Sectio Prima.
James Dodson
Proposition: The asserting the Solemn League and Covenant, and its obliging force, is a duty indispensably incumbent on every man in his place, but especially on the Ministers of the Gospel.
WHILST we consider this Proposition, and frame this Link of our Chain, we must take the Covenant in its abstracted form, as it is a Solemn Compact confirmed by an Oath, in which God is witness, or party, or both: And at present take it for granted, that the matter of it is true, just, and lawful; which yet will hereafter in its appointed place be discussed.
And as such, I say the asserting of the Covenant, and its obliging force, unto the exacting of performance, and rebuke of negative or positive breach of it, in not doing, or in doing contrary to what is covenanted, is a duty indispensably incumbent on all men in their places, (viz.) in their public or private capacities; wherein they are to express themselves, and expect others to be acted, (as men and Christians,) by the dictates and directi-
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ons of conscience; in order whereunto, the Covenants in which they bind themselves each to other, or jointly to God, as well as divine counsel, must be their compass, to guide their course past dangers and destruction.
Conform hereunto was the commendable carriage of Gyth the younger brother, but faithful Councilor to Harold King of England; who considering the state of the Quarrel between him and William Conqueror, gave the King this warning [Cambd. Brit. p. 149,150.], In case you have made promise to William of the Kingdom, withdraw thy person out of the battel: For, surely, all thy forces shall not secure thee against God, and thy own conscience, who will require punishment for breach of faith and promise.
Every man, is, in charity, bound to be an Angel to an unmindful Jacob, in point of his vow to God; and Monitor to his back-sliding brother: but it especially belongs to Gospel-Ministers, who being God’s Watchmen against sin, and his peoples Remembrancers unto duty, are not only by Common Charity, but also by special Office, bound to give warning against approaching evil, contracting guilt, and impending judgements of God; and that as they will acquit themselves from the blood of those immortal souls, who slip into, and perish by their sin [Ezek. 3:16,17,18,19,20; 33:7,8,9.]: On this account the Word of the Lord cometh unto his Prophets, with a Say unto them, Thus saith the Lord, I will give the men which have transgressed my Covenant, which have not performed my Covenant; even the Princes of Judah, and the Princes of Jerusalem, and Zedekiah the King, into the hand of their enemies, Jer. 34.18, 19, 20, 21, &c. And therefore, the censure of being contentious, or danger of being cast into prison as seditious, and losing all their comforts, must not deter the Ministers of God from coming to the King, and crying out in the Name of the Lord, Shall he break the Covenant, and be delivered? shall he do such things, and prosper, and escape? Ezek. 17.15. for in case of silence, the sin will lie on their heads, and the stones in the street will cry out.
The duty urged from piety towards God.
This is a principle so common, and clear, that none, professing Reason or Religion, dare deny it; and the reason of it is written in such legible Characters, that all may run and read it, (viz.) The Covenant is an Oath, the highest appeal to God, who must not, will not be mocked, or made a witness to his own
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dishonour; but will punish the breach thereof as a most heinous sin: Therefore the Ministers of God, (standing in his stead,) must with all zeal exact the accomplishment of it, as the practice of piety dependant on such a piece of worship: Remembering God hath strictly charged, That if a man vow a vow, and bind his soul, he shall not break his word, he shall do according to all that proceedeth out of his mouth, Numbers 30.2. So that in piety to God the Covenant must be kept, and its obligation be asserted.
2. Loyalty to the King.
Loyalty to the King, is no little suasive to this duty; for that leads to all fidelity in discharges and prevention of every thing destructive and dishonourable to His Majesty: Perjury, most odious to God and man, is abominable in any; and most conspicuous in a Prince. Who can without dread, remember the fierceness of God’s fury against Zedekiah, for breaking the Oath, into which he was forced by the straitest Siege? Or, observe the Odium that abideth on Albert the Emperour: Almerick King of Jerusalem: Vladislaus King of Hungary, and the Christian Princes, for breaking their Covenants with the Turks? and the obloquy indelible which lieth on Eugenius and Sylvester Popes, and Julian Cardinal of S. Angelo, and the order of Templars, for abetting and advising, by the same Arguments urged against our Covenant, the breach thereof? Can any true Englishman, and Liege Subject, without horror call to mind the perjury of King Harold, which let in William Conqueror to our Land? and how King John was made odious, and deserted by this outcry, Withdraw your selves from a perjured King, and not in sense thereof be stirred up with zeal to assert the Covenant? which broken, will load with shame, and subject to the displeasure of that God, who can destroy both us and our King, so happily restored to each other.
The contemplation on the Covenant.
True Loyalty is no less studious to establish the King’s Throne in Righteousness, than obsequious to the Royal expressions of His Pleasure: Yet to such as center Loyalty in the last, I would advise, that they would seriously consider, That howsoever His late Majesty of Honorable Memory, (for the conscience of His Oath,) was acted by the misapprehension of the Covenant, to interdict it; yet He was more sensible of its obliging force when taken, than to attempt the discharge thereof; and therefore in His
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Solitudes He adviseth His Subjects unto the Keeping of the Covenant in all honest and just ways, as thinking the chief end of the Covenant in many the takers intention, was to preserve Religion in purity, and the Kingdom in peace; and as one under the awe of the Oath of God, chargeth His Most Sacred Majesty that now is, That if God bring Him to His own on hard conditions, He should be careful to perform what He should promise: And His Most Sacred Majesty, as a most obedient Son to a Father so piously prudent, having Himself sworn the Solemn League and Covenant, and the establishment of it in all His Dominions, by His Royal Declaration of August 16. 1650. from Dumfirmling, professeth Himself Deeply humbled for His Fathers opposition to the Covenant; and that on full persuasion of the justice, and equity, of all the Articles thereof, He had sworn and subscribed the Solemn League and Covenant of the three Kingdoms; and that He was fully resolved, in the Lord’s strength, to adhere thereunto, and to the utmost of His power, in His place and station, really, constantly, and sincerely to prosecute all the ends thereof, all the days of His life: And by His Royal Command, doth conjure all His Subjects who have stood against the Solemn League and Covenant, and work of Reformation, to lay down their enmity, professing to have no enemies to Him, but the enemies to the Covenant; nor friends to Him, but friends to the Covenant: So that if Loyalty consist in a conformity to the King’s mind; as most Courtiers considering what may please, not what may profit, place it; the respect due to the Memory of His Late, and the dread we owe to His now Majesty, must animate, and engage the asserting of the Covenant, and its obliging force: For no faithful Subject will dare to fancy, that either the one, or the other, designed by these and the like expressions to mock God and the World.
3. The love of our Country.
The Love of our Country, and our own interest therein involved, is not the least Spurre unto this duty: For such is the deep die of perjury, that it polluteth the Land, and placeth it under the most direful of Divine plagues. The Heathen detest the breach of Oaths, and Covenants, as that which driveth out of human Society, and destroyeth men and their posterity by most heavy plagues: Juvenal telling us of the sad miseries which befell Glaucus Epicydes, for the purpose of breaking his Oath,
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Oath, which yet passed not into act, concludes,
Has patitur poenas, peccandi sola voluntas.
[The mere will to sin suffers these punishments.]
And Herodotus hereupon observing the improbable, impossible miseries which did overtake and subvert the very house and stock of the perjured, concludes,
At Juramento quodam est sine nomine proles;
Trunca manus, Trunca pedes; tamen impetu magno
Advenit; atque omnem vastat stirpemque domumque.
An unknown strength from Oath there doth proceed,
Without running pace, or hands to do the deed,
Subverts the house, and makes the stock to bleed.
Historians observe perjury to have lien so at the root of the Holy War, that it could never prosper; our own Chronicles conclude, breach of Covenant brought in the Conqueror, and the Barons’ Wars; and the Scriptures witness the three years wasting Famine in Israel, to have been the fruit of Saul’s well meant breach of Covenant with Gibeon, only expiated by the extirpation of his family. So that love to our Country, and our selves as like to be shares in its calamity, which can only be prevented by paying the vow we made to God, must quicken all men, especially Ministers, to cry, and cry aloud, Remember, regard the Solemn League and Covenant.
4. By the bond of the Covenant itself.
Unto these considerations the Covenant it self addeth no little strength, whilst we have sworn not to suffer our selves directly or indirectly, by whatsoever combination, persuasion, or terror to be withdrawn from it; nor to give up our selves to a detestable neutrality, and indifferency, but in our places and callings, to maintain it; and assist such as enter into it: whereunto the asserting of the Covenant, and its obliging force, is not the least serviceable; nor most out of our capacity; it being all the places of the Ministry will allow them to do.
These things considered, as I cannot but commend, and rejoice in the assertion and exaction of the Solemn League and Cove-
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nant, as to the Civil part of it concerning our King and Kingdom, which was expressed by the Secluded Members of the long Parliament, and by the Ministers of London, and other Counties in their Pulpits, and public Testimonies to the Solemn League and Covenant, Printed with their names subscribed, provoking their people to cleave to the Covenant; so I cannot but admire at their present silence, as to the Religious part of it, which concerneth God, his Church, and worship: but I am much more amazed, to see Eminent Divines, who have sworn it, not only to slight the Covenant, but to strain their wits, parts, and Learning, by false glosses, and foolish Arguments, to make it void, and discharge its obligation; and to make up their defect of reason, and Religion, by railing at, and reproach of such who in conscience of duty assert its obligation: counting them troublers of England’s peace, spirits of contradiction, acted by Malice, as doth Featly in his Preface to his League illegal: or silly, unstable souls, (standing still, whilst these run away,) urging the Covenant on private interest of profit, revenge, envy, and ambition: And the like as Dr. Gauden in his Epistle to the Doubts and Scruples, &c. I would pray these men to tell me in cool blood, and on serious thoughts; supposing, as I said before, the Covenant to be a just, public, Sacred, and lawful Oath; whether they think any that have zeal for God, Loyalty to the King, and Love to their Country, can see Superstition acted to that height, as to make the Papists smile at the return of that Similitude to their worship, of which they were wont to boast; and not barely an Episcopacy restored, but that very specifical Prelacy covenanted against, in most express terms, advanced; whereby the Covenant is not only contemned, but openly contradicted, and yet be silent and not plead the Covenant: Or again, is duty a proper turbulency? if only such by accident, must not God’s Ministers contend against sin, to prevent God’s contending by his plagues against the Land?
But Sir, to conclude this Section, I would pray that our Master-builders, in the re-edifying of their holy Fabrick, (greatly delapsed [fallen down] and decayed,) would vouchsafe to cast their thoughts upon an observation made by an Author, (who cannot but be) acceptable to them, viz. Mr. Tho. Fuller Prebendary of Sarum, who in his Holy War, casting up the Causes of the sad Catastro-
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phe of so hopeful and honourable an undertaking, Reduceth the summa totalis to Superstition and perjury, (usual concomitants,) and on the last he thus glosseth:
[Fuller’s Holy Warre, lib. 5. c. 11. pa. 248.] “How could safety it self save this people, and bless this project, so blackly blasted with perjury? (how then should their Watchmen be silent?) a sin so repugnant with moral honesty, so injurious to the peace and quiet of the world, so odious in it self, so scandalous to all men, to break a League when confirmed by Oath. The strongest bond of conscience, the end of particular strife, the Shoulder of public peace, the assurance of amity betwixt divers Nations, made here below, but enrolled in his High Court, whose glorious Name doth signit [signify], a sin so heinous, that God cannot but most severely punish it: David asketh, Who shall dwell in thy holy hill? and answereth himself, He that sweareth to his Neighbour, and disappointeth him not, though to his own hindrance. No wonder then, though the Christians had no longer abiding in the Holy Hill of Palestine, driving that Trade, wherewith none ever yet thrived: the breaking of promises, wherewith one may for awhile fairly spread his train, but will melt his feathers soon after, the Fabrick must needs come tumbling down, whose foundation is laid in perjury.”
Surely Sir, such as affectionately believe this doctrine, cannot but passionately apply it, to cry aloud, and not spare, Remember the Covenant. I grow Sir, not a little suspicious, that the last stratagem of the Propagators of the Catholic Cause, is by their Jesuitical Sophistry, to strike England into the guilt of perjury; and then to blaspheme our Religion, and deride our Nation, as did Agesilaus the Grecian Captain in his answer to Tissaphernes, the Persian breaking the League he had made with him, I give you no small thanks, for that by your perjury, you have made the God’s angry with the Persians, and favorable to the Grecians.