become children of reviving liberty; and may reclaim, though they seem now choofing them a captain back for Egypt, to bethink themselves a little, and confider whither they are rushing; to exhort this torrent alfo of the people, not to be fo impetuous, but to keep their due channel; and at length recovering and uniting their better refolutions, now that they fee already how open and unbounded the infolence and rage is of our common enemies, to stay thefe ruinous proceedings, jufily and timely fearing to what a precipice of deftruction the deluge of this epidemic madness would hurry us, through the general defection of a mifguided and abufed multitude.

Wherein many notorious Wreftings of Scripture, and other Falfities, are obferved.

I

Affirmed in the preface of a late difcourfe, intitled, "The ready Way to establish a Free Commonwealth, and the Dangers of readmitting Kingship in this Nation,' that the humour of returning to our old bondage was inftilled of late by fome deceivers; and to make good, that what I then affirmed was not without juft ground, one of those deceivers I prefent here to the people: and if I prove him not fuch, refufe not to be fo accounted in his stead.

He begins in his epiftle to the general *, and moves cunningly for a licence to be admitted physician both to church and state; then fets out his practice in phyfical terms," a wholefome electuary to be taken every morning next our hearts;" tells of the oppofition which he met with from the college of ftate phyficians, then lays before you his drugs and ingredients; "Strong purgatives in the pulpit, contempered of the myrrh of mortification, the aloes of confeffion and contrition, the rhu

• Monk.

barb

barb of restitution and fatisfaction;" a pretty fantastic dofe of divinity from a pulpit mountebank, not unlike the fox, that turning pedlar, opened his pack of ware before the kid; though he now would feem, "to perfonate the good Samaritan," undertaking to "describe the rife and progrefs of our national malady, and to prefcribe the only remedy;" which how he performs, we fhall quickly fee.

First, he would fuborn St. Luke as his spokesman to the general, prefuming, it feems, " to have had as perfect understanding of things from the very first," as the evangelift had of his gofpel; that the general, who hath fo eminently born his part in the whole action, " might know the certainty of thofe things" better from him a partial fequeftered enemy; for fo he prefently appears, though covertly, and like the tempter, commencing his addrefs with an impudent calumny and affront to his excellence, that he would be pleafed " to carry on what he had fo happily begun in the name and caufe" not of God only, which we doubt not, but " of his anointed," meaning the late king's fon; to charge him moft audaciously and falfely with the renouncing of his own public promises and declarations, both to the parliament and the army, and we truft his actions ere long will deter fuch infinuating flanderers from thus approaching him for the future. But the general may well excuse him; for the comforter himself scapes not his prefumption, avouched as falfely, to have empowered to those defigns" him and him only," who hath folemnly declared the contrary. What fanatic, against whom he fo often inveighs, could more prefumptuously affirm whom the comforter hath empowered, than this anti-fanatic, as he would be thought?

The Text.

Prov. xxiv, 21, "My fon, fear God and the king, and meddle not with them that be feditious, or defirous of change," &c.

Letting pafs matters not in controverfy, I come to the main drift of your fermon, the king; which word here

is either to fignify any fupreme magiftrate, or else your latter object of fear is not univerfal, belongs not at all to many parts of Chriftendom, that have no king; and in particular not to us. That we have no king fince the putting down of kingship in this commonwealth, is manifeft by this laft parliament, who, to the time of their diffolving, not only made no address at all to any king, but fummoned this next to come by the writ formerly appointed of a free commonwealth, without reftitution 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 fermon, if it mean a king in the ufual fenfe, is either impertinent and abfurd, exhorting your auditory to fear that which is not; or if king here be, as it is understood, for any fupreme magiftrate, by your own exhortation they are in the first place not to meddle with you, as being yourself most of all the feditious meant here, and the "defirous of change," in ftirring them up to "fear a king," whom the prefent government takes no notice of.

You begin with a vain vifion, "God and the King at the firft blufh" (which will not be your laft blush) "feeming to ftand in your text like those two cherubims on the mercy-feat, looking on each other." By this fimilitude, your conceited fanctuary, worse than the altar of Ahaz, patterned from Damafcus, 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 published, from this lord to the other lord, that cry him up for no less than angelical and celeftial.

Your firft obfervation, pag. 8, is, "That God and the king are coupled in the text, and what the Holy Ghoft hath thus firmly combined, we may not, we must not dare to put asunder;" and yourself is the first man who puts them afunder by the first proof of your doctrine immediately following, Judg. vii, 20, which couples the fword 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, ver. 22, 23, “I will not rule over you, neither thall my VOL. III.

Ff

fon

fon rule over you; the Lord fhall rule over you." Here we fee, that this worthy heroic deliverer of his country thought it beft governed, if the Lord governed it in that form of a free commonwealth, which they then enjoyed without a fingle perfon. And thus is your firft fcripture abused, and moft impertinently cited, nay, against yourfelf, to prove, that " kings at their coronation have a fword given them," which you interpret" the militia, the power of life and death put into their hands,” against the declared judgment of our parliaments, nay, of all our laws, which referve to themfelves only the power of life and death, and render you in their just refentment of this boldnefs another Dr. Manwaring.

Your next proof is as falfe and frivolous, "The king," fay you, "is God's fword-bearer;" true, but not the king only for Gideon, by whom you feek to prove this, neither was, nor would be a king; and as you yourfelf confefs, pag. 40, "There be divers forms of government." "He bears not the fword in vain," Rom. xiii, 4: This also is as true of any lawful rulers, especially fupreme; fo that "Rulers," ver. 3, and therefore this prefent government, without whofe authority you excite the people to a king, bear the fword as well as kings, and as little in vain. They fight against God, who refift his ordinance, and go about to wreft the sword out of the hands of his anointed." This is likewife granted: but who is his anointed? Not every king, but they only who were anointed or made kings by his fpecial command; as Saul, David, and his race, which ended in the Mefliah, (from whom no kings at this day can derive their title) Jehu, Cyrus, and if any other were by name appointed by him to fome particular fervice: as for the reft of kings, all other fupreme magiftrates 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. xiii, 1 : and we are exhorted in the gospel to obey kings, as other magiftrates, not that they are called any where the Lord's anointed, but as they are the "Ordinance of man," 1 Pet. ii, 13. You therefore and other fuch falfe doctors, preaching kings to your auditory, as the Lord's only anointed, to withdraw