Sabbath for though the Law of Moses prohibited all manner of work to be done on that day under the penalty of Death to the Children of Israel which was Executed on the Man who gather'd Sticks on the Sabbath Day for the supply of his Necessities yet our Blessed Saviour who was the Lord of the Sabbath wholly abolished the Ceremonial part of this Law that being peculiarly appropriated to the Jewish Nation and continued the Moral part of it in its full Force Allowing both by his Example and by verbal Permission any work of Necessity or Charity to be done on that day Thus Scripture and Reason teach us and this likewise do the Laws of England permit though at the same time they are very strict against all those Profanations of the Lord's Day which proceed either from Mens Covetousness or their Licentiousness Thus all Carriers Waggoners Carters Wain-men and Drovers are prohibited to Travel with any Horse Waggons Carts or Cattell on the Lord's Day under the Penalty of forfeiting Twenty Shillings to the Poor of the Parish where the Offence shall be Committed All Butchers that Kill or Sell or cause to be Killed or Sold any Meat on the Lord's Day or are Privy or Consenting to such Slaughter or Sale forfeit in like manner Six Shillings and Eight Pence for every Offence The Offence must be proved before any one Justice of the Peace by the Oaths of two Witnesses or by the Confession of the Party unless the Fact were done in the View of a Justice of the Peace and then the Law requires no farther Proof The Offenders must be Prosecuted within six Months after the Offence is committed and the forfeitures are recoverable either by Distress and Sale of the Offender's Goods or by Bill Plaint or Information Prosecuted at the Quarter Sessions for the County And where any Parish shall rather chuse this last Method for recovering their Money you must be ready Gentlemen on your Parts as we shall be on Ours to give all possible incouragement to these Prosecutions unless they shall plainly appear to be Malicious Nor Gentlemen are these the only Profanations of the Lord's Day that our Laws take Cognizance of but by a Statute of a later Date All Persons that shall on the Lord's Day or any part thereof Sell or expose any thing to Sale shall forfeit the Goods so sold or exposed to Sale to the Poor of the Parish where the Offence is Committed Thus also whosoever being of the Age of Fourteen Years or upwards shall on the Lord's Day or any part thereof exercise any worldy Labour Business or Work of his ordinary Calling shall in like manner forfeit for every Offence the summ of Five Shillings Thus all Drovers Horse-Coursers Waggoners Butchers Higlers or any of their Servants who shall Travel or come into their Inn on the Lord's Day or any part thereof shall in like manner forfeit for every Offence the summ of Twenty Shillings The Offences against this Act must be prosecuted within ten days after and the View of a Justice of the Peace the Oath of one Witness or the Confession of the Party Offending made before any one Justice of the Peace is a sufficient Proof And in Cafe as it may sometimes happen the Offender hath no Goods to be Distrained and Sold and is not able to pay these Forfeitures he is then to be set publickly in the Stocks by the space of two Hours And besides these Penalties this Statue exempts the Hundreds from answering the losses which may happen by Robbery to those who Travel on the Lord's day since such Journeys are not supposed to be undertaken out of necessity but choice Thus far our Laws restrain and punish those Profanations of the Lord's Day which a covetous desire of gain is apt to induce Men to Nor is the penal Prohibition of those Disorders which proceed from an Irreligious Licentiousness less severe For to the end that these Profanations of the Lord's Day and the ill Consequences attending them may be prevented our Laws strictly prohibit all Meetings and Assemblies of People out of their own Parishes and all concourse of them within their own Parishes for all unlawfull Sports and Pastimes under the Penalty of three Shillings and four Pence for every Offence to be forfeited to the Poor of the Parish where the Offence is committed the Penalty is leviable by Distress and Sale of the Offenders Goods and in default of sufficient Distress the Offender is to be set publickly in the Stocks by the space of three Hours The Prosecution must be within a Month after the Offence and the Oath of one Witness or the Confession of the Party before any Justice of the Peace or the View of any one Justice of the Peace is a sufficient proof to convict the Offender This was a good Law but yet too liable to many Evasions and Abuses therefore a farther provision hath since been made by a later Act That all Persons shall on every Lord's Day exercise the Duties of Piety and true Religion under the penalty of Five Shillings in like manner forfeited to the Poor of the Parish for every Offence which is to be Prosecuted within ten Days after and proveable as aforesaid by one Witness upon Oath and if the Offender be not able to satisfie the Penalty then he must be set Publickiy in the Stocks by the space of two Hours And nothing can exempt any Man from falling under the Censures of this Act but works of Necessity and Charity which as I observed before both Reason and Scripture allow of For Sports and Pastimes Revellings and Disorders are certainly inconsistent with the duty of the Day as Buying and Selling or exercising any Trade or Calling The fourth Immorality which our Laws endeavour to suppress is Drunkenness A Vice on which one of our Statutes fixes this infamous Character That it is Odious and Loathsom that it is the Root and Foundation of Blood-shed Stabbing Murther Swearing Fornication Adultery and such like enormous Sins to the dishonour of God and of our Nation the overthrow of many good Arts and Manual Trades the disabling of divers Workmen and the general Impoverishment of many good Subjects abusively wasting the good Creatures of God This charge though it may seem severe yet is it as our Experience informs us a very true and lively Description of the sad Consequences and Fatal Effects of this brutish Immorality Therefore for the repressing this Vice our Laws have provided a Punishment not only for the Drunkards but also for the Inn-keepers and Victuallers that Harbour Entertain and Encourage them For as the Preamble to one of the Statutes relating to this matter informs us The Ancient True and Principal use of Inns Ale-Houses and Victualling-Houses is for the Receit Relief and Lodging of Travellers and for supply of the wants of those who are not able to Buy in their Provisions of Meat and Drink by greater Quantities but
A Charge Given AT THE General Quarter Sessions OF THE PEACE For the County of SURREY HOLDEN At Dorking on Tuesday the 5 th day of April 1692. and in the Fourth Year of their Majesties Reign By the Honourable Hugh Hare Esq One of their Majesties Justices of the Peace for that County LONDON Printed for John Newton at the three Pidgeons over against the Inner-Temple-Gate in Fleet-street 1692. TO THE Right Honourable George Earl of Berkeley c. Custos Rotulorum of the Country of Surrey My Lord WHen I Petitioned your Lordship to appoint the Easter Sessions at Dorking I little expected the Honour the Gentlemen on the Bench were pleased to do me in chusing me for their Chair-man but when I was forc'd to submit to their Commands in accepting an Office for which I was so ill qualified I was extremely surprized at the unusual Compliment the Grand Jury first and then the Court made me in desiring me to Publish the Charge I gave them All the importunities I could use proved insufficient to excuse me from appearing thus in Publick and I was forc'd out of deference to their Judgments and obedience to their Orders though with the greatest Reluctance to execute on my self a Sentence so Severe For though there is nothing in these Papers that an honest Man need be ashamed of yet the World will be apt to judge of them not according to the sincerity of the Author but the exactness of the performance And there ought to be Wit and Eloquence Sense and Judgement as well as a good intention in those that appear in Print I am sensible My Lord how deficient I am in the first mentioned Qualifications and therefore I thought it necessary to beg your Lordship's Protection for this Discourse And indeed whether I consider your Lordship as a zealous Patron of Religion and Vertae or as a true Friend to the Interests of your Country and by consequence entirely devoted to their Majesties Service or whether I consider the High Office your Lordship so deservedly enjoys in this County and the Obligations I owe your Lordship for honouring me with your Friendship in all these respects my Lord there can be no Person so fit as your Lordship to defend the following Sheets from the Censures of Atheistical Libertines and Seditious Male-contents If we were to judge of the Strength of these two Parties by their Clamour and their positiveness in what they assert then Religion Vertue and Loyalty might justly be apprehensive of them as dangerous and formidable Enemies But those Arguments had need be irrefragable that can perswade a Man of Sense either that Wickedness and Goodness are of the same intrinseck Value and equally eligible or that a Despotick Monarchy is preferable to the excellent Model of our English Government And though they were Masters of as much Wit and Art as the Epicurean Poet or the Malmsbury Philosopher whose Dictates they for the most part Copy after yet Principles that are in themselves false and besides that undermine the Publick Security and destroy the private Happiness of Mankind must never hope to be generally entertained unless they have better recommendations than superficial Sophistry and smooth Language But my Lord 't is the proper Business of a Dedication to be on the Defensive and therefore I shall not engage my self any farther in this Quarrel I have only this to say in behalf of my self that whoever thinks I have prostituted my Pen either to Revenge Covetousness or Ambition is very much mistaken for as I never received any personal Affront or Injury from the last Government so neither do I expect or hope for any profitable Employments or great Places under the present But am as free on the one hand from Malice as I am on the other from Flattery By this the World may see I have no private Aims but have sincerely and freely declared the Genuine and Vnbyast dictates of my Reason And these I presume to shelter under your Lordship's Patronage and since I have been as it were forc'd to Print these Papers it is no small comfort to me that I have thereby an Opportunity publickly to own your Lordship's kindness in appointing at my request the last Sessions at Dorking and in giving me reason to hope that that place shall now and then by your Lordships grant share an advantage from which it hath for some time been excluded and which I assure my self they will for the future deserve better by prevailing with the Justices to fill the Chair with a person fitter for that Employment then My Lord Your Lordship 's most Obliged Obedient and Humble Servant HUGH HARE Betchworth Apr. 12. 1692. Sur ' ss Ad. General ' quarterial ' Session Pacis Domini Regis Dominae Reginae Com' Sur ' tent ' in pro Comitatu praedicto apud Dorking in eodem Cmitatu die Martis in Septimand proxima post Clausum Pasch ' scilicet quinto die Aprilis Anno Regni Dom. Will ' Dom. Mar. Dei gratia Angliae Scotiae Franciae Hiberniae Regis Reginae sidei Desensorum c. quarto coram Justiciariis ibid assignatis c. ON Reading the Address of the Grand Inquest for the body of this County at the General Quarter Sessions of the Peace now held for this County at Dorking whereby it is desired that the Honourable Hugh Hare Esq would please to permit his Religious Learned and Loyal Charge now given to the said Grand Inquest to be Printed The Justices now present in Court do Concurr and Agree with the said Grand Inquest in their Address and do desire that the said Mr. Hare would please to permit his said Charge to be Printed Per Cur. Exr. per Will. Smith Cler. pacis Com. Sur. Praed Sur'ss VVEE whose Names are subscribed being the Grand Jury for the said Country do Present our Humble Thanks to the Honourable Hugh Hare Esq Chairman at the general Quarter Sessions held at Dorking in the said County the 5th of April 1692. for his Religious Learned and Loyal Charge and do hombly desire that for the Advantage of this County for whose Benefit it was intended he would permit the same to be Printed Tho. Baker Tho. Vincent Valentine Hayward John Isted John Goldhawke Thomas Francis Will. Luck John Hill Miles Dudley John Woodman John Stilwell John Rowod Tho. Harther John Knight Tho. Spong Walter Lonhurst Tho. Cannell John Page Michael Greene Will. Wood Will. Wood Jo. Gardiner Joseph Bignold Charles King Richard Hubbard A Charge Given AT THE General Quarter Sessions OF THE PEACE For the County of SURREY HOLDEN At Dorking on Tuesday the 5 th day of April 1692. Gentlemen of the Jury AS the Necessity of Government flows from the Corruption of Humane Nature so the Strength the Glory and the Honour of it consist in the regular Administration of Justice and as without the one Societies cannot be upheld so without the other all Communities would be but little better than well
was never meant for Entertainment and Harbouring of Lewd and Idle People to spend and consume their Money and their Time in a Lewd and Drunken manner Therefore for the restraining these Abuses and for the better repressing the vice of Drunkenness every Taverner Inn-keeper Ale-house keeper or Victualler who shall suffer any Person to continue Tipling in his House and shall be thereof Convicted before any Justice of the Peace by the Oath of one Witness or by his own Confession or by the view of any Justice of the Peace shall for every Offence forfeit Ten Shillings to the Poor of the Parish where the Offence is committed the Penalty to be levied by Distress and Sale of the Offender's Goods and if there be not a sufficient Distress to be found then the Offender is to be committed to the Common Gaol till the Forfeitures be truly paid And if the Constables or Church-wardens to whom the Warrant is directed shall neglect their Duty in levying these Penalties by Distress and Sale as aforesaid or in default of such Distress shall not within twenty days next ensuing certifie it to some Justice of the Peace they shall severally forfeit for every Offence the Summ of Fourty Shillings recoverable in like manner as is before mentioned Besides this Penalty of Ten Shillings the Ale-house-keeper who shall be lawfully Convicted of the aforesaid Offence is disabled to keep an Ale-house for three Years after such Conviction and if he does he falls under the Penalties of keeping an Unlicensed Ale-house And as this restraint is laid on Inn-keepers and Victuallers so likewise there is a Punishment appointed for tbose that shall be guilty of the Sin of Drunkenness who being thereof convicted as is above mentioned by the Oath of one Witness shall for every such Offence pay 5 s. to the Poor of the Parish where the Offence is committed and if there is no Distress to be found and they are not able to Pay then they must be set Publickly in the Stocks by the space of 6 Hours And if the Constable or other inferior Officer shall be found to be remiss in Executing this Law then he is to forfeit 10 s. in the like manner and to the like uses There is also the Penalty of 3 s. and 4 d. for every Offence or in case there be no Distress to be had 4 Hours sitting in the Stocks is imposed on every one who shall be found or can be proved in the manner of proof abovementioned to continue Tipling in any Publick-House And so highly does our Law detest this Immorality that whosoever shall be a second time Convicted of Drunkenness is to be bound to their Majesties with two sufficient Sureties in a Recognizance of 10 pounds Penalty for his good Behaviour Those who are guilty of Drunkenness or Tipling are not punishable unless they are Prosecuted within six Months after the Offence is committed but as to Inn-keepers Ale-house-keepers and Victuallers who incurr the Penalties of these Laws there is no time limitted for their Prosecution Gentlemen the Offences against these Statutes concerning Drunkenness and disorders in Ale-houses are to be diligently enquired into and duly presented at every Quarter Sessions as likewise are all defaults of Under-Officers in conniving at them and neglecting to bring them to condign Punishment I doubt not but you will do your parts in it and you may assure your selves we shall deal with them as severely as the Law will allow us You are likewise to enquire and present all Persons who presume to keep Ale-houses without a License from the Justices of the Peace that they may undergo the Pains and Penalties appointed by Law Gentlemen in the next place all notorious Adulterers and Fornicators Bawds and Whores and all Masters and Mistresses of those infamous Houses that Harbour and Incourage them fall under the Cognizance and Censure of the Law And since I cannot say there is already so sufficient a provition made for the punishing and preventing the increase of so scandalous a Debauchery which is a deliberate and presumptuous Violation of the 7th Commandment as all good Men wish to see yet besides the Censures of the Spiritual Courts which are very seldom exerted on these Occasions unless they have the Prospect of a tedious and expensive Suit we can inflict some Punishments upon them For Bawdery is an offence Temporal as well as Spiritual and is against the Peace of the Land therefore Gentlemen you are to take care to enquire and present all such Persons who being duly convicted before us shall suffer the utmost Severities the Law will allow of And I think I shall not strain the Sense of the Statute if I comprehend all the above-mentioned Offenders under the Notion of Idle and Disorderly Persons to whom any two or more Justices of the Peace but most properly the Majority of them in their Quarter Sessions may assign a severe punishment and hard Labour in the House of Correction for so long time as shall be thought Necessary for their Chastisement and Reformation and for deterring others from following such pernicious Examples And as for those keepers of Publick Houses who contrary to their Licences maintain harbour and abett these Disorders whereby the Youth of the Nation are corrupted and rendred unfit to serve their Country upon your presentment of them we will take care not only to Punish them as severely as we may by Fine and Imprisonment but also to suppress them and to have the forfeitures of their Recognizances estreated into the Exchequer as shall likewise be done to those who suffer in their Houses irregularities of any other Nature as Drunkenness the Profanation of the Lord's Day and the like of which I have before spoken And Gentlemen to sum up all that I have to say upon this Head you are to consider That Adultery and Fornication are sins so abominable in the Eyes of God that as a punishment for it 23000 of the Israelites who were seduced into these Impurities by the Daughters of Moab fell in one day of a Plague inflicted on them by an immediate Vengeance from Heaven Therefore Gentlemen for the averting God's Wrath from us we are all concerned in our several Stations to punish and repress these Vices as Phinehas did without respect of Persons such only I mean as are liable to our Censure Besides these Crimes which are so frequently and so impudently perpetrated there are some others also which may not improperly be ranked among the offences against Moral Justice But Gentlemen the proof of some of them is so difficult and they are so seldom practised that I shall but just put you in mind of them and that you are to enquire and present all Persons that have invocated entertained or employed any wicked Spirit or have used any Witchcraft Charm or Sorcery this is a sin of a very deep die being dirctly against the first Commandment and is punished with Death both
by the Law of God and by a Statute made in the first Year of King James the First but it is so hard a matter to have full proof brought of it that no Jury can be too cautious and tender in a prosecution of this Nature However where the Evidence is clear and undeniable you must proceed according to your Oaths You are also to enquire and present all Persons that have depraved the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of our Blessed Lord and Saviour either by Word of Mouth or otherwise who being convicted shall suffer Imprisonment and make Fine and Ransom at the King's Will and Pleasure if they be prosecuted within three Months after the Offence is committed You are also to enquire if any Person hath Depraved Despised or Derogated from the Book of Common Prayer by any Enterludes Plays Songs Rhimes or other open Words or hath compelled any Minister to use any other form of Worship for in this Case the Oftender that is guilty of so great an Irreverence to God and disrespect to the Government both in Church and State shall for the first Offence forfeit to their Majesties 100 Marks for the second Offence 400 Marks and for the third Offence all his Goods and Chattels and shall suffer Imprisonment during Life You are also to enquire if any Restor or Vicar who keeps a Curate hath neglected once in a Month to read the Common-Prayer in his Parish Church for all Incumbents guilty of this Neglect shall upon complaint made on Oath by two credible Witnesses before two Justices of the Peace of the said County forfeit to the Poor of that Parish 5 pounds a Month and if the Penalty be not paid in ten days after fuch Conviction then his Goods are to be Distrained and Sold for that purpose by a Warrant from the said Justices Lastly you are to enquire if any Person have maliciously Struck or drawn any Weapon in any Church or Church-yard to the intent to strike another the Offender who is Convicted hereof shall have one of his Ears cut off and if he have no Ear then he shall be Markt in the Cheek with the Letter F in token of a Fray-maker and the Law reputes it to be so ungodly and irreligious an Action that all persons guilty of it are declared to be Ipso Facto Excommunicated which is the highest Censure and Penalty the Christian Church can inflict I have now Gentlemen gone through the first part of my Charge I have not knowingly omitted any point that is Material and as for smaller Defects I doubt not but your Experience in the Proceedings of this Court will fully supply them If the time would allow me I should in the next place urge you to exert your utmost Vigour and Diligence in punishing and putting a stop to those Violations of Moral Justice which are so notoriously prevalent among us and which unless they are speddily reformed by a due severity seem to threaten us with extraordinary punishments from Heaven by representing to you at large the weighty and indispensible Obligations that lie upon you to do your parts towards the promoting so good a Work But I hope it will be sufficient to hint to you these three Considerations viz. 1. That you are Men and Christians 2. That you are Englishmen and I hope all of you well wishers to the present Government 3. That you have bound your selves by a Solemn Oath impartially to enquire and present those who are guilty of these scandalous Debaucheries and those Petty Constables Headboroughs and other Under-Officers who by their Neglect and Connivance without any regard to their Duty or their Oaths have encouraged these Vices or have made defaults in any other things that relate to their respective Offices Gentlemen if I had time I should enlarge on every one of these three particulars But I assure my self your own Conscience will press these thoughts home to you and I doubt not but we shall find by your presentments that you have a well grounded Zeal for the Glory and Honour of God a true Love to your Country and a sincere and affectionate Loyalty to their present Majesties King William and Queen Mary upon whom next under God our safety wholly depends and a tender and conscientious regard to the sacred Obligation of an Oath which being a Solemn Appeal to the Almighty and All knowing Judge and Avenger of all Falshood and Unrighteousness will if not faithfully performed entail God's curse on your selves and your Families according to that of the Prophet Zachary A Curse shall enter into the House of him that sweareth falsly by the Name of God Gentlemen I shall now proceed to the second part of my Charge which comprehends all offences against Civil Justice This is a subject so Copious that having detained you so long in the former part of my Charge the time will not permit me fully to declare to you every particular Offence within the compass of our Commission and of your Cognizance Therefore Gentlemen you are to expect only a short Summary of the most material Points of your Duty in drawing up of which if I am less exact than is usual I hope you will impute it to my want of skill in these Affairs and to my Disability which makes it self every way too apparent worthily to execute this important Office with which my Brethren who are all of them much fitter for it have been pleased to Honour me Civil Justice is a Vertue of a very large extent for thereby we are obliged even by Natural Religion to deal with all Men as we would be willing were we in their Circumstances and they in Ours they should deal with us And if this is a debt we owe to all Men then certainly our own Countrymen who enjoy the same common benefits of Security and Protection may much more expect it from us And to this end that the Rich and the Poor may be equally safe in what is their own the Laws have not only declared what that is but have also appointed Punishments for those that shall transgress these Limits and invade any other Man's Property Now Gentlemen those Persons who may legally claim this Justice at our Hands or in case it be refused them may appeal to the Law for satisfaction for the injury are either our Superiors or our Fellow Subjects To the former namely our Parents whether Political or Natural we are obliged by the fifth Commandment to pay Obedience Tribute Reverence and Honour to the latter namely our Fellow Subjects we are obliged by the eighth Commandment to render whatsoever is by Law due unto them and when by Force or Fraud we take or detain from them any of their Legal Rights we are guilty of Theft But to proceed Of Governours and Magistrates there are two sorts Supreme and Subordinate By the Supreme Magistrate you know none can be meant besides our Sovereign Lord and Lady the King and Queen
Pope interposes his Authority in Excommunicating or deposing any Protestant Prince whom out of their Catholick Charity they are pleased to call Hereticks they fail not when an Opportunity offers to rise in Rebellion against them and as they did in Queen Elizabeth's Time to joyn with any Foreigner whom the Pope Commissions to invade their Native Countrey and reduce it to an Italian a Spanish or which is worst of all a French Slavery How much their Loyalty is to be relyed on their Principles and their Practices especially in the Reigns of that Glorious Queen and her peaceful Successor do abundantly testifie and I hope while the Spanish Invasion and the Gun-power-Treason continue recorded in our History as undeniable matters of Fact while Papists deservedly lie under an Exclusion from all Offices of Trust and Profit and even from the Privilege of Voting in Parliament as Peers which some Mercenary Time servers in the late Reign were pleased to call their Natural Birth-Right and inseparable from their Persons while I say these things remain as they are and while we remember as I hope we allways shall the great dangers the Church and Nation were lately in by the bigotted zeal of a Popish Prince and the inveterate Malice of the Roman Catholicks then armed with Power I hope we shall not fail on all Occasions but especially at this time to have a watchfull Eye over their Conduct All the Mercies our present King hath extended to them both here and in Ireland Mercies to be paralleled by none but those of the Almighty cannot yet unhinge them from their dependance upon France and their Subjection to Rome nor put an end to their vain Expectations of seeing our present happy settlement wholly unravelled and their own Religion again establish'd and ours utterly extirpated by the the victorious return which they with for and we all deprecate of the late King and his pretended Son Therefore since nothing will make them Friends to this Government Prudence directs us to use the best Caution we can against their Hellish Designs and since there are many good Laws in Force against them there is great Reason that they suffer those Penalties especially such of them as stand out in defyance to the Government that are provided for them And Gentlemen it is your Business to enquire and present all Popish Recusants and I doubt not but you will express your Affection to the Government by doing your Duty in this Particular By Protestant Recusants I mean those Protestant Subjects of England who refuse to take the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy to the present King and Queen It may I confess seem a Paradox that notwithstanding the many Calamities we felt in the Late Reign and those more grievous ones we daily expected when the making and repealing of Laws should have been in the Power of a Pack'd Parliament and when the protection of our Religion the defence of our Rights the disposal of our Lives Liberties and Estates and in a Word the Administration of Justice should have been entirely commmited to a French and Irish Army and to a Cabinet Council of Jesuits notwithstanding this gloomy Prospect which reduced us even to the Brink of Despair notwithstanding the Miraculous deliverance out of these Extremities that the Divine Providence afforded us at the critical Instant notwithstanding those returns of Gratitude which we owe to God the Author and to our present King the successful Instrument of so great a Mercy notwithstanding the late King's refusal to do his Subjects that Justice which his Coronation Oath obliged him to and which the Prince out of great kindness to this Nation at a vast Expence and an inexpressible hazard to his own Person came over to demand notwithstanding the Late King 's Voluntary Desertion his throwing up the Reins of Government and leaving us in a state of Anarchy and Confusion notwithstanding the calm deliberate and free Proceedings in Calling Chusing and Convening our Representatives notwithstanding the Regular and considerate Methods that wise Assembly follow'd in determining the great Point of the Abdication and placing their present Sacred Majesty's in the vacant Throne notwithstanding the manifest Reason all private Men have in such Cases to submit their own Opinions to the Publick Decision of so August a Body notwithstanding the many Dangers and Difficulties Fatigues and Hazards the indefatigable Labour and incessant Diligence and anxious Cares which have ever since that time denyed his Majesty that Ease Repose and Comfort which the meanest Man here enjoys notwithstanding all this was undertaken meerly for our Benifit and Safety Peace and Preservation for excepting our Saviour and the Bl. Martyr K. Charles the 1st never did any Prince wear a Crown so full of Thorns notwithstanding I say the King 's Personal Merits which without Flattery I speak it deserve an Universal Empire upon Earth and doubtless will be rewarded hereafter with one of the brightest Crowns in Heaven notwithstanding all this and much more which I could add would the time permit me it may I say seem Paradox but yet 't is too notorious that there are some Protestant Recusants who will not be perswaded they owe any Allegiance or Duty to this Prince His Royal Endowments and Accomplishments shine so bright that as much his Enemies as they are they are forc'd to acknowledge that he possesses them in the highest Degree and though they cannot love they must admire him for them But all this while they think him an Intruder on the Rights of another and some of them are so bold as to call his Glorious Reign a Prosperous Usurpation and not a whit more to be justified then that execrable one of Cromwell I have not time nor is it my Business at present nor indeed is there any need of it after so many excellent Treatises have been written upon the Subject to argue in defence of the Revolution and the present Settlement of the Nation Those that are its Friends require no farther Satisfaction and those that are its Enemies are resolved to continue so though its Advocates had the Energy and Eloquence of Angels Some of them indeed but how few are they I am so charitable as to believe cannot comply with this Government out of an Error of their understandings rather than a perverse Obstinacy of their Will and those who are so unhappy as to be under this mistake form no Cabals against the Government encourage no seditious Conventicles send no traiterous Embassies to France offer no incense of Flattery to that proud Tyrant make no publick Assignations for Rioting and Debauchery on such Days as their Majesties appoint for a National Humiliation nor in a Word make it more their Business to incense the People against the Present Government and to involve us in the Calamities of a Civil-War that we may be the easier Prey to the great Leviathan of Europe than to keep a Conscience void of Offence towards God and towards Men. This Gentlemen is