Imprimatur, G. Jane, R. P. D. Hen. Episc. Lond. à Sacris Dom. Aug. 13. 1676. A SERMON Preached July 17. 1676. IN THE Cathedral Church of St. Peter in York, Before the Right Honourable, Sir FRANCIS NORTH, Lord Chief Justice of the Common PLEAS; And the Honourable, VERE BERTIE Esquire, One of the Barons of the EXCHEQUER; His MAJESTY'S JUDGES of Assize for the Northern Circuit. BY THOMAS CARTWRIGHT D. D. And DEAN of Ripon, Chaplain in Ordinary to His MAJESTY. In the SAVOY: Printed by Thomas Newcomb; and are to be sold by Richard Lambert, Bookseller in York. 1676. To the Right Worshipful, Sir EDMUND JENNINGS Knight, High Sheriff of the County of YORK. SIR, AS I own you my Thanks for the Honour you did me, in thinking me worthy to be employed in so Public a Service, as that to which this Discourse relates; so I think it would be more than a Venial Sin to offer such a violence to Gratitude, as to decline your Commands for the Publication of it. I will not therefore use any thing which may look like an Excuse, but instantly show how inclinable I am to prefer your Judgement before my own; and beg leave to prefix your Name before that, which the Nature of the Subject, no less than the Obligations of the Preacher have made wholly yours. The chief design of the Sermon was to convince them that heard it, that our greatest Security under Heaven is the Wisdom of our Laws, the vigorous Execution whereof, would remove those manifold Mischiefs, which the Relaxation of them hath bred, and will cherish among us. Your Eminent Loyalty is such, that I have good reason to believe you love the Sermon for the Subjects sake; and if there be not also a Power in your Judgement to oblige others to have a good opinion of it, I shall account myself strong enough to abide their Censures, whilst I have you on my side; and endeavour to make myself the more valuable in the World by your Friendship; with the continuation whereof you can Honour none who puts a greater value upon it, and who is more sincerely, than I am, Ripon, Aug. 7. 1676. SIR, Your most obliged and humble Servant, THO. CARTWRIGHT. JUDGES 17. 6. In those days there was no King in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes. THe first and great Reason of Humane Laws and Dominion, is a Prevision that all men will not be a Law unto themselves, so as to do their Duty for love or fear of God; and therefore though there be Judgements to come in the next Life, denounced against all Crimes committed in this, yet did God in the very Infancy of the World make an Edict for Magistracy: so that the Civil Power doth derive its Pedigree from Heaven, and is a part of the Government over Mankind, in which God useth the Ministry of Angels, and the service of Men; and it hath accordingly in all Ages been found absolutely necessary for the preservation of Community, Peace and Piety, not to leave persons to terrors at such a distance as are those of Christ's second coming to judge the World in Righteousness, but to put the Sword of Vengeance into one Man's hand here on Earth for the benefit of all; because if Men should be let lose to their licentious freedom, wickedness would increase among them even to cruelty; nor would Good Men have any better security than Lambs in a Forest of many Wolves, if there were not some present restraints for such exorbitant Offenders, whom the determents of the Life to come could not overrule into subjection, that they might at least obey for wrath, if not for Conscience sake. We are like Children in their Minority, not fit to be trusted to our own conduct, but to be secured at the public charge of our Superiors, to whom next under God and his good Angels we are most beholding for our safety. Our Breath of our Nostrils is not more necessary for our being, than our Prince's Sovereignty is to our well-being; for were he not armed with Authority to overpower Evil doers, the Purse-proud-man would oppress the Poor, the Crafty circumvent the Simple, the weaker party be continually exposed to the spoil and rapine of the stronger, and we prostituted to the exorbitant Lust of every turbulent and domineering Spirit who could prevail to lord it over us. From hence we may easily conclude, That those days must needs be evil, wherein the Civil Government is Unhinged, when the ancient and unquestionable Sovereignty over any People is cut off; of which sad spectacle your Eyes and mine have been deploring Witnesses. For what Isaias foretold, was fulfilled in these days, The People were oppressed every one by another, Isai. 3. 5. and every one by his Neighbour; the Child did behave himself proudly against the Ancient, and the Base against the Honourable: When there was No King in Israel, every one was more than a King to himself, which is the greatest Judgement that can befall a Rebellious People in this World. For better any one a King, than every one a King; and yet every one is more than a King, if he may do without control what is right in his own Eyes; and therefore we are the most Ingrateful Wretches in the World, and fit to be condemned to such repeated Confusions, if we do not bless God, both with our Lips and in our Lives, for the Re-establishment of that Regal Authority, to which we so evidently own the preservation of our Order, our Peace, and our Religion; and indeed of every other good thing which is and aught to be dear unto us. Moses was the first King in Israel, and when he absented himself from the People but for forty days, they Calved themselves a Molten Image, and became such Beastly Idolaters as to fall down and worship it. Their new fashion in Religion, which they took up in his absence, (as ridiculous as it was) was quickly followed by the Crowd; and their God of Gold (though but a Calf indeed) did not long want Worshippers. His next immediate Successor was Joshua, and as soon as he was dead, Micha and his old doting Mother made them both Gods and Priests; and from what occasion these abominable Disorders sprang, my Text tells you, the true reason was, There was no King in Israel, none to prohibit or punish such Profanations; and so bless God or blaspheme him, be of any or no Religion, come to Church or stay at home; follow any Seducer, though never so dangerous; embrace any Heresy, though never so damnable; or espouse any Faction, though never so desperate and seditious; turn Idolaters, or commit Sacrilege; every Man may do what he lists, when there is no Public Magistrate to call him to an account for it. Thrice more we read in holy Scripture this Burden of the same Lamentation repeated, that There was no King in Israel; and this upon no less occasions than Idolatry and abominable Lusts, and with no less pernicious consequences and effects than Disorder and Dissolution. 1. When there was no King in Israel, who is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the living Image of God, the Tribe of Dan will have a dead Idol, they break into Micha's House, rob him of his Priest and and consecrated things; and if you inquire how such Sacrilege, Idolatry, Felony and Burglary could escape their deserved punishment? 'Tis fully answered, that there was no King in Judg. 18. 1 Israel, no Heir of Restraint, (for so the King is called Vers. 7. of that Chapter) because He by his Inheritance is obliged to curb and restrain all headstrong Impieties, and to cast up Boundaries against such overflowing Iniquities. 2. At another time we read of an horrible Rape committed, a Woman violently and shamefully abused by the extravagant Lust of barbarous Ruffians, and the Spirit of God renders this also for the reason of that violent Uncleanness of Gibeah, That there was no King in Israel. 3. Lastly, The Men of Benjamin became the bold Champions of Gibeah's Lewdness; and being fleshed with the double success of their evil cause, they persisted in their Villainy, till all but six hundred were destroyed. These surprised the Virgins dancing at Shiloth, ravished them away by violence from their Parents, and enforced them to Marriage; of which Rape and Riot the reason rendered is the same as it was of the former, In those days there was no King in Judg. 21. 23, 25. Israel. So that my Text, you see, is no single instance, no particular, strange, casual, or accidental Emergence; but as it was in the beginning, so it hath been ever since, and will be undoubtedly to the World's end; Where there is no King Gen. 36. 3. Deut. 33. 5 (that is, no ordinary Judge or Governor, as the word is elsewhere taken) every one will do that which is right in his own eyes. My Text is made up of Confusion, Anarchy, and the sad Effects of it divide it and the World; nor can you expect any perfect Method in the prosecution of such Disorders, wherein we are concerned to take notice of these three Particulars: I. The Tragical Antecedent, wherein the great cause of Israel's Miseries, and from what remarkably fatal time they bore date, is recorded; In those days there was no King in Israel. II. The Terrible Consequent, or Israel's dismal condition without their King; Every one did that which was right in their own Eyes. III. The Infallible Connexion between that Cause and this Effect; the one is so entailed upon the other, that there is but an intermediate Comma, hardly a breathing space, between the loss of a King and Licentiousness: Which makes the words by a clear Epiphonema to declare the great Benefit of a Legitimate King in Israel, the Necessity of Laws, and the Happiness of those People, who live under such a Government as takes an impartial care of their execution, which will bring the Text home from the Jews to the Gentiles, from those in Israel to us in England. Now the worst beginning that any Men living ever made, was, when we of this Nation began to be a weary of our Late Martyred Sovereign, that being the fatal time from whence we may experimentally derive the Original Cause of all ours, as the Holy Spirit hath here done of Israel's Miseries; which I therefore term, 1. The Tragical Antecedent: In those days there was no King in Israel. After Sampson's death, there was an Inter-regnum, not under Othoniel, but between Sampson's and Eli's Government, (to which Drusius and Tremellius think this instance relates.) Others say there was no Supreme and continual ordinary Magistrate over the whole body of the People; for the Judges were extraordinary, raised at God's pleasure over a part of the People, and without absolute Authority; and therefore the People Judg. 2. 17 would not hearken unto them, because their Power was only of Direction, not of Dominion; they could counsel, but not correct them: There were at that time many Taskmasters over Israel, but no King in it. Now the King is of as public and universal Influence in his Dominions, as is the Sun in the Firmament, He being the Public Ballancer of each Private Interest, with which he is entrusted as the proper Guardian of Equity and Justice, Custos utriusque Tabulae, to whose Sacred Custody God hath committed the Two Tables of the Law, and entrusted Him to see that we live soberly among ourselves, religiously towards God, and righteously towards our Neighbours. Rerum prima Salus & una Caesar. Martial l. 8. Epigr. 65. He is the principal Pillar upon which the Stress of his Kingdom lies; and as the King doth not live Sibi, sed Populo, so neither doth He die to his own, but to their disadvantage; and though ten thousand others might steal out of the World and no body mind or miss them, yet the Loss of Him will be as soon felt, as the plucking up of a substantial Stake out of a rotten Hedge, or the removal of a Buttress from a declining Wall. And when this Tutelar Angel of a Kingdom is recalled, 'tis time for the Inhabitants to tremble, for fear of the Destroying Angels coming among them. A King will be suddenly and sound missed, not only in Edom but in Israel, which will quickly turn to a Babel without him, in as much as that very Law by which we hold our Lives and Liberties will be but a Dead Letter, unless it have his Authority to actuate and enliven it. For let the Rule be never so straight and perfect, it measureth nothing out of his Hand who hath skill to use it; and when the Law hath defined what is Right or Wrong, there will want a Judge to sentence for the Plaintiff or Defendant; and let the Directive Power of the Law be never so good, it must of necessity fall to the ground, if there be not a co-active to assist it. Libertas Libertate Perit, to live as we please would be the ready way to lose our Liberty, and undo ourselves. Tyranny itself were infinitely more tolerable than such an unbridled Liberty. For that like a Tempest might throw down here and there a fruitful Tree, but this like a Deluge would sweep away all before it: and Confusion hath ever been found so much worse than the hardest Subjection, and even the most corrupt Government so much better than a Civil War, that it was overruled in Nerva's time by Fronto the Consul, Melius est sub his Cardan. Encom. Neron. c. 5 esse, sub quibus nihil licet, quam sub quibus omnia: That it is better to live under the severest Prince, where every Suspicion is made a Crime, and every Crime Capital, than to have none at all but a lawless Anarchy. And therefore the want of a King of which Israel so much complains, is a complicated Mischief, involving many thousand Evils in it, and such as are not to be calculated by any single person, but we must all lay our heads together to sum them up; which that we may the better do, I proceed to examine that particular account, which the second part of my Text gives of them, viz. II. The Terrible Consequent, or Israel's miserable condition without their King, in as much as every one did that which was right in his own Eyes. Every Man whose Soul can see no farther than his Eye, ought not to be empaneled to give in a Verdict of Right, of which to expect a true Judgement from him, were to exact an account beyond the Sphere of his notice. For admit, that some of Nature's Courser Wares may lie upon the Bulk, exposed to the transient view of every Vulgar Eye; yet these her Choicer Jewels of Right and Equity are locked up in her private Cabinet, for their sight who can purchase them at their due rates of Sweat and Oil. If therefore any Man's Eye be the competent Judge of Right, yet without peradventure not every Man's; certainly not those of the Crowd, who prostrate their Assent to every shallow Appearance, and defile their Judgements with each bold Conjecture that flatters them. And indeed if every private Man had Wit and Honesty sufficient to govern himself and his own Actions, there would be no need of Public Laws to direct, and Magistrates to guide them: But alas! most men's Minds are too much out of order to have such a Trust reposed in them, as being acted by fond and absurd Principles, and so horribly imposed upon by their Vices and Passions, that their Determinations are as different as their Judgements, and those as their Interests; and they who have no reason in them but their Wills, will hear none against them, which would make Controversies and Dissensions endless, if the Wisdom of Providence in a foresight of these Mischiefs to which we are thus obnoxious, had not caused us all to be born Subjects to some Empire, placing a Prince and Priest at first in every Family, and suffering none, since the World was better peopled, to live without the Restraints of an overruling Government. But if every Man's Eye could be supposed to be the competent Judge of some Right, yet without peradventure not of his own Right, for we are prone to fawn upon ourselves, and to be wilfully ignorant of our own failings. Our Affections do so easily bribe our Judgements to most apparent degrees of inequality, that it will be in vain to expect a Right Sentence where the Judge is a Party. We do so infinitely believe what makes for ourselves, and so easily settle in a firm persuasion of the goodness of our own Causes without examining them, that any thing seems Right to us, if it be our Interest to have it so; and whatsoever we see through those Selfish Spectacles, comes with such great improvement to our Judgements, that as oft as Reason is against us, so oft are we against Reason. Rectum non ex propria recti, honestique rationem, sed ex uniuscujusque libidine definitur: Nor is there any Crime so bad but it seems as right in some men's Eyes, as the Worshipping of an Idol did in Micha's, or as Rebellion under pretence of Religion did to them who had Espoused the Good Old Cause; and in pure tenderness of Conscience to make her a Sufficient Dowry, Joyntred her in the Blood and Estates of their Lawful Sovereign and his Loyal Subjects, till their Gospel-Reformation was in a manner completed, and the Godly Party came to Inherit the Fattest Portions of this Land. Nor need we go back to them for an instance of men's being blinded with their Passions and Interests; for we see not the Beams in our own Eyes, but hug our very Deformities when they bear our Names, and will hardly be persuaded they are so, when we take ourselves to be their Authors. Nemo suae mentis motus non aestimat aequos Quodque volunt homines, se bene velle putant. Prov. Many Men, many Minds, and each strongly addicted to his own. If therefore every Man should be his own Judge, so as to take upon him to determine his own Right, and according to such Determination to proceed in the maintenance of it, not only the Government, but the Kingdom itself would quickly come to ruin: and yet admit of the former, and you cannot exclude the latter. For the Hand will follow the Eye, and Men do as it seems right to them, be it never so wrong in itself: so that if a vicious Eye be seconded with strong Hands, and there be No King to pinion them; we cannot expect more Miseries, than will infallibly invade us, nor fewer than befell the Jews, when every Man did that which was right in his own Eyes. Diseases in the Eye, Errors in the Judgement, are dangerous; and there being not one Reason in us, there is the more need of one Power over us. Yet they who see amiss, hurt none (they say) but themselves: But how if their unquiet Opinions will not be kept at home? but proves as Thorns in their Sides, and will not suffer them to take any rest, till from Liberty of Thinking, they come to Liberty of Acting? (which the most Judicious Hooker foresaw they would do, and we have seen they did.) Then without question, if we cannot pull men's Eyes out of their Heads, (which were inhuman to attempt) nor beat them out of their perverse Opinions, (which were unchristian) yet at least it is the Public Interest and the Magistrates Duty to pinion their Hands, and bind them to the Peace; and the Kings Charge it must consequently be, to look to His Subjects Eyes, as well as he can, that they sin not blindly for want of Direction; and especially to their Arms, that they sin not with a high Hand for want of Correction; to look well to Micha in matters of Religion; to take care to pull False Worship down, and to set up the Power of Godliness in its room. The letting lose of that string of Uniformity, which the Laws have screwed up to its just pitch, will make greater Discords in the Harmony both of Church and State than we can easily imagine. Regis quisque intra se animum habet. Every Man is apt to take more Liberty than he will allow, and to look upon the Restraints of Authority as an Encroachment upon his Birth right; and therefore doing of Right is a smooth term with them who are for the most part in the Wrong; and Liberty of Conscience the plausiblest thing in the World, even among Men of no Conscience at all. But our Wiser Progenitors who expected Protection, not only for Themselves but their Posterities, did and might as reasonably engage for our Obedience to them who should protect us; nor are we therefore born in a state of absolute Liberty, to choose what Laws and Governors we please; but Subjects to that Authority we now live under, which we are bound to preserve both in Church and State with our Lives and Fortunes. Nor is there any reason we should be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, lawless, to do what we please: for we cannot fathom the depth and deceitfulness of our own Hearts, much less of the Hearts of other Men, which are fruitful in evil, and every day bring forth new Inventions. Only this we know, Cui plus licet quam par est, plus velit quam licet, We are all the worse for that which we mistake for Liberty, (mistake I say) for to live as we please, is indeed to lose our Liberty, of which the Law is so far from being an Abridgement, that it is the only Firm Foundation upon which it must be built, if it stand for ever, there being no True Liberty but under some Law; to which when Men fling off their Obedience, they bring themselves under the Devil's Yoke; nor is there any thing more unlike Liberty than that which they then contend for with so much heat and violence. A Liberty to manifest our folly and wickedness, to be unjust and unholy, to injure our Brethren and ourselves, is but a Licence and Protection for Villainy, which is the greatest Slavery on this side Hell; and yet a little more of this Liberty they would fain have, who have had too much already, (unless they had used it better.) The Crowd would fain be let lose, to do what they please; which Freedom that they may the better obtain, they are taught (by them who know best how to set a Rebellion on foot) to pretend Conscience, and an Inward Light for all their Aims and Actions, how dark and dangerous soever; which fond pretence hath in all Ages bid defiance to the Swords and Sceptres of Sovereign Princes, and Countermanded the Laws of their Enacting; and whenever the Rabble had a mind to Rebel, every thing they would have introduced or altered in the Government was their Conscience, and their foulest Villainies were ready to justify themselves by Scripture Authority. Now by their Consciences (for the Liberty whereof this Nation hath unhappily spent that Blood and Treasure which we might have kept for better purposes) the modestest of them meant, I think, their Judgement, and Opinion of their own Actions; and did accordingly become Humble Petitioners to our Martyred KING of Blessed Memory, that their Dictates might be certain Peculiars exempt from the Jurisdictions of their Sovereigns Decrees. No Nation under Heaven hath been more over-stock'd with such Libertines than this of ours, where they have been laying the Foundation for above forty years' last passed, of the most lose, uncertain and pernicious Religion in the World. When they hear the Echo of their own Lust and Concupiscence speaking within them, they tell their deluded Admirers, that it is the Voice of the Spirit; and being once enlighted with such Illusions, they bring in God to Witness against Himself, and to speak by them from Heaven against what he hath declared before by his Son upon Earth; upon which Foundation what a Babel of Confusion hath been erected, and what foul Sins have advanced themselves upon these specious Principles, even to the outfacing of all Authority, we have sadly seen and felt too much already. Men of Distempered Minds as well as Crazy Bodies being possessed with a discontent and dislike of things present, do naturally imagine that any thing, the Virtue whereof they hear commended by their Friends, will help them, and that most which they have tried least; and therefore they listen greedily to any Alterations of that Government which is uneasy to their Humours. A Rent in the Church they hope may make up the Breaches in their Estates and Reputations, and the Ruins of the Kingdom build up their Fortunes; and therefore no wonder if they desire to acknowledge No King in Israel but Christ, and every one to do that which is right in his own Eyes, without the control of his Governors, who are entrusted with the Sword of Justice to repress those Armed Disorders which are embowelled in that Trojan Horse, which these Crafty Sinon's would introduce. Hoc Ithacus velit, & magno mercentur Atridae. If this be admitted, King JAMES His Prophecy will be soon fulfilled, The Pope will be brought into England upon the Puritans back: And though I am so Charitable as to hope, that they do not in the least design it; yet I am also so purblind that I cannot see the least danger of his entrance any other way, notwithstanding the many Jealousies of this kind with which we are daily alarmed. But alas, What an Insignificant cipher, what a mere Picture of Authority would a King be, if every private Man's persuasion, which he has learned to call his Conscience, should give check to the Magistrates Commands? And how impossible is it for the King to abridge them of Liberty of Conscience, the pleading for which makes so great a noise in the World? For Liberty of Conscience rightly stated, is an Internal and Invisible thing, seated in that part of a Man, of whose secret Operations, which are but pure Speculations, the Civil Power can take no Cognizance. Men may think of things according to their own persuasions, and assert the freedom of their Judgements in their Intellectual Kingdoms against all the Emperors in the World. Nor is such a Private Sovereignty as this any Encroachment on the Prerogatives of Princes, because Mere Opinions as such, have no influence upon the Good or Evil of Humane Societies, which is the proper Object of Government; so that if the Opinion be shut up and muzzled, if it dwell quietly at home, and take not the Air to molest and endanger others, Authority lays no restraint upon it. But when it sallies out of its own Sanctuary, into outward Action, and invades the Magistrates Territories, till it come from Liberty of Persuasion to Liberty of Practice, and throws 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, such Fiery Darts of Satan among his Subjects Eph. 6. 16. as may inflame and wound them, 'tis both his Duty and Interest to have a care of the Public Weal, and to put a Bit in the Mouth of such an headstrong and unbridled Liberty as would run full speed into all the Mischiefs and Enormities imaginable. God knows the generality of men's Consciences are very insufficient and incompetent Judges of their own Actions; and to leave them to the Government of their own Delusive Persuasions, were in effect to deliver them up to Satan, to be abused and tormented with every Lust, which had debauched their Understandings. We have seen of late years what a Cross-grained Thing this Liberty of Conscience is, how many Rebels it Armed, and how many Drums it beat up for Reformation, till Humour, Prejudice and Peevishness prevailed to Murder the Best of Princes. Nor can we be reasonably startled at any greater Symptoms of the departure of that Happy Government which God hath now blessed us with, than every Man's resolving to be overruled by none but his own Persuasions; from the growth of which pernicious Delusion, Good Lord deliver us. For if there were No King in our Israel, we should soon feel by these men's Actions what were Right in their Eyes, and be thoroughly convinced of the Truth of the third part of my Text; viz, III. The Infallible Connexion between that Antecedent and this Consequent, the Loss of a King and Licentiousness. In those days there was no King in Israel, Quid plus velit ira? There was no full stop to more Miseries yet; there is but a mere Comma, a short breathing space, and it instantly follows, Every Man did that which was right in his own Eyes. We are not yet grown so old in our regained Happiness, as to have outworn the sense of our late Disorders. Those Fatal Days are not yet forgot, wherein the Cursed Regicides pulled down God's Deputy to set up Devotion, defaced the Churches to introduce a Form of Godliness, and grubbed up the soundest and straitest Cedars of it by the Roots, to plant a Grove of crooked hollow hearted Elders in their room, till they came to hold the Laws themselves under Sequestration, as well as the Rights and Revenues of the Crown and Church, and of all such good Subjects and Christians as had Courage and Conscience enough to defend either. Indeed we can hardly name that Wickedness which was not then Tolerated, Countenanced, Encouraged and Applauded, when the Sword of the Spirit had once found a new way to the Conscience, even by cutting thorough the Flesh. From which horrible Enormities, which a King in Israel would, and when he is dethroned, none else can, prevent and remedy, give me leave by way of Application to infer three things. 1. The Necessity of Laws and Governors. If all Men were Virtuous, every Man would be a Law to himself; but there being very few who can guide themselves, and very many who will not be guided by others without constraint, there is a visible need both of a Directive Power to make Laws, and of a Coactive to put them in Execution. The Law without the King is but a Dead Letter, He is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the Living Law; and as without Government there would be no Communities, but rather Herds of Men; so without such Coercive Power of his, there could be no Government; and if the Power of which the King is possessed did not so vastly exceed that of his Subjects who are to obey, that in case of a Contest it would be most unreasonable for them to hope to maintain their Cause and Party against him, we should never be free from Tumults and Seditions; and therefore Men being more Ruled by Hopes and Fears, than by a sense of Duty and love of Goodness, 'tis necessary for the Maintenance of Societies, not only that it be declared, What Men ought to do; but also that the Penalties be set forth which they ought to suffer upon the Violation of those Laws whereupon the Society doth subsist, for which they are to be accountable to such who by their Oaths and Offices are bound to see the Laws obeyed, and Offenders punished: so that although there be Kings, yet except they carefully execute their Laws, that no Man be suffered to do what is right in his own Eyes, without suffering the Penalties imposed by Law, Disorder and Dissolution will quickly follow. The Laws ought to be of an Vnyielding and Inflexible Temper, and not such soft and easy things as to bend to their humour whom they ought to command. Nor do I know any Rule either of Policy or Piety, whereby the Conscience of the Superior is bound to relax his Laws, because the Inferior thinks so. For if one Man can make it necessary to change the Law in compliance with his Opinion, then why not every one? and so no Law shall be in force, but what Malefactors have a mind to, and every Man shall be bound to please himself in doing that which is right in his own Eyes, which is the ready way to Nurse up Factions and Seditions to a Grandeur so formidable, as to be able when they see their own time to change the Government of Church and State. 'Tis sometimes necessary for the Public Weal to punish Well-meaning Persons for such Offences into which they have been betrayed through their own Ignorance and Inadvertency, and by the artifice of some Grand Seducers: but it is always necessary to punish such, who unless they mean better now than they did before, mean to bathe their Tender Consciences in the Blood of our Gracious Sovereign and their fellow-Subjects; and therefore it is high time for them who are in Authority, not only to consider the present, but to enlarge their Vigilancy for the times to come; to permit nothing now, which may hereafter shake the Throne of David, and to bestir themselves against such Anti-Monarchical, and Anti-Episcopal Spirits, as have been Conjured up in this Rebellious and Disputing Age, till they lay such Infernal Impostors, and compel them to that Modesty and Obedience by the Sword of Justice, to which all the Rhetoric and Reason in the World can never court them. And I know your Lordships understand yourselves and the present Distempers of this poor distracted Kingdom better than to hope to remove the Disease by feeding the Humour. If the Foundations of Faith, Good Life and Government be not secured by the due execution of the Laws, we shall neither have Truth nor Peace long among us: From whence we may infer, 2. The great Benefit of a Legitimate King and his Government, as of that in which our Strength lies, as did sampson's in his Hair; which if cut off, we should quickly betray our Weakness to the Philistines falling upon us. Munimentum Gentis est Justitia; Justice is the Fortification of a Kingdom, and Laws the Soul of the Body Politic, by which its parts are animated and set a work in such Actions as the common good requires, which taught Plato to derive their Pedigree from Heaven, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And indeed the World, which would otherwise be a Savage Wilderness, is by Government made a Terrestrial Paradise, the Type and Representation of that which is Eternal, whilst every Man sits under his own Vine and Figtree, gathering his own Fruit, and not reaching his Hand into another's Vineyard. Thus are Men by the King's Power made just to others and themselves; and as they may not offer violence, so neither need they fear to suffer it; they may not disturb their brethren's Peace, nor need they be jealous of their own, no Man being permitted to do that which is right in his own Eyes, unless it be also agreeable to the Laws of God and the King; and the Outcries of such against the Magistrates as are thus happily bound by them to their Good behaviour, are no more to be regarded by them than those of Madmen against their Physicians. Nor do Kings, who are Gods among Men, go out of their way in managing the Affairs of his Kingdom. For if none had Power to order Matters of Religion, there would be nothing but Confusion; if any besides the Supreme Magistrate, nothing but Division; and therefore the Jews tell us, that the Keys of the Temple were not hung at the High Priests Girdle, but laid every Night under Solomon's Pillow, as belonging to his charge. And for as much as the King of England holds his Crown of God in Capite, to Him must he go, not to the Pope for his Directions in this matter. He is to consult Moses and the Prophets, not Him and his Cardinals. His Sword is to be guided and restrained by the Laws of Heaven, and not controlled by those of Rome. King James one would think had said enough to make their Papal-Bulls pull in their Horns with shame, and to teach all Christian Kings to take heed of being tossed by them, with whom King-Killing hath passed the Muster not only of Works acceptable to God, but also of such Meritorious Ones as may justly purchase the Crown of Martyrdom. They call the Murder of Heretical Princes an holy and honourable Exploit, by which they shall merit Salvation; which though St. Paul forbidden the Romans to whom he wrote under Pain of Damnation, yet, yet does the Pope of Rome and his Assertors encourage Subjects to, as that to which they are bound under no less a penalty, (Conscientiae vinculo arctissimo, says Creswell.) I know there are many Loyal Persons of the Romish Persuasion, who do abhor those Jesuitical Principles and Practices; and I wish the Pope would be so just to himself and us, and so kind to them, as to call those Churchmen of his in question, who have publicly abetted such Treasonable Conspiracies, and that he would publish his Pontifical Decree to provide for the Safety of Kings a little better than his College of Jesuits have done, and to censure Mariana's and such other Books as have commended Regicides, to the great scandal of Religion, and then his Proselytes would have no occasion to complain of Persecution here in England, which the Protestant Religion doth no where teach. All Ecclesiastical Officers are but the King's Vnder-ministers, who being the Head of all under Christ, aught to have an especial care of his Body the Church, that no turbulent Papists or fanatics may under pretence of Conscience and Reformation, outface and control God's and his Authority, and raise such Quarrels in the Church about Ceremonies, as may at last imbroil his Kingdom in the greatest Disorders and Exorbitancies imaginable. And indeed when Men are grown so hardy as to venture upon the Mouth of any Cannon which is not charged with Chainshot, but with the Brutum Fulmen of a Flashy Excommunication, which doth no Execution upon their Bodies or Estates, it is much to be feared that they will, when they see their opportunity, assault the Power itself that set them up, if they in whom the Execution of the Laws is entrusted, do not think fit to proportion their strictness to the stubbornness of Grainsayers, but the Rulers permit what the Rule forbids to the encouragement of disobedience. For unless Justice do inflict the Wrath, as well as Conscience enact the Law, Impunity will breed Insolence, and Vice grow the greater by prohibition. Yield them up this one Flower of the King's Crown, and their Encroaching Fingers will be reaching after another; their Malice being so unreasonable, that it hath been found much easier to deny them all, than having gratified them in part to prescribe them a measure. And certainly one great cause why this Kingdom hath more Rebels than Murderers, more Schismatics than Sodomites, more stubborn Nonconformists than High-way-men, is because there is a more strict execution of the Laws against the one, than against the other. Give not me therefore, but God leave, whose Minister I am here as your Honours are on the Bench, to call upon you to remember the Church of England, when you sit down to Consult and Judge, that her Sons may not forget your Lordships when they kneel down to pray; and this we beg the more earnestly, because the unsheathing of your Swords may happily prevent the destroying Angels drawing his. I am not tempted to sin against the Public Character which hath been so deservedly given to your Lordships; nor do I in the least suspect any active or passive Injustice in you, or that you need any encouragement of mine to act according to the Dictates of your Consciences, and the Limits of your Commissions; and therefore all that I have said in this matter is designed to justify to others the Oeconomy and Equity of your constant care and proceed in this kind, and not only the reasonableness, but the indispensible necessity which lies upon you of performing that Great Trust which God and the King have reposed in you, for the Public Good of this Church and Kingdom. But I know the touchiness of the times in which I speak to be as admirable as their contempt of Authority; and do therefore expect to be told by some who are conscious to themselves how much they have deserved to feel the smart of your Censures in this kind; how ill it becomes a Minister of the God of Peace, whose Mercy is above all his Works, either to be angry myself, or to incense your Lordships against such dissenting Brethren, who sometimes perhaps obey for wrath, and sometimes also disobey for Conscience sake; and that I should rather in meekness instruct those that oppose themselves, if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledgement of the Truth, than invite others to persecute them. For so both the Romanists and Sectaries have agreed to call the Execution of the Penal Laws, and to charge them upon the Church of England, which hath no hand in the Execution of them. I thank God, I never yet was, nor ought I to be angry with any Man for not seeing with my Eyes, for not being of my Persuasion; nor have I so much heat, nor so little light, but that I can overlook their Misapprehensions with the coolest Indifferency imaginable, and do daily pray from the bottom of my Heart, that God would bring into the way of Truth all such as have erred and are deceived. But when Men will set up Altar against Altar, and Pulpit against Pulpit, not only without, but against Authority, and make no more of Obedience and Subjection than of a Ceremony, (for which they seem to mistake them) I cannot imagine how the Laws could be less severe against them than they are, nor how the Magistrate can more seriously oblige them, than by overruling them to that degree of Conformity which is both their Duty and Happiness. The Church of Christ among us, which was once undoubtedly as seamless as his Coat, these Canting Deceivers have now of late so rend by Schisms, so torn by Separations, that it is become like Joseph's Coat, one piece is hardly coloured like another; and I pray God it prove not like it in another particular also, that it be not once more died Red, and imbrued in Blood again. I need not tell you what the Donatists did in Africa against Maximinian, nor John of Leydens' Men at Munster. The Popes of Rome, for all their Age and Holiness, have more than once attempted to commit a Rape upon the Crown and Church of England; and we have also smartly felt, how hard the Hearts and Hands of those Tender Consciences were, which were Nursed up at Geneva. The Foxes did then (as they do now) look several ways, but we find our Fields wasted, and can hardly tell, which were the greater Trespassers; and God forbidden that either of their Dominions should ever be founded in His MAJESTY'S Grace. I hope this Nation lies under no Disloyal Temptations to a Second Holy War, because we cannot yet have forgot what a vast Expense of Blood and Treasure the First cost us. I doubt not but our former Experience will Discipline us into an abhorrency of all those Unnatural Methods which may infer the like Catastrophe. It is not long since the Lord turned again the Captivity of our Zion; and are we already so sick of our Liberty, and so fond to go back, as if with the malcontent Israelites our Delight were in Egypt, and we longed to be Dancing after the Phrygian Music of Drums and Trumpets? What is it that you want to complete your Happiness, unless it be to understand it better, and to be more thankful for it? Will not the Miracle of the Kings and Church's Restauration rise up in Judgement against us, if we so soon grow a weary of our Deliverance as to blaspheme GOD and the KING, and deflower the Beauty of his Crown with Satyrical Invectives, and gratify his Enemies with Libels against his Person and Government? The very Heathens themselves had Divinity enough to pay Devotion to their Princes. Imperatori tanquam praesenti & corporali Deo, Fidelis est praestanda devotioo; and if our Religion do not improve our Loyalty beyond theirs, it is not from above, and we shall be found Rebels against Heaven as well as Him. For they who do not obey the King, who is a Visible God, will never obey God, who is an Invisible King. If therefore you desire to approve yourselves good Subjects and Christians, invent not any Evil Stories of Him whom God hath set over you, falsely; believe them not easily, report them not disloyally, aggravate them not spitefully, scatter them not industriously, but apprehend such Disloyal thieves, whom you take a Pillaging your Princes Good Name; the forward Receiver of any evil report, being as bad as he that brings it. And remember that Railing against Kings was a Capital Crime in David's Judgement, who commanded Solomon to put 1 Kin. 2. 9 Shimei to death for it. Let all your things be done with Charity; but let that Charity begin at home, and let the Father of your Country and your Mother Church taste the first fruits of it. As many as are acted by calm and peaceable Principles, have as much Liberty by Law as they can desire, and much good it may do them. For those who are otherwise minded, it were an unpardonable Diminution of the Wisdom and Authority of the King and Parliament to say they deserved it. Unless there be five or more assembled together over and besides those of the same Household where their Conventicle or Assembly is, the Law made Ann. 22 CAROLI Secundi, for the Prevention and Suppression of Seditious Conventicles, takes no Cognizance of them; and yet still they complain of Want of Liberty. Now it cannot be a Liberty of Serving God which they want, for he hath promised that Wheresoever two or three are met together in his Name, he will be in the midst of them; (and the Law allows them this, and as much more:) but it must be a Liberty of increasing their Factions, till their Numbers may come to give Laws to the Government. His MAJESTY hath done nothing to impose upon their Consciences. I wish I could also as truly say that they had done nothing to oppose his Authority: for the Benefits whereof that we may bless God, as becomes us, and pray the more hearty for its continuance, I shall descant in the close of my Discourse upon, 3 Our Happiness under a Monarchical Government, which hath this prescription and advantage above all other forms, that it carries a more evident stamp of Divine Institution than any other, and is the more likely to avoid or put an end to all Divisions whatsoever. For where there are many Governors, there must needs be Differences; where there are few, there easily may be; where there is but one, there cannot, the intermediate Officers having their Subordination either to other, and all to him, who as God said to Moses, hath need of such Under-officers, Numb 11. 17. because he is not able to bear the burden alone. We have a KING after Gods and our own Heart; may his Reign be long and prosperous: He is God's High Steward and Minister; and You, My Lords, are His, from whom you derive your Authority for the punishment of Evil-doers, that we may lead a peaceable Life in all Godliness and Honesty. If therefore any have done what is right in their own Eyes, (but not in those of the Law) I doubt not but that you will let them know, that There is a King in Israel, by bringing them to suffer what is right in yours; that whosoever will not do the Laws of our God and the King, may have Judgement Ezra 7. 26 executed speedily upon them, whether it be death, or to banishment, or to confiscation of goods, or to imprisonment. Which benefit whilst the Country reaps by the execution of your Trust, (who are the King's best Lifeguard in times of Peace) the very feet of those who bring tidings of your coming, will be beautiful on the Mountains; and your Honours will be received with the greatest alacrity and demonstrations of Joy imaginable, as Good Angels of God and the King; to whom we are in such deep Arrears of Duty and Allegiance, that we can never pay him the Interest of our Obligations. Nemo Patri Patriae parem refert gratiam, etiamsi vitam impendat: No Man can be grateful enough to his Prince, though he sacrifice his Life to his Service. Indeed we are blind to our own Interest, if we do not tender him as the Apple of our Eye; Submit both our Persons and Estates to be commanded at his pleasure; in as much as all our private Concerns are embarked in that Public Bottom, whose Exigencies must be supplied with Men and Money according to the King's Discretion, who with the Advice and Assistance of his great Council the Parliament, is the best Judge of Public Necessity. As we are all comprehended in, so are we obliged to the good of the Nation, upon which whatsoever we bestow returns to ourselves, the King having no more than the serious care of a Public Guardian to lay out our Services, and some part of our Estates for our own good, of which no Revenue remains to himself but care and trouble. If Men did bear true Faith and Allegiance to God and the King, and would stick to the plain Principles of the Gospel, and of a Virtuous Life, their very Souls would be subject to the Higher Powers; and Disobedience would be to them, as it is to God, as hateful as the Sin of Witchcraft; and contempt of Authority, though in the smallest matters, would appear to deserve the greatest punishment; and they would then take better care to secure their own Consciences and the Public Peace, than to arraign the Prudence of Authority, and the Justice of Laws at the Bar of their private Discretion, by the odious Name of Persecution, in so licentious a manner as they now generally do, and control the Wisdom of their Superiors because they have little or none themselves. Then would they also perceive how just and necessary it is, that since Men have not all one Reason in them, they should at least have one Power over them, to render such Acts ineffectual by the due execution of Impartial Justice, which might be done by any to the disturbance of the Community. When there was No King or Judge in Israel, Religion first, than all went to rack: But God having now blessed us with a King and his Judges, (thanks be to him) we have no need to fear the return of such Disorders; neither Micha for all his Wealth, nor Dan for all his Forces, nor Gibeah for all their Multitude, no discontented Persons or Parties of what Faith or Faction soever, may do what is right in their own Eyes, unless they mean to suffer what is right in yours, who are as much bound in Conscience to execute the Laws, as they would make us believe they were to break them. Nor will you be the worse beloved of God, or good Men, for preserving an opinion of your Justice and Severity, but be highly applauded here, and rewarded hereafter. Hereby may you promise yourselves our bended Knees at the Throne of Grace, for your long Lives and endless Happiness. You will be feared of the Kings and your Enemies, and be beloved of his and your Friends: Your Mother Church will bless you, and God for you; and your Father which is in Heaven will bestow upon you a Crown of Eternal Glory, saying, Well done good and faithful Servants, enter into the Joy of your Master, where you shall be eternally blessed with what we now desire to ascribe to the Great Judge of Heaven and Earth, all Honour, Power and Glory. AMEN. FINIS.