HIGHER POWERS: With fome REFLECTIONS on the RESISTANCE made to King CHARLES I. AND ON THE Anniversary of his Death: In which the MYSTERIOUS Doctrine of that Prince's The Substance of which was delivered in a SERMON preached in Published at the Request of the Hearers. By JONATHAN MAYHEW, A. M. Paftor of the Weft Church in Boston. Fear GOD, bonour the King. Saint PAUL. He that ruleth over Men, must be juft, ruling in the Fear of GOD. Prophet SAMUEL. I have faid, ye are Gods-but ye shall die like Men, and fall like one of the PRINCES. King DAVID. Quid memorem infandas cædes? quid facta TYRANNI Rom. Vat. Prin. BOSTON, Printed and Sold by D. FOWLE in Queen-street ; and by D. GOOKIN over against the South Meeting-Houfe. 1750. EDITOR'S PREFATORY NOTE. 5 66 THIS celebrated discourse was delivered on the anniversary of the death of the tyrant Charles I. of England, which, at the suggestion of the courtiers, on the restoration of the monarchy, was, by the "Supreme Governor of the Church," made a national fast, and the tyrant canonized as one of "the noble army of martyrs." After enjoying the nobility of martyrdom for about two centuries, the tyrant's name has, by Act of Parliament, 1859, been quietly expunged from the prayer-book, this holy-day of "The Christian Year" abolished; and thus the "martyr," and whole reams of partisan rhetoric, rhapsodies, and poetry, are left among the other follies of the past. The church could no longer bear the reproach. "Let his memory, O Lord, be ever blessed among us," could no longer be uttered with solemn mockery at the altar. The anniversary has been observed in a manner worthy of its hero and his admirers. By authority, the minister was compelled on that day to read the Oxford homily "against disobedience and wilful rebellion, or preach a sermon of his own composing upon the same argument"! One example of their impious utterances will suffice. It is the title of one of their sermons: "A true Parallel betwixt the Sufferings of our Saviour and our Sovereign in divers particulars." Another of these reverend blasphemers, preaching before a convocation of the church in 1701, said: "One would imagine that they were resolved to take St. Paul's expression in the most literal sense the words will bear, and crucify to themselves the Lord afresh, and, in the nearest likeness that could be, put him to an open shame. If, with respect to the dignity of the person, to have been born King of the Jews was what ought to have screened our Saviour from violence, here is also one not only born to a crown, but actually possessed of it; he was not just dressed up for an hour or two in In purple robes, and saluted with a 'Hail, king.' respect only of their being heated to the degree of frenzy and madness, the plea in my text may seem to have some hold of them. 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.'" Such were the usual "church" oracles on this Fast-day. "Among his own partisans," says Godwin, "the death of Charles was treated, and was spoken of, as a sort of deicide." Clarendon gave the key-note: "The most execrable murder ever committed since that of our blessed Saviour"! The servile and degrading tenet of absolute obedience was taught; and why should it not be, since the University of Oxford declared “submission and obedience, clear, absolute, and without exception, to be the badge and character of the Church of England." Hallam says that the high tory principles of the Anglican clergy, of absolute non-resistance, had nearly proved destructive of the whole constitution. "It was the tenet of their homilies, their canons, their most distinguished divines and casuists. . . . We can frame no adequate conception of the jeopardy in which our liberties stood under the Stuarts, especially in this particular period, without attending to this spirit of servility which had been so sedulously excited." It was ever a darling project with these worthies to establish American bishoprics. The "Society for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts," established in 1701, as it was administered by its clerical managers, seemed to be rather a society for propagating the hierarchy, especially in New England. Archbishop Tenison, its first president, dying in 1715, bequeathed to it £1000 towards maintaining the first bishop who should be settled in America, and Archbishop Secker left another £1000 for the same purpose. The "Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts" seemed, to intelligent men in New England, to be a mere disguise for introducing prelacy 1 1-"lords spiritual"— into the land, and it was 1 We find a notice of the society, at this day, by an English correspondent of The Independent, May 24, 1860, who says that it "enjoys the patronage of the High-Church dignitaries, and has a large income, say $600,000, annually. It has three hundred missionaries, supplemented by schoolmasters, catechists, and Scripture-readers. It is an affecting fact, that this old and strong society for the 'propagation of the gospel' propagates another gospel which is not another, and is inimical to the cross of Christ. Its gospel is prelacy and clerical authority. It insists that men shall be called master, and that rites and Mr. Mayhew's "desire to contribute a mite towards carrying on a war against this common enemy that produced the following discourse. By its bold inquisition into the slavish teachings veiled in "the mys terious doctrine of the saintship and martyrdom of Charles I., and its eloquent exposition of the principles of good government and of Christian manhood in the state, maddening the corrupt, frightening the timid, rousing the apathetic, and bracing the patriot heart, this celebrated sermon may be considered as the MORNING GUN OF THE REVOLUTION, the punctum temporis when that period of history began.1 Of the several English editions, one was published in Barrow's "Pillars of Priestcraft Shaken," 1752, in a copy of which Thomas Hollis, of London, wrote: "This very curious dissertation on government is the first on that subject that has been produced"-in later times -"from the American world." It was the medium of Mr. Hollis's friendship to Mayhew and Harvard College; and so, incidentally, operated wonderfully in favor of the cause of liberty, civil and religious, in America. Its effect on the public mind was decided and permanent. From this moment the dawn of independence-the spirit of the people was aroused, ever gathering force and intensity, ever narrowing and concentrating in the idea of resistance, more and more distinctly as the spirit of arbitrary power expressed itself in acts more and more offensive, until RESISTANCE culminated in bloodshed in 1775, and triumphed in peace in 1783. Robert Treat Paine called Dr. Mayhew "The Father of Civil and Religious Liberty in Massachusetts and America." The preacher was then in the thirtieth year of his age. The manner observances, taught and practised by the proper masters of ceremonies, avail everything. The essential spirit of Popery pervades the society, and its secretary, the Rev. Ernest Hawkins, was one of the earliest adherents to the new" revived" Oxford apostasy." 1 The total change of political relation and ideas, of manners and prejudices, -the fading of the old feeling of deference for rank, the last tinge of feudality, effected in the changes and passages of a century, renders it difficult now to realize the severity of the tests of temper, of courage, manliness, faithfulness, amid which these words were spoken from Dr. Mayhew's pulpit; - words so bold, so decided; allusions so direct and pointed that none could mistake, none could evade; principles so fatal to despotic polity in church or state as to wear the very garb of rebellion. Though now familiar to the public mind, and of the essence of our institutions, they then required a courage of the highest quality, the truest temper. |