands against Him, were such as did eat of his Bread, his own Sworn Servants, and none of them obliged, by any such Provocations of cruel Usages; so that it is hard to conceive, how it might be possible to load a Malefactor with more aggravating Circumstances, to render Him monstrously Criminal. But,  
Secondly, A Second Consideration to amplify the horrid Murder of this Day, may be taken from the Fact itself, in that it outvies the Death of King Saul: For the Amalekite's Fact was a sneaking Business, acted in a Corner; so that it had not been known, but by his own Relating of it: But that of this Day, was a public Tragedy, in all the parts of it; wherein the Conspirators made all the World Spectators of their audacious Effrontery: For here was a Pageantry of public Justice, an High-Court, a Bench, and a Bar, a Precedent, and a Prisoner, an Indictment, and a Prosecution; and, at last, an illegal and wicked Sentence, even against the Lord's Anointed; and all these in the most public Place of Judicature, in the Three Nations: And, last of all, a most Bloody Execution, and that not in a Corner, but in the open Street, in the Face of the Sun; as if they meant (with a kind of Defiance to God Himself) to call Him in, as a public Spectator, to behold how insolently they trampled upon his Authority, in his undoubted Vicegerent. A Tragedy, which, in all the Acts and Parts of it, I may be confident to affirm, all the Histories in the World can never parallel. For many Kings indeed have died by the Sword, by the Dagger, and the Pistol, and many by poisonous Compositions, and other such Instruments of private and clandestine Ambition, and Revenge; but never Any, till this black Day, by the Executioner's Axe, upon a public Scaffold, in the Face of his own Royal Palace; so that, here was a Confluence of all that wilful Cruelty and Insolence could contribute to the Aggravation of a Villainy.  
I shall conclude All, with an humble Supplication to the King of Kings; That the horrid Murder, which was this Day committed on the Sacred Person of the Lord's Anointed, may be so wiped off from the Score of these Nations, That we be never visited with those very Evils, or any that may appear so heinous as those were; And as God hath been so graciously merciful to us, and delivered us once and again, within a few Years last passed, and has protected and defended us from all those Dangers, which might have happened to us, if his infinite Mercy had not interposed; So we may perpetually honour our present Sovereigns, that now sit on the Throne, with the most Noble and Glorious Titles of The Allayors of our mutual Heats and Animosities, The Moderatours of all our Differences, and The Reconcilers of us to each other, in Unity, and Godly Love; That so we may walk worthy of the Vocation wherewith we are called, with all Lowliness, and Meekness, with Long-suffering, Forbearing one another in Love; Endeavouring to keep the Unity of the Spirit, in the Bond of Peace, Eph. 4.1, 2, 3.  
Which God of his infinite Mercy grant we may All do, for Jesus Christ his Sake, Amen.  
FINIS.   

ERRATA.  
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