if they had made a secret League and Agreement among themselves almost at one time fall into Rebellion against their Natural Prince A Prince who was so ready to grant them any reasonable request that we may say of him as it was once said of the good Roman Emperor Neminem unquam a se tristem demisit He never let any man depart out of his presence sorrowful or dejected if his Petition could be granted with honour But the Parliaments Addresses are not such they spend whole Reams in Petitions Remonstrances Declarations and a great many such like Paper fire-works all very strange and unreasonable And still the more his Majesty grants the more they still demand for they are resolv'd that nothing shall satisfie them but all They will have the very Fundamentals of Government altered both in Church and State and because his Majesty cannot agree to this the Rabble associate themselves in tumults and dangerous uproars insomuch that he is forced to send away his Queen into Holland for fear of violence from his own Subjects in the head City of his Kingdom and in his own Palace Nay at last he was fain himself to retreat from his own House and take an unwilling leave of the City for fear his People in their mutinies and tumults than which there can be no greater omens or presages of approaching misery to a State should have stretcht forth their hands to destroy the Lords Anointed And because he is now out of their reach the Parliament do actually seize upon the Militia the Tower and all other Garrisons of the Kingdom they put the command of the Navy into hands of their own chusing and their own Creatures into all Offices of Trust in the Kingdom In short having made all the preparations that the time would admit they put themselves into a posture of War and to let the world see that they were in good earnest his Majesty is absolutely denyed entrance into one of his own Towns and the Parliament avow the Deed. And this I think was one of the first acts of open Hostility and Defiance I am sorry I have been forced to be so particular in this first part of his late Majesties Sufferings but I have done it not only to put you in mind of those steps and advances whereby the late Civil Waâ—â—â—gan but also to let you see how near we were in this late conjuncture of affairs to tread the â—â—me paths and make our selves miserable once more by the same means And here I desire that no body may take that for Reproach and Affront which I intend only for Reproof and Instruction We began now just â—â—we did then after a long Fit of Ease and Plenty to be weary of our Rest and sick of our Happiness And to secure the Success the Design is begun with the very 〈◊〉 method whereby 〈◊〉 had once prevailed Secret Murmurings Private Cabals Treasonable Pamphlets Lewd Petitions Complaints against the Church and Her Discipline Indignities to Her Bishops Crying out against Evill Counsellors lessening His Majesty in the esteem of His People and filling their Heads with frantick Fears and Jealousies where no Fear was This I 〈…〉 though I could wish it were not And had 〈◊〉 His Majesty and His Council seen the 〈◊〉 Consequences of these things once before â—nd all probability we had been min'd and unâ—one by Wheâ—â—ow and the whole Nation 〈…〉 in a Bloudy Civil War Brother might been fighting against Brother the Father against the Son and the Son against the Father and a Man's Enemies might have been those of his own House And this puts me in mind of the second Section in my method wherein I promis'd to speak of His Majesty's Sufferings and Misfortunes during the time of the late Civil War till he was deliver d up by the Scots into the hands of His Enemies and Imprison'd And now you may imagine the War already begun English-men marching and fighting against English-men the Air filled with the noise of Drums and Trumpets and darkened with the smoak of Cannons and Musquets the Fields cover'd with the Carcasses of the Dead and the Rivers colour'd with the Bloud of the Slain In the midst of this Confusion and clattering of Arms the Laws are utterly silent and each man's Possession is his only Title With what eyes and with what heart do you think so good a King could behold the various Successes and Events of the Warâ— wherein whoever were the Conquerours He was still sure to lose His Subjects and always to bear a sorrowful part both in Doing and Suffering How contrary this War was to His Majesty's Intentions that I may use his own words in his incomparable 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 will appear in his total unpreparedness for it His sonner Concessions shew how willingly he would have prevented it and his frequent Messages for Peace sufficiently testifie that he delighted not in War Whereas all the Overtures of Peace that his Enemies ever made were still accompanied with such Articles and Clauses as they knew beforehand could never be condescended to either by a King or a Good Man Witness the Nineteen Propositions with the Addition The Treaty at Uxbridge and all other their Mediations wherein it is evident even to ordinary Capacities that they design'd nothing but War well understanding and wisely considering that aâ—â—om of Machiavâ—â—â— He that draws his Sword against his Prince must throw away the Scabbâ—rd This indeed they kept to themselves But there were other 〈◊〉 of their own Policy I could tell you of which they obâ—â—led upon the People to the eternal shame of oâ—â— English Nation be it spoken As the distinction between His Majestyâ—s Private and 〈…〉 against Himself by Hâ—â— Authority Killing his Subjects to Defend 〈…〉 â—â—belling our 〈…〉 I know 〈…〉 they worthy upon 〈◊〉 they imposed these notions but I am certain the Impartial 〈◊〉 Swords and Bullets could never be taugh◠〈…〉 〈…〉 in 〈…〉 Confusion and Calamity it should go well with the Church when it was so ill with her Sons The Reverend Bishops are some of 〈…〉 from their Seâ—â— An Ordinance is made against the Book Common Prayer 〈◊〉 the very Creed and Lord's prayer 〈…〉 and some of the 〈…〉 form 〈…〉 of 〈…〉 haâ—◠〈…〉 〈…〉 Thâ—â— Pulpits 〈…〉 Stools of Sedition and Treason and because there were not enough of them the Shop-bulks Tables Chairs Tubs Trees and almost every coâ—â—er of the Streets are prest to supply the defect The Learned and Orthodox Divines are slighted and persecuted and the bold and ignorant Guifted-men as they call'd them are favour'd and advanc'd No wonder then if all manner of Sects Errours and Heresies like Leprous and Infectious Diseases spread themselves almost into all places of the Kingdom And now the Scots are called in as Auxiliaries to their Brethren but they are men not to be hir'd upon any easie or ordinary terms They bring a Solemn League and Covenant along with them and unless their Brethren in
Δετμα Βασιλικε A SERMON Preached at the Kings Prison the Fleet On the 30 th of JANUARY 1681. Being the ANNIVERSARY of the MARTYRDOM OF King Charles I. Of Ever Blessed Memory Judges 19.30 And it was so that all that saw it said there was no such Deed done nor seen from the day that the Children of Israel came up out of the Land of Aegypt LONDON Printed for Walter Davies 1682. To the Right Noble HENRY Lord Marquess and Earl of Worcester c. My LORD THey that say they make Dedications to shew their Gratitude to their Patrons do in my opinion at the same time secretly insinuate the worth and value of their own Works Not to acknowledge my Obligations to your Lordship were great want of Breeding But to say I present you this Sermon out of Gratitude were a greater want of modesty And I hope I know my self better than to have any such presumption I profess ingeniously that the chief reason that induc'd me to prefix your Lordships Name to this Discourse was according to the old use of Dedication to do the thing all the credit it was capable of and if at the same time though contrary to my intentions I have displeased Your Lordship in desiring or rather violently arrogating your Protection yet I have this inward consolation that my good meaning especially with so good a man may in some measure apologize for my Errour Again my Lord every body knows what both your self and your Noble Family have suffer'd for his late Majesty of happy Memory so that what you can possibly suffer in a discourse of him will be so inconsiderable that it will scarce deserve the mentioning God Almighty make us truly sensible and ever mindful of what is past and keep us from ever seeing the like again is the hearty Prayer of My Lord Your Lordships most Humble and Obedient Servant T. S. A SERMON Preached at the King's Prison THE FLEET PSAL. 149 8. To bind their Kings in Chains and their Nobles with Fetters of Iron THere was once a wicked Harangue for Sermon I dare not call it delivered from the Pulpit upon these words whereby both the Holy Text and that sacred Stool were desecrated and prophan'd A scriptum est a holy Text and a damnable Doctrine hath been one of the Devils Practices ever since he carried our Saviour into the Wilderness to tempt him Nor are these days of ours the first wherein the Precepts of the God of Love and the Gospel of Peace have been made use of for a Trumpet of Tumult and Rebellion I shall not need to tell you how properly or with what success the Holder-forth brought the Text and his occasion of it together I wish with all my heart it were in the power of this discourse in some measure to expiate his fault and raise as much hatred and detestation in the minds of my Hearers as he did encouragement in those of his towards that never to be mentioned fact were it not to deter Posterity from the like which gave the sad occasion of this days solemnity Wherein we commemorate the unnatural Murder and Martyrdom of our late lawful Sovereign and the Lords Anointed Charles the First of ever blessed memory And indeed besides that I shall right and vindicate this Text which has been so much abus'd when I consider how little there is between the Prison and the Grave the Confinement and the Death of Kings and how sensible his Sacred Majesty was of those wounds which he received through the sides of his Loyal Nobility I know none I could have chosen that might more fully and fitly put us in mind of his suffering s and the Duty of this day Which is to humble and afflict our Souls under the sense of those manifold crying Sins and Iniquities for which God Almighty suffered Rebellion thus to exalt her self and justifie her Villanies and Murders by the success neither sparing Innocent nor Royal Blood but To bind our Kings in Chains and our Nobles in Fetters of Iron I will not be over-careful nor do I think it necessary to reconcile my Text to the present occasion any further than it may serve for a sad Remembrancer of this black and fatal day I will only in passing mind you of the disproportion Whereas the Kings spoken of here by the Psalmist were Heathens that knew not God The King whose hard fate we remember this day was a Christian and so truly the Defender of the Faith that even in the literal sence he resisted unto Blood And whereas the binders in the Text were Saints and Men of Honour ours were execrable Villains and the dregs of the People Though I cannot but observe by the way that there was a kind of fatality in their calling themselves Saints and the People of the Lord. The main Thesis then or Pillar of my discourse at this time will be the Sufferings of our Royal Martyr But because it is impossible to mention them without some reflections on His Vertue and His Enemies Malice these two will make our Topicks or Common-places three to wit His Majesties Sufferings His Vertues and His Enemies malicious wickedness His Sufferings were passing great and for ought I know or have ever read if you will except our Saviours unparallelâ—d His Patience and Vertue as I shall shew you anon were such too And lest any proportion should be wanting in the story such also was the implacable Malice and Wickedness of his Enemies A Malice which I had almost said was immortal and notwithstanding any Act of Grace and Indempnity seems to have out-liv'd both Pardon and Punishments and the very Actors themselves And according to the notion of the Philosopher to have transmigrated and remov'd it self into new Bodies I do very well know that this part of my discourse and it may be some other besides will not please every body but I am confident I am guiltless and they have themselves to thank for it who in this late conjuncture have endeavoured as far as in them lay to involve us in the same miseries and calamities again So that to speak freely and boldly at this time whatever they would make us believe is so far from doing any violence to that his present Majesties most Gracious Act of Oblivion that I do verily believe it were a sin to be silent and I hope the seasonable liberty of all the Pulpits in the Kingdom at this present may be one means to keep us from being twice Shipwrackt upon the same Rocks from being undone again and perishing a second time by the same unhappy method of binding our Kings in Chains and our Nobles in Fetters of Iron I cannot promise you that in this ensuing discourse I shall so strictly as it may be you may expect and so distinctly and severally speak to each of those three Heads or Arguments I have proposed For besides that grief especially such as this is not easily confin'd in Rules and Methods the nature of my
The first appearance of this Storm was in that fatal unquiet Quarter the North. The Cloud arose in Scotland and was at first no bigger than a mans hand but at last it grew so great that it covered three Kingdoms and drench'd almost every corner of them with showers of blood The pretence indeed of this disorder was Religion but it appeared by the sad consequences that the thing design'd and intended at least by the Ring-leaders and first movers of it was Violence and Rapine and Sacriledge Tantum Religio potuit suadere malorum Who would think Religion should make men so wicked They begin first of all with Paper Arms mutinous and Treasonable Pamphlets and insolent and senceless Petitions Then the evil Spirit grew so unruly and disorderly that it assaulted the Bishops upon the Streets nay the very Churches and Pulpits could not secure them from violence And at length this heat and insolence broke forth into an open flame of Hostility and Rebellion But that which made every good mans apprehensions of this mischief the stronger was that the Rebels were conniv'd at if not favour'd and encouraged under hand by a party of their Brethren in England For at the same time there were many Seditious Pamphlets scattered about here likewise which did most impiously reflect both upon the Church and Government yea which was yet infinitely more intolerable several of the Authors who had been taken into custody and confin'd for them were afterwards by the House of Commons delivered and vindicated and commenced the date of their Fame and Popularity as Herostratuâ— from the burning of Diana's Temple from those a bominable beginnings and upon those dangerous Foundations erected the structure of their rising Fortunes This I say to put you in mind that sometimes men arrive at strange degrees of honour and esteem only by the merit of their Crimes And I am of opinion we have seen but too many examples of the like kind very lately who to please the people and make a fortune neither cared what they said or swore or did But let me tell you by the way that such attempts and practices as these are for the most part very unfortunate in the end and when the Peoples eyes are opened they that before cryed Hail Master will then cry Crucifie him Crucifie him and they that to day cry Hosanna will to morrow cry Away with him to Golgotha But I came not here to Prophesie The Male-contents in England after the example of their rebellious Neighbours begin to cry out aloud for Liberty and Religion and a thorow Reformation Hereupon his Majesty thinking it the most proper remedy for these Agonies and Convulsions of State calls a Parliament And this as it happened afterwards proved a remedy worse than the Disease it self For instead of healing and composing differences and grievances they made it their business to aggravate and make them worse They themselves immediately begin to complain of Bishops and the whole Hierarchy of Ecclesiastical Officers in the Church and of evil Counsellors in the State and about his Majesties Person Nay they begin to descend to particulars His Grace the Lord Arch-Bishop is Impeached and afterwards Executed for high-Treason nor can the Reverence of his Office nor the Integrity of his Manners secure him About the same time the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland of whose Innocence his Majesty and all the World not excepting his very Enemies who took care that his case should be no president for Posterity were very well satisfied was also Committed to the Tower Condemned and Executed upon the like accusation All this while his Majesty was but a helpless looker on for the Common People upon his occasion ran together in such Multitudes and clamorous Tumults as endangered not only the Servant but the Master A hard case and a pitiful that a King whos 's the Laws are could not deliver an innocent Person from being Condemned and suffering Death contrary to Law and a sad presage of his own misfortunes In the mean time the Parliament is plyed with Petitions from all sorts of men and women too except the good and Grievances and Fears and Jealousies of I know not how many kinds But the main common places were Religion and Liberty Alas what Religion do they dream of that strike at the very roots and foundations of it Or what Liberty can the Subjects expect when the King himself is not free However they and the Parliament mutually encourage one another and strengthen one anothers hands in wickedness The clamours of the People make the Parliament bold and the boldness of the Parliament makes the People clamorous All this while his Majesty to shew how much he tendered the peace and quiet of his Subjects and to satisfie them all if it were possible at their importunity recedes in some things from his Right and Prerogative He passes a Bill for the Triennial Parliaments and afterwards settled this during the pleasure of the two Houses A wonderful condescention and goodness in a King the like of which we have never met with in all our English Chronicles And now let us see how they requite him About this time his Majesty charged some of the Members of the House of Commons and not without just cause with High-Treason and demanded them in the House himself in Person But this they exclaim of as a high breach of Priviledge and the accused Members who were for the present fain to abscond were in a little time afterward brought again to sit in the House and vindicated without Tryal Thus finding the ground they had got of his Majesty their demands grow every day louder and more unreasonable They do not blush to demand the power of the Militia the Command of the Navy the Government of all the Strengths and Garrisons in the Kingdom So that Royalty was now to be strips of all her Ornaments and Soveraignty to be Vox praeterea nihil An empty Name and nothing else And now what is become of our old English Loyalty and Honesty when our King shall by his own Parliament be divested of all the Ensigns of his Honour and Majesty and the Father of his Country become a Slave to his Subjects About this time did the Natives of the Kingdom of Ireland encouraged by the example of the Scots and the attempts of this Parliament upon the Crown cast off the Yoke of their Allegiance and run into open Rebellion and made such a Massacre of his Majesties Protestant Subjects as never was heard of before in the three Kingdoms And here notwithstanding his Majesties continual solliciting and importuning the Parliament for the reducing and settling that Kingdom it is very observable that they still declin'd it And some men were so barbarously scandalous and so unreasonably malicious as to object the cause of that Rebellion to his Majesty himself and intimate to the World that it was secretly begun and favoured by his Authority and Commission Thus did the three Kingdoms as
England will take it they are resolv'd not to strike a stroke in their Quarrel How this Covenant obtained amongst us and how it was received in this Kingdom I shall not need to tell you Let me only say this and the truth of it That it was only made use of here as a trick of State for the Râ—â—ner of the Church and the Extirpation of her Discipline I had like to have added the Damming of mens Souls for it was directly contrary to the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance so that he that took both Them and the Covenant must of necessity be Perjur'd and whereas they called it A Solemn League and Covenant with God I dare boldly say in the Prophets Phrase Isa 28.15 It was a Covenant with Death and an agreement with Hell But to return to the War This War was managed on His Majesties side with the greatest disadvantages imaginable for the Parliament had seized upon His own Revenues sequester'd His Friends and to keep His Subjects from serving him out of Love and Loyalty they maliciously spread abroad false and scandalous Reports of His Person Thus by the permission of God Almighty who sometimes in Judgment lets the Wicked prosper His Majesties Army by several considerable Losses being extremely reduced and weakened and Money which is the strength and sinews of War being wanting to recruit them He resolves to give over the War and betake Himself to the Scotch Army which lay then before Newark and did so having this only comfort in the world besides that of a good Conscience that the Event never states the Justice of a Cause With what killing thoughts and terrible apprehensionâ—â— do we think His Majesty threw Himself into the power of these perfideous Men of whom he himself said after they had sold him That they were just in this that they had not deceived him How lamentable was his condition when upon mature deliberation he thought it his greatest safety to trust those in whom he knew there was no Trust Immediately after his arrival there he issues out his Warrants to all the Governours of Towns and other Officers in his Army to capitulate with his Enemies make such Conditions as their circumstances would admit and surrender And certainly it could not chuse but be a very great affliction to so large and noble a Soul as that of his to think that at last so many Brave and Loyal men must leave his Service without any Reward but that of Heaven and be expos'd to the Fury of those wicked men whose very tender Mercies he knew were Cruel The News of His Majesties putting himself into the protection of the Scots you may think quickly arriv'd at the Parliament who immediately agree with them about his Price I must not say Ransom and so he is bought and sold and deliver'd into the hands of his Implacable â—nemies conducted to Holmâ—y and confin'd And this brings to the third Section of His Majesties Sufferings to wit During His Imprisonment which part of his affliction comes nearest the literal sense of the Text To bind your Kings in Chains I shall need to say little especially in this Audience of the pressures and difficulties of a Prison to the very meanest and most vulgar of men But that a King should be bound in Chains the Assert or of the Peoples Liberties confin'd a Sovereign Prince so Great so Good so Just Imprison'd by his own Subjects in his own Kingdom may challenge the wonder and amazement of this age and perhaps exceed the belief of some of those that are to come The boldness and malice of his Enemies was a wonder so also was His Majesties Virtue and Patience And certainly had not his Spirit been buoy'd up and wonderfully confirm'd by the sweet and comfortable Influences of God Almighty's his restraint would have deluded their last Revenge and put an end to his miserable Life before the day Immediately after his Enemies that their malice and bitterness might want no aggravation command his Guardians to retrench both the Expences of his entertainment and his Retinue The Countrey-people that flock'd thither to be cur'd of that Disease which we commonly call the King 's Evil are not admitted to his Presence but repell'd with Scorn and Reproaches But that which was the most Prodigious and Inhumane of all their Cruelties and hard usage was that as if like the Devil they had envy'd the well-fare of his Soul notwithstanding all his Sollicitations in this Extremity they refus d him the attendance of his Chaplains a greater Rigour and Barbarity than is ever used amongst Christians to the meanest Prisoners and greatest Malefactors By the first they might think to lessen the Quality of his Person By the second to diminish his Credit and Esteem among the People But by the last I know not what they could intend unless it were to hedge up his way to Heaven and if it were possible murder his Immortal Soul I will not adventure to tell you how his Majesty resented this passage I refer you to his own Book A while afterwards some mis-understanding arising between the Parliament and the Army the General sends a Party of Horse seizes his Majesties Person and carries him from one place to another till at last he is committed Prisoner to the Isle of Wight And here the Parliament send their Commissioners to Treat with him again where they find his Concessions such that they tell him they doubt not but that the Peace will suddenly be concluded and all differences between Him and his People adjusted and determined Upon their return to London the Army wherein it is probable there were many Cains and Judass's who thought their sins too great for Pardon puts forâ—h a Remonstrance wherein they demand That Justice may be done upon all the Actors and Contrivers of the late Civil War and particularly upon his Majesty as the Author and Beginner of that Calamity Hereupon his Majesty is committed close Prisoner his Servants dismiss'd and he himself a while after brought to Windsor and so to London with a strong Guard where the usual Respect and ceremony of the Knee is quite wav'd and omitted by most of those that are about his Person nay there were some that would scarce vouchsafe him the Hat And now to add the last complement to their Iniquity which is to Establish it by Law the House of Commons declare That by the Fundamental Laws of the Realm it is Treason in the King of England to levy War against the Parliament and Kingdom That the Legislative Power is in the People That the Commons assembled in Parliament are the Supreme Authority of the Nation That all the People of the Nation are included in the Parliament although the King and House of Peers do not consent thereunto That the King himself took Arms against the Parliament and therefore is Guilty of all the Bloud-shed in the late Civil War and that he ought to expiate the Crime with his own Bloud
Scab of the Commonwealth the Publishing of Scurrilous and Seditious Pamphlets which in my mind is a kind of undermining the Government But let the Authors take heed it do not at last fall upon their heads and oppress them For though the heels of Justice be of Lead yet her hands are of Iron Therefore Curse not the King no not in thy thought for a Bird of the Air shall carry the voyce and that which hath wings shall tell the matter It is the wisest of Kings and the best of Preachers Counsel Eccles 10.20 2dly The second step or advance towards Rebellion are Tumults and Unlawful Conventions and from these we should abstain as we would from the Infection of a Pest-house for there is Nothing to use his late Majesties own words portends more the displeasure of God towards a Nation than when he suffers the confluence and clamours of the vulgar to pass all boundaries of Laws and reverence to Authority And that which should the more oblige us in this case to stand upon our Guard is the fatal prevalence and insinuation of example For there is nothing more common than for men to follow a multitude to do Evil and like Beasts march on with the Herd without ever enquiring whither they go And besides in such intemperate Heats and Mutinies men are apt to do those things all together which singly the very worst of them would be asham'd of for every man fancies himself shelter'd in the Croud and a great fault divided into many pieces they think will be but every one a little To Tumults I added all other Unlawful Meetings and Conventicles whatsoever yea though they be under pretence of Religion it self For besides that those are for the most part Schools of Sedition and Nurseries of Schism the very act of Meeting and Convening it self is a violation and breach of the Law and therefore by all means to be avoided Of both these to wit Mutinying against their Prince and Invading the Priests Office Korah and his Company stand a sad but fatally pertinent Example unto all Posterity Their story is Numb 16. In verse 3. you have their Sin And they gathered themselves together against Moses and against Aaron and said unto them Ye take too much upon you Their Punishment you have in the 31 32 33. And it came to pass as Moses had made an end of speaking all these words that the ground clave asunder that was under them And the Earth opened her mouth and swallowed them up and their Houses and all the men that appertained unto Korah and all their Goods They and all that appertained to them went down alive into the Pit and the Earth closed upon them and they perished from among the Congregation And I know not what better Counsel I can give you either in regard of Tumults or Unlawful Conventions than that which Moses gave the Children of Israel upon that occasion of the Rebellion of Korah in the 26. verse of the same Chapter Depart I pray you from the Tents of these wicked men and touch nothing of theirs lest you be consumed in all their Sins And as we must avoid those Things so must we also avoid those Persons which lead towards Rebellion I mean we must have a care of the Designs and Insinuations of those covetous and ambitious men who are always making a Party against the Goverrnment and that for no other reason but only to gratifie their own infatiable and boundless desires of Riches and Honour The Tools which these State-wrights commonly work with the Baits which cover their Hooks are for the most part the Preservation of Religion and the Vindication of Liberty With these two specious pretences they draw in not only the wicked and profligate Desperado's of their own Principles but also the simple short-sighted well-meaning Multitude who ten to one never know where they are till there is no room left them them to retreat Nor understand rightly what they are doing till 't is too late to retract And this was the very case of a great part of the Kingdom in the late Civil Wars They cry'd so long upon Religion that at last they conjur'd her up in so many shapes and there appeared so many New Lights that the undiscerning multitude could not tell easily which was the Old They were affraid of the Re-establishing of Superstition and Popery and look'd upon our Churches decent and useful Ceremonies as Dangerous Innovations and Introductions to Idolatry And in the State the fancy'd endeavours of an Arbitrary Government and advancing a Boundless Prerogative even to the despoyling the Subject and robbing him of his Birth-Right the benefit of the Laws And to free themselves of these Fears and Jealousies they ran out into an open Rebellion whereby instead of settling and confirming they ruine and overthrow the very Foundations of both Religion and Liberty Alass their Ignorance in both One would think that the Excellency of our Religion and the great Prudence and Sincerity us'd in the Reformation might have satisfied any considering man that there was no danger of our returning to the Communion of the Church of Rome Or if nothing else would yet methinks the inconsistence of the Interest of our Kings with subjection to that See might have perswaded any man in his wits that they would never submit themselves again to that Yoke which neither we nor our Fore-fathers have been able to bear And again for Liberty it can never be for the Publick Good to assert it by Subjects taking up Arms against their Prince because some ambitious designning men are always sure in such cases to make the abused People their own Slaves This truth was well known to some at the beginning of our Troubles though their endeavours to infuse it into the distemper'd peoples minds had the fate of Cassandra's Predictions To hit the Truth but want Belief till a costly and too late experience had vouch'd it So that upon the upshot it appeared that all the fair pretences of their Leading-men were but a miserable masque and cover of a Damnable Rebellion and their towering high-flown Religion nothing but down-right Hypocrisie and deep Dissimulation This was but too plain to every body upon their refusal of His Majesty's large Concessions in the last Treaty he had with them Every mans eyes were then opened and they saw manifestly that the great designers and managers of that Rebllion aim'd at nothing but his Crown and Dignity and that the People had all this while been deluded with appearances and cheated with Golden Dreams So true is that of the Prophet even in this sense 1 Sam. 15.23 Rebellion is as the Sin of Witchcraft God deliver us from her Enchantments and accept the Bloud of his dear Son Jesus Christ as a perfect attonement for that Royal Innocent Bloud wherewith our Land was as this day stain'd and polluted Bless the Kings Majesty with a long and prosperous Reign Grant us Peace and Truth in these our days both in Church and State Give us all one Loyal and Obedient heart Compose all our Unnatural Heats and Divisions Deliver us out of the hands of all our Enemies and grant that those Evils which the craft and subtilty of the Devil or Man worketh against us be brought to nought and by the providence of his Goodness they may be dispersed that we his Servants being hurt by no Persecutions may ever more give thanks unto him in his Holy Church through Jesus Christ our Lord To whom with the Father and the Holy Ghost the Comforter be all Honour and Glory now and evermore Amen FINIS