Solomon's BLESSED LAND  
A SERMON UPON ECCLESIASTES X. 17. Preached before an Extraordinary Assembly AT NEW ARK upon TRENT, May 29. 1660.  
Being the Birthday of our Sovereign Lord CHARLES II. KING of ENGLAND, etc.  
By Samuel Brunsell Rector of Bingham in Notting.  
London, Printed by E. C. for Henry Seile over against St. Dunstan's Church in Fleetstreet. 1660.   

SOLOMON'S BLESSED LAND.  ECCLES. X. 17. 
Blessed art thou, O Land, when thy King is the Son of Nobles, and thy Princes eat in due season, for strength, and not for drunkenness.  
IT's very necessary in all meetings, especially those of a more public concernment, that men should first understand the occasion, and not be like that rabble of Ephesus in their tumultuous concourse, of whom 'tis said, 
Act. 19.32.  That the greatest part knew not wherefore they were come together: or like unto masty in our later remembrances, that had lost the distinction between their days of Thanksgiving and Humiliation; either through the commonness of an hypocritical Sacrifice, with which not only men, but even God himself had been wearied, or through the misapprehension and mis-application of the subject, whereby in the way of an inverted gratitude, thanks have been frequently sent up to Heaven for the destructive prosperity of our sins; and men have been humbled for the greatest benefits; in such sort that as they have repent and bewailed their necessary duties, by putting some considerable parts of their Christian obligations into the black Catalogue of their mock-confessions, so have they not failed to bless even God himself for their Errors and Presumptions. To the end therefore that none who hear me, may be ignorant of the intent and design of this present Assembly, I shall acquaint you with it much in the words of the Psalmist; 'Tis to serve the Lord with gladness, 
Psal. 100  and come before his presence with a song: to wait in his gates with thanksgiving and in his Courts with praise; to be thankful unto him and speak good of his Name: for that the Lord is gracious, and his mercy is everlasting, and his truth endureth from generation to generation; that is, from the father to the son. And blessed be he that sitteth on the Throne, and liveth for ever and ever, that hath performed that mercy and that truth to our David and his Seed, that gave, as on this day, to the Crowned Martyr a Royal Confessor (such had the sins of an unthankful people made them) to be the Heir at once both of his Crowns and Virtues.  
If public blessings deserve public thanks and solemn commemorations; and that Nation be so blessed whose King is the Son of Nobles; and that blessing take its original from the birth of that Son, our thanks doubtless should keep time with the blessing. For if men be greedy to have blessings bestowed upon them, upon the earliest sense and first suggestion of their wants, 'tis fit they should be careful to date their Thanksgivings from the very first rise and birth of their blessings. The birth of a King, that is the Son of Nebles, is a blessing in the judgement of Solomon, the wisest both of Kings and men. And that blessing too is of no mean value, nor of a small extent, 'tis a Public, a National blessing, that by which a whole land is blessed: Blessed art thou, O Land, etc. And this is the blessing of this Land, through the tender mercy of our God, whereby the dayspring from on high hath visited us, even at this day. Our King is the Son of Nobles, and our Princes eat in due season, for strength and not for drunkenness. Nobility of descent (as that imports generosity not only of blood, but of spirit also) and temperance in life, are very eminent and considerable parts of those Princely excellencies that qualify the Person by whom our Land is blessed, and that render him the Darling both of Heaven and Earth. And this, I doubt not, will be acknowledged by all but the sons of Belial, the Shimei's of the time, 
1 Sam. 10.26.  or the company of Korah, Dathan and Abiram.  
So then our duty and business is thankfulness, which presupposeth a blessing. Now as men value the blessing, so they dispose themselves for thanksgiving. Be the blessing what it will, if men do not esteem it so, they can never be thankful. Bread made of the corn of Heaven, even the very food of Angels, will be loathed as light, by those that do not relish it. Not this man, but Barrabas, cry the Jews; though that man were their King, the holy one of Israel their Saviour. So some still say even unto God himself, Depart from us, we desire not the knowledge of thy ways. If then men cannot be thankful for that which they do not value; it must needs be pertinent to our present purpose well to understand the nature of the blessing which at this time calls for our thanks. The thanks must be public, for the blessing is no less: all that do not wilfully forsake their own mercies, have a share and interest in it. And the words before us, are very proper to give us an account of its value, which from them I shall endeavour to do by these degrees, showing, 

1. That 'tis a blessing for a Land to be under a Government.  
2. That 'tis yet a further degree of blessing to be under a King.  
3. That Kingly Government is then most blessed, when the King is the Son of Nobles, and the Princes eat in due season, for strength and not for drunkenness.    
How far we of this Nation are more immediately concerned in these great improvements of blessing, will appear in the Applications.  
For the first, if government were not a blessing, the world might have done well without it, each man being left to the dictate of his own will, and acting according to the sense of his own judgement, and the impulse of his own lusts. And so things might possibly have stood, if every one had been sufficient for himself, without being forced to call for the aids of others, if the ground had not been cursed for man's sake, but Nature had of her own accord, and from her own store-house, unasked, brought forth all requisite supplies, and offered them gratis to the needs and acceptance of all. But sin had otherwise devised, and Justice hath accordingly determined. 
Job 5.7  Man now is born to labour as the sparks fly upward, and the decree is not to be reversed; In the sweat of thy brows, thou shalt eat bread all the days of thy life. Man's strengths are now weak, his wants many, his dangers sudden, his foresight short, his reason perplexed, and his heart deceitful. A little care distracts him, a little pain tires him, the least accident afflicts him. However, care he will, and labour he must, in order to his own preservation; the desire whereof being rooted in our very beings, the means to effect it could not but become the natural employment of mankind, and so the procuring of food and raiment, with places of repose and shelter, are the first of all humane cares. But man finding himself capable of further enjoyments, and his appetite being lose and unconfined, he is still craving and ask, who will show him any good? rests not satisfied with necessaries, but affects superfluity and abundance. Not only nature must be satisfied, but the sense must also be pleased, and the body pampered, by introducing luxury and vanity the creature of fancy and opinion, acted by the insatiable lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eyes, and the pride of life. Hence, as men are able, they store themselves with provisions for all these desires; some of which, those chief of the first sort, are indeed lawful and allowable in due measure and order. But men were not so contented, neither would they stop there: their desires being much enlarged, they suit their endeavours thereafter, which that they may employ successfully without interruption, and also secure to themselves the possession of what their industry should procure, they could not but discern the necessity of constituting such a power, as might be sufficient for their constant protection and safety. Since therefore all power is either of one or of many, and those many must needs be either divided or united; if single power be weak and unequal, and if power divided cannot stand, than that power which alone is sufficient for the  purposes, must needs be united, which it cannot be but in government, through an union of powers in a Sovereign, which union necessarily presupposeth a transferring or surrender of the single divided powers to him or them that are to use them conjoined for the benefit of each particular. The state of men under such power is Government, which we have affirmed to be a blessing from the authority of the Text, and aught to be so esteemed, because  
1. By it a Land is delivered from an infinite number of the saddest and most insupportable evils, which, without such Government, cannot possibly be prevented or remedied. Now those evils being no less than War and all its wild retinue; whatever mischiefs, outrages, confusions, destructions, and desolations, either are or can be committed by the insolence and violence of armed rage and fury, without distinction or restraint, upon the Lives and Liberties, Estates, or Persons of men, must needs be imputed to the want of that power which saves and protects those that submit to it, from all such Miseries and Calamities, as know no bound nor end, but the merciless utmost cruelty of an irreparable and universal ruin. For where there is no Government, every man becomes his own Judge, and admits no measures or rules of right or wrong, but his own irregular and insatiable appetite; which cannot fail of being encountered with the like in others, who will be as impatient of not having their wills in opposition to his, as he of not having his in opposition to theirs. A man being left to his own single defence and aid, to act by his own instinct, to protect himself by his own sole power, and to use that power to what purposes he pleaseth, is not withheld from doing any mischief to another, that himself shall judge conducing to his own benefit or content, as tending either to his necessary safety and preservation, convenience, pleasure, luxury or wantonness. Now from whence come the greatest Plagues and Judgements? Come they not from dissensions, divisions and oppositions, from Wars and Fightings? 
Jam. 4.1. etc.  And from whence come Wars and Fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? Ye lust and have not, ye kill and desire to have, and cannot obtain, ye fight and war, yet ye have not: Which would not be, were men's Lusts curbed by Laws, and the exercise of a Sovereign power in a fixed or well-ordered ordered Government, which is also therefore a blessing, because,  
Secondly, No outward blessing, whether conducing to man's being and necessary preservation, or to his well-being, can for any while with any the least satisfaction or security be possessed or enjoyed without it. If it be a blessing for men to have protection for their persons, leisure and opportunity to provide things honest either for present or future use, freedom and safety in the enjoyment, vindication from wrongs and injuries, which sometimes may and will happen: To have the avarice of some, the pride and ambition of others curbed and restrained, that they may not be made a prey to the insolent rage and rapine of every desperate and insulting Villain, and by all manner of licentious, lawless and barbarous Usages, to be devoured and torn in pieces; then needs must Government be reckoned in the first rank of temporal blessings, as comprehending all, since by it a remedy is provided for those evils, that otherwise must needs overtake us, and swallow us up; and supplies are procured for those wants, which, if not provided for, must needs render our subsistence impossible.  
By this we many see, that if there were such a thing in Nature as a state of Universal Liberty, which some have fancied; yet the consequences of that Liberty being endless strife and contention; as much as men value Liberty, 'twere better for them to endure the greatest grievances of the severest Discipline, than the sad Calamities of a mistaken Freedom. Freedom from Government makes it free for every one to do what mischief he pleases; it withdraws men from the regular power of some one or some few, and subjects them to the lawless arbitrary power and insolence of all. But freedom in Government subjects you to the just and orderly power of some, and frees you from the merciless cruelty of every malicious Cutthroat, and the inexorable fury of any rude multitude.  
Besides, though freedom in Naturals be a perfection, as when the body is in such a state of health and strength, as that it can freely exercise any proper motion, endure any labour or hard-ship; or the mind apply itself readily and judiciously to the consideration of any proportionable object, yet it is not so in morals; there the case is far otherwise. Now men help and benefit, or else hurt and hinder one another, rather by their morals, as their wills act and are effective, then by their naturals. And therefore nothing can be more conducing to happiness, then to have that liberty, by which men have a freedom to evil, limited and restrained. For, if the acts of sin be damnable, the power, as such, must needs be very dangerous, and, so far forth, not at all desirable. 'Tis the honour and perfection of God, as to his Truth, that he cannot lie; and, 
Numb. 3.19. Gen. 18.25.  as to his Justice, that being Judge of all the world he cannot but do right; nor can he deny himself. And 'tis the happiness of triumphant Saints to be raised above both the liberty of sinning and the power of suffering. 
Luke 16.26.  Between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us that would come from thence. And even in this state of moral freedom or rather imperfection, in which we now are, the more any man by the strength of Reason and Religion, diligent endeavour, and long custom and practice, hath made the doing of any vicious act very difficult for him and next to impossible, the better man he is, no doubt, and the nearer to perfection. Were a man to go over a narrow Bridge from whence he might easily fall; to have both sides so railed in, that he had not a liberty to tumble down headlong, were, doubtless, no disadvantage, not had he any reason at all to complain of that restraint: A drowning man also naturally quits his liberty of letting go any thing he gets hold on, that hath but the least appearance of conducing aught to his safety. Sin is one of the greatest enemies we have, and 'tis a liberty indeed to be able to commit a sin or not; but that power being the power of an enemy; he, that, if he might be quite freed from it, would yet be able to sin, by the exercise of that destructive power, cannot be imagined in the least to consult his own safety or welfare; but must rather be looked on as one that hath made a covenant with death, and is with hell at agreement, as we read of some, Isai. 28.15. And if every single person despising the blessing of government, would have a liberty to do what himself listeth, and is right in his own eyes, 
Judg. 17.6. Gen. 16.12.  as we read it was in Israel, when there was no King there; 'tis true, his hand like Ishmaels' might be against every man; but then 'tis as true that every man's hand must needs also be against him. Now which is more eligible and desirable, to have it in my single choice, to act what I please upon others, whilst every person besides myself (not one of which perhaps but may equal me on some occasion or other) shall have the like freedom to act what he lists upon me, or that we be both restrained? What good shall that weak and indefensible liberty do to me that am but one against a multitude, by every one of which I may at pleasure be oppressed and ruined? And how then is it possible I should reasonably promise to myself the least comfortable enjoyment of any thing though but for a minute? and what's my life, if I have no enjoyment? What enjoyment can I have where there's no security? And what security can there be without peace? And what peace can be expected where there is no bond of government to bind and hold men to it?  
What hath thus been said of government in the general is applicable both to the Church and state in particular, whether we consider the same persons either as men or Christians, Government is absolutely necessary to the safety and welfare, as of their humanity, so also of their Christianity. For should there be allowed in Christianity a liberty for men to profess & practise what they please, 'twere nothing but an empty name, since it can have no sense any further, then as it signifies such a Profession as lays upon all those that undertake it, some restraints of subjection & obligation to others. For, if there be no such bond or obligation, there can be no union; & where there is no union, there can be no Society Corporation or body of men; where no body, no members; where no members, no Church. But Christ is the Saviour of his body, which is the Church; and in the body there are many members, yet but one body. 
1 Cor. 12.12, 13, 14.  For (saith the Apostle) as the body is one and hath many members, and all the members of that one body being many are one body, so also is Christ. For by one spirit we are all baptised into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, bond or free: and have been all made to drink into one spirit, for the body is not one member, 
Ver. 19, 20.  but many. If they were all one member, where were the body? But now are they many members, yet but one body. To be a Christian then is to be one of many, of many in society or in a body. The self-deified Enthusiast is but one by himself, above Church-Society, and so above Church-work, and so cannot be of the body, and so no Christian. The Independent is but one in a private Congregation, and is next to that which is next to none; but the Church is a body comprehensive of whole Nations, Jews and Gentiles. And all the multitude of Christians that in a converted Nation, do hold the Catholic Apostolic Faith, and profess obedience to the same, do therefore make one National Church, because they all submit to one and the same Ecclesiastical government, by the Laws and direction whereof every one that is duly made a member, is bound to act in such sort as not to violate the common faith or the public peace. Common people therefore are abused by their false teachers, when they are made to believe that those who assert a National Church, understand no more to be required to make a man a member of such a Church, (suppose, for instance sake, this Church of England) then that he be born upon English ground, or be descended from English Parents. If any thing had been sufficient to check the impudence of such bold impostors, the offices themselves, as they are publicly exposed to every one's view, might have secured us from so gross a slander.  
But how much soever these Depopulators of Churches may sport themselves with their own deceive, & think they have gained some great advantage by their small enclosures, 'twill yet be very hard for them to make good any claim to the essential requisites of a Church. For albeit a multitude of Independent Congregations might all together be called a Church, yet they cannot make such a body as a Church should be, wherein the act of some must necessarily lay an obligation upon all the rest, which is quite contrary to the Independency and selfsufficiency of their single Congregations. Such Societies therefore make no greater distinction from Universal Liberty in each individual, than a liberty or independency in each private family would do, which hath none of the  inconveniencies remedied by so small and inconsiderable an union. Such a State therefore is no better than a State of factious Division or religious War, inconsistent with Christianity, which is a religious peace.  
It's evident then, that the want of a fixed Government, whether in Church or State, doth utterly destroy the being and constitution of either. What mischief it createth, what fires it kindles, both in the one and the other, must needs be obvious to any considering person, and you cannot but have sufficiently learned it from our own late sad experience. How have Errors and Heresies, Blasphemies and Schisms, Impiety and Profaneness, Atheism and Barbarism, robbing both of men and God, invaded and overrun us? What Seas of blood, what inundations of wickedness like fire and brimstone from the mouth of Hell, have as the waters of the Ocean without a bound at once broke in and overwhelmed us? During that calamitous state of things, how have we been shifted through all the shapes and forms of usurped Tyranny? What whirling and rotation from one project to another, even as many as the hypocritical madness, or fantastic levity of every filthy dreamer, 
Judas 8.  that had but the confidence to despise Dominion and to speak evil of Dignities, could invent? How have the ways of Zion mourned and all her gates been desolate? How have her Priests sighed, and her Virgins been afflicted? for her beauty was all departed, and her Princes became like Hearts that find no pasture, and are gone before the pursuer. Yea how hath the daily Sacrifice been taken away, the solemn feasts and Sabbaths been forgotten, and the King and the Priest been despised? The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold, have been esteemed as earthen pitchers, and the work of the hands of the Potter. They that did feed delicately have been desolate in the streets, and they that were brought up in Scarlet have embraced dunghills. Those that were purer than snow and whiter than milk, more ruddy in body than Rubies, and their polishing of Saphir, their visage hath been blacker than a coal, neither have they been known in the streets, their skin hath cleaved to their bones and withered and become like a stick. These are the consequences of a subverted power, sufficient to instruct us how great a blessing it is for a Land to be built and settled upon the lasting Foundations of a well-ordered Government.  
From hence also we may note the folly or rather madness of sedition and innovation, when once a good Government is well fixed and established. It is I confess a matter of very great ease to find some faults in things not capable of absolute perfection, and so to remove one evil as to introduce a worse: But to mend that, which the wisdom and experience of many, and those the best and purest Ages have determined, is either the cheat of Mountebanks, or the confidence of Fools. Whatever men may promise to themselves, or pretend to others, the true and natural effect of such Reforming, can certainly be nothing but mere Anarchy and Confusion, not more destructive to any then to the first Designers. An abused people may for a while indeed resign their judgement to implicit faith, and God in his just judgement may give them over, that received not the truth with love, to strong delusions to believe a lie; but so soon as the stroke of Divine Justice hath made them feel their Error, they are no less eager to throw down those popular Idols, than they were zealous before to enshrine and worship them. To draw men into folly and danger, by abusing their hopes and betraying their Interests, is very fesible; but to abuse their hopes in betraying those their Interests, and not to incur their rage, may be concluded impossible.  
Various and numberless are the shifts and perplexities, infinite the hazards, and sad are the events which such Impostors do necessarily draw both upon themselves and others. In nothing do they suffer more then in those very points for which at first they engage. While they cry out for liberty, they make both themselves and their credulots followers the servants of Corruption; while Sea and Land is compassed to make a Proselyte, the man becomes ten times more the child of the Devil then before. While all that is cried up holds forth nothing but truth and peace, nothing suffers more than the one by lying and perjury, and the other by tumult and insurrection: And then no marvel too, if Justice, that was so loudly called for, be turned into Wormwood, the very Gall and bitterness of Cruelty and Oppression: And the whole Religion itself, the securing or refining whereof is evermore the great wheel in all popular Commotions, be so far adulterated, as to degenerate at last into manifest Apostasy and perfect Atheism. The best recompense that such Deceivers can expect, for these their pernicious Counsels and mischievous practices, is a shame not to be wiped away; and the infamy of those vile arts of hypocrisy and falsehood, slander and detraction which they were fain to exercise, thereby to draw the ignorant and unwary multitude into a dislike and hatred of the power to which they own their subjection and their peace.  
But 'tis to be hoped that experience hath now taught the most, what reason might have done long since, that it's the great concernment of any people to be fully persuaded that the benefits they receive from a good Government, are far more valuable than any thing that their Governors are able to receive from them, who feel indeed their own ease and enjoyments, but are less sensible of the others cares and burdens.  
Men also that did own no other rule to order and justify their seditious attempts than providence, nor any other Judge of Controversy than success, have now a very fair occasion given them, either to quit their Principles, or deny their Conclusions, but shall doubtless do best to do both.  
And for those who in order to the unsettling of Government, are so apt to cavil at the directions of them that have the oversight of the Church, and to traduce some prudent accommodations of things to emergent occasions as irregular Impositions, they shall do well to learn the use of so much modesty, as not to pass opprobrious censures upon the acts of their Governors, because themselves were not made acquainted with the grounds of what they did; and not fond imagine that there can be no reason, which themselves do not understand. Every one is not so happy as to be able of himself to discern the true and proper causes of things. However, if they will not be so charitable (which they ought to be, even to the good name of any obscure person) as to think and speak the best, yet they might be at least so just, as first to inquire of those that could inform them, before they usurp the seat of Judgement and pronounce their sentence. Certainly, contempt of Authority, the immediate parent of Disobedience, Schism and Rebellion, and the proper issue of slandering the footsteps of Superiors, is of far worse consequence than the ignorance or dissatisfaction of any private judgement. The Apostles Caution, if harkened to and observed, would doubtless prevent the petulant rashness of such intemperance. I say, 
Rom. 12.3.  through the grace given unto me, to every one that is among you; that no man think more highly of himself than he ought to think, but that he think soberly according to discretion; or as others read it, that no man presume to understand above that which is meet to understand, but that he understand according to sobriety, as God hath dealt to every man the measure of Faith. The Original is too elegant to be exactly rendered in any other Language.  
For men also to claim and contend for an arbitrary power or liberty in the public Offices of the Church (which certainly (if any) had need to be guided and regulated by the public wisdom of the whole Government) and by virtue of that liberty to prescribe or dictate at pleasure what to them shall seem good; as it gives occasion to defile the Worship with polluted offerings, so it most affectedly disparages the piety and judgement of a Church and State, as fit to be rejected in comparison of the sceptical and desultory Fancy of an Opinionative novelist. And then, since to have the Government of any people, is nothing else but to have a power to dispose of their actions according to one's will, those actions chief that are of a public nature; he that upon his own private account assumes the authority of dictating to a Congregation, or making them all act the same with himself, and not according to the legal appointment of the Church, doubtless, arrogates, in a matter of great importance, the exercise of a piece of arbitrary Government, to very ill purposes. Such practice, whatever colours may be used to varnish it, is not really effectual to men's greater edification, or a better oeconomy, but rather subservient to the vain ostentation of a personal ability, and displaying the cheap Inventory of some striped Furniture to the itching admiration of ignorant and deluded people; who, if they become by this means more receptive of Error, and more apt to be cloven into factious separations, must needs be exposed to a very great temptation of attempting things inconsistent with Rule and Order, and consequently destructive both to the public and themselves.  
I rather urge this, because our Government having Christians for its Subjects, our late Contentions having been kindled at this fire from the Sanctuary: the effect whereof, among other ill Consequences of Subverted Government, hath been the offering of strange fire upon God's Altars, by Priests made of the lowest of the people. The more have they to answer for, that still bring fuel to keep them alive, rather than water to quench and extinguish them. To speak that which I take to be clear and evident reason: when men meet together in public to serve God by Prayers, Praises, Thanksgivings, Sacramental Devotions, etc. the question is, Whether they shall act every one apart by the suggestion of his own spirit and fancy without any Rule and Government, or not? If so, than another coming in must needs say they are mad: Where's the Union, where the Communion of Saints? If they must not act in Division and Confusion, but in Conjunction and Order; of necessity they must all agree in one form, and proceed as that shall direct. The question now is, Who shall prescribe that Form? Let the Answer be, Such as may most reasonably pretend to be most able, prudent and judicious, to dictate that which is fit to be offered unto God by us all; who can best assure us that we do not present a blind or a lame Sacrifice. Now would it not be a ridiculous presumption for any private ordinary Minister to step in, and say: I have a gift, and can hold it forth extempore, and you shall do better to give me occasion to exercise, and let you see that I have that gift, then to take that Form which the Church with the approbation of the State in so many Convocations, Synods and Parliaments, in solemn manner upon the wisest deliberation, upon a nice and careful disquisition of all particulars, were able to contrive and fit to all the ordinary and extraordinary necessities of Christians? Might it not justly and reasonably be replied, We are much better provided for and secured by the deliberate Judgement, and Wisdom, and Piety of the Church and State in this matter, then by the sudden incoherent effusions of your inconsiderate fancy that are but One, and that so small a Member, and so much inferior every way perhaps to the least of them? When we pray with you, our spirit of prayer is restrained by a form of your devising, which what it will prove in the trial, you as yet know not yourself, much less can we. As it is not your business in this case to proclaim your gifts, so neither is it ours to admire you for them. Whatever reason you may have to think yourself abler and fit to dictate to us, than the ablest of the Church, in so many full and solemn Assemblies in several Ages, after such clear and strict debates of all questions and doubts that did then offer themselves to their piercing observations, we, sure, can have no imaginable reason to think so of you. If you may be in the right, much more may they: If they may be mistaken in any thing, much more may you: It can therefore be no less than madness in us to reject them in comparison of you. We know also, and are assured, that, by the Laws of God, we own obedience to their Authority, from which it is not in your power, should you pretend to more than ever any Pope did, to absolve us. Besides, the truth is, our own unhappy experience in this matter is such, that the most unlearned among us have been able to discern such mistakes and absurdities, yea sometimes blasphemies to have fallen from pretenders in this kind, that our folly would be as inexcusable as theirs is manifest, should we rather choose to lean upon such broken Reeds, then on the Church of the living God, the Pillar and the ground of truth. For by its holy care and wise direction, the whole public Worship is now so complete in all the parts, and so fitted to the occasions and necessities of Christians; moreover for the comely fashion or manner of doing it, all is performed with such grave and decent Ceremony, fitted only to keep the minds of people intent by apt Declarations of their due concurrence, and suitable improvements of their zeal and fervour, as also to gain a necessary regard and reverence to the action, that as the Church knew not how to provide for us better, so we have no reason to expect any other so good, but shall rather thankfully join with the rest of God's people happily subjected to the same Discipline, then follow a multitude to do evil. And this we believe must needs be more honourable to Religion by the harmony and beauty, and more effectual with God by the strength of so great an Union, and consequently much more reasonable and safe for us, than the pert inventions of any the most illuminated pretenders.  
They must be, I conceive, extremely passionate, selfwilled and prejudiced, that should hold such a Reply unreasonable. For certainly we have no cause to fear any danger from that which commonly men deem, and, by mistake, have learned to call Will-worship, which must needs be more chargeable on such as, in opposition to the sentence of the Church, follow the decrees of their own private wills in determining what comes nearest to the mind and will of God; and in projecting the very frame and method after which a Congregation of Christians assembled together for the service of God, are to present their devotions.  
As little need we to fear the suspicion of Popery, in consorming to that way of public Worship which our Church hath prescribed; when as this Conformity stands in a direct opposition to that Popery which the Romanists themselves, and also our Laws do account and have declared for such. For are not Papists forbidden, by the the Laws of their own Communion, to join in the public Service of our Church, who yet are permitted to hear the Expositions and Sermons of the reformed, accompanied with such of their prayers as are the present dictates of their private spirits. And are not the Reformed again on the other side generally as liberal and free to them, who, should they join in their Masses, and those other public Offices, by which Papists distinguish and hold their Communion, would certainly be deemed Proselytes by those of the Romish, and Apostates by the men of their own profession. Doubtless, that for which men are called Recusants, and censured by our Laws as such, hath more of Popery in it, then hath any one's conformity to the Service of our Church; the denial of which conformity by the Romanists, being that by which they disclaim our Communion, is the very essence of Popery, as that is understood to signify Recusancy.  
As for those, who (that they may not seem sine ratione insanire, or neglect the necessary defence, as they think, of their errors and reputations) hold themselves engaged to justify their disobedience, by traducing the decent and instructive Ceremonies of our Church as superstitious, or at least a too stiff insisting upon smaller matters; If the Church had bidden them do some great thing, should they not have done it? how much more when she requires only such forms, gestures, or habits, as best serve to beget that reverence, and express that uniformity, without which all solemn actions must needs fall into contempt and indecency.  
But 'tis to be hoped, that when upon a most strict and partial inquiry with a sincere heart and single eye, as in his sight before whose eyes all things are naked and open, they shall have clearly satisfied their Consciences in the grounds that moved them first to censure, and then to departed from that which themselves had formerly practised, and were obliged to by lawful Oaths and Subscriptions; and when they shall well have weighed the consequences, which their eyes have seen to flow from their very Principles, and the confessed miscarriages of divers of their chiefest and most renowned Patrons; they may at length think it not only possible for them to err, but more than probable that they have done so in the present case. The truth is, in many things we offend all; and infallibility is no more to be found at Geneva then at Rome, though the one be for the most part as peremptory in denying the act, as the other the power; and though there be so little difference between him, that, upon the clearest instances, could never be brought to say he had erred, and him that says he never can. So soon therefore as either their passion, prejudice or interest, and the implicit faith by which they embrace any thing that is with confidence delivered for sound and orthodox by those, whose persons, for some grave appearances of Learning and Godliness they have in admiration, shall give them leave to see and consider what Superstition is? and that as a good meaning cannot justify an evil undertaking, so neither can the reputed honesty of a man of gifts, authorize an error either in faith or life; they will no longer look upon the powerful convictions of sequestered truth as so many Engines of Satan to beat them from their steadfastness; nor on those that have taken so much pains to save them, as on men of corrupt principles or profane hearts. Indeed when men have for a good while together had quiet possession of some congruous error, the least disturbance proves very afflictive, and those that have long enjoyed the pleasure of thinking well of themselves and despising others, (like men preferred to honour in a dream) are much disquieted upon the first opening of their eyes and judgements to perceive the Delusion. So much more agreeable to natural corruption is familiar error, then unacquainted truth.  
Obj. But may it not seem strange and very improbable, that those who have always been so very zealous against the formality and abuses of the times, should be so much mistaken? Have not godly men long since complained of faults, and taxed the condition of things amiss both in Church and State, which (the Government standing as it did) could never be redressed? If the complaint be not true, both they, our Ringleaders, and we their close and constant followers or rather over-runners, have all this while been deceivers and deceived: and is it likely that so many of God's people, whom we always took and do take to be the only honest party, should complain without cause? Must we be looked upon as men that had no just ground for what we laboured for, and took pains with prayer, and preaching, and fasting, even to strife and debate, and smiting with the fist of wickedness? The very life of our Good Old Cause, the honour and reputation both of it and ourselves are herein nearly concerned: and what also will the world then think of us? Answ. I answer, even what it does; unless we shall repent and do our first works. Either we or those must be mistaken, who are far more considerable both for numbers and qualities than ourselves.  
Must the Church, the State, the best, the wisest, the holiest and the learnedst men be fools that we may appear wise? must they all have erred that we may seem not to have erred? or be all in the wrong that we may be in the right? Or will our error become none, and that which is wrong prove right by our not seeming to see it, by our unwillingness to own it, and resolution to persist in it? Yea, to excuse us, will Conscience cease to give in her evidence, or will the righteous Judge, in favour to our incorrigibleness forbear to pronounce and inflict his sentence? That we may be safe in our reputation, must all former Ages suffer in theirs? Must Antiquity lose its reverence, Truth its force, Kings their Majesty, Parliaments, Convocations and Synods their judgement and authority? Must Wisdom be no more with the Aged, nor Prudence with the Counsellors, nor Instruction with the Judges? Must such a Noble Army of Martyrs as sealed our Reformation with their blood, cast down their Crowns at our polluted feet to lift up our Axes and Hammers? Or rather were it not much more creditable and safe for us to engage Posterity to hid our greater shame by a present just and pious care not to expose and deride, but cover our Parent's nakedness in case of the least discovery?  
Certainly our Forefathers (as quicksighted, for aught appears to the contrary, as ourselves) had they been able to see and remedy what we think we discover and can reform, to wit, Error, Superstition and folly in their careful Collections and wary Improvements, they would not, by a voluntary guilt, have brought a reproach upon the Nation, and an open infamy upon its Public Acts, thereby wilfully drawing upon themselves, the Church and State, the just censures and scorn of all knowing men. The event certainly and success of what they did, compared with that of what we have since essayed to do, must needs justify them and condemn us; nor can our peevish obstinacy prevail with men to apprehend it otherwise. Our wisest course certainly will be, never to be tampering any more with foundations and pillars, lest, those being shaken, the whole pile fall down upon our giddy heads, and bury both us and our Inventions quick in the ruins. So dangerous and destructive is Innovation in Government; and so vain and troublesome, as well as infectious, is men's unnatural itch and greediness after it: a levity to which either the ignorance or wantonness of common people, like the desire of new, though undecent and uneasy fashions, hath been to apt to betray them. My son fear thou the Lord and the King, saith Solomon, and meddle not with them that are given to change, for their calamity shall rise suddenly, and who knoweth the ruin of them both? Prov. 24.21, 21.  
In reason, all change should be for the better, and such was that which was made from War to Peace; that is, from lawless boundless liberty, to Empire, Rule and Government. The motive to the change was good, settlement and order being as much better than giddiness and confusion (in which the greatest ease and security a man can promise himself, is no better than that of sleeping upon the top of a mast) as is a calm then a storm, health then sickness, or life itself then death. For what is such a life but a living death? or, as the Apostle expresseth it, a dying daily? For men to live, like the wild Beasts of a Wilderness, in the barbarous and savage condition of war, must needs be the compliment and fullness of all earthly misery. The drawn Sword of a destroying Angel cutting down a Nation with Pestilence, was preferred by David before the Sword of an enemy. But of all War and enmity Civil War is the worst: and this is that which those men choose, that affect a change of Government; inasmuch as that change, without a power able to match the Sovereign Power, can never be effected. For the opposition of those Powers is War, the very worst of evils, which these men choose for a remedy of something they call evil; which, be it what it will, must needs be much better than the worst; and therefore make their choice most unreasonable, an act of solemn madness, reproachful even to humanity itself. For what can be thought more sottish then for men so far to listen to to the cry of their own passions, or the enchantments of seditious Sorcerers, as to abandon themselves to misery by being engaged in parties and factions, contriving and attempting to subvert a lawful power, only to make way for another, and that a greater power (such must that needs be, by which the former is expulsed) and so more able to oppress and grind them, not resting there neither. For such as have no other title then that of forcible entry, nor any surer possession then that of forcible detainer, do but invite a new force, and raise a new power to eject them. How many such turns may one succeed another, it is not easy to determine. The right owner being once set aside, all other pretenders have one and the same title, one just as much right as the other, and therefore may set up and declare when and how they please. Now of these, there must needs be as many as those are whose crimes, wants or ambition promoted by cunning, coloured with specious and hypocritical pretences, and backed with some external advantages may incline them to supplant the Supreme Authority; from the justice whereof, as they could not expect impunity for those crimes, so neither from the regular Administrations thereof, had they reason to look either that their needs should be extraordinarily supplied, or their ambition satisfied.  
But how long that dismal Tragedy may last, wherein there are so many Actors ready to enter the Stage, each resolved in his turn to spin out his part to the utmost, till both himself and the sad spectators be quite worn out and spent, he alone knows that make Diviners mad, and wars to cease in the earth, that knappeth the Spear in sunder, and burneth the Chariot in the fire; so far pitying the follies of men, more brutish in this then the very brutes themselves (that act not contrary to that reason they never had) as in great mercy to raise up some to still the rage of man, and tame the beasts of the people, and so lead them forth of that vast howling Wilderness, as he sometimes did the Israelites by the hands of Moses and Aaron: Moses a Supreme Magistrate, and, in correspondence with him, Aaron a chief Priest, both such by the wise appointment & constitution even of God himself, whose Government being that of a King or Monarch (for God is King of all the Earth) must needs be therefore the most perfect, as we have affirmed Kingly Government to be in our second Proposition, which comes next to be handled.  
As 'tis a blessing for a Land to be under a Government, so 'tis yet a further degree of blessing to be under a King.  
Absence or Negation of Government is a State of Universal Liberty and War; and therefore so far forth as the individuals of a multitude surrenders their dispersed powers to the rule and disposal of a Sovereign (be that Sovereign a natural person, as a Monarch, or an Artificial, as a Senate or Council made one by a concurrence of voices) so far they are under Government, and in a reasonable expectation of Peace, and no further. To counterpoise power with power, as weights do one another in a balance, till they come to an aequilibrium, is to make the state of a people alterable with every the least grain of advantage. And certainly it is next to impossible for two distinct parties invested with equal powers, to use those powers so equally, though but for a day, as that the one should make no gain, and the other sustain no loss. The nearer that Powers are matched, the more jealous they are of encroachments, and the more apt to resent and contest the least transgression of bonds. Nor can that jealousy in either party be quenched, but by attempting some further security in an excess or usurpation of power, the possibility and suspicion whereof at first in each other was the very spark that kindled it. Supremacy therefore of Power, as it is Essential to Government, so can it not be reconciled with co-ordination without a plain contradiction. To imagine such power in a people considered as so many lose individuals, is to conceive an unity in division, there being as many Sovereigns as men. And to think that so great a multitude as the vast generality of a people, can join and concur in such sort as to act every one for himself, or be otherwise embodied and united, then by being made one term of a relation through the necessary position of some opposite term, is to dream or that which is impossible, to wit, of an inferior without a Superior; or of a Superior where none are inferior. When once a relation is put, the terms are immediately distinguished, and therefore to confound the properties peculiar to each term, by imposing subjection on those that govern, and attributing Supremacy of Power to those that are governed, is to make the son beget the father, or the father become the child of his own son. Be it so that men, of their own accord, by their own consent and power, either through chance or choice, are fallen into a relation, yet being once there, they cannot make void or alienate the necessary duty, which God by his Law hath thereto firmly annexed. A woman by her own consent, uncompelled by any Law of God, makes herself a wife to a man, whom therefore she may be said to have made her husband; but being once in that relation, the wife may not, upon pretence of having made that man her husband, reverse the husband's power, and usurp authority over him. Much less, upon the like pretence, may the Subject recall or invert the power of the Magistrate; the duty of obedience and submission being by God annexed to Subjection. And therefore men so related must needs be subject, not only for wrath, 
Rom. 13.5.  but also for Conscience sake; whatever the motive or occasion were that first brought them into the relation. This benefit however must needs be necessarily intended in the erection of any Government, viz. That the Subjects may be secured, so far as is possible, from danger and mischief, through strife, violence and war, in the confused tyranny of one another. And that form of Government which best obtains that, which all Government, as such, doth chief if not solely intent, must needs be preferred before other forms, notwithstanding its being obnoxious, as all forms are, through one accident or other, to some defects and obliquities. Engines that have many wheels will sometimes be out of order, though no disparagement to him that either made or keeps them. And therefore it cannot be expected, that Monarchy with its greatest advantages should be able to satisfy all, or fully put to silence the ignorance of foolish men. The clearest light in heaven is observed to have some spots; and if God himself did never please all, is it possible that all should be pleased? However, to discover a weakness or imperfection in any thing is no argument that another is better, no more than it would be for any pretender to prudence and moderation to conclude himself wiser than Solomon, because he is able to charge Him with some act of folly. Upon such an account, it must needs be easy for any one to make good his claim to an universal precedency. The question is, What form of Government is best? Not whether that Government only ought to be preferred or admitted which is every way perfect? No state or condition upon earth is so: and he that will not be satisfied upon any other terms, shall roll a stone with Sisyphus and never be at rest. Seeing then there always were, are, and will be defects in all; certainly that must heeds be best, which hath the least and fewest. And that we say is Kingly Government, or Monarchy, wherein the Elemental powers of a simple and unbodyed people, are drawn together and compacted in a single person. The reason is this.  
Because the more closely Sovereign power is united (as when the Sunbeams are drawn towards a point by a Burning-glass) the greater strength and aptitude it hath to obtain its end in the safety and honour of the whole Community. For these can never be well provided for, if a Magistrate want sufficient strength to suppress all attempts that may be made against the Government; or cannot exercise that strength so seasonably and readily, as by timely Discoveries and quick preventions to anticipate or countermine the practices of such as are enemies to the public Peace, which is never more in danger, then when the Authors of sedition, to which all Governments are subject more or less, do receive encouragement from such probabilities of effecting their purposes, as the frequency of opportunities and greatness of temptations cannot but create and suggest.  
If Ambition long for Empire, and be even choked with thirst after power: if pride affectedly think itself too good or great to be subject: if passion be impotent and cannot hold itself: if prejudice and error would contest by force, what they cannot make good by reason: if ignorance will not see the good of Peace and ill of War: if wantonness being cloyed and fall, despise the Honeycomb, or curse its own Blessings, and be undone for want of variety or something of a new mode: if covetousuesse would take and enjoy all, but contribute nothing towards the expensive administrations of necessary Justice and Order: if self-love will be partial, and blame the Government for those sufferings which the heedless Subject hath incurred by his own default: if slothfulness, imprudence, luxury and pleasure will improve nothing, but spend all and be in want, and seek unlawful supplies, or contract debts and suits: and if all these do wilfully and greedily expose themselves to danger by the guilt and punishment of their crimes; how is it possible but that the natural desire in man to save and preserve himself, should dispose and incline them all to secure themselves by force from being accountable to that Authority which they know must curb and correct their Insolences? But then that Sovereign power, which is made perfect in one, to wit in a King or Monarch, must needs be best placed and disposed, because its Government, when well administered, doth evidently afford both less temptations, and fewer opportunities to transgress, and also less hopes of security and success.  
For is it not much easier for an aspiring spirit to fancy its being one of a Senate, than one where there is but one, which makes the attempt more desperate? If Supremacy reside in a multitude, the natural desire of power will scarce penult any active person in that number to rest satisfied with 〈◊〉 when he may fairly hope to have all? Nec quenquam jam ferre potest, Caesar, etc. 
Lucan.  Equality is as offensive to one as Superiority is to another; and what men desire and hope for, or are in a possibility, to attain, they will attempt, if the fear of a common danger do not interpose, or that the partners do not over-highly value each others strength and interest.  
Is it not also more reasonable to infer the sense of pressures and grievances, which occasion great calamities, from a multitude in power then from One, whose experience constantly shows him, that his own private interest can be no other than the public; whereas in the other, the double interest of private and public distinct and frequently opposed, like two Masters requiring contrary services, gives occasion to men, whose first and greatest kindnesses do generally regard themselves, to pretend the service of the public in order to the serving of themselves, and to sacrifice the common good to their own private advantage? However, if One may abuse power, then certainly much more may a Number; and if Ones spending upon a Stock will waste something of it, what can in reason be expected when there are so many spenders?  
And whereas the personal distance between the Senators and people is not very great, but between the Senators themselves little or none at all; as the greatest do not exceed the proportion, so neither are they sufficiently armed against the sting of Envy, whose venom is so killing and infectious. Yet he, that, being no more than one that goes a share in the Sovereignty, and may be abundantly qualified to oppress the inferior people, is not placed so high, as to be above their affronts and injuries; must needs be inclined and enabled to abuse the public force in the vindication of private wrongs, beyond the the limits of Justice.  
Moreover, when a private estate becomes too small and weak to support the honour and dignity of one that is a public person; it cannot prudently be imagined, but that the interest of corrupted power should be misapplyed in repairing it. And where there must needs be place for so great a variety of inconsistent ends and interests among so many jealous and suspicious equals, the house is soon divided, and therefore cannot stand, but multitudes are destroyed by the fall. On the contrary, where the dispersed power of people is most closely united, as it cannot be more than when it's all reduced to one, it must needs there be strongest, and most able to guard the Palladium of a Nation, the safety of that Supreme Power by which alone it enjoys peace, without which no enjoyment at all.  
Again, where power proceeds upon the concluding advice and executive order or will of One, it must needs be most secret and expedite. Where the consent of many is to be had, that are led by parties and Factions; nothing more practised nor practicable than discovery and delay, which are ofttimes very fatal and dangerous, chief in the rise and progress of sedition. That a multitude therefore or Assembly should sooner agree and join in one, than one person with himself; that in such a multitude all should be sincere in their aims and designs, and equally desire and seek the common good: That in such a divided administration there should be less corruption and partiality where there is much more temptation and opportunity; neither our reason nor experience will suffer us to believe.  
From hence I suppose we may safely conclude in the general, that as 'tis a blessing for a Land to be under a Government, so 'tis a further degree of blessing to be under a King, whose Government questionless is the best fence against the dangers of envy, pride and ambition, the best stay and support of every just interest, the best prevention and remedy of hostility and confusion, and the best means of procuring and also securing the blessed enjoyments of peace.  
As to the peculiar case of this our Nation, the Subjects whereof were not only born under, but also sworn to it; Nature, Reason and Religion, all concurring to fasten this blessing on us, how much better it is for us in all respects, as most agreeable to our temper and genius, to our Laws and Customs, most approved also by long and sharp trials, and that in great variety, hath been of late the subject of so many pens, that I shall not descend further into particulars, which I know are evident to the meanest observation among us. Only we shall do well to remember, how happy we have been under it, that thereby, and by the sense of what we have suffered for the want of it, we may the better understand and value the blessing of its restitution, and being once again made whole, sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto us. Doubtless, nothing could have made us miserable but the ignorance of our own happiness. How did Religion and Learning, Laws and Liberties, Truth and Peace flourish, and embrace each other? To what a height of glory, and dignity, and wealth, and power were we then arrived? Like Jesu●un, we were waxen fat, and it had been well for us, if we had not also kicked, 
Deut. 32.15.  and lightly esteemed the Rock of our salvation. With what reverence, and Freedom, and equity, so far as humane infirmities will bear, was Justice administered? when the Subject might safely plead his right with the Prince, and was not at all prejudged from the liberty of a fair hearing, and a legal sentence? And for the Church, 'twas not in the power of every ordinary Minister, with three or four of his Parish to make a Consistory or Spiritual Court, and sit in judgement over the rest of his Neighbours, and admit to or reject at pleasure the rest from the Communion of Saints. In which case, the censured person, backed with his chief friends and relations, being apt to think himself wronged, and hardly dealt with by those of his own place, his own Minister and fellow-Parishioners; what hatred, and variance, and envy, and strife, and malice, and uncharitableness must needs ensue, and be fomented between Neighbour and Neighbour, Friend and Friend, Minister and People? Who, having so many common interests, and being engaged, by the mutual necessities of a daily commerce, in each others concernments, ought certainly to have no such bones cast among them, by publishing the secreta domûs, as must make them not only snarl at, but also by't and devour one another. All matters of importance so nearly concerning men in their spiritual interests, were wisely determined by the Laws and Constitutions of the Church, and the Controversies thence arising, decided by able, chosen and disinteressed persons, that had neither temptation nor encouragement to be partial, which must needs provide better for those rights of Christians, than a Neighbour and an Equal, that may have so many deflexions to the contrary; besides want of fitness and of ability for such matters, which every ordinary Presbyter or Parishioner in so great a body, can with no more reason be thought furnished with, than every common Lawyer or Solicitor be deemed fit to manage the Office of a Judge.  
As for the due ordering of God's public Worship in Religious Assemblies, private Christians, that have not the leisure or ability to dive into the depths of Divinity, had better assurance given them, that their devout Addresses were agreeable to God's holy Will and Word, than the uncertain chance of a States-lay-preachers or other ordinary Churchman's fugitive and extempore Fancy, which must produce as many distinct services in the Church, as there are Congregations and Inventions of private men. If all the Congregations make one Church, why should they not serve God after one and the same manner?  
So they should, no doubt, and so they did, keeping the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.  
And blessed be the God of Peace, that hath once more joined us in that Unity, and tied us again together in that Sacred Bond, which I hope we shall never more break asunder, nor cast away these Cords from us! Better and stronger we cannot have: good Government an excellent bond of peace, the perfection of outward blessings; and of Governments the best, namely, that of a King, nor so only, but Kingly Government in its greatest perfection, as being then most blesseds when the King is the Son of Nobles, and the Princes eat In due season, for strength and not for drunkenness. Which is the third and last Conclusion, of which briefly and in a word.  
To be a Son of Nobles speaks a relation to the quality rather than the person: in the same sense that men of great Achievements are called the Sons or honour, or those that apply themselves to a more curious search after knowledge, are usually styled the Sons of Art; or, that such are said to be the Children of Abraham, 
Jo●. 8.39.  who follow the saith and works of that friend of God: whose sons and daughters also are those that do endear themselves unto his grace and savour, by their conformity to his image; and endeavouring to be perfect, as 〈◊〉 Father 〈◊〉 is perfect. 
Mat. 5.48.  To a contrary purpose, the Scripture also expresseth a vicious person, by calling him a Son of Belial, or a Child of the wicked one, his Father the Devil. For Children being the lively images of their Parents, by the participation (as of a common nature, so) of some special and more peculiar lineaments and aptitudes, by which they frequently discover the Authors of their being; the appellation is very fitly given to those whose descent is reckoned according to the pedigree of a moral, as well as that of a natural generation. And thus a Son of Nobles is one, in whom are to be found the special signatures and distinctive lineaments of those heroic endowments, that, being propagated in a line of succeeding ages, do make a race of generous and renowned persons, the blessing and glory of their times.  
Seeing also that the manners of the mind have a great dependence upon the temper of the body, according to that vulgar saying, Mores animi sequuntur humores corporis; where the body is rendered exactly serviceable to the soul, in such sort as that sensuality and passion are perfectly kept under the command of Reason, (which is the great foundation of the best Nobility) no marvel, if the perfections not only of the inferior, but also of the better part (as to strong inclinations, propensities and dispositions) do many times descend together, especially where nature is not alloyed and debased with some vicious, sordid and unequal mixture, the great unhappiness of a mercenary and luxurious age. That which in Creatures of a lower rank, we commonly call a good breed, doth not unfitly represent the matter. And the care men use to procure and preserve it in their beasts, should, one would think, reproach the neglect of it in themselves. A wretchedness occasioned by nothing more than a lazy degenerating from the spirit and industry of our Noble Ancestors, or matching the Child of Vanity with the Son of Honour, whose light thereby grows more dim and obscure, being first wasted by that which impoverisheth the kind, and is by Solomon discredited under the title of eating in the morning, as you have it in the Verse immediately before, and directly opposed to my Text, where he makes the misery or ruin of a people, the necessary consequence of childishness and intemperance in their Rulers: Woe unto thee O Land, when thy King is a Child, and thy Princes eat in the morning! that is, unseasonably: to which if we add, the vile end and design they propose to themselves in so doing, not strength but drunkenness, (the perfect contradictory to his end; whom the Text Crowns with temperance) we have a very eminent cause discovered to us of a Lands weal or woe. For without the due excercise of a power Supreme, there can be no good Government, and so no blessing. But power is no power in a subject indisposed to use it, because it can never be well reduced to act, there's no strength nor vigour in it, no grace or dignity belonging to it. Whatever therefore weakens or empairs the strength either of the mind or body, hath no proportion or congruity with the proper quality and constitution of a Governor, the very formality of whose Office is to be a man of power. Debauchery therefore; by transubstantiating the man into the beast, which was never made for Rule and Dominion, is more peculiarly opposite to that state and condition by which a Land is blessed.  
He than that would truly be styled the Son of Nobles, and possess more than an empty or ridiculous title, must not be one that eats out of season, or that eats for drunkenness, and so takes order, that such meats be procured, and in such sort prepared, as may best serve to inflame the thirst, and kindle unnatural fires in the blood, to the great detriment of that health and soundness, without which the whole man consumes and decays, till at length the enfeebled judgement, and besotted reason become useless and insufficient for the difficult conduct of those great affairs, in the right managing whereof the blessing of a Land doth consist. So Princely and strengthening a virtue is Temperance: The Land, whose Rulers and Governors by their authority and examples have planted it to a thriving, is enriched and blessed by it. So happy also are the people whose King is the Son of Nobles, above them whose Rulers are passionate, ignorant, unconstant; rude and wanton, the usual properties of children, or such as is the child before the Text, who, by being opposed to the Son of Nobles, is supposed to be of some ignoble breed, some riotous or mean extraction. Which we shall not at all think strange, if we consider how the meanness of their condition must needs render their envied persons odious, and make their power contemptible. When the vilest men are exalted, 
Psal. 12.8.  than the wicked walk on every side: then servants ride upon horseback, and Princes walk as servants upon Earth. 
Eccles. 10.7.   
Mean persons have commonly tyrannical, sordid and insulting spirits, and are of a base and mercenary disposition. None so insolent, so scornful and unsufferable, as such persons generally, when they get into place or power. Not that Noble qualities are the inseparable or sole attendants of persons otherwise Nobly born: if I should say so, I should hardly be able to maintain it. Nobility therefore here, is not restrained or appropriated to a bare external relation: it principally includes the better part of Nobility, so that the other is always to be understood in conjunction with this. And may they ever go together, as things which God hath joined, and never be put asunder!  
But 'tis high time I came to some more special and particular application, and more immediately referring to the present occasion.  
The truth is, God himself hath made the application; 'tis he that hath put new life and vigour into the fainting spirits of a dying and despairing people.  
'Twas our happiness, the blessedness of our Land, and can be no less than the joy and triumph of our souls, that as on this day to us a Son was born, 
May 29. 1630.  who is every way the Son of Nobles, Heir to a Prince Noble in all the senses in which that word hath any commendable use. Noble by the eminent lustre of most Royal and renowned Ancestors: Noble by those eminent qualities that become so high a descent. Whatever either Art or Nature, Grace or Virtue, Reason or Religion might contribute to make a man truly noble, was eminently remarkable in that most Noble person and translated saint his Royal Father, to the great honour of him whose Vicegerent he was, to the singular satisfaction of his friends & Loyal subjects; to the shame and confusion of his enemies, even to the wonder and admiration of all. Noble, for his zeal to God's House, and for his love to an unthankful people. Noble in his life, and more noble in his death, made so by a Martyrdom so near in resemblance to that of the faithful Witness in heaven, that 'twould be hard to find any so exact a parallel in all the Annals and Records of time. But so it pleased God to make him, like his Saviour, perfect through sufferings; by which he had the honour of the Noblest Victory in subduing the very malice itself even of his bitterest enemies. For such was his patience and charity, such his meekness and constancy, such his prudence and fortitude, such his sanctity and piety, that even the conquerors themselves were conquered, and being stripped of all their hypocritical pretences, so as to have no cloak left for their sin, exposed stark naked with the greatest shame to the contempt and scorn both of God and men: For no sooner was he lifted up, but he drew all men unto him.  
Such was the Father, such also is the Son, Nobilis ex Nobili, if not in the eyes and hearts of his own Subjects, yet certainly of strangers and foreigners. For 'tis possible that a King as well as a Prophet, should not be without honour save in his own Country. And had not his worth and excellency spoken something more than ordinary, far above the usual accomplishments of great persons, even those of his own rank, it cannot be imagined how he should ever have been able to keep up so long so great a reputation in such a depressed condition, and when so many blind and secret arts have been used, so much open slander and detraction uttered to stain and eclipse his glory, by those filthy men, 
Judas 8, 11, 13,  who like raging waves of the Sea cast up their own filth, and shall perish in the gainsaying of Korah.  
Commonly as men are outwardly prosperous and successful, so they are deemed inwardly to be either wise or virtuous. The rich man thinks all that are poor are fools; and they that only admire wealth, neither know nor are capable of any other wisdom. But true wisdom is justified of her Children: and how much soever virtue in the general be of small account, little considered and less exercised, yet there is a Charm sometimes accompanying it, by which it hath so powerful and secret an influence (as some persons have the judgement or felicity to manage it) upon the affections even of the least concerned, that at forceth them into some degrees not only of love and honour, but of wonder also. The truth is, he that would be an accomplished person throughout, must not content himself with those external graces that render him acceptable to the first acquaintances and conversations of men, but be well stored with those inward, solid endowments, which commend themselves rather by the considerableness of their effects and after-consequences, then by the cecency and elegance of their present appearances.  
And though 'tis possible for men to attain by their great care and practise some tolerable measures of both; yet the perfection of either is seldom attained without some neglect of the other.  
'Tis a wonder, I confess, how persons of great and high birth, (considering their many and unavoidable diversions; besides the eminence of their condition, by which they are somewhat justly, but unhappily privileged, from the importunities of a strict, but advantageous discipline) should make any farther benefit or progress, than what is imputable to the arbitrary and uncertain improvements of Chance: Yet, if Divine Providence have so contrived out of its infinite pity and goodness to a Nation, that a Son of Nobles in all respects shall be their blessing and their King: and that people shall be happy, not only by the force of his Precepts, but, the influence of his Example; if we are not the happiest people upon the face of the earth, it is our own fault, that neither do nor will know in this our day the things that do belong unto our peace. For what can more be done for us then God hath already done? When we all like Sheep were gone astray, wand'ring up and down as those that have no shepherd, made a prey to Lions, and Bears, and Wolves, and Foxes, even all the beasts of the people, God hath been pleased, miraculously to put us under the conduct of one so fit, so ready and prepared to feed us, according to the integrity of his heart, and guide us by the skilfulness of his hands: who (besides a most excellent knowledge both of men and things, which renders him a perfect Master of the best conversation, and the object of their praises, that have the honour to observe and revere so great a Majesty in so sweet a presence graced with a happy and full concurrence of all personal ornaments) doth by a special blessing and more immediate privilege, lay so just a claim to that, which God himself hath determined to be the perfection of Kings, in what he hath testified of David the Father, and Solomon the Son, who were the most eminent and glorious of all the Jewish Kings but he, who after he had in scorn been called by his malicious and implacable adversaries the pretended King, one that said he was the King of the Jews, did yet far exceed and transcend them all, as was then acknowledged even by those contradicting and blaspheming sinners, when God had made his foes his footstool.  
Now 'twas, you know, King David's honour to be styled frequently a man after Gods own heart, by his love to God, to his house and service, by his eminent Justice, Clemency and Integrity. Yet the matter of Vriah was very scandalous and reproachful to him. By the grace of God, and the assistance of his Holy Spirit, our David stands yet, and we have no cause to doubt, but by the power of the same grace he will continue to stand, to the last, untainted with any such guilt. Then as for his fidelity and integrity both to God and man, he hath all along given such signal evidences, as even slander itself is no longer able to question it.  
For a person so variously afflicted, so divested of outward encouragements, so surrounded with the strength of the most violent temptations, so constantly assaulted with all the force and subtlety of the most importunate attempts, to be so  and constant in his Religion, as that neither the seasonable kindness of those of a contrary profession, nor the scandalous unkindness of those of the same faith (either of which in a far less degree is an engine strong enough to batter the resolution of a boasting Pharisee) should ever yet be able to startle him; as it is no doubt an argument of greatest joy and rejoicing to himself, so must it be of highest conviction and satisfaction to others. It is more over notoriously evident, that the great value and kindness which he hath for those that have given constant and undoubted assurance of their Loyalty otherwise, could never yet insinuate their vices into his favour and connivance; but he hath and doth so manifestly declare himself an enemy to those scandalous sins of some of them, to wit, swearing and debauchery, that all pretenders to the honour of good Subjects, must henceforth in good earnest either resolve to be sober, or quit the reputation and reward of strict and severe Loyalty.  
For Solomon the Son and Successor of David, 
1 King. 3.6.  you know what was his Petition to Almighty God, upon his taking possession of the Throne of the Kingdom, as also the success he had in that his request, which was so pleasing to God, and proved so beneficial and honourable to himself. And no question but wisdom and understanding are most essential qualifications of an accomplished Prince, without which he cannot well go either in or out himself, and must therefore be content to be led by others before so great a people. So gracious in this particular hath God been unto us, in setting this Sacred person to Rule over us, that we may well say what was said of Israel in another case, The Lord hath not dealt so with any Nation, among the heads whereof it would not be easy to find such a solidity of judgement, as needs not (out of any necessity) be forced either to depend on others, or distrust itself, but freely determine and stand to its own sentence, and that firmly and steadily, without any fickleness or aptness to be tossed and turned about like a Ship without helm or ballast, with every puff of Fancy or Conjecture. Moreover, what the Holy Scripture hath so expressly declared, That he who walketh uprightly walketh surely; his Majesty's example hath most exactly verified, by giving a most undeniable instance that there is something more in Wisdom then Cunning, and that truth of Religion maketh the wisest, because the best men.  
But then all these excellencies not being the effect only of mere study and sedentary speculation, must needs become so much the more expedite, ready and useful, by how much the more they have been confirmed and increased by frequent encounters and negotiations with persons of so many different Nations and professions, and of so contrary interests, by an unwearyed vigilance and industry, in a full employment and exercise of the strength and powers both of his mind and body. And all this in compliance with a life of duty, in a near subservience to the great Majesty of Heaven, and governed also by the exactest rules of an impartial justice, with that presence, strength and vigour of spirit, which dangers do not terrify, nor any sufferings or indignities discompose, nor the cross determinations of the all-ruling Providence cast into the weak impatience of a mean despondency or abjection of mind.  
And then when we consider what you all have seen, & your own eyes or ears can witness from his own Declaration, 
April 4/14 1660  how merciful he is to his enemies, how pitiful and compassionate, as well to the follies and provocations, as to the necessities and sufferings of his seduced people, it must needs be said of us as of some persons, like ourselves, ignorant of their own felicities, O fortunati nimium! we should be even too happy, could we but understand it. The truth whereof will, I doubt not, through God's blessing ere long become so evident, that albeit there be scarce faith to be found in the earth, it will yet be eminently and most fully verified even to the shame and conviction of the most incredulous.  
For my own part, I shall only add at present, that I have not spoken all this by hear-say, and can therefore the more easily believe, that it will soon be found to be no flattery: should a person coming from far, as the Queen of Sheba did, say also to him, as she did there to Solomon, 1 King. 10.8. Happy are thy men, happy are these thy servants that stand continually before thee, and that hear thy wisdom! Blessed be the Lord thy God, which delighted in thee, to set thee on the Throne of Israel! Because the Lord loved Israel for ever, therefore made he thee King to do judgement and justice.  
Which thou that art the King of Kings, by whom King's reign, and Princes decree Justice, grant that he may constantly perform; and that we his Subjects, du●ly considering whose Authority he hath, may faithfully serve, honour, and humbly obey him, in thee and for thee, according to thy blessed Word and Ordinance, who with thee and the Holy Ghost liveth and reigneth ever one God world without end. Amen.  
THE END.