Contemplation of the mercies of God and their principal design it will be our next business to bring our thoughts nearer home to the great end of this days particular mercy Particular it was an Universal mercy And if we shall find it to have been so that the favour in it on God's part towards us was here at least as much as there it could be to the Psalmist then what can we doe less on our part but to imitate his steady resolution of fearing God And in order to that continually to wait for the Lord to hope for him in his own way the way of his own Word and Church to wait for him more than they that watch for the morning even more than we once watch'd and wished for the morning of this day My first particular is that which the Psalmist justly makes the ground of his whole argument the mercy and forgiveness that is with God The inexhaustible Love of God to Mankind as it is the chief subject of the written word of God and the very end for which it was all written so it is that on which the Holy Scripture the New Testament especially and this Book of Psalms one of the most Gospel-like parts of the Old Testament does more vary its expressions and in which the Holy Ghost seems more delighted to enlarge it self than on any other divine matter whatsoever Throughout the whole Bible we find it represented to us by many the most significant phrases similitudes and amplifications It is often here resembled to the greatest degrees of kindness which we behold in the sublunary World Sometimes it is compar'd to the natural tenderness for their young of those creatures that are onely guided by the motions and inclinations of Sense Sometimes it is likened to the higher and better directed affections of Mankind to the sympathy and endearments of a friend to the provident care and indulgence of a Father to the soft passions and yearnings of a Mother And all these coming infinitely short as needs they must For how can Earth or frail mortality supply examples or imaginations large or tender enough to set forth to us the heavenly compassions from thence the Scripture carries our thoughts into Heaven it self there gives us a view of the highest and most excellent images of goodness which are more than tongue can signifie or heart can conceive to be and yet are in the divine Nature and are manifested to us in all the distinct Works of the ever-blessed Trinity the undeserv'd favours of a Creator and Preserver the unspeakable Consolations of a Comforter the self-denying sufferings of a Saviour who took on himself our flesh and dyed in the flesh to save us Now of all this bottomless treasure of Eloquence by which the riches of God's goodness are set off to us in holy Writ this in my Text is one of the most affectionate words and therefore it ought to be proportionably effectual on our practice It is not onely mercy but forgiveness That with God who is infinitely above us in power was infinitely offended by our sins with him however there is not onely a common favour or a daily support of or a continued bounty towards us not onely gentleness to inferiours or liberality to those that most need it or beneficence to those that never merited it but that with him there is forgiveness peace with Enemies reconciliation with Rebels the requital of the freest grace for the highest provocations that after all his other mercies of kindness had been so often abused by us yet with him however still there is a mercy of pity and commiseration which as it is in Heaven the very Crown of all the blessed Attributes in the eternal power and Godhead so upon Earth it is the most God-like perfection of which the heart of man is capable I will not attempt to reckon up an exact particular of all the divine mercies and forgivenesses for which we all stand engaged to the divine benignity If they could be so soon reckon'd up they were not so divine as they are If they could be spread before us in one view would it not be a severe objection a just cause of sorrow to the best of us to behold so immense a Catalogue of our obligations whereof the far greater part is left wilfully uncancell'd by us because of our ingratitude And alas doe what we our selves can very much of it will be always unpay'd by reason of our inability Of God's mercy to all his creatures of his forgiveness moreover to Mankind may not the same be truly affirm'd that is of his presence wherever he is he is mercifull he has matter to forgive he is willing to forgive and he is every where Which way soever we turn our thoughts whether we regard the present life or the future whether we consider our selves as the Works of his hands as we are men or of his Grace as we are Christians or as I may say as the works of our own hands as we are sinners if we observe from how many terms of enmity and distance God has freed us with how many titles of nearness and relation he has endear'd us if we recollect how absolute our dependence is upon him how universal our receipts are from him which way soever we look his mercies are so far beyond our repaying by deeds that they are far above our acknowledgment by words nay beyond the very conceptions of our hearts We may as well undertake to comprehend God himself who is certainly incomprehensible For among all the mercies he bestows on the sons of men one and that the chief is that as he forgives us our selves so he gives us himself Yet though the mercies of God are so far beyond our recompencing that not onely our thanks but we our selves are said to be less than the least of them this does not at all acquit us of our duty rather the greatest bonds are laid upon us thereby We see the Psalmist does not onely here present us with a pleasant prospect but with a serious view of God's mercies he shews us that we are therefore ty'd to some special and irrevocable obligations And what to doe what retribution to make All benefits receiv'd should be answer'd by a greater requital if possible or by an equal by an equal good will at least Now for us men to think of making a greater or an equal return to Heaven were impiety How indeed can we upon our own strength hope to make any since all the return we can make to God is of no value at all of it self but onely according to the price which his pity not his justice puts upon it Wherefore our most gracious Benefactor has prescribed the proportion of our requital not at all according to the vastness of our receipts but rather with respect to the scanty measure of our weak abilities and that accepted by his grace which is without measure So that the very return of thanks
Tulse Mayor Martis 4. die Junii 1684. Annoque Regni Regis Caroli Secundi Angliae c. xxxvi THis Court doth desire the Reverend Dr. Sprat Dean of Westminster to Print his Sermon preached at Bow-Church on the 29 th of May last before the Lord Mayor and Aldermen and Citizens of this City Wagstaff A SERMON Preach'd before the RIGHT HONOURABLE Sir Henry Tulse LORD MAYOR And the COURT of ALDERMEN And the CITIZENS of the CITY of LONDON On MAY the 29 th 1684. Being the Anniversary-day of His Majesty's Birth and happy Return to his Kingdoms By THO. SPRAT D. D. Dean of Westminster One of His Majesty's Chaplains in Ordinary LONDON Printed for Jacob Tonson at the Judge's Head in Chancery-lane near Fleet-street 1684. A SERMON Preached before the Lord Mayor May the 29 th 1684. PSALM 130. 4. There is mercy with thee therefore shalt thou be feared So our Old Translation There is forgiveness with thee that thou mayst be feared So King James's Bible BY comparing this twofold reading of these words we find the blessings of God declared in my Text were very like the double benefit our Countrey received from Heaven on this day both ways extraordinary and most auspicious whether we consider it as a mercy in the King's Birth or as a forgiveness in his glorious return And to make this Scripture yet more applicable to our present purpose the inspired Penman of this Psalm appears in the beginning of it to have been in the same deplorable state these Nations were in for many years before the second of these two most happy days Out of the depths he had cried to the Lord. Depths no doubt of the greatest Temporal afflictions and Spiritual desertions Then he cried Lord hear my voice Let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications Then with a deep sense of shame and remorse for what was past he acknowledg'd If thou Lord shouldst mark iniquities O Lord who shall stand So devoutly he cried so passionately bewail'd his former rebellions against Heaven never ceasing to implore pardon for them till he had found by comfortable experience that there is mercy and forgiveness with God A perfect image this of these three Kingdoms calamities I may say of our guilt before this blessed day of Restoration and of our deliverance from the calamities our indempnity from the guilt by means of this day Out of our depths also we had cried to the Lord. Depths if ever any were of miseries and distractions in Church and State We then either did or should have confess'd that if God or the King had mark'd iniquities against God or the King few or none could have stood When by an adorable Providence the remaining Loyal part of the Nation who had long cried to the Lord for this day found inexpressible mercy upon it nay the very disloyal part who had cried to the Lord too but against it even they enjoyed an unparallel'd forgiveness by it Thus far the Psalmist's case and ours were alike in our distresses in our recoveries 'T were well for us if the resemblance between him and us would hold out so to the end For after he had been thus oppress'd on Earth and relieved from Heaven how did he behave himself He never forgot strove never to forfeit presently made the best use of all this mercy and forgiveness declared not onely what was afterterwards said of Mary Magdalen that he loved much but that he fear'd much because much had been forgiven him And thenceforth accordingly resolves that by waiting for the Lord with a stedfast hope in his word by waiting for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning he will lay hold on the plenteous redemption that is with him who is not onely able to redeem but shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities as with a full assurance of faith he concludes the Psalm It would be I doubt but a very melancholy inquiry an employment fitter for a a day of Humiliation than for so great a Festival Should we go strictly to examine whether we the people of these Nations have made the Psalmist's practice our Example Sure I am it was and is still our bounden duty so to doe A duty incumbent on us all the days of our lives especially on these days of our solemn Thanksgivings Then my dear Brethren we rejoice the best way for mercy and forgiveness received from God and God's Representative the King when we embrace the forgiveness so as to take more care of not offending in the like kind for the future when we remember the mercies so as not to surfeit our selves with the fruits of them so as not onely to applaud the Divine Authour of them with empty words and praises but when we make our joy solid and lasting when we mingle it not with levity or vanity too incident to those that are over-joy'd but with the cheerfull gravity the easie severity of a Christian life And so we doe when we temper our joy with fear a true fear of God The words of my Text have a plain meaning but a doubtfull expression both in our own and in the learned Languages There is mercy or forgiveness with thee or in thee from thee round about thee in his incomprehensible essence in all the Attributes of his Divinity in his very wrath there is a long-suffering in his very revenge there is a forbearing mercy So essential is mercy to him so widely spreading from him so upon all accounts with him not onely that he may be admired or worship'd much less that He may be neglected or presumed upon but that thou mayst be feared There is mercy with thee because of thy Name So the Septuagint His Nature is mercifull His Name is agreeable to his Nature He is a God of mercies and forgivenesses abundant in goodness as in truth in both insinite There is mercy with thee because of thy Law So another reading of the words And it is well for us sinfull creatures that there is so that God has a Mercy as well as a Law that he has forgiveness because of that Law that the sweetness of his mercy is answerable to the exactness of his Law that the tenderness of his forgiveness far exceeds all our obstinate breach of his Law else no flesh living could be justified in his sight But both our Translations render it nearer the Original That thou mayst be fear'd so the New therefore shalt thou be fear'd so the Old Bible The first signifying the Psalmist's unfeigned acknowledgment of his duty the second containing his firm intention and vow to perform it So that the words thus explain'd may be summ'd up in two parts 1 st The great foundation of this whole discourse the mercy the forgiveness that is with God 2 dly The great obligation of special dependence and service those mercies lay upon us to fear the onely Donor of them all From which general
for his mercies which God has injoin'd us is so manag'd by him as to become a new degree of mercy to us For the most perfect return of thanks that God requires of us and we can make yet not without his help neither is that which we of all things ought most to desire and it is this in my Text that because there is mercy and forgiveness with God therefore we should fear him which is my second particular By fear in this place is not at all meant that which the Philosopher describes to be â— passion of the Soul by which men that are weaker strive to scape the force of the stronger and to fly from all things that have a power of doing them hurt Not that fear For so good men may and ought to fear the Devil so the Devils themselves do fear God when they believe and tremble And so may the King 's irreconcileable Enemies who next to the Infernal Fiends must be one of the vilest parts of the Creation so may they always fear the punishment due to so horrid an impenitency Nor by fearing God is here intended any servile dread or abject awe of his uncontrollable Dominion and terrible Majesty as he is the great Judge and avenger of all sin Not that fear For so the damned spirits in Hell do fear God whilst they suffer the extremity of his wrath for having rejected his mercy So irreparably wretched is the condition of all wicked men all Rebels against God all that are impenitently so and I know not how Rebellion is in this sense also as the sin of Witchcraft that it is too generally accompanied with impenitency Wherefore of such men it is the peculiar curse whilst they are in this world that they shall fear where no fear is In the next world they shall fear too but after another manner There they shall have but too just a cause for fear which they shall never be able either by strength or art to avoid or by intreaties to deprecate though God himself had often before most passionately intreated them to avoid it Nor lastly by fearing God is here onely signified some blind reverence or confused acknowledgment of his Omnipotence as he is Sovereign Lord of the Universe Neither this fear For so a carnal man without grace without real grace I mean not the counterfeit so a man that is without God in the world may in some imperfect sense fear God may sometimes revere his power may tremble at his thunder may be somewhat startled at his apparent judgments and melted a little by his undeserved mercies and yet at last have no share in his forgiveness nor in the plenteous salvation that is with him though it be never so plenteous But these are all narrow ignoble legal interpretations of fearing God The fear in my Text we find does onely proceed from a sense of God's forgiveness and so can onely be found in those whom he will forgive whom he has forgiven Wherefore the phrase is to be taken in the most comfortable and Evangelical meaning As the fear of the Lord is the beginning and the perfection too of all wisedom as it is most usually understood in the word of God to comprize the principal acts of all true faith devotion and holiness including the whole compass of all sincere and undefiled Religion such a fear of God as will teach us to praise him openly and worship him outwardly so as to love him inwardly and so as both inwardly and outwardly to obey him and all this most reasonably because of the mercy and forgiveness that is with him First I say to praise and adore him publickly for his mercies A work most becoming the Children of men Of all the creatures are not we most fitted for it by reason of our greater mercies receiv'd our greater capacities to understand and declare our reception of them And are we not therefore most obliged to it for the same reasons But if we should be not onely so irreligious but so unmanly as to neglect it and be silent if contrary to our very nature we should look downward and not rather upward to the day spring from on high that has visited us yet still God has not left himself without witness even all the other works of his hands all ranks of Beings all orders of the Creation would proclaim the Providence and make out the goodness of their Creatour Thus much do all the inferiour Creatures And how infinitely is their account of mercies receiv'd short of ours So short that the greatest part of the Creation was not made so much to enjoy the mercies of God and to be sensible of that enjoyment as to be mercies to us What heinous forgetfulness and sin would it then be in us when even the inanimate and irrational beings that were made for our sakes shall all contribute to the praise of their Maker's bounty if we alone shall be insensible of his bounty or negligent of his praise we for whose sakes they were made and for whose service they were ordained by him Wherefore the praising God for his mercy for his forgiveness is the peculiar duty of Mankind As forgiveness is the proper act of his mercy to us All other kinds of creatures never did partake of it All below Mankind are not the proper object of it All above us as the Angels when they offended could never obtain it With his praises then our hearts should be always full our tongues often sounding But that is not all The truest way of praising God is not onely perform'd by a bare praising him It is indeed a pleasant thing to tell how good and gracious the Lord is Yet it is not onely merely pleasant to tell There is much work and real labour and diligent service that must ensue Though 't is true that work it self if rightly perform'd will be also pleasant in the end and that service a perfect freedom However there is first much work required on our parts Though the goodness of God is sweet in its Contemplation yet it cannot be so to any purpose to us except it produce in us answerable effects Else the fruitless Contemplation of it were most uncomfortable For it would the more accuse us of neglecting so great a salvation Wherefore most properly speaks my Text There is mercy with thee that thou mayst be fear'd Mercy with God that he may be fear'd why not rather that he may be loved yes that without all question The mercies of God towards us as they onely flow from his Love so they ought to produce Love in us yet not onely Love but Fear such a fear as can never be divided from love such a love as is always join'd with a dread of offending a jealousie of displeasing the person beloved and such is a true Gospel-love such is a true filial fear of God What I have said on the general part of my method proposed the mercy and forgiveness that is with God
and the principal reason why it is with him this I have premised as briefly as I could in so weighty and copious an argument as a necessary introduction for th' applying my text to our selves and to this glorious day of mercy and forgiveness A day of which amongst its many other felicities this is none of the least that do what we our selves could not to deserve any more of these days do what our worst adversaries could that we should have no more of them yet neither our sins nor their malice have prevail'd But we are still met in the house of God in a Congregation of true and dutifull Sons of the Church of England in the midst of this His Majesty 's always best-beloved now I am sure I may say most deservedly beloved City here we are met once again to solemnize this day and to doe it as joyfully as we did at first nay more if possible Since now by the late defeat of the new Conspiracies of His Majesty's old and new Enemies though it is prodigious he should have any new ones however now by the blessed prospect of Peace maintain'd and Justice restored and Rebellion once more destroy'd by its own arts now by the renew'd affections and united acclamations of all good men from all quarters of the Land by the joint consent of Heaven and Earth by the voice of God and of the People which we have been told is the voice of God The voice not of the unruly tumult and giddy populace but of the good loyal and peaceably-devout People that is as the voice of God and by all these methinks I am incouraged to call this day a new resurrection as it were of that great Nine and twentieth of May and this year the very Restoration of the King's Restoration So perpetually fresh and triumphant ought to be and I may venture to presage will be in all ages to come the precious memory of this day whereof it may be justly affirm'd that except the general redemption of all Nations on a day of all others the most memorable that day which was the fountain of all the good things we obtain'd on this or any other day but except that on this day we had heap'd on us the greatest blessings that perhaps ever any Nation under Heaven receiv'd from it on any one day To God alone be the glory of all For what I beseech you can be said less of a day whose mercy was so diffusive that it extended to its Enemies as well as Friends Laid good and sure foundations if they and we had but built upon them to make us and them and all that come after us happy in all our great interests whether temporal or spiritual To you the ancient Friends and well-wishers of this day the old Loyal party I mean for I doubt not but to many such I speak you especially who endured the loss of your Countrey in hope of returning on this day you who so many years preferr'd an honourable Exile before the injoying such a Countrey without the King To you I will not say this was a day of mercy onely because you were restor'd to your estates and possessions by it Those you had sufficiently shewn you never esteem'd as your chief goods and therefore I will not reckon them as the principal blessings you reapt on this day But to you this was a mercy worthy of your perseverance in such a cause to behold the King and with the King his and your beloved Church of England restor'd The Church which was all the while your constant companion your chief delight and sometimes almost your onely comforter This Church you beheld on this day decently re-establish'd in its own Temples whose Tabernacle you had so long followed in the Wilderness Thus was it to you a mercy How much more was it so to those of us who by an unhappy fate were either born or bred up in those miserable times who had not the honour of such a Banishment abroad but had the necessity of an inglorious Confinement home how much on all accounts to us was this a day of mercy A day which in exchange of an unlawfull yoke of Tyranny and the worst of Tyrannies imposed on us by our fellow Subjects return'd to us the easie and blessed Government of our Lawfull Prince A day that secur'd to us a lasting safe and innocent peace not a false or slavish peace like that we had before worse than the very state of War A day which gave us to know what a true liberty of Conscience is instead of a Licentiousness A day which restor'd our King to his Rights and Prerogatives our Countrey to its Privileges and Laws for the false shews of which things it had so bitterly suffer'd But what need I prove that to you and to us this was a day of mercy when it was mercy and forgiveness to its implacable Enemies To some of them it was the first innocent day of their whole lives O! had it not been the last To them it was a forgiveness on Earth of all their past crimes and might have been so in Heaven too if once they would but have learn't to be less familiar with God and more to fear him However to them it was a mercy that it made them for a time quiet and harmless whether they would or no that without their own personal ruine it ruin'd their usurped Powers which had render'd them so guilty towards God so factious amongst themselves so hated of all good men and at last of all mankind But this one day most seasonably took from them the opportunities of destroying themselves as well as us by the numberless confusions and phrensies of Enthusiastick zeal This day gently deprived them of those wretched arms by which they had been so long successfull against truth and the true Religion which to be is really the greatest of miseries Wherefore to the whole English Name and Nation was this a day of mercy By this day our age has been inrich'd with all the blessings of the right hand and of the left By this we were taught Precepts and Examples sufficient to transmit those blessings entire to all posterity By this the true cause of God and of the Kingdom was for ever vindicated by divine Providence against the false cause By this divine Providence it self was vindicated clear'd from the twenty years mischiefs and desolations which their deluded Authours were wont most arrogantly to impute to the special favour and indulgence of divine Providence But on this day Sedition and Rebellion in the State found or should have found its fatal period Now it might have learn't that although it may be for a time perniciously victorious yet it can never be quietly setled in peace that although God may sometimes in wrath permit yet he never in kindness incourages prosperous wickedness In a word on this day Schism and Sacriledge in the Church were abundantly confounded and should once for all have been
his common providence Not then by bare natural signs or obscure presages or doubtful tokens of his pleasure but by a flaming hand lift up on high by a dreadful Fire That being made the prodigious occasion of so great a mercy which is otherwise esteem'd a dismal judgement That surprizing Fire of New-Market only chance or negligence then seem'd to have kindled But the event shews it came from a higher and a better cause By that was the good King rouz'd on a sudden driven first out of his own Lodgings then by the smoak and ashes of it pursued out of Town so forc'd thence home to Whitehall before his appointed time and his Enemies black hour prefix'd Thus God conducted him hither safe and untouch'd passing just by that Same infamous Rye which was then innocent because then unprovided that otherwise might have been the fatal womb of so many unspeakable mischiefs But hitherto and for some months after you may remember the King suspected nothing of his danger imagined nothing of his escape after he was escap'd perceiv'd not as yet the heavenly protection that had cover'd his head I will not say in the day of battel but of his ordinary travelling which might have proved to him more dangerous than the fiercest Battel As yet the wicked conspiracy was not dissolv'd nor as yet were all their merciless hopes lost The same wretches tho somewhat struck with so great a disappointment yet still met and combin'd still contrived new places provided new weapons sought out new opportunities to perpetrate the same deed Still some of them thought what one of them the accursed Ferguson had impudence enough to say that by this accident the King was not so much delivered as reserved for some greater judgment When Lo in the midst of our profound security one of the cheif partakers in the dire Conspiracy being himself not suspected not invited not tempted by promises not frighted by threatnings but only those of his own conscience then he in meer remorse and dread of his guilt came voluntarily in and revealed the hidden work of darkness And God soon seconded his own favour so well begun By swift degrees so many new discoveries were made So many sensible concurring proofs strengthened each other So many undeniable demonstrations of all circumstances confirm'd all So many confessions of the principal both living and dying Plotters broke forth And they were plain confessions even when they were taught most to prevaricate and most cunningly to equivocate For of those impious arts the Jesuits are not now the only Masters But so many and so clear evidences did on a sudden surround and illustrate the whole matter of fact One particularly which I am loath to mention and I cannot mention it but with pity as well as horror that lamentable self Murder I mean which yet was a much stronger proof than many living witnesses could have been All this I say meeting together to convince the whole world of the reality of this Conspiracy I dare now pronounce that next the having a share in the detested Treason it self the next crime is the not believing it I mean the seeming not to believe it For our Enemies themselves cannot but believe it And most certainly whoever shall now pretend not to believe that this Plot was real it may justly be concluded the the same men at the same time do desire it had taken but too real an effect But I forbear We have heard what inestimable mercy there was with God for us first by so miraculously giving us and then in an equally miraculous course of Providence by continuing to us the mercy of this day But to what purpose think we was all this mercy with God for us Only that it might be thus faintly repeated and imperfectly rejoyced in once a year That cannot be sufficient The greatest and most durable end of this dayes mercy is undoubtedly the same that we find in my Text to be the chief intention of all Gods mercies that therefore the divine Majesty should be the more fear'd Indeed all Gods mercies do exact from us a sutable return of some kind of fear Yet some more than others Those his mercies that flow gently down from Heaven calmly falling on all our heads every day in blessed influences relating to this life or the next but without any great noise or astonishing circumstances They require all our Love all our thanks and some fear too mingled with them A fear of vilifying them by neglect or forfeiting them by abuse But such mercies as these before us preservations of Crown'd heads and Royal Families devastations of Kingdoms prevented mighty Nations freed from slavery these come when they come upon us with a greaterforce and concussion of thoughts and tho with a delightful yet give me leave to say it with a formidable train of terrible delights These mercies therefore as they expect from us our equal love of God so they may well demand our greater fear of him more of our submission to his power and of our reliance on his will more of our adoration of his unsearchable counsels and of our humble thankfulness for his declared goodness Thus most solemnly does this mercy call for our fear of God according to all the interpretations of the Word That we fear him so as to reverence him for all the secret degrees of ripening this mercy foregoing this day that we fear him so as to bless him for all the ensuing happy dayes we have ever since injoy'd as a consequence of this That we fear him so as to stand in aw and so as to sin no more That with a careful diligence in our particular duties with a zealous fear of God with an unwearied vigilance over our selves with a dutiful watchfulness for our King too in our several stations we dread and revere God for this and all his other mercies least we be forc'd to do so for his Judgments Since the same God who has thus bestow'd on us the greatest of mercies is also able to inflict Judgments as great That is evidently one part of our duty rising from the contemplation of this dayes mercy for this undeniable reason we should all be induced not to disobey or dishonour but to fear God There is still behind another very considerable part of it which respects God too tho it seems more immediately to concern the King It is that the mercy of God on this day the forgiveness which God put into the Kings heart to be willing into his hands to be able to dispense to all his Subjects this should lead us all to fear that is in Scripture Language to honour the King But this Doctrine which else where is the most proper subject of this days solemnity I thank God in this Assembly I need not spend time to inforce Your known and steady Loyalty has saved me that labour Yet what it were superfluous to advise the Kings friends is God knows but too seasonable to wish his Enemies would do Let it therefore be the fervent charitable prayer of us and of all Loyal minds on this day and true Loyalty is most generally accompanied with true Charity That God at last would turn the Kings Enemies hearts and so they shall be turn'd From what less than Gods mercy can we expect so great a change since all the Kings mercy has not been able to effect it But O! that now in this our day their day too once it was as properly as ours and may be so again by their amendment O! that now they would mind the things that belong to all our Peace O! that now they would understand that the best and only lawful way to preserve the Reformed Religion amongst us is to defend it only its own way and not by practising its very Enemies principles O! that now they would reflect with grief on all their fresh contrivances against his Majesties Crown and Dignity And if for no other yet for this reason they would seriously repent of them that the King was so ready to forgive all their old offenses without so much as staying for their repentance O! that now at length they would begin to fear the King for his mercy Since amidst all his power hitherto they have never had any other just cause imaginable to fear him O! that henceforth they would forbear upon any more pretences of Reforming the Church and State to violate that Royal goodness which when all was done was next under God only able to heal the breaches and compose the distractions they had caus'd once before under the disguise of such Reformations God of his infinite compassions grant that they may be converted and we united that without any other fear but of God and the King we may serve God all the dayes of our lives that we may long enjoy the Kings mercies and they may have no more such need of his forgiveness Amen FINIS Vers. 1. Vers. 2. Vers. 3. Vers. 4. Vers. 5. Vers. 6. Vers. 7. Vers. 8. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉