Commentary on Genesis and Exodus, Dedication 5
TO THE MOST CHRISTIAN RIGHT NOBLE, MOST EXCELLENT AND mightie Prince, IAMES by the grace of God King of Great Britaine, France and Ireland, Defender of the true Christian Faith.
ANtipater King of Macedonia (most gracious Sovereigne) when one presented unto him a booke treating of happinesse, is said to have rejected it with this answer:foreign. Ex Stoba…, ser. …. I am not at leisure. To whom the presenter replied; Be not King, if thou hast no leisure. Your Majestie with better reason might be excused by want of leisure, if such kinde of presents were neglected; both because your Highnesse affaires of the Kingdome are greater, and such gifts are now exhibited oftner. But that replie was rash and audacious: for he so much the more is worthie the name of a King, who intending more weightie businesse, cannot attend smaller matters: yet seeing Princes are as Gods in earth, and this is Gods glorie,Psal. 113.5. who dwelling on high abaseth himselfe to behold things in heaven and earth; may it please your Majestie to descend a little from your Throne of honour, and to vouchsafe to take knowledge of this gift, which is now offered.
I here present to your sacred view the historie of Moses birth, education, acts, and exploits: whose faithfulnesse in Gods house, courage against Gods enemies, clemencie and pietie toward his people, and other excellent vertues, as they are mirors for Princes, and well expressed in your Majesties acts: So in nothing more lively doth your Highnesse, our Moses, resemble this ancient and worthie Moses, than in the manifold preservation of your life and state, even from your cradle and infancie unto this present. Moses being a childe should have beene destroyed; after he was Governour of Israel, divers times did they assault him, murmure and conspire against him: So your Majesties infancie hath beene assaulted, and since your royall person endangered by many unnaturall conspiracies: but now of late most of all in that barbarous and devillish treacherie, intended against your princely person, and the honourable state of this land, assembled in Parliament.
No age before us, or now present, nor countrie ever brought forth the like monster, such an unnaturall and wicked conspiracie, for device so subtile, in working so secret, in execution so mischievous, or that came neerer to the designed period, not taking effect. The greater was the danger, the more glorious the deliverance; the more devillish the invention, the more gracious the divine prevention; the more close the contriver, the more honourable the finder out. And herein as God is to have the chiefe glorie, being the author of this counsell, and the onelyonly revealer of secrets: so your Highnesse is to be honoured, as the instrument, whose cogitation the Lord directed as a light to search out the mysterie of darknesse, and as a cunning Pilot to guide the ship beside the rocks and sands.Prov. 20.8. Now is fulfilled that saying of the Wise-man: A King that sitteth in the throne of judgement, chaseth away all evill with his eyes. It was David, not the sons of Zerviah, Ioab and Abishai his Counsellors, that found out, by consulting with God,… Sam. …3.11. the treacherie of the men of Keilah, intended against him. And Pharaoh himselfe had the instinct by dreame to foresee the calamitie of Egypt, by the future famine. And the King of Nineveh gave the advice how to prevent the destruction of the Citie by repentance.Ambros. in obitum Valentin. Like as Ambrose doth celebrate the memorie of the Emperour Valentinian, who sitting in his Consistorie, assisted with his Nobles, when they all gave counsell, to restore unto the Romans their Idoll Temples: Solus velut Daniel, excitato in se Dei spiritu, Gentilibus obviabat: He onelyonly as another Daniel, the spirit of God moving him, resisted the Gentiles request. The Seraphims in Isaiah (which Hierome was taught by an Hebrew Rabbine to understand of the Kings and state of Iudea) had six wings, with two they covered their face, with two their feet, and with two they did flie: so while the face of the men of State was as it were blinded, and the feet and inferiour parts had their counsell darkned, thanks bee to God, that your Majesties wings of judgement were not pinioned, but did flie aloft with the Eagle▪ to espie what was working below. And so, as he well saith: Necesse erat, Ambros. ser. 40.ut qui potentior cunctis fuerat, prudentior fieret universis: It was fit, that hee which was beyond all in power, should exceed the rest in prudence.
But now may it please your Majestie, to the glorie of God, and for eternall memorie to bee transmitted to posteritie, to give mee leave in few words to describe this worke of darknesse, and to bring it to the light, whereby this Cockatrice brood, consulting with infernall spirits in the earth, thought at once to have undermined and subverted both the Civill and Ecclesiasticall State of this land.Iudg. 9. Wicked Abimelech slew upon one stone seventie of Gedeons sonnes, yet Iotham escaped: but here none within danger could have beene delivered.Iudg. 1. Adonibezeks crueltie is noted, that cut off the thumbs of hand and feet of seventie Kings: but in this mischievous plot, both the heads and hands of many honourable persons should have beene miserably rent from their bodies.1 Sam. 21.18. Cruell Saul in one day commanded fourescore and five Priests to bee murthered, yet Abiathar the sonne of the high Priest was delivered: but in this bloudie exploit all our Reverend Fathers were appointed to the slaughter.2 King. 11. Ambitious Athaliah destroyed all the Kings seed, yet Ioash the Kings sonne was preserved: but here no not the heire of the Crowne should have beene spared. Savage Caligula was not more barbarous,…ene…. 2. de i…a. who wished that all the Senatours of Rome had but one necke, that hee might smite it off at a blow: Nor yet Hannibal, who when he saw a pit filled with humane bloud, cried out: O formosum spectaculum: O goodly sight! Or Valesus Proconsul of Asia under Augustus Caesar, who having put to death three hundred men, walked and vaunted himselfe among the dead bodies, saying; O rem regiam: O Kingly act! Syl…a was not so bloudie, who commanded seven thousand Citizens to be killed, whose crie was heard to the Senate house, where Sylla with the Senatours was assembled; for hee did forbeare the Senate house: nor that King of Persia, which commanded the people of Syria to have their …oses cut off: or irefull Camby…es, who in his expedition against the Aethiopians, caused every tenth man to be tithed out for food, his armie being almost famished. But here scarce one man of ten that feared God, and loved the truth, should have beene left alive: yea the very infants could not have beene exempted from this generall massacre: but as Hierom speaketh of the crueltie of the Hunnes:Hierom. ad Oceanum. Cogerentur mori qui nondum vivere coeperant, & nescientes malum suum, inter hostium manus & …ela riderent; They should have beene forced to die, that yet begun not to live, and not knowing their doome, should have smiled under the bloudie hand of the enemie.
Blessed be God therefore who hath in his great merciemercy and love to his Church, disappointed their wicked imaginations: in this snare which they laid for others is their owne foot taken: and they are sunke into the pit, that they made for others: the stone which they would have rolled upon us, is fallen upon their owne head.Hexamer. lib. …. cap. 21. And as Ambrose writeth of the Bees: Apes quae non obtempera verint legibus regis, immoriuntur aculei sui vulneri; That they which disobey the order of their King amongst them, die upon their owne stings: So that engine, wherewith the Romanists thought to have gored others, hath wounded themselves.Iudg. 9.19. As they with Abimelech sought to have fired the tower of Sichem, so their owne parts have justly felt the fire: and as with Sathan, that used the winds to overwhelme the house upon Iobs sonnes, they attempted with a sulphureous spirit to have blowne up that honourable house▪ so now most worthily their owne members are exposed to the winde and aire, and their wicked acts leave a sulphureous smell behind them. This I write not (God is my record) as rejoycing in their confusion, but grieving rather at the cause thereof, pitying their persons, but hating their actions, ut probem me (as he saith) non homines odisse, sed erro…es, To shew, that I hate not the men, but their manners. They with Dathan and Abiram are gone downe into the pit,Numb. 16. whose mouth they opened to swallow others: as they laboured in the earth to worke iniquitie, so their names are written in the earth to blot out their memorie: they which wickedly imagined to deprive others of buriall, with Iehoiakim are themselves buried, as an asse is buried, Ierem. 22.19.and cast forth without the gates of Ierusalem.
Now nothing remaineth (most Christian King) but that we give due thanks unto our gracious God, who hath wrought this glorious deliverance. In which action of thanksgiving, the Church of God hath used to performe three duties:2 Chron. 20. To give solemne praise unto God; to send presents one to another, in signe of joy;Esth. 9.19.22. and to give gifts to the poore. In the first your Majestie hath given us example, who in the same place, where the danger was devised, and deliverance received, publiquely with godly Iehoshaphat blessed God: and this honourable Parliament, concurring with your Christian Majestie, hath well seconded your princely example, in decreeing an annuall commemoration to bee kept of that day: no lesse worthie to bee remembred, than the Iewes feast of Purim, Esther 9.18.when vile Haman had cast lots over them for their destruction: or the feast of the dedication of the Temple, after Antiochus had prophaned it: for how can our mercifull God be sufficiently praised,1 Ma…h. 4.59. Io…. 10.22. who discovered the secret counsels of the wicked, undermined the underminers, and he that is a wall of fire about Ierusalem,Zach. 2.5. Iob 28.7. hath quenched their fire? There is a path (as Iob saith) which no fowle hath knowne, neither hath the kites eye seene it: yet the Lord hath declared their works, Iob 34.25. vers. 22.(as Elihu answereth) and he hath turned the night: there is no darknesse, nor shadow of death, that the workers of iniquitie might be hid therein. The Lord hath so brought to passe, that neither sagitta volitans per diem, the arrow of treacherie flying by day;Psal. 91.5. nor negotium ambulans in tenebris, conspiracie walking in the darke, hath come neere us: therefore alwaies praised bee his name. Concerning sending of presents, a testimonie of our joy, that honourable assemblie hath with loving hearts presented to your Majestie a subsidiarie benevolence, as a token of their dutie and thankfulnesse. And may it please your Majestie also to accept the widowes mite, this poore present, which I in all humblenesse and loyaltie doe offer to your Princely view: thinking it not the least part of my terrene happinesse, that as my Synopsis was readie to meet your Majestie at your joyfull entrance, so this Hexapla commeth forth (by Gods goodnesse) to congratulate for your prosperous deliverance. The gifts to the poore, are your Princely clemencie and bountie to your Majesties loving subjects; that as the first is extended according to the honourable custome of this nation in the determining of the Parliament, to some kinde of offenders: so the other is desired and expected, in seeing provision and maintenance to be procured for the Ministers and Preachers of the Gospell, which in many places is very small, and so the number of them to be not empaired but increased, that religion and learning may flourish, the two principall props of this Kingdome, as your Majestie well knoweth, whatsoever some have impiously thought and profanely written to the contrarie.
God strengthen your Majestie, with all the honourable State, that as our adversaries have digged pits, which hold no water; so our Lawgiver, with the Princes of Israel, Numb. 21.17.may dig wells (of springing water) with their staves, as it is said of Moses; that is, enact such lawes whereby the spring of the Gospell may be kept open, and run along to our posteritie; but the heads of the bitter Romish waters may be for ever stopped: that all the people of God may use the same joyfull acclamations to such godly lawes, as the Israelites did to the well; Rise up well, sing yee unto it. As for the rest, I end with the conclusion of Baraks song: So let all thine enemies perish, O Lord, Iudg. 5.31.but they which love him, shall be as the Sun that riseth in his might.
Your Majesties most humble Subject, Andrew Willet.