tine, in all his religious proceedings. Let us in one word parallel

them.

Constantine caused fifty volumes of the Scriptures to be fair written out in parchment, for the use of the Church *: king James hath caused the Books of Scriptures to be accurately translated, and published by thousands. Constantine made a zealous edict against Novatians, Valentinians, Marcionites † king James, besides his powerful proclamations and sovereign laws, hath effectually written against Popery and Vorstianism. Constantine took away the liberty of the meetings of heretics. king James hath, by wholesome laws, inhibited the assemblies of papists and schismatics. Constantine sat in the midst of bishops, as if he had been one of them : king James, besides his solemn conferences, vouchsafes, not seldom, to spend his meals in discourse with his Bishops and other worthy Divines. Constantine charged his sons, ut planè et sine fuco Christiani essent, "that they should be Christians in earnest:" king James hath done the like in learned and divine precepts, which shall live till time be no more. Yea, in their very coins is a resemblance: Constantine had his picture stamped upon his metals praying: king James hath his picture with prayer about it; "O Lord, protect the kingdoms which thou hast united." Lastly, Constantine built Churches; one in Jerusalem, another in Nicomedia : king James hath founded one College, which shall help to build and confirm the whole Church of God upon earth. Ye wealthy Citizens, that love Jerusalem, cast in your store, after this royal example, into the sanctuary of God; and, while you make the Church of God happy, make yourselves so. Brethren, if we have any relish of Christ, any sense of heaven, let us bless God for the life of our soul, the Gospel; and for the spirit of this life, his Anointed.

5. But where had been our Peace, or this Freedom of the Gospel, without our DELIVERANCE? and where had our Deliverance been without him? As it was reported of the Oak of Mamre, that all religions rendered their yearly worship there**: the Jews, because of Abraham their patriarch; the Gentiles, because of the angels that appeared there to Abraham; the Christians, because of Christ that was there seen of Abraham with the angels: so was there to king James, in his first beginnings, a confluence of all sects, with papers in their hands; and, as it was best for them, with a Rogamus, ·Domine, non pugnamus, like the subjects of Theodosius. But our cousins ++ of Samaria, when they saw that Solomon's yoke would not be lightened, soon flew off in a rage; What portion have we in David? 1 Kings xii. 16. And now those, which had so oft looked up to heaven in vain, resolve to dig down to hell for ‡‡ aid. Satan

*Euseb. de vitâ Const. 1. iv. c. 36. + Lib. iii. 61, 62. Lib. iii. 63. § Lib. i. c. 37. In media istorum frequentiâ ac congressu adesse et unà considere non dedignatus. Basil, dor. Lib. iv. 15. ¶ Lib. iii. 43, and 24. **Socr. l. ii. cap. 3.

++ Ribera in prophet. min. ex Joseph. Antiq. lib. ix. ult. Samaritani Judæos cognatos appellari soliti, quamdiu illis benè erat. At ubi contra, &c. * Flectere si nequeo, &c.

++

himself met them, and offered, for saving of their labour, to bring hell up to them. What a world of sulphur had he provided against that day! What a brewing of death was tunned up in those vessels! The murderous pioneers laughed at the close felicity of their project; and now beforehand seemed in conceit, to have heard the crack of this hellish thunder, and to see the mangled carcases of the heretics flying up so suddenly, that their souls must needs go upward towards their perdition; their streets strewed with legs and arms; and the stones braining as many in their fall, as they blew up in their rise. Remember the children of Edom, O Lord, in the day of Jerusalem, which said, Down with it, down with it, even to the ground. O daughter of Babel, worthy to be destroyed, blessed shall he be that serveth thee as thou wouldest have served us; Psalm cxxxvii. 7, 8. But he, that sits in heaven, laughed as fast at them, to see their presumption, that would be sending up bodies to heaven before the resurrection, and preferring companions to Elijah in a fiery chariot; and said, ut quid fremuerunt? Consider now how great things the Lord hath done for us: the snare is broken, and we are delivered. But how? As that learned Bishop well applied Solomon to this purpose, Divinatio in labiis Regis*. If there had not been a divination in the lips of the king, we had been all in the jaws of death. Under his shadow we are preserved alive, as Jeremiah speaketh. It is true, God could have done it by other means; but he would do it by this, that we might owe the being of our lives to him, of whom we held our well-being before. Oh, praised be the God of Heaven for our deliverance! Praised be God for his Anointed, by whom we are delivered! Yea, how should we call to our fellow-creatures; the angels, saints, heavens, elements, meteors, mountains, beasts, trees, to help us praise the Lord for this mercy! And, as the oath of the Roman soldiers ran, how dear and precious should the life of Caesar be to us, above all earthly things t! how should we hate the base unthankfulness of those men, which can say of him, as one said of his Saint Martin, Martinus bonus in auxilio, charus in negotio ; who, while they owe him all, grudge him any thing!

Away with the mention of outward things: all the blood in our bodies is due to him: all the prayers and well-wishes of our souls are due to him. How solemnly festival should this day be to us and to our posterities for ever! How cheerfully for our Peace, our Religion, our Deliverance, should we take up that acclamation which the people of Rome used in the coronation of Charles the Great, Carolo Jacobo à Deo coronato; magno et pacifico Britannorum Imperatori, vita et victoria &: "To Charles James crowned of God, the great and peaceable Emperor of Britain, life and victory;" and let God and his people say, Amen.

* Prov. xvi. 10. B. Barlow, p. 350. + Προτιμήσων απαντων τὴν τῶ Καῖσαρι owengias. Suet. Addit, neque me liberosque meos cariores habebo, quàm Caium Clodoneus. Otho, Fris. 1. iv. c. 31. Clodoneus. Otho, Fris.

et ejus sorores. 1. iv. c. 31.

§ Fris. 1. v. c. 31.

III. These were great things indeed, that God did for Israel; great that he hath done for us; great for the present, not certain for the future. They had not, no more have we, the blessings of God by entail, or by lease: only at the good will of the Lord; and that is, during our good behaviour. Sin is a forfeiture of all favours. If you do wickedly, you shall perish. It was not for nothing, that the same word in the original signifies both sin and punishment. These two are inseparable. There is nothing but a little priority in time between them. The angels did wickedly; they perished by their fall from heaven: the old world did wickedly; they perished by waters from heaven: the Sodomites did wickedly; they perished by fire from heaven: Corah and his company did wickedly; they perished by the earth: the Egyptians did wickedly; they perished by the sea: the Canaanites did wickedly; they perished by the sword of Israel: the Israelites did wickedly; they perished by pestilence, serpents, Philistines. What should I run myself out of breath in this endless course of examples? There was never sin, but it had a punishment, either in the Actor or in the Redeemer: there was never punishment, but was for sin. Heaven should have no quarrel against us, hell could have no power over us, but for our sins. Those are they, that have plagued us: those are they, that threaten us.

But what shall be the judgment? perishing: to whom? to you, and your king. He doth not say, "If your king do wickedly, you shall perish;" as sometimes he hath done: nor, "If your king do wickedly, he shall perish;" although kings are neither privileged from sins, nor from judgments: nor, "If you do wickedly, you only shall perish:" but, If ye do wickedly, ye and your king shall perish. So near a relation is there betwixt the king and subjects; the sin of the one reacheth to the judgment of the other; and the judgment of the one is the smart of both. The king is the head; the commons, the stomach. If the head be sick, the stomach is affected; David sins, the people die if the stomach be sick, the head complains; for the transgression of the people are many princes.

What could have snatched from our head that sweet Prince, of fresh and bleeding memory, that might justly have challenged Otho's name Mirabilia mundi, now, in the prime of all the world's expectation, but our traitorous wickednesses? His Christian modesty upon his death-bed could charge himself; "No, no; I have sins enough of my own to do this.' But this very accusation did clear him, and burden us. O glorious Prince, they are our sins, that are guilty of thy death, and our loss. We have done wickedly thou perishedst: a harsh word for thy glorified condition: but such a perishing as is incident to Saints; for there is a perire de medio, as well as a perire à facie, "a perishing from the earth," as well as "a perishing from God." It was a joyful perishing to thee: our sins have advantaged thy soul, which is partly there

Otho III, Fris, vi. 26.

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fore happy, because we were unworthy of thee; but they have robbed us of our happiness in thee. O our treacherous sins, that have offered this violence to that sweet, hopeful, sacred person! And do they not yet still conspire against him, that is yet dearer to us; the root of these goodly branches, the breath of our nostrils, the anointed of God?

Brethren, let me speak it confidently as every sin is a traitor to a man's own soul, so every wicked man is a traitor to his king; yea, every of his crying sins is a false-hearted rebel, that hides powder and pocket-dags for the precious life of his sovereign. Any statesman may learn this even of Machiavel himself; which I confess when I read, I thought of the Devil confessing Christ; That the giving of God his due, is the cause of the greatness of any state; and, contrarily, the neglect of his service, the cause of ruin*. And, if any profane Zosimus shall doubt of this point, I would but turn him to Evagrius †, his discourse to this purpose, where he shall find instances of enough particulars. Whatever politic philosophers have distinguished, betwixt bonus vir and civis, I say, that as a good man cannot be an ill subject, so a lewd man can no more be a good subject, than evil can be good. Let him sooth, and swear what he will, his sins are so many treasons against the prince and state: for, Ruin is from iniquity, saith Ezekiel; vii. 19. Alas, what safety can we be in when such miscreants lurk in our houses, jet in our streets; when the country, city, court, is so full of these spiritual conspiracies ?

Ye, that are Magistrates, not for God's sake only, but for your King's sake, whose deputies ye are, as he is God's; not for religion only, but for very policy: as you tender the dear life of our gracious sovereign; as you regard the sweet peace of this state and kingdom; the welfare of this Church; yea, as you love your own life, peace, welfare; rouse up your spirits, awaken your Christian courage, and set yourselves heartily against the traitorly sins of these times, which threaten the bane of all these. Cleanse ye these Augean stables of gur drunken taverns, of our profane stages, and of those blind vaults of professed filthiness, Whose steps go down to the chambers of death, yea, to the deep of hell; Prov. vii. 27. ix. 18.

And ye, my Holy Brethren, the messengers of God, if there be if ever you rattled from heaven any sons of thunder amongst you, the terrible judgments of God against sinners, now do it: for, contrary to the natural, the deep winter of iniquity is most seasonable for this spiritual thunder. Be heard above, be seen beneath. Outface sin, out-preach it, out-live it. We are stars in the right hand of God: let us be like any stars save the moon, that hath blots in her face; or the star wormwood, whose fall made bitter waters; Rev. viii, 11; or St. Jude's planets, that wander in irregularities; Jude 13. Let the light of our lives shine in the faces of the world;

:

* Osservanza del culto divino e cagione della grandezza delle cosi il dispre gio diqua, &c. Discor. 1, i. c. 11. + Evagr. 1. iii. c. 41.

and dazzle them, whom it shall not guide. Then shall we with authority speak what we do, when we do that which we speak *. We can never better testify our thankful and loyal respects to so good a king, in whose favour is our life, and by whose grace we are upheld against the unworthy affronts of this sacrilegious age; than by crying down, by living down, those sins, which threaten our happiness in him.

And ye, Beloved Christians, whose faces seem worthily to congratulate the joy of this day, if ye would approve yourselves good subjects to our king, labour to be good subjects to His King, the King of Heaven. Away with those rebellious wickednesses, which may be prejudicial to our peace. In vain shall we testify our loyalty, by these outward ceremonies of rejoicing, if we be faulty in the substance. To what purpose shall we ring our bells, if, in the mean time, we hold fast Solomon's funes peccatorum, cords of sin; Prov. v. 22. yea, the prophet's cart-ropes of iniquity; and thereby pull down judgment upon our heads? To what purpose shall we kindle bonfires in our streets, if we kindle the flame of God's displeasure against us by our sins? To what purpose shall ye feast one another in your houses, if you shall feast the fiends of hell with your wilful sins? Dæmonum cibus ebrietas; Jerome † saith well, "Drunkenness, luxury, fornication, and every sin is the very diet and dainties of the Devil." For God's sake therefore, for our king's sake, for your own soul's sake, be good, that you may be loyal. O my Brethren, let us not, with old Toby, suffer our eyes to be blinded with the swallow's dung of this world. Let us not dare to make a willing shipwreck of conscience, for the venture of a little ballast of gain. Away with our pride, usury, oppression, false weights, false oaths, false faces; Do no more wickedly, that we perish not.

They are our sins, which, as they threaten to lose us our best friend above, the God of our Salvation; so they hearten our adversaries against us on earth. Their hopes, their designs, their wickedness to us, hath been profest to be built upon ours to God. If they did not see we did evil, they durst not hope we could perish. Authority hath wisely and seasonably taken order for disarming of wilful recusants. What should weapons do in the hand of disloyalty? Oh, that it could take order to strip us of our sins, which will else arm God and his creatures against us! The gates of Rome, the gates of Hell, could not hurt us, if we did not hurt ourselves. Oh, that we could so love ourselves, as to part with all our plausible and gainful evils; that we would this day renew our holy covenants with God, and keep them for ever! How would he still feed us with the finest of the wheat! How would he, that, as this day, when we feared a tempest, gave us a happy calm, pre

*Cum imperio docetur quod prius agitur quàm dicatur. Greg. 23. in Job. Hier, de filio prodigo. Dæmonum cibus ebrietas, luxuria, fornicatio, et universa vitia,