Two Sermons in Bristol, Sermon 1
The first SERMON.
LAMENTATIONS 4. 20.
The breath of our nostrils, the Anointed of the Lord was taken in their pits; of whom we said, VnderUnder his shadow we shall live among the heathen.
OUR Sorrows should always bear some due proportion to the just magnitude of their causes. In most of the troubles incident to humane life, a Sigh may suffice; We should weep as if we wept not; with a bridle of Restraint and Moderation, wisely laid upon our Affections. But some Calamities being of a far deeper nature, every good man may be allowed, in reference to them,Isai. 22.4. to say as the Prophet, Look away from me, for I will weep bitterly, because of the spoiling of the daughter of my people. Both Humanity and Piety oblige us to hang up our Harps, and to sit down as persons astonisht, whose grief is very great.
The mourning of this day, 'tis upon divers accounts (as they said of the Patriarck Jacob's Funeral) a grievous mourning: England's Sorrow, and England's Shame.
As to the Sanction of it, 'tis (like that of Nineve) by the decree of the King and his Nobles; blowing the Trumpet in Zion, proclaiming this Fast, calling these solemn Assemblies, that the Inhabitants of the whole Land might tremble.
As to the grounds of it, 'tis an Humiliation for the barbarous shedding of Royal Blood, the inhumane parricide of the sacred Father of our Country: An offence so hainous in the just aggravations of it, that we might say as once Daniel in another case, VnderUnder the whole heavens hath not been done as hath been done here in England.
We have risen up, the Feet against the Head, the Servants against the Lord of the Vineyard; rebelliously saying as those wretches in the Gospel, We will not have this man to reign over us. We have been open fighters against God and his Anointed; too far verifying that sad story,…. Apol. Tot de Diis, quot de gentibus triumphi: So many Battels, so many Attempts against God himself; so many Victories, so many Triumphs over the Ark and Religion. Lord, we beseech thee, let us see no more of these Triumphs, no more of these joyless Thanksgivings in our Land.
…alvian.'Twas then written in Characters of Blood, Atrocius sub Sancti nominis professione peccatur: We call our selves Saints, and then take leave to play the Devils. A specious Profession becomes villainously usurped, to patronize the most horrid actions.
In this case we must not think hardly of our Governours, if they deal by us as Moses by the Children of Israel; when they had in that popular tumultuous fit of impatience made that golden Calf,Exod. 32. 20. 'tis said. He burnt it in the fire, he grownd it to powder, he strew'd it upon the water, and made the Children of Israel drink of it. And this he did upon great deliberation, ut majorem eis peccati nauseam induceret, that they might hereby become the more asham'd and sick of their sin.
The like penance have our Moses's enjoyn'd us this day. These Anniversary Humiliations, they do (as it were) lay the Royal Body of our late slaughtered Soveraign bleeding afresh before us, accusing us as the Betrayers and Murderers of it.
We read of God, he took a far greater notice of Abel's murder than the Murderer himself was willing to do:Gen. 4.10. The voice of thy brothers blood crieth unto me; God hears what Cain (it seems) would not. Guilt is a sullen froward thing. I am sorry at the angry Objections of many against these solemn Fasts, as if they were a needless Reproach continued upon the Land. I hope for our parts we shall rather from year to year (as becoming good Christians, and good Subjects) more ingenuously accept this punishment of our iniquity, acknowledge our sin, and renew the firmest Resolutions that we will offend no more.
This whole Book is stil'd, A book of Lamentations. Our ancient Poets Tragedies seem but Comical Plays, compar'd with the unparallel'd mournfulness of this Scene: A weeping Jeremy, a person skilful in Lamentations, is chosen to be the Pen-man to these divine foreign, these pathetick Elegies. He proves the best Orator for God, that speaks from the very heart, that draws the life of his Eloquence from his own internal sense of what he delivers unto others.
The Church and State, Prince and Priest, Throne and Altar, they are all brought in by the Prophet as cloth'd in mourning.1 Sam. 4.10, 11. If the Ark be taken in one verse, the same sad story tells us all Israel is smitten in another. We may humourously attempt to divide; but in all History they live or die together.
While the Prophet thus weeps over the Calamities of Gods Zion and Jerusalem, Graviter gemitus imo de pectore ducens, he breaks forth into this of the Text, as a memorial of sorrow never to be forgotten by him, The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the Lord, &c.
In the verse we have to consider, 1. The person spoken of, who it is the Prophet here means. 2. The Calamity into which he fell, he was taken in their pits. 3. The honorary Character here given him, the Anointed of the Lord. 4. The Jews concern in his weal or woe; he was the breath of their nostrils, under whose shadow they might have liv'd among the heathen.
I. The person spoken of, who that should be. I answer, Not Josiah, (as some have conceiv'd;) he was already gathered to his fathers in peace, honourably interr'd amongst the royal Sepulchres of his Ancestors, his eyes clos'd with all due Funeral-rites, some time before these tragick evils so fatally broke forth. Our several seasons of life and death, when we enter the Stage and when we go off, they are all in Gods hands.
Three Kings had now successively reigned after Josiah; Zedekiah the third, in whose time all these amazing miseries, so pathetically here described, befel Jerusalem.
Whatever personal failures might be in Zedekiah, Rex tamen & typus Christi, says one, (no great favourer otherwise of Monarchy) Zedekiah was nevertheless a crowned Head, and Type of Christ; Soveraign of the true foreign, the City of the great King, the Imperial Princess among the Provinces.
Such was the Person, no Plebeian; but one of Royal Extraction, of the true House and Linage of David; and now raised (though in a tempestuous conjuncture of Affairs) to sit on the Throne of his pious Father Josiah.
And has our Prophet such tears of Loyalty wherewith to condole this Princes Fall? Certainly, my Brethren, our eyes must not be dry.
1. If Israels Zedekiah fell, 'twas not without great personal blemishes in himself.2 King. 24.19. He did (says the Text) that which was evil in the sight of the Lord. But our late Soveraign, a person of that stupendious exemplariness, so amiable in whatever might become him as a Christian, in whatever might adorn him as a Prince, that his Piety became at last his Crime; his Love to Gods Church, the ground of his Hatred with the Rabble. He is ston'd for his good works: He is invidiously aspers'd as affected to Popery; yet dies in the professed Communion of this Reformed Church: The Defender of it, a Martyr for it. He is odiously upbraided as designing Arbitrary ways of Empire and Tyranny; yet dies, because he could not in conscience give up those great things of Church and State, Religion and Law, our true Magna Charta, the Body of our ancient English Government, to the tumultuous wills of violent and unreasonable men.
2. If Zedekiah fell, 'twas at Babylon, above six hundred miles from his own Kingdom. The very place was no less than Exile, and the distance a most certain exposure to all inevitable dangers. But lo here (though under different circumstances) a far sadder story; Our Soveraign, after an Iliad of other preceding indignities, is murdered at his own Royal Gates, in the very face of his Court and Palace. He is first barbarously driven away by rude Tumults, after that forcibly brought back again by bloody Souldiers; full often (as himself so lively expresseth it) did he change his Keepers and Prison, but not his Captive condition: And at last the woful upshot proves, (as David said concerning Ishbosheth) Wicked men came upon this righteous person, and slew him even in his own house; the walls and windows being the sad Spectators both of his Fall and our Treason.
3. If Zedekiah fell, 'twas by the hands of prophane Pagans, Nebuchadnezzar's unruly Janizaries, not by his own Subjects: Zedekiah's Murderers, their very temper was Cruelty, their nature Rage; verifying the sowre character Gods Prophet gives of them,Hab. 1.6. A bitter and hasty nation. They breath'd out no better than Blood and Slaughter. In this case the utmost Inhumanities could be no Surprize; all manner of Misery, and Death it self, the fairest Quarter that could be expected; where the Turtle was amongst such ravening Vultures, and the Lamb in the midst of such savage Lions. But lo here, horresco referens, our Soveraign falls under far other hands.
With civiliz'd Nations, the mildness of their Education is accounted security enough against the irruptions of Violence; where Government is receiv'd, the Laws yield Protection; where the sacred profession of Christian Religion takes place, we are still bound to a far better behaviour of the quietest peacefulness in our places: But alas, all these divine Bands were here contemptuously broken asunder; and then of course, upon the violation of them, this execrable and horrible thing became committed in our Land.
'Twas not an Enemy that did it; 'twould then have been more easily born: 'Twas the servant who had eat of his Masters bread, that here lift up his heel; 'twas the Subject who had solemnly sworn to bear true Homage and Fealty, that now (Zimri-like) conspir'd and slew his Soveraign. Oh what Declarations and Protestations (as the language of those times then went) that they would make him a most glorious Prince! What solemn Appeals to God and the world touching the Loyalty and Integrity of their hearts! Now what danger can possibly be suspected, where so much kindness is pretended? In ipso sceleris molimine Tereus creditur esse pius. No such Friends in words, yet no such Foes in deeds. Oh how wretchedly did we then dissemble both with God and man! staining as well our holy Profession, as our own Names to all Posterity. But no words can express these Villanies so lively as his who suffered them:foreign. I die (says his sacred Majesty) a King, by the hands of my own Subjects; a violent, sudden, and barbarous death; in the strength of my years, in the midst of my Kingdom; my Friends and loving Subjects being helpless Spectators, my Enemies insolent Revilers, and Triumphers over me. His comfort was (as himself so composedly relates it) If he thus died a violent death with his Saviour, the sequele would be happily this, Mortality would be thereby crown'd with Martyrdom.
4. If Zedekiah fell, yet we read not of any indecent measures used toward him in matters of Religion. When the King of Assyria had carried away Israel not long before captive, and had transplanted another people into the Holy Land, we finde he gave express order,2 King. 17.27. that a Priest from among the Captives should go and dwell at Bethel to teach and observe the stated Rites of Religion formerly used amongst them.
But with us the case strangely alters: Many can impetuously demand liberty of Conscience for themselves, as the immediate Redress to all our Grievances, the onelyonly Salve to every Sore, a Kindness that should be with-held from none: Yet after all these oily words to please the deluded people, we may finde our Soveraign in his Restraint entreating the attendance and comfort of his Chaplains, whom for their Function he reverenced, and for their Fidelity (he was pleased to say) he loved them: But alas, he is churlishly denied. He often requested it (as himself tells us) hoping that by the help of their Learning,Baker's Chron. 548 foreign. Piety, and Prayers, he might the better sustain the want of all other Enjoyments. But still he receives no better than harsh Repulses to his most Christian harmless Desires. What was so modestly ask'd by so great a person, in so distressed a condition, might it seems by no means be heard. God keep all Princes from lying at such Subjects mercies. Nor would they indeed suffer so much as a book of Divine Service to be allowed him for his own private use. The Gates were thrown wide open to take in the Trojan Horse, the utmost licentiousness to all wilde novel Opinions; but no liberty for that Divine Service so advisedly established, so often confirmed by fundamental Laws. Lord! what Monsters are Subjects when once Rebels?
II. Concerning the Calamity into which Zedekiah fell, 'tis said, he was taken in their pits; as the Bird into the Fowlers Snare, as the chased Deer into the Hunters Toil. The Hunters were the Babylonians; the Game they pursued and sought for, was Zedekiah. He fell into their hands as into a pit of destruction, from whence he never came forth again. foreign so the Hebrew. foreign, so the Septuagint; a word which the Grecians use in the immediate sence of the Text, foreign, so Demost. Zedekiah fell into the fatal Slaughter-house, where he was dispoil'd of Life and Crown, inhumanely butcher'd, and made away.
Several Transactions of Remark passed between Zedekiah and our Prophet, during the Siege of Jerusalem by the Babylonians (as we finde Jer. 37.) but the sad issue prov'd, Hostis habet muros, the rude Enemy at last entred into the Sanctuary; Gods Holy Temple was now defil'd, and Jerusalem made an heap of Stones. The Prince himself taken and bound in Chains, carried Prisoner to Riblah: where his Children were first slain before his face, then his eyes most barbarously plucked out, and after that his royal person drag'd with all circumstances of scorn as an abject Captive to Babylon. So true is that ancient Proverb, The tenderest Mercies of some men are little better than savage Cruelties. Oh what sore and unexpected measures may even Majesty it self meet with from the hands of cruel and blood-thirsty men! Heaven onelyonly yields what Earth cannot; a perfect Freedom from all Violence. Thrones (the highest of Seats) have their dangers. Happy are those Princes, who wrapping up themselves in Gods Grace and their own Innocency, can say (as our late Soveraign) They are not sollicitous what wrong they suffer from man, while they retain in their own Souls what is right in the sight of God.
III. The Honourary Character here given him, 'tis this: The Anointed of the Lord. One sever'd from the rest of the people, and advanced to Soveraignty; foreign, The Lords Messiah, the Lord Christ. Such high, such honourable Language does our Prophet think meet to mention his Prince in. 'Tis not the coarse Northern Salute, Good morrow King Jeamy for all day; nor is it the Southern Quakerism more demurely canted, Plain Charles Steward. A good Nathan, his gestures and words shall freely declare the profound Reverence his very Heart bears to Majesty:1 King. 1.23, 24. And Nathan bowed himself before the King with his face to the ground, and said, My Lord, oh King! Certainly Rudeness is not Religion.
The same God that has anointed his own Son as our Spiritual Messiahs for our eternal Salvation in Heaven, has likewise anointed Princes as our Civil Messiah for our temporal Preservation here on Earth.
This divine Unction, 'twas aromatick and fragrant, rich and costly, significant and instructive; poured forth as a mysterious inauguration, in token of those Princely Endowments, in testimony of that transcendent Majesty which God herewith convey'd.
'Twas Armour of proof for Safety, a Robe of Honour for Royalty: And there needed no more to bespeak the deepest Reverence, to attract the highest Love, to exact the awfullest Respects, or to fix the truest Allegiance, than this single consideration, Gods Anointed.
'Twas this that swayed so far with David while Saul was yet alive:1 Sam. 26.9. And David said to Abishai, Destroy him not: for who can stretch forth his hand against the Lords anointed, and be guiltless? He speaks as in a holy passion, as one greatly mov'd at the hainousness of this bold Sollicitation. Nolo hanc mihi extorqueri obedientiam: as if David had said, No, no; Abishai, thou seemest my friend, but art my foe: Get thee behinde me, Satan, I will never suffer my Loyalty to be thus wrested out of my hands: This fair advantage before me may serve to cleer my Innocence; but it shall never tempt me to Rebellion: Saul is the Lords Anointed to me, and I must be a true Liege-Subject to him.
'Twas this that aggravated the case so highly when Saul was soon after slain.2 Sam. 1.14. And David said to him (that is, to the young man, the Amalekite) How wast thou not afraid to stretch forth thine hand to destroy the Lords Anointed? Saul had fairly spared the Amalekites to his own ruine. That very people whom he had so far shelter'd, contrary to Gods express command, even they can now afford the person that shall destroy him. Whoso is wise, will consider it; prudent, and he will lay these weighty Memoires of Holy Scripture seriously to heart.
The Jewish Writers tell us, this young man was the Son of Doeg, that cruel wretch who imbrued his hands in the blood of above fourscore Priests, the Ministers of the Lord that wore a linen Ephod, for no other fault than the innocent discharge of their sacred Function. The very Ministry, and the faithful Services of it, are crime enough in some mens eyes. Doeg himself (as divers circumstances seem to imply) was at this time Saul's Armour-bearer; who seeing the issues of that fatal battel on Mount Gilboa, and foreseeing how little favour he could expect from David, whom he had so highly offended; in the depth of despair falls upon his own Sword. But before he thus dies with his Master, he calls his Son to him; he gives him Saul's Crown and Bracelets, that by these Presents he might make his peace with David, when he himself was dead and gone.
But now see, my Brethren! behold and see the wakefulness of divine Vengeance; Lo the severe hand of a just God upon the bloody malicious Family. That terrible Prediction which had hung for some time as a drawn-sword over Doeg and his House, was now visibly fulfill'd: God shall destroy thee for ever, Psal. 52.5he shall take thee away, and pluck thee out of thy dwelling-place, and root thee out of the land of the living. 2 Sam. 1.15.God had spoken it, and God made it good: And David called one of the young men, and said, Go neer, and fall upon him. And he smote him that he died. Let not man dare to wound, where God anoints.
Tibi summum rerum judicium Dii dedere, Tacitus Annal. l. 6.nobis obsequii gloria relicta est, said that Roman Knight, with a rare modesty, to the Emperour. He that hath given his Anointed Authority over us, the same God hath left us the honour of a quiet and peaceable submission unto him. 'Tis our Duty, and 'tis no less our Glory. The smallest Star may shine as truly as the Sun. The Subject may as well adorn his Sphere as the Prince: Every one in his proper Orb. May our light, in our several places, so shine, that men may see our good works, and glorifie our Father which is in Heaven.
Baker's Chron. 742This emblematical anointing has been the ancient way of investiture to our British Kings, and is still so continued at their Coronations. They are anointed on the Head, in token of Superiority; upon the Breast, as an obligement to Sanctity; on both the Arms, in signification of Royal Strength and Authority.
Now where God is thus pleas'd (as in David's case) to say,Psal. 89.20, 21, 22. With my holy oyl have I anointed him; we can do no less than religiously take up the ensuing words as our proper Respond, Oh let thy hand establish him, and thine arm strengthen him. Beat down his foes before his face, and let thy faithfulness and mercy be with him for ever.
IV. The fourth and last particular is Israel's concernment in their Princes weal or woe. He was the breath of their Nostrils.M…noch. Nobis aequè dilectus ac spiritus vitalis: As if the Church had said, Our Vital breath is not more dear to us, than the safety of our Soveraign.
We all observe, there is nothing more immediately requisite to this natural life, than our breath. Such is Government to our civil life; such the true weal of our Governours in the esteem of Holy Scripture. The phrase before us, 'tis not a complemental flourish of gay Oratory, no vain Hyperbole of Court-flattery. The words, they are the words of Truth and Soberness, the Language of solid Divinity, the express Assertion of Almighty God and his Prophet, that we might receive them with the greater reverence. The breath of our nostrils, in whom the whole body of the Kingdom (as it were) lives, and moves, and has its well-being.
One (it may be) in a sullen frowardness murmurs, his Princes manner of life 'tis too splendid, his Crown too imperial, his Throne too radiant, his Court too noble, his Train too numerous, his Revenues too large, and his Guards too awful: Nay, but who art thou, oh man, that thus quarrellest against the breath of thine own Nostrils? When the Hands and Feet in the Fable were so mutinous against the Stomack, a little time sufficiently convinced them, the conspiracy 'twas rather against themselves. To suffocate the Breath, is to destroy the Body.
When the Queen of Sheba had seen the unparallel'd Royalties, the Order and Administration of Solomon's Court, instead of carping with splenetick Censures, she breaks forth into Ejaculations of the highest joy and praise:1 King. 10.9. Blessed be the Lord thy God which delighted in thee, to set thee upon the Throne of Israel; because the Lord loved Israel for ever. He that delighted in Solomon, did still as truly love Israel: The raising of the one, 'twas no despising of the other.
The condition of the Jews (under our Text) was through their many provocations against God, brought now very low: that City which had been sometime Princess amongst the Provinces, was now tributary. 'Twas however a great comfort to them, under their many other sorrows, that they had yet a King of their own: his presence they reckoned as their very life; VnderUnder his shadow we shall live among the heathen. They hoped in him to reap the fruits of that comfortable promise between Prince and People;Isai. 32, 2. He shall be an hiding place from the winde, and a covert from the tempest: as rivers of water in a dry place, and as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. Now his single Death cloth'd the whole Land in Mourning.
Thus David's Worthies concluded, if their Prince fell, the lamp of Israel would be forthwith quenched. Sub regno tuo tanquam sub luce: Cajetan.as if they said to David. While thou art with us 'tis day; if we lose thee, 'tis likely then to be a dark and dismal night.
From the greatness of our concern herein (it may be) it became so weighty a Maxime in the Law,Crompton. Rex non potest mori: The King cannot die. In his natural personal capacity, he is mortal; but in his Royal political capacity, he is immortal. That the body of the Kingdom might not perish for want of a never-dying Soul to animate and enliven it, that there might be no Chasm, no evil befalling the Kingdom; the Law reckons, that at the very instant of the Soveraigns death, by a kind of State-Metempsychosis, the Soveraignty becomes immediately transfus'd to the next Heir of the Crown.
Of all Nations, we in this Island may thankfully say as the Church, The breath of our nostrils. We have been here under the government of Kings beyond the utmost Records of all History: So that multitude of days seem to tell us, in point of prudence as well as conscience, we should now fear God and the King, and not meddle with them that are given to change.
Of all Nations (in the acknowledgement of foreign Writers) we may modestly boast what none else can, Britannia omnium provinciarum prima publicitus Christi nomen recepit: Sabell. Enn. 7. l. 5.'Twas Britain that yielded the first Christian King, by whose piety we also became the first professed Christian people. 'Twas Britain that yielded the first Christian Emperour, so great a blessing to the whole Church of God.
'Twas still under the same good conduct of Kings, that we were brought to this happy state of Reformation whereat we now stand: And if there be any thing which at this day either dishonours or endangers us, 'tis our want of that due consistence which we owe thereto.
We have been rescued by these Jerubbaals from the Usurpations of Popery over our State, deposing our Kings, and disposing of their Crowns as the Pope pleas'd; by secret Artifices withdrawing and alienating the minds of Subjects from their bounden Allegiance to their Princes; abetting Seditions and Rebellions, as best serv'd his ends: And now shall we tread in the same perverse steps? God forbid. Shall we do the same things which we so justly condemn in others? Shall we traiterously depose or murder Kings? Shall we dare to dispose of their Crowns as every popular Tumult shall happen to incline? far be it from us. What is so bad in a Pope, is scarce much better in the People.
We have been recovered by these Jerubbaeals from the corruptions of Popery in our Church: They have gone (as our Saviour into the Temple) with authority and zeal, casting out the abuses that had crept into Gods house. They have left the state of divine worship so deliberately reformed in our Liturgie, that (in the judgment of our greatest sufferers under Queen Maries Reign) no Christian Conscience could be offended at any thing therein contained. Dr. Taylors Acts and Monum.And shall we now turn Gods Grace into Wantonness? Shall we grow weary of our own Mercies, as persons sick of that good Reformation which has received so honourable, so respectful a right hand of Fellowship from the reformed Churches abroad? We may not, we may not; and I hope we shall not.
Are we happily set free from the follies and trifles of former Superstitions, and shall we now instead of them, chuse new Gods, Gods newly sprung up, such as our Fathers, the ancient Church, and Primitive Christians never knew? Such lenities they may indeed please us, but (as our ignes fatui) they will most certainly mislead us.
The extreams of the circumference may seem strangely opposite one to the other; and yet both equally distant from the centre of Truth. 'Tis not much odds whether it be frenzie on this hand, or on that: God in his mercy keep us from either.
To draw toward a close, I see I must at present forbear what I would very willingly have added. Let Israel's Lamentation, become England's Instruction: And the Churches deep Sighs thus mournfully expressed in the Text, may they excite the like pious sense throughout the Assembly.
We must not by any means flatter our selves concerning the black action of this day. 'Tis well known (and I wish it may be as well laid to heart) how great an abhorrence primitive Christians had of such execrable Crimes. We may easily finde Albinians, or Nigrians, or Cassians, that is, Mutineers and Rebels amongst you Romans;Tertull. (says one who lived within less than 200 years of Christ:) but (says he) you shall never finde any of this seditious turbulent humour amongst us Christians.
Julian himself (how bitter soever, yet) fairly vindicates the Christians of those times in this point: If any (says he) carry themselves disorderly toward their Soveraign, foreign. that is, the rest of the Church immediately inflict the most severe punishments upon them. Rebellion against lawful Authority, violence against the Lords Anointed, this hainous spot 'twas not then the spot of Gods Children.
2 Sam. 20.1.And is it now ours? Have we, as Shebah, lift up our rebellious hands against our David? We must then mourn out the rest of the day, and set our selves in the greatest seriousness to bring forth fruits meet for all unfeigned Repentance in this sad case the rest of our life.
This 'twas the great confidence of his late Majesty, as himself mentions it in his Advice to our present Soveraign: You shall receive it in his own Princely words. None (says he) will be more loyal and faithful to me and you,foreign. than those Subjects who being sensible of their Errours and our Injuries, will feel in their own Souls most vehement motives to Repentance, and earnest desires to make some reparations for their former defects.
He has promis'd it; oh let us perform it: And we shall thereby translate our Prophets mournful lamentations into Anthems of praise; and this Song shall be yet sung in our Land, The breath of our nostrils, the Anointed of the Lord, sitteth in honour and safety upon his throne, environed with the love and loyalty of his people, under whose shadow we live in peace among the nations. And let all true Christians and true English-men, say,
AMEN.