to injure the public, is false accusation, whereof this kingdom hath
afforded too many examples: Neither is it long since no man, whose
opinions were thought to differ from those in fashion, could safely
converse beyond his nearest friends, for fear of being sworn against, as
a traitor, by those who made a traffic of perjury and subornation; by
which the very peace of the nation was disturbed, and men fled from each
other as they would from a lion or a bear got loose. And, it is very
remarkable, that the pernicious project now in hand to reduce us to
beggary, was forwarded by one of these false accusers, who had been
convicted of endeavouring, by perjury and subornation, to take away the
lives of several innocent persons here among us; and, indeed, there
could not be a more proper instrument for such a work.
Another method by which the meanest people may do injury to the public,
is the spreading of lies and false rumours, thus raising a distrust
among the people of a nation, causing them to mistake their true
interest, and their enemies for their friends: And this hath been
likewise too successful a practice among us, where we have known the
whole kingdom misled by the grossest lies, raised upon occasion to serve
some particular turn. As it hath also happened in the case I lately
mentioned, where one obscure man, by representing our wants where they
were least, and concealing them where they were greatest, had almost
succeeded in a project of utterly ruining this whole kingdom; and may
still succeed, if God doth not continue that public spirit, which He
hath almost miraculously kindled in us upon this occasion.
Thus we see the public is many times, as it were, at the mercy of the
meanest instrument, who can be wicked enough to watch opportunities of
doing it mischief, upon the principles of avarice or malice; which, I am
afraid, are deeply rooted in too many breasts, and against which there
can be no defence, but a firm resolution in all honest men, to be
closely united and active in shewing their love to their country, by
preferring the public interest to their present private advantage. If a
passenger, in a great storm at sea, should hide his goods that they
might not be thrown overboard to lighten the ship, what would be the
consequence? The ship is cast away, and he loses his life and goods
together.
We have heard of men, who, through greediness of gain, have brought
infected goods into a nation, which bred a plague, whereof the owners
and their families perished first. Let those among us consider this and
tremble, whose houses are privately stored with those materials of
beggary and desolation, lately brought over to be scattered like a
pestilence among their countrymen, which may probably first seize upon
themselves and their families, until their houses shall be made a
dunghill.
I shall mention one practice more, by which the meanest instruments
often succeed in doing public mischief; and this is by deceiving us with
plausible arguments, to make us believe that the most ruinous project
they can offer is intended for our good, as it happened in the case so
often mentioned. For the poor ignorant people, allured by the appearing
convenience in their small dealings, did not discover the serpent in the
brass,[2] but were ready, like the Israelites, to offer incense to it;
neither could the wisdom of the nation convince them, until some, of
good intentions, made the cheat so plain to their sight, that those who
run may read. And thus the design was to treat us, in every point, as
the Philistines treated Samson, (I mean when he was betrayed by Delilah)
first to put out our eyes, and then bind us with fetters of brass.
[Footnote 2: "Brass" may be read "Wood's halfpence." [T.S.]]
I proceed to the last thing I proposed, which was to shew you that all
wilful injuries done to the public, are very great and aggravated sins
in the sight of God.
_First:_ It is apparent from Scripture, and most agreeable to reason,
that the safety and welfare of nations are under the most peculiar care
of God's providence. Thus He promised Abraham to save Sodom, if only ten
righteous men could be found in it. Thus the reason which God gave to
Jonas for not destroying Nineveh was, because there were six score
thousand men in that city.
All government is from God, Who is the God of order, and therefore
whoever attempts to breed confusion or disturbance among a people, doth
his utmost to take the government of the world out of God's hands, and
to put it into the hands of the Devil, who is the author of confusion.
By which it is plain, that no crime, how heinous soever, committed
against particular persons, can equal the guilt of him who does injury
to the public.
_Secondly_: All offenders against their country lie under this grievous
difficulty, that it is next to impossible to obtain a pardon, or make
restitution. The bulk of mankind are very quick at resenting injuries,
and very slow in forgiving them: And how shall one man be able to obtain
the pardon of millions, or repair the injuries he hath done to millions?
How shall those, who, by a most destructive fraud, got the whole wealth
of our neighbouring kingdom into their hands, be ever able to make a
recompence? How will the authors and promoters of that villainous
project, for the ruin of this poor country, be able to account with us
for the injuries they have already done, although they should no farther
succeed? The deplorable case of such wretches, must entirely be left to
the unfathomable mercies of God: For those who know the least in
religion are not ignorant that, without our utmost endeavours to make
restitution to the person injured, and to obtain his pardon, added to a
sincere repentance, there is no hope of salvation given in the Gospel.
_Lastly_: All offences against our own country have this aggravation,
that they are ungrateful and unnatural. It is to our country we owe
those laws which protect us in our lives, our liberties, our properties,
and our religion. Our country produced us into the world, and continues
to nourish us so, that it is usually called our mother; and there have
been examples of great magistrates, who have put their own children to
death for endeavouring to betray their country, as if they had attempted
the life of their natural parent.
Thus I have briefly shewn you how terrible a sin it is to be an enemy to
our country, in order to incite you to the contrary virtue, which at
this juncture is so highly necessary, when every man's endeavour will be
of use. We have hitherto been just able to support ourselves under many
hardships; but now the axe is laid to the root of the tree, and nothing
but a firm union among us can prevent our utter undoing. This we are
obliged to, in duty to our gracious King, as well as to ourselves. Let
us therefore preserve that public spirit, which God hath raised in us
for our own temporal interest For, if this wicked project should
succeed, which it cannot do but by our own folly; if we sell ourselves
for nought; the merchant, the shopkeeper, the artificer, must fly to the
desert with their miserable families, there to starve or live upon
rapine, or at least exchange their country for one more hospitable than
that where they were born.
Thus much I thought it my duty to say to you, who are under my care, to
warn you against those temporal evils, which may draw the worst of
spiritual evils after them; such as heart-burnings, murmurings,
discontents, and all manner of wickedness which a desperate condition of
life may tempt men to.
I am sensible that what I have now said will not go very far, being
confined to this assembly; but I hope it may stir up others of my
brethren to exhort their several congregations, after a more effectual
manner, to shew their love for their country on this important occasion.
And this, I am sure, cannot be called meddling in affairs of state.
I pray God protect his Most Gracious Majesty, and this kingdom, long
under his government, and defend us from all ruinous projectors,
deceivers, suborners, perjurers, false accusers, and oppressors; from
the virulence of party and faction; and unite us in loyalty to our King,
love to our country, and charity to each other.
And this we beg for Jesus Christ His sake: To Whom, &c.
ON THE MARTYRDOM OF KING CHARLES I.
PREACHED AT ST PATRICK'S, DUBLIN, JAN. 30, 1725-26, BEING SUNDAY.
GENESIS, XLIX. 5, 6, 7.
"Simeon and Levi are brethren; instruments of cruelty are in their
habitations.
"O my soul, come not thou into their secret; unto their assembly, mine
honour, be not thou united: for in their anger they slew a man, and in
their self-will they digged down a wall.
"Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce; and their wrath, for it was
cruel. I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel."
I know very well, that the Church hath been often censured for keeping
holy this day of humiliation, in memory of that excellent king and
blessed martyr, Charles I., who rather chose to die on a scaffold, than
betray the religion and liberties of his people, wherewith God and the
laws had entrusted him. But, at the same time, it is manifest that those
who make such censures are either people without any religion at all, or
who derive their principles, and perhaps their birth, from the abettors
of those who contrived the murder of that prince, and have not yet shewn
the world that their opinions are changed. It is alleged, that the
observation of this day hath served to continue and increase the
animosity and enmity among our countrymen, and to disunite Protestants;
that a law was made, upon the restoration of the Martyr's son, for a
general pardon and oblivion, forbidding all reproaches upon that
occasion; and, since none are now alive who were actors or instruments
in that tragedy, it is thought hard and uncharitable to keep up the
memory of it for all generations.
Now, because I conceive most of you to be ignorant in many particulars
concerning that horrid murder, and the rebellion which preceded it; I
will,
_First_, relate to you so much of the story as may be sufficient for
your information:
_Secondly_, I will tell you the consequences which this bloody deed had
upon these kingdoms:
And, _Lastly_, I will shew you to what good uses this solemn day of
humiliation may be applied.
As to the first: In the reign of this prince, Charles the Martyr, the
power and prerogative of the king were much greater than they are in our
times, and so had been for at least seven hundred years before; And the
best princes we ever had, carried their power much farther than the
blessed Martyr offered to do in the most blameable part of his reign.
But, the lands of the Crown having been prodigally bestowed to
favourites, in the preceding reigns, the succeeding kings could not
support themselves without taxes raised by Parliament; which put them
under a necessity of frequently calling those assemblies: And, the crown
lands being gotten into the hands of the nobility and gentry, beside the
possessions of which the Church had been robbed by King Henry the
Eighth, power, which always follows property, grew to lean to the side
of the people, by whom even the just rights of the Crown were often
disputed.
But further: Upon the cruel persecution raised against the Protestants,
under Queen Mary, among great numbers who fled the kingdom to seek for
shelter, several went and resided at Geneva, which is a commonwealth,
governed without a king, and where the religion, contrived by Calvin, is
without the order of bishops. When the Protestant faith was restored by
Queen Elizabeth, those who fled to Geneva returned among the rest home
to England, and were grown so fond of the government and religion of the
place they had left, that they used all possible endeavours to introduce
both into their own country; at the same time continually preaching and
railing against ceremonies and distinct habits of the clergy, taxing
whatever they disliked, as a remnant of Popery, and continued extremely
troublesome to the Church and state, under that great Queen, as well as
her successor King James I. These people called themselves Puritans, as
pretending to a purer faith than those of the Church established. And
these were the founders of our Dissenters. They did not think it
sufficient to leave all the errors of Popery, but threw off many
laudable and edifying institutions of the primitive Church, and, at
last, even the government of bishops; which, having been ordained by the
apostles themselves, had continued without interruption, in all
Christian churches, for above fifteen hundred years. And all this they
did, not because those things were evil, but because they were kept by
the Papists. From thence they proceeded, by degrees, to quarrel with the
kingly government; because, as I have already said, the city of Geneva,
to which their fathers had flown for refuge, was a commonwealth, or
government of the people.
These Puritans, about the middle of the Martyr's reign, were grown to a
considerable faction in the kingdom, and in the Lower House of
Parliament. They filled the public with the most false and bitter libels
against the bishops and the clergy, accusing chiefly the very best among
them of Popery; and, at the same time, the House of Commons grew so
insolent and uneasy to the King, that they refused to furnish him with
necessary supplies for the support of his family, unless upon such
conditions as he could not submit to without forfeiting his conscience
and honour, and even his coronation oath. And, in such an extremity, he
was forced upon a practice, no way justifiable, of raising money; for
which, however, he had the opinion of the judges on his side; for,
wicked judges there were in those times as well as in ours. There were
likewise many complaints, and sometimes justly, made against the
proceedings of a certain court, called the Star-chamber, a judicature of
great antiquity, but had suffered some corruptions, for which, however,
the King was nowise answerable, I cannot recollect any more subjects of
complaint with the least ground of reason, nor is it needful to
recollect them, because this gracious King did, upon the first
application, redress all grievances by an act of Parliament, and put it
out of his power to do any hardships for the future. But that wicked
faction in the House of Commons, not content with all those marks of his
justice and condescension, urged still for more; and joining with a
factious party from Scotland, who had the same fancies in religion,
forced him to pass an act for cutting off the head of his best and chief
minister; and, at the same time, compelled him, by tumults and
threatenings of a packed rabble, poisoned with the same doctrines, to
pass another law, by which it should not be in his power to dissolve
that Parliament without their own consent. Thus, by the greatest
weakness and infatuation that ever possessed any man's spirit, this
Prince did in effect sign his own destruction. For the House of Commons,
having the reins in their own hands, drove on furiously; sent him every
day some unreasonable demand, and when he refused to grant it, made use
of their own power, and declared that an ordinance of both Houses,
without the King's consent, should be obeyed as a law, contrary to all
reason and equity, as well as to the fundamental constitution of the
kingdom.
About this time the rebellion in Ireland broke out, wherein his
Parliament refused to assist him; nor would accept his offer to come
hither in person to subdue those rebels. These, and a thousand other
barbarities, forced the King to summon his loyal subjects to his
standard in his own defence. Meanwhile the English Parliament, instead
of helping the poor Protestants here, seized on the very army that his
Majesty was sending over for our relief, and turned them against their
own Sovereign. The rebellion in England continued for four or five
years: At last the King was forced to fly in disguise to the Scots, who
sold him to the rebels. And these Puritans had the impudent cruelty to
try his sacred person in a mock court of justice, and cut off his head;
which he might have saved, if he would have yielded to betray the
constitution in Church and state.
In this whole proceeding, Simeon and Levi were brethren; the wicked
insinuations of those fanatical preachers stirring up the cruelty of the
soldiers, who, by force of arms, excluded from the house every member of
Parliament, whom they apprehended to bear the least inclination towards
an agreement with the King, suffering only those to enter who thirsted
chiefly for his blood; and this is the very account given by their own
writers: From whence it is clear that this Prince was, in all respects,
a real martyr for the true religion and the liberty of the people. That
odious Parliament had first turned the bishops out of the House of
Lords; in a few years after, they murdered their King; then immediately
abolished the whole House of Lords; and so, at last, obtained their
wishes, of having a government of the people, and a new religion, both
after the manner of Geneva, without a king, a bishop, or a nobleman; and
this they blasphemously called "The kingdom of Christ and his saints."
This is enough for your information on the first head: I shall therefore
proceed to the second, wherein I will shew you the miserable
consequences which that abominable rebellion and murder produced in
these nations.
_First:_ The Irish rebellion was wholly owing to that wicked English
Parliament. For the leaders in the Irish Popish massacre would never
have dared to stir a finger, if they had not been encouraged by that
rebellious spirit in the English House of Commons, which they very well
knew must disable the King from sending any supplies to his Protestant
subjects here; and, therefore, we may truly say that the English
Parliament held the King's hands, while the Irish Papists here were
cutting our grandfathers' throats.
_Secondly:_ That murderous Puritan Parliament, when they had all in
their own power, could not agree upon any one method of settling a form
either of religion or civil government; but changed every day from
schism to schism, from heresy to heresy, and from one faction to
another: From whence arose that wild confusion, still continuing in our
several ways of serving God, and those absurd notions of civil power,
which have so often torn us with factions more than any other nation in
Europe.
_Thirdly:_ To this rebellion and murder have been owing the rise and
progress of atheism among us. For, men observing what numberless
villainies of all kinds were committed during twenty years, under
pretence of zeal and the reformation of God's Church, were easily
tempted to doubt that all religion was a mere imposture: And the same
spirit of infidelity, so far spread among us at this present, is nothing
but the fruit of the seeds sown by those rebellious hypocritical saints.
_Fourthly:_ The old virtue and loyalty, and generous spirit of the
English nation, were wholly corrupted by the power, the doctrine, and
the example of those wicked people. Many of the ancient nobility were
killed, and their families extinct, in defence of their Prince and
country, or murdered by the merciless courts of justice. Some of the
worst among them favoured, or complied with the reigning iniquities, and
not a few of the new set created, when the Martyr's son was restored,
were such who had drunk too deep of the bad principles then prevailing.
_Fifthly:_ The children of the murdered Prince were forced to fly, for
the safety of their lives, to foreign countries; where one of them at
least, I mean King James II., was seduced to Popery; which ended in the
loss of his kingdoms, the misery and desolation of this country, and a
long and expensive war abroad. Our deliverance was owing to the valour
and conduct of the late King; and, therefore, we ought to remember him
with gratitude, but not mingled with blasphemy or idolatry. It was happy
that his interests and ours were the same: And God gave him greater
success than our sins deserved. But, as a house thrown down by a storm,
is seldom rebuilt without some change in the foundation; so it hath
happened, that, since the late Revolution, men have sat much looser in
the true fundamentals both of religion and government, and factions have
been more violent, treacherous, and malicious than ever, men running
naturally from one extreme into another; and, for private ends, taking
up those very opinions professed by the leaders in that rebellion, which
carried the blessed Martyr to the scaffold.
_Sixthly:_ Another consequence of this horrid rebellion and murder was
the destroying or defacing of such vast number of God's houses. "In
their self-will they digged down a wall." If a stranger should now
travel in England, and observe the churches in his way, he could not
otherwise conclude, than that some vast army of Turks or heathens had
been sent on purpose to ruin and blot out all marks of Christianity.
They spared neither the statues of saints, nor ancient prelates, nor
kings, nor benefactors; broke down the tombs and monuments of men famous
in their generations, seized the vessels of silver set apart for the
holiest use, tore down the most innocent ornaments both within and
without, made the houses of prayer dens of thieves, or stables for
cattle. These were the mildest effects of Puritan zeal, and devotion for
Christ; and this was what themselves affected to call a thorough
reformation. In this kingdom those ravages were not so easily seen; for
the people here being too poor to raise such noble temples, the mean
ones we had were not defaced, but totally destroyed.
Upon the whole, it is certain, that although God might have found out
many other ways to have punished a sinful people, without permitting
this rebellion and murder, yet as the course of the world hath run ever
since, we need seek for no other causes, of all the public evils we have
hitherto suffered, or may suffer for the future, by the misconduct of
princes, or wickedness of the people.
I go on now upon the third head, to shew you to what good uses this
solemn day of humiliation may be applied.
_First_: It may be an instruction to princes themselves, to be careful
in the choice of those who are their advisers in matters of law. All the
judges of England, except one or two, advised the King, that he might
legally raise money upon the subjects for building of ships without
consent of Parliament; which, as it was the greatest oversight of his
reign, so it proved the principal foundation of all his misfortunes.
Princes may likewise learn from hence, not to sacrifice a faithful
servant to the rage of a faction, nor to trust any body of men with a
greater share of power than the laws of the land have appointed them,
much less to deposit it in their hands until they shall please to
restore it.
_Secondly_: By bringing to mind the tragedy of this day, and the
consequences that have arisen from it, we shall be convinced how
necessary it is for those in power to curb, in season, all such unruly
spirits as desire to introduce new doctrines and discipline in the
Church, or new forms of government in the state. Those wicked Puritans
began, in Queen Elizabeth's time, to quarrel only with surplices and
other habits, with the ring in matrimony, the cross in baptism, and the
like; thence they went on to further matters of higher importance, and,
at last, they must needs have the whole government of the Church
dissolved. This great work they compassed, first, by depriving the
bishops of their seats in Parliament, then they abolished the whole
order; and, at last, which was their original design, they seized on all
the Church-lands, and divided the spoil among themselves; and, like
Jeroboam, made priests of the very dregs of the people. This was their
way of reforming the Church. As to the civil government, you have
already heard how they modelled it upon the murder of their King, and
discarding the nobility. Yet, clearly to shew what a Babel they had
built, after twelve years' trial and twenty several sorts of government;
the nation grown weary of their tyranny, was forced to call in the son
of him whom those reformers had sacrificed. And thus were Simeon and
Levi divided in Jacob and scattered in Israel.