Brief Notes Upon a Sermon Titled The Fear of God and the King

Brief NOTES upon a late SERMON, Titl'd, The Fear of God and the King, &c.

I Affirmd in the Preface of a late discourse, Entitl'd, The ready way to establish a free Commonwealth, and the dangers of readmitting Kingship in this Nation, that the humor of returning to our old bondage, was instilld of late by some deceivers; and to make good, that what I then affirmd, was not without just ground, one of those deceivers I present here to the people: and if I prove him not such, refuse not to be so accounted in his stead.

He begins in his Epistle to the General; and moves cunningly for a license to be admitted Physician both to Church and State; then sets out his practice in Physical terms, an wholesome Electuary to be taken every morning next our hearts: tells of the opposition which he met with from the College of State-Physicians, then lays before you his drugs and ingredients; Strong purgatives in the Pulpit, contemperd of the myrrh of mortification, the aloes of confession and contrition, the rubarb of restitution and satisfaction; a pretty fantastic dos of Divinity from a PulpitMountibanck, not unlike the Fox, that turning Pedler, opend his pack of ware before the Kid; though he now would seem to personate the good Samaritan, undertaking to describe the rise and progress of our national malady, and to prescribe the only remedy: which how he performs, we shall quickly see.

First, he would suborn Saint Luke as his spokesman to the General, presuming, it seems, to have had as perfect understanding of things from the very first, as the Evangelist had of his Gospel; that the General who hath so eminently born his part in the whole action, might know the certainty of those things better from him a partial Sequesterd enemy: for so he presently appears, though covertly and like the tempter, commencing his address with an impudent calumny and affront to his Excellence, that he would be pleasd to carry on what he had so happily begun in the name and cause not of God only, which we doubt not, but of his anointed, meaning the late Kings son: which is to charge him most audaciously and falsely with the renouncing of his own public promises and declarations both to the Parliament and the Army, and we trust his actions ere long will deter such insinuating slanderers from thus approaching him for the future. But the General may well excuse him; for the Comforter himself scapes not his presumption, avouchd as falsely, to have impowrd to those designs him and him only, who hath solemnly declared the contrary. What Phanatique against whom he so often inveighs, could more presumptuously affirm whom the Comforter hath impowrd, then this Antifanatic, as he would be thought?

The Text.

Letting pass matters not in controversy, I come to the main drift of your Sermon, the King; which word here is either to signify any supreme Magistrate, or else your latter object of fear is not universal, belongs not at all to many parts of Christendom, that have no King; and in particular, not to us. That we have no King since the putting down of Kingship in this Commonwealth, is manifest by this last Parliament, who to the time of thir dissolving not only made no address at all to any King, but summond this next to come by the Writ formerly appointed of a free Commonwealth, without restitution or the least mention of any Kingly right or power; which could not be, if there were at present any King of England. The main part therefore of your Sermon, if it mean a King in the usual sense, is either impertinent and absurd, exhorting your auditory to fear that which is not, or if King here be, as it is, understood for any supreme Magistrate, by your own exhortation they are in the first place not to meddle with you, as being yourself most of all the seditious meant here, and the desirous of change, in stirring them up to fear a King, whom the present Government takes no notice of.

You begin with a vain vision, God and the King at the first blush (which will not be your last blush) seeming to stand in your text like those two Cherubims on the mercy-seat, looking on each other. By this similitude, your conceited Sanctuary, worse then the Altar of Ahaz, patternd from Damascus, degrades God to a Cherub, and raises your King to be his collateral in place, notwithstanding the other differences you put: which well agrees with the Court-letters, lately publishd from this Lord to tother Lord, that cry him up for no less then Angelical and Celestial.

Your first observation, pag. 8. is. That God and the King are coupl'd in the text, and what the Holy Ghost hath thus firmly combined, we may not, we must not dare to put asunder; and yourself is the first man who puts them asunder by the first proof of your doctrine immediately following, Judge. 7. 20. which couples the sword of the Lord and Gideon, a man who not only was no King, but refused to be a King or Monarch, when it was offered him, in the very next chapter, verse. 22, 23. I will not rule over you, neither shall my son rule over you; the Lord shall rule over you. Here we see that this worthy heroic deliverer of his Country thought it best governd, if the Lord governd it in that form of a free Commonwealth, which they then enjoid without a single person. And this is your first Scripture, abused and most impertinently cited, nay against yourself, to prove that Kings at thir Coronation have a sword given them, which you interpret the Militia, the power of life and death put into thir hands, against the declared judgment of our Parliaments, nay of all our Laws, which reserve to themselves only the power of life and death, and render you in thir just resentment of this boldness, another Doctor Manwaring.

Your next proof is as false and frivolous, The King, say you, is God's sword-bearer; true, but not the King only, for Gideon by whom you seek to prove this, neither was, nor would be a King; and as you your self confess, pag. 40. there he divers forms of government. He bears not the sword in vain, Rom. 13. 4. this also is as true of any lawful rulers, especially supreme, so that rulers, verse. 3. and therefor this present government, without whose authority you excite the people to a King, bear the sword as well as Kings, and as little in vain. They fight against God, who resist his Ordinance, and go about to wrest the sword out of the hands of his Anointed? This is likewise granted: but who is his Anointed? not every King, but they only who were anointed or made Kings by his special command; as Saul, David, and his race, which ended in the Messiah, (from whom no Kings at this day can derive thir title) Jehu, Cyrus, and if any other were by name appointed by him to some particular service: as for the rest of Kings, all other supreme Magistrates are as much the Lord's anointed as they; and our obedience commanded equally to them all; For there is no power but of God, Rom. 13. 1. and we are exhorted in the Gospel to obey Kings, as other Magistrates, not that they are called any where the Lord's anointed, but as they are the ordinance of man, 1. Pet. • . 13. You therefor and other such false Doctors, preaching Kings to your auditory, as the Lord's only anointed, to withdraw people from the present Government, by your own text are self condemnd, and not to be followd, not to be medl'd with, but to be noted, as most of all others the seditious and desirous of change.

Your third proof is no less against yourself. Psal. 105. 15. touch not mine anointed. For this is not spoken in behalf of Kings, but spoken to reprove Kings, that they should not touch his anointed Saints and Servants, the seed of Abraham, as the very next before might have taught you: he reproved Kings for their sakes; saying, touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm; according to that 2 Cor. 1. 21. He who hath anointed us, is God. But how well you confirm one wrested Scripture with another; 1 Sam. 8. 7. They have not rejected thee, but me: grossly misapplying these words, which were not spoken to any who had resisted orrejected a King, but to them who much against the will of God had sought a King, and rejected a Commonwealth, wherein they might have livd happily under the Raign of God only, thir King. Let the words interpret themselves: v. 6. 7. But the thing displeased Samuel, when they said, give us a King to judge us: and Samuel prayed unto the Lord. And the Lord said unto Samuel, hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee; for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them. Hence you conclude, so in dissoluble is the Conjunction of God and the King. O notorious abuse of Scripture! whenas you should have concluded, So unwilling was God to give them a King, So wide was the disjunction of God from a King. Is this the doctrine you boast of to be so clear in itself, and like a Mathematical principle, that needs no farther demonstration. Bad Logic, bad Mathematics (for principles can have no demonstration at all) but worse Divinity. O people of an implicit faith no better then Romish, if these be thy prime teachers, who to thir credulous audience dare thus jugle with Scripture, to allege those places for the proof of thir doctrine, which are the plane refutation: and this is all the Scripture which he brings to confirm his point.

The rest of his preachment is mere groundless chat, save here and there a few granes of corn scatterd to entice the silly fowl into his net, interlacit here and there with some human reading; though slight, and notwithout Geographical and Historical mistakes▪ as page 29, Suevia the German dukedom, for Suecia the Northern Kingdom: Philip of Macedon, who is generally understood of the great Alexanders father only, made contemporanie, page 31, with T. Quintus the Roman commander, instead of T. Quintius and the latter Philip: and page 44, Tully cited in his third oration against Verres, to say of him, that he was a wicked Consul, who never was a Consul: nor Trojan sedition ever portraid by that verse of Virgil, which you cite page 47, as that of Troy: school-boys could have told you, that there is nothing of Troy in that whole portraiture, as you call it, of sedition. These gross mistakes may justly bring in doubt your other loos citations; and that you take them up somwhere at the second or third hand rashly and without due considering.

Nor are you happier in the relating or the moralizing your fable. The frogs ( being once a free Nation saith the fable) petitioned Jupiter for a King: he tambl'd among them a log. They found it insensible: they petitioned then for a King that should be active: he sent them a Crane (a Stork saith the fable) which straight fell to pecking them up. This you apply to the reproof of them who desire change: whereas indeed the true moral shows rather the folly of those, who being free seek a King; which for the most part either as a log lies heavy on his Subjects, without doing aught worthy of his dignity and the charge to maintain him, or as a Stork is ever pecking them up and devouring them.

But by our fundamental Laws, the King is the highest power, page 40. If we must hear mooting and lawlectures from the Pulpit, what shame is it for a Dr. of Divinity, not first to consider, that no law can be fundamental, but that which is grounded on the light of nature or right reason, commonly called moral law: which no form of Government was ever counted; but arbitrary, and at all times in the choice of every free people, or thir representers. This choice of Government is so essential to thir freedom, that longer then they have it, they are not free. In this land not only the late King and his posterity, but kingship itself hath been abrogated by a law; which involves with as good reason the posterity of a King forfeited to the people, as that Law heretofore of Treason against the King, attainted the children with the father. This Law against both King and Kingship they who most question, do no less question all enacted without the King and his Antiparlament at Oxford, though called Mungrell by himself. If no Law must be held good, but what passes in full Parliament, then surely in exactness of legalitie, no member must be missing: for look how many are missing, so many Counties or Cities that sent them, want thir representers. But if being once chosen, they serve for the whole Nation, then any number which is sufficient, is full, and most of all in times of discord, necessity and danger. The King himself was bound by the old Mode of Parliaments, not to be absent, but in case of sickness; or some extraordinary occasion, and then to leave his substitute; much less might any member be allowd to absent himself. If the King then and many of the members with him, without leaving any in his stead, forsook the Parliament upon a mere panic fear, as was at that time judged by most men, and to levy Warr against them that sat, should they who were left sitting, break up, or not dare enact aught of nearest and presentest concernment to public safety, for the punctilio wanting of a full number, which no Law book in such extraordinary cases hath determind? Certainly if it were lawful for them to fly from thir charge upon pretence of private safety, it was much more lawful for these to sit and act in thir trust what was necessary for public. By a Law therefor of Parliament, and of a Parliament that conquerd both Ireland, Scotland, & all thir enemies in England, defended thir friends, were generally acknowledged for a Parliament both at home & abroad, kingship was abolishd: this Law now of late hath been negatively repeald; yet Kingship not positively restored; and I suppose never was establishd by any certain Law in this Land, nor possibly could be: for how could our forefathers bind us to any certain form of Government, more then we can bind our posterity? If a people be put to war with thir King for his misgovernment, and overcome him, the power is then undoubtedly in thir own hands how they will be governd. The war was granted just by the King himself at the beginning of his last treaty; and still maintaind to be so by this last Parliament, as appears by the qualification prescribed to the members of this next ensuing, That none shall be elected, who have born arms against the Parliament since 1641. If the war were just, the conquest was also just by the Law of Nations. And he who was the chief enemy, in all right ceasd to be the King, especially after captivity, by the deciding verdit of war; and royalty with all her Laws and pretensions, yet remains in the victors power, together with the choice of our future Government. Free Commonwealths have been ever counted firtest and properest for civil, virtuous and industrious Nations, abounding with prudent men worthy to govern: monarchy fittest to curb degenerate, corrupt, idle, proud, luxurious people. If we desire to be of the former, nothing better for us, nothing nobler then a free Commonwealth: if we will needs condemn ourselves to be of the latter, despairing of our own virtue, industry and the number of our able men, we may then, conscious of our own unworthiness to be governd better, sadly betake us to our befitting thralldom: yet choosing out of our own number one who hath best aided the people, and best merited against tyranny, the space of a reign or two we may chance to live happily enough, or tolerably. But that a victorious people should give up themselves again to the vanquishd, was never yet heard of; seems rather void of all reason and good policy, and will in all probability subject the subduers to the subdued, will expose to revenge, to beggary, to ruin and perpetual bondage the victors under the vanquishd: then which what can be more unworthy?

From misinterpreting our Law, you return to do again the same with Scripture; and would prove the supremacy of English Kings from 1 Pet. 2. 13. as if that were the Apostles work: wherein if he saith that the king is supreme, he speaks so of him but as an ordinance of man, and in respect of those Governors that are sent by him, not in respect of Parliaments, which by the Law of this Land are his bridle; in vain his bridle, if not also his rider: and therefor hath not only coordination with him, which you falsely call seditious, but hath superiority above him, and that neither against religion, nor right reason: no nor against Common Law; for our Kings reignd only by Law: but the Parliament is above all positive Law, whether civil or common, makes or unmakes them both, & still the latter Parliament above the former, above all the former Lawgivers, then certainly above all precedent Laws, entaild the Crown on whom it pleasd; and, as a great Lawyer saith, is so transcendent and absolute, that it cannot be consin'd either for causes or persons, within any bounds. But your cry is, no Parliament without a King. If this be so, we have never had lawful Kings, who have all been created Kings either by such Parliaments, or by conquest: if by such Parliaments, they are in your allowance none: if by conquest, that conquest We have now conquerd. So that as well by your own assertion as by ours, there can at present be no King. And how could that person be absolutely supreme, who reignd, not under Law only, but under oath of his good demeanour given to the people at his coronation, ere the people gave him his Crown? and his principal oath was to maintain those Laws which the people should choose? If then the Law itself, much more he who was but the keeper and minister of Law, was in thir choice; and both he subordinate to the performance of his duty sworn, and our sworn allegiance in order only to his performance.

You fall next on the Consistorian Schismatics; for so you call Presbyterians, page 40; and judge them to have enervated the Kings Supremacy by thir opinions and practice, differing in many things only in terms from Popery; though some of those principles which you there cite concerning Kingship, are to be read in Aristotle's Politics, long ere Popery was thought on. The Presbyterians therefor it concerns to be well forewarnd of you betimes; and to them I leave you.

As for your examples of seditious men, page 54, &c. Cora, Absalom, Zimri, Sheba, to these you might with much more reason have added your own name, who blow the Trumpet of sedition from your Pulpit against the present Government: in reward whereof they have sent you by this time, as I hear, to your own place, for preching open sedition, while you would seem to preach against it.

As for your appendix annexed of the Samaritan revived, finding it so foul a libel against all the wellaffected of this land, since the very time of Ship-money, against the whole Parliament, both Lord's and Commons, except those that fled to Oxford, against the whole reformed Church, not only in England and Scotland, but all over Europ (in comparison whereof you and your Prelatical party are more truly schismatics and sectarians, nay more properly fanatics in your fanes and guilded temples, then those whom you revile by those names) and meeting with no more Scripture or solid reason in your Samaritan wine and oil, then hath already been found sophisticated and adulterate, I leave your malignant narrative, as needing no other confutation, then the just censure already passed upon you by the Council of State.