Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
religion_n	good_a	king_n	subject_n	3,003	5	6.4581	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A93064	The dignity of kingship asserted: in answer to Mr. Milton's Ready and easie way to establish a free Common-wealth. Proving that kingship is both in it self, and in reference to these nations, farre the most excellent government, and the returning to our former loyalty, or obedience thereto is the only way under God to restore and settle these three once flourishing, now languishing, broken, & almost ruined nations. / By G.S. a lover of loyalty. Humbly dedicated, and presented to his most Excellent Majety Charles the Second, of England; Scotland, France and Ireland, true hereditary king.	G. S., Lover of loyalty.; Searle, George, attributed name.; Sheldon, Gilbert, 1598-1677, attributed name.; Starkey, George, 1627-1665, attributed name.	1660 (1660)	Wing S3069; Thomason E1915_2; ESTC R210007	99,181	247

THE DIGNITY OF KINGSHIP ASSERTED In Answer to Mr. Milton's Ready and Easie way to establish a Free COMMON-WEALTH Proving that KINGSHIP is both in it self and in reference to these Nations fa●●e the most Excellent Government and the returning to our former Loyalty or Obedience thereto is the only way under God to restore and settle these three once flourishing now languishing broken almost ruined Nations By G. S. a Lover of Loyalty Humbly Dedicated and Presented to his most Excellent Majesty CHARLES the Second of England Scotland France and Ireland True Hereditary KING London Printed by E. C. for H. Seile over against St. Dunstans Church in Fleet-street and for W. Palmer at the Palm-tree over against Fetter-late end in Fleetstreet 1660. To the most Illustrious for Vertue Constancy in Religion and Heroick Patience under the most sharp Tryals and extraordinary Afflictions wherein in imitation of his truly Magnanimous Royall Father he hath appeared more then Conqueror To the Glory of God Honour of Religon admiration of Strangers joy of Friends confusion of Enemies silencing of Scandals and the Heart-reviving refreshment of his truely Loyall and for his long p●st and present Afflictions cordially Afflicted SUBJECTS CHARLES the Good Hereditary KING of England Scotland France and Ireland Most Gracious Prince THat I so mean and unworthy a Subject yet a Cordial wel-wisher to your Royall Majesty and who is one among many thousands of your faithfull Subjects who dayly pray for and constantly hope and expect to see your restitution should address my self thus to Majesty I neither know well to apologize for nor yet to omit It is not most Illustrious Soveraign that I either account my self a competent Champion to mannage your most just and Princely quarrell nor yet that I think your cause in it self considered to need any defense much lesse so weak as mine for whom God protects he certainly needs none of mans Patronage nor that I account the Authors scurrilous impertinencies so far as immediately they concern your Sacred Majesty worth the Answer nor is it an itch or ambition of appearing in publique that hath ivited me to this Reply least of all is it any esteem of or conceit of worth in my self that could make me presume to present this inconsiderable mite of my Service to your Princely view or that I should dare to imagine your Majesties present Afflictions so to concerne your esteem and Royall worth as that any of your Subjects might presume more now upon these exercising Tryalls of God upon your Majesty then if you were seated upon your Hereditarily due and justly deserved Throne in magnificent Splendor God forbid that my Breast should Harbour such an unbecomming thought to Majesty yours especially which by your Afflictions hath beene really made and apparently is seen more glorious as Gold by the fire is purified or a pretious Diamond upon the wheele is polished and made sparklingly resplendent Since then Royall Sir It hath beene none of the mentioned Considerations give me leave with your Pardon to shew your Majesty the true Cause First of this undertaking and next of this boldnesse of Addresse in it self a Presumption not to be pleaded for but only through your Princely goodnesse pardonable How your Majesties Royall Father was dealt with all is Englands ignominy your Subjects infamy Religions Scandall and the wonder amazement and astonishment of Europe and the Actors eternall reproach among all Naions the Abettors Confusion the punishment of all our sins and the inlet of a floud of miseries upon us ever since This detestable execrable Murther committed by the worst of Parricides accompanyed with the diselaiming of your whole Royall stock dishinheriting your Majesties self and the rest of the Royall Branches driving you and them into Exile with indeavouring to expunge and obliterate your never to be forgotten just Title tearing up and pulling down the Pillars of Majesty the Nobles garbling and suspending from place of Power all of the Commons House that had any thing of Honesty or relenting of spirit toward the injur'd Father of three Nations and his Royall Posterity Acts horrible to be imagined and yet with high hand most Villanously Perfideously and Perjuriously prepetrated by Monsters of mankind yet blasphemously dishonourers of God in making use of his name and usurping the Title of Saints in these never before parallel'd nor ever sufficiently to be lamented and abhorred Villanies this Murther I say and these Villanies were defended justyfied nay extolled and commended by one Mr. John Milton in answer to the most learned Salmasius who declaimed against the same with most Solid Arguments and Patheticall Expressions in which answer he did so bespatter the white Robes of your Royall Fathers spotless life humane infirmities excepted with the dirty filth of his satyricall pen that to the vulgar and those who read his book with prejudice he represented him a most debauched vitious man I tremble Royall Sir to write it an irrelegious hater and persecutor of Religion and Religious men an ambitious inslaver of the Nation a bloudy Tyrant and an inplacable Enemy to all his good Subjects and thereupon calls that execrable and detestable horrible Murther a just execution and commends it as an Heroick Action and in a word whatever was done in prosecution of their malice toward your Royall Progenitor and his Issue or Relations or Friends and asistants he calls restoring the Nation to its Liberty Yea to make your illustrious Father more odious in their eyes where he by any means could fixe his scandals he would not spare that incomparable piece of his writing his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but in a scurrilous reply thereto which he intituled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he would not spare his devout Prayers which no doubt the Lord hath heard and will bear in all which he expressed as his inveterate and causeless malice so a great deal of wicked desperate wit and learning most unworthily mis-bestowed abused and misapplyed to the reviling of his Prince Gods vicegerent●on Earth and the speaking ill of the Ruler of the People Now although your Majesty nor your Royall Father neither of you need vindication much lesse that elaborate work of his nor doth any thing he hath written in Aspersion of his Soveraign deserve Answer absolutely considered yet forasmuch as he hath in both shewed dangerous wit and wicked Learning which together with Elegance in expression is alwaies in some measure at least perswasive with some and because in these last and worst daies those dangerous times are come in which many account Treason to be Saintship and the madnesse of People like the inundation of waters hath for many years overflowed all the bounds of both duty and obedience to Superiors and Subjection with Loyalty to their Soveraigns but especially because in these your Kingdoms by due title and birthright Allegiance conscientiously adhered to is reputed malignity and treachery only and rebellion hath for many years been the badge of a confiding man or

admit many they fear would dwell among them who might make a Conscience of keeping Allegiance inviolable and would urge against their Protestanisme that ungospellike rejecting their lawfull King although provoked by persecution and would cite the practise of the Primitive Church unanswerably discountenancing and their profession and Doctrine loudly and openly condemning the same by which means the multitude might be brought about to be undeceived and willing to entertain or at least desire their former Loyalty So that Policy not Conscience excluded from among them the Popish and a sordid desire of Gain set open the Flood-gates to all other Religions Among which if that may be accounted a Religion Athiesme is not excluded but findes its Sanctuary Now I pray you Sir where is the Magnanimity of Spirit that you boast of herein When nothing that bears the face or carries the name of Religion is disallowed but that only which is the only publique Religion of their former Prince lest by entertaining it his Friends should be let in therewith to the shaking of their new layd foundation the chief security of which seems to consist in their Nationall abjuring their formerly sworn to Soveraign not minding in the mean while the dishonour done to Gods name by those multitudes of abominable heresies yea damnable blasphemous Doctrines which swarm in those Countreys Amsterdam especially as Frogs swarmed in the Land of Egypt and yet they the more the pity are not at all troubled thereat because they bring profit and commerce along with them but I wish they do not hereby heap up to themselves wrath which may be powred forth upon them in the day of Gods Vengeance When no King was in Israel and every man did what was good in his own eyes then Micah made his graven and molten Image his Ephod and his Teraphim and hired a Levite to be his Priest Then was every man at his liberty what Religion he would follow a King only being so generous spirited and noble as to Engage that Religion publiquely to be professed which appears to him and his most learned Divines the true and most agreeable to the pattern and precepts of Gods Word and prohibit whatever strikes at this foundation nor to suffer any Rents or Schismes in the Church the inlets generally of farre greater mischiefs both in Church and State whereas a Common-wealth being but a puny Authority is compelled to tolerate this and that and twenty Heresies because some rich men or other are Favourites to all and nothing keeps the most rustick Peasant from being created the Greatest Heer or Lord among them but want of a competent quantity of Silver Gold or Merchandise Kings therefore in Scripture are promised to be nursing Fathers and Queens nursing Mothers to the Church but no such Promise concerning Republican Lords let them be never so high and mighty Nor is this degenerate basenesse of spirit visible only in Religious but as well and as much in Civil yea Ordinary concernments and there is a naturall reason for it since according to the Proverb According to a mans meeting so is his greeting Vulgar deportments find but vulgar respect nor is it fit or likely that he who puts little value upon himself should have greater put upon him by others that are about him Majesty and state may be kept without adoration but not without humble and due submissive respect Too much familiarity in all relations breeds Contempt The state and distance which Solomon kept between him and his subjects we finde registred by the Penmen of Sacred Histories as part of his magnificence and no small portion of Gods temporall blessings cast upon him as an additional Supplement to that for which he requested to wit Wisedome And I finde Paul the famous Apostle appealing to Caesar from Festus who was a subordinate Deputy to the Emperor hoping for greater shelter as to Religion from the Head of all Majesty Caesar himself then from an inferior Substitute or Lieutenant unto him And we read in the last Chapter of the Acts how long and how free he lived considering him in bonds at Rome being arrived in prosecution of his Appeal an evident argument that he expected and doubtlesse found more freedome under the Wing of Majesty then probably he should have had from an Inferior Governor neerer allyed to the common rank of men And as in the persecution of Religion the greatest favour is to be found in probability from Majesty it self so in the protection incouragement and advancement of Religion Kings and Emperors are unparallel'd Fathers and Nurses thereof Witnesse of old David Solomon Hezekiah and Josiah with many other godly pious Princes And of late since Christ Constantine and Theodosius with severall glorious truly Christian and famous Emperours And among us Edward the sixth Queen Elizabeth King James and without regard to your rayling black mouth our unparallel'd Martyr King CHARLES under whom how glorious was our Church to the admiration of many and envy of some of our Neighbours During whose pious Reigns if we will be poring only upon what was defective and whining after what was to be desired in our Church Discipline we shew our selves very ungratefull to God and men but if with thankfull hearts we could have enjoyed and prized what really was our Lot beyond all who were about us we might have said truly Our lot was fallen to us in a pleasant place and we had a goodly Inheritance God not so dealing with every Nation as he had with us who therefore might be named the darling of the Lord. It is the glory happinesse and true beauty of a Nation professing Religion when the face of man is not feared but God is so far exalted that none is acknowledged beside him King in the Church and therefore not only Caterpillers and Locusts are destroyed and Cattell which browse upon the Vynes kept out but the Foxes the little Foxes are taken that spoyl the Vynes they having on them tender Grapes How glorious a thing is it for a truly zealous and pious P●ince to countenance and encourage the Priests and Levites such I mean who oversee and manage the service of the Lord that out of the Church may be excluded not only the abominable and the unclean but likewise every thing that offendeth What more dangerous in the Church which is the Garden of the Lord then Factions and Heresies but what so fatall as the plucking up its Hedge and throwing down its Wall which is not as many imagine a foolish agreement or Covenant of the people one with another but a Christian and conscientious submission for the Lords sake to those who by Divine right are appointed and set over them to maintain which pale inviolable the King when a true nursing Father of the Church as blessed be God we had many such is next to God the greatest defense on earth on which score not without cause our Kings have had and deserved the name several of them of Defenders of

the Faith to wit the true Christian and Apostolick Faith concerning whose profession of and owning so honourable a defense we were bound and still are to say with good Nehemiah Blessed be God who hath put such a thing as this into the Kings heart and to pray that he would more and more be his Guide Counsellor Director and Protector that under him Religion may flourish and we may once more be a happy flourishing Nation 'T is to be confess'd that while the Church is militant here upon Earth there will and must be Offences and Scandals this Christ hath pronounced as absolutely necessary and the contrary impossible although woe to them by whom they come but for professed Christians to be viewing perusing overlooking and examining the Constitution of the Church they live in to be carping at and inveighing against the defects thereof practicall especially where much that is practised is not allowed and wished by the Judicious that it may be amended as soon as may be with conveniency and thereupon reviling reproaching and separating from the same it argues in my opinion those who are but nominall not reall Christians yet such is the temper of most of our modern Giddy-brained Phanatiques who from Controversies in Religion fell naturally to dabling with State concernments and have without Gods infinite mercy kindled in both our Church and State an inextinguishable Combustion I shall come now briefly to take a short view of what we were before these unhappy late Warres and compare our condition then with what we have been since that so an estimate may thence be taken what we are like in the End to come to unlesse God in mercy prevent our ruine as he hath already blessed be his Name given us great hopes Our Government and Governors were of two sorts Civill who ruled us as men and Ecclesiasticall who were set over us as Christians Of Civil Magistrates our King was supreme a true but not an absolute Monarch He had none above or singly co-ordinate with him and in dignity he excelled and went before all the rest Howbeit his Rule or Government was purely Paternall for as a loving and carefull Father in managing the affairs of his Family will consult with his Sonnes when grown to age yea and with his discreet Servants so the Royal Father of this great and flourishing Family consulted not only with his Nobles whom he honoured with the Title of Kinsmen and who were the most discreet and judicious of them of his honourable Privy Councill but he advised also with this Commons who for that end chose the Chief men of their Shires Cities and Boroughs Corporate and intrusted them with power in their name and for their welfare and benefit to represent and lay open their cases wants and grievances before the King and his Peers and joyntly to endeavour study and finde out a way of redresse or relief of the same They were still the Masters of their own Purses they not only raised whatever Money was to be levyed but advised together and consented to the disposing of it This grand Council was the Physick under God for the Nation when it was sick or any way distempered which the King like a wise Physician called as oft as he with the advise of his Wise Counsell judged it needfull either for the necessary cure of a distempered State or the convenient preservation and farther beautifying or adorning a flourishing one While things ran in this Channell how happy was England in Generall although some particular blemishes or pushes in the Body politick were lanced fretted and made sore by this means But when the just indignation of God was come to its height because we were so unthankefull for multiplyed blessings he then suffered this ungratefull Nation to loath Manna and to long for Physick to come into a course of medicinal diet and to linger after first a Trienniall then a perpetual Parliament which we have enjoyed so long nominally at least though really the Fagge end only or Rump of that Parliament which was also sore Ague-shaken several times by disgracefull and long Ejections which yet they willing to perpetuate themselves as oft as they came on the Stage again called only Interruptions however they cannot deny but they made or suffered tedious Exits which were as long as the rest of the Play and other Scenes nay whole Playes were acted in the Intervals I say we have endured so tedious a course of State Physick till we experimentally and to our cost and shame found the Proverb verified Medicè vivere idem esse a● miserè vivere At the Convening of this Parliament what was accounted grievous and so represented to his Majesty but he was willing to redresse it effectually Monopolies Star-Chamber and High Commission by his Royall assent abolished and the Council-Table regulated so as to stand for little more then a Cypher by his Majesties permission and all because his people whom he loved more dearly then his own safety shewed a dislike of them and accounted them a burden T●●●age and Poundage willingly layd down at his Subject● feet the Militia and Negative Voyce so far granted from himself that he left himself only power to be made a Martyr at his Subjects pleasure Yea and for the Episcopal Dignity he consented they should be stript of whatever the Parliament thought fit saving to them only their Office which his Oath at Coronation bound him indispensably to maintain O England England couldst thou but then have seen the things that belonged to thy peace which soon after alas were hid from thy eyes Yea the Nation did see it yea the Reverend Senators were deeply sensible of it the Nobles discovered evidently the true and only cure under God for the Nations distempers Nor do I blame them nor yet the major part of them but know and they since have been made sensible that a few restlesse dangerous factious pestilent spirits in both Houses first begat and then fomented a misunderstanding between his Majesty and his Cardially loyall subjects which Coal being once kindled they by the same cunning but devilish policy blew into the flame of a War in which posture all things could not be defended on either side but his Majesty wanting the sinews of warra could not possibly keep that discipline in his Army which the Parliament did in theirs and so Gods Providence permitting and our sins procuring his Royall person being captivated and his Forc●s dissipated those whose loyall breasts only intended his welfare and advancement in glory and Revenue which they in soverall Declarations protesting and appealing to God as a Judge and Witnesse of the truth of their intentions enforce me as Christian to believe to be their design were convinced by several Treaties that his Majesties both actions and intentions were misrepresented to them by some Boutefeus of State and therefore relenting towards him and his Royall Posierity intended a speedy settlement of the Nation in a Religious Peace and had done

the Grave and Sea They may also very well be termed the Snuffe of the House of Commons the State of England during the Commotions being properly compared to a Taper which being melted by the fire of Warre and wasting it self with its own light which was blown aside by the blasts of Rebellion ran down much of its waxe into the Socket and declined apace This snuffe at last preying upon what was run down by the heat of Warre and the winde of Rebellion blazed a long time till all that fed it was consumed and then went out in a most insufferable stink But I shall leave them to their own melancholy thoughts which perhaps may now check them and as Josephs brethren after almost twenty years security in that great sin which for ought they knew they were guilty of to wit their brothers bloud when they were reduced to a great extremity began to accuse themselves one to another We are verily guilty of the bloud of our Brother So these Regicides I hope in this their extremity may be alarmed by their consciences with such like thoughts We are questionlesse guilty of the bloud of our KING when our own hearts told us that his person was sacred and we our selves were guilty of what we charged upon him but he was innocent and therefore now his bloud is required This is the worst I wish them if it were Gods will but their black fact I would have abhorred and detested for ever and damned to the pit of hell where first it was hatched The last Engine by which Mr. Milton endeavours to hinder our much expected settlement is to perswade the people that our present hereditary King hath been from his Cradle trained up in Popish Principles having lived so long and received his subsistance among and from them this if it were true is a bad argument to keep him from his Crown if it be as certainly it is his hereditary right and due It was the unanimous resolve of the true Protestant Christians in Queen Maries dayes that notwithstanding the desire of pious King Edward to the contrary she and not the Lady Jane should be Crowned Queen although she was known to be a resolved Papist and of a most furious spirit in requital of whom she sent many of them to Heaven in Triumphant fiery Chariots Now were it to be admitted that our King were of the Romish Religion yet his sweet inclination and disposition might take all suspition of danger from him Had he been educated with the greatest indulgence and care that were possible in the true Orthodox Religion and yet been seduced accidentally by the fraud and policy of some Romish Agents it had yet been our duty to have prayed for him as became true Christians but withall to have submitted to him for Gods sake as became the true Children and Successors of those Primitive Apostolike Saints who did the like to Heathen Emperors and Governors But when God knowes this Nation hath by unparallel'd Rebellion and Treason cut off the Father with that impious solemnity as was never yet done by the worst of Pagans and neglected the Children with as much inhumanity as unrighteousnesse dividing as a spoyl among themselves the ample Revenues belonging to Majesty and neither allowing the posterity any subsistance themselves nor permitting any other to do it but upon penalty of high Treason forbidding all relief to the Royal Orphans and Widow when I say the Nation hath done this pardon me that I say the Nation for I must lay the blame on the Nation till the Nation hath wiped off the blot if the King in consideration of these monstrous impieties perpetrated against his Father and continued against himself had imputed the fault of the Professors to the profession it self and imbraced Popery rather then refined KING killing Soveraign-despising Protestanisme it had been our duty to have been humbled for what was past and by a more exact Obedience to have testified our detestation of such principles in order to the convincing his judgement but to have rejected him on this score had I confidently perswade my self been adding impenitency unto sinne which is the greatest aggravation thereof For without doubt the whole Nation cannot wash their hands from the guilt of our great sins committed against Gods Vicegerent our undoubted Head and Soveraign Lord and his Royall Issue for fear of man at least or cowardly declining their endanger'd King and his Royall line was their fault While Vowes Covenants Oathes and Protestations were made for his preservation and happinesse it is no great wonder that fair words and promises insnared the simple since I perswade my self that those who made such promises were themselves beguiled by the subtilty of the ringleading Rumpers and the Rebellious Souldiery but when Oaths were palpably broken and Majesty not only contemned and in hazard but upon the very point of ruine had all who were cordially loyall then appeared against such monstrous impiety and villany had they been not only unarmed and naked but even sick and wounded men they had undoubtedly given a check to the Rumpers rage and malicious barbarous bloudy impiety In which respect our Humiliation ought to be Nationall and serious since not only Dogs Sorcerers and such like but the fearfull and unbelieving shall be shut out of the heavenly Jerusalem Yea and when Christ was crucified it was not the whole Nation that did it but the High-priest and Scribes and some zealous Pharisees nor the majority of the people that consented to it for they who plotted his death durst not put their designs in execution on the Feast-day least there should be an Uproar among the people who most of them accounted Christ as a good holy man and a great Prophet Yet none appearing on his side when it was put in execution that was long before plotted his bloud lay upon the whole Nation and dismal calamities many years after came upon all for the actual sin of some So in likenesse of our Saviours sufferings behold a pious Protestant King not carefull of his own life that by his bloud he might seal his peoples Liberties and the priviledges of Parliament behold him I say arraign'd with scorn reproach and contempt condemned with impudence and the height of indignity and executed with the full measure of malice tyranny and cruelty yea and after his death the Injuries done to the Father as it were intayl'd upon the Son and extended to the whole Royall Issue and Relations Behold a young Prince no sooner by villanous violence made a a lawfull KING but persecuted to the death Warre being made with all who gave him entertainment nor peace concluded with any but upon condition of his being proscribed and ejected out of all their Dominions and Jurisdiction his naturall Subjects prohibited but upon condition of utter ruine to own or relieve him and yet see the mercy and goodnesse to this poor Nation in this our King his constancy in the true Protestant Religion

and his undaunted profession of the same in the midst of and in despite of all these Injuries offered him from Protestant Subjects hath been the joy of all his Friends the admiration of Strangers the envy of Enemies and is notorious in Europe to the silencing of Momus himself so that his known practise can give the lye to the words or pen of any barking black-mouthed Adversary whatsoever This is the Lords doing to his Name be glory for ever If then it had been our undoubted duty to have received him joyfully and submitted to him chearfully and conscientiously for the Lords sake though he had been a Romist how much more ought we to do it as the case stands and how ought every true Christian to long for his return and not give God rest day nor night but be instant in servent prayer till his Restitution be accomplished For whatever may be pretended as to settlement by a Common-wealth there is no way of firm settlement but by returning to our former Allegiance We came not to that passe we were lately in but by the means of treason rebellion perjury murder oppression and sacriledge for which God certainly will visit Could we imagine there were no God as foolish Atheists imagine or that God were like to us an Abettor of such Villanies as we act and approve it would yet be very improbable that a foolishly intended Common-wealth should ever be setled forasmuch as the Interest of the Nation is ingaged to Monarchy it is a Government we were trained up in and accustomed thereto and our Kings not Fortaigners to us but our own Countrey-men who were themselves by bloud allyed to many if not most of the Nobles and they to the Gentry they also to the Yeomen and Countrey-Farmers that Interests were woven together so firmly and the knots knit between all so indissolvably that the same cannot be undone without the certain inevitable ruine of all And if Interests which have sprung up since the Warre whose foundation is illegality enormity and Villanous impiety be in ten or twelve years become so considerable that for peace sake the formalities of Law and nyceties of Justice must be dispensed withall and the rule raptim vivendi since it is become Epidemicall must be connived at as to the time past or else palpable and apparent danger might be of new Combustions is it to be imagined that so long continued and so interwoven Interests can be thrown aside like an Almanack out of date and all remain quiet We see that those who never were possess'd of nor quietly injoyed the Government but only reacht after and aspired to it can scarse be satisfied without injoying what they thus gap'd for but will rather endeavour to set all on fire then go without it and is it likely that such who were legally and quietly possest therewith owned by all and Allegiance sworn to them by all as the Kings Posterity was included in the Oath of Allegiance and Supremacy and all his legal Successors in defect of Issue the Nobles also who are numerous whose Franchise and Prerogative it was so farre to participate in Government as to be the Peers of the Nation and to make one House of English Parliaments The Gentry also who were firm to their Soveraign whose Birthright it is to choose and be chosen Commoners Can all these be blown away with a puffe and breaches be sodered up notwithstanding 't were a madnesse to imagine it Certainly if to adhere to a King who had piously and happily Governed nigh twenty years descended of Ancestors of happy memory who with himself had almost compleated a Century of years in most happy tranquility were deserving sequestration imprisonment and death as some suffered besides a losse of priviledges and Franchises to themselves yet must their innocent Babes be cut off likewise with the Parents and can peaceable submission nevertheless be expected Certainly no Religion and reason both forbid it no marvel then if now at length toward the Morning Watch the Day-star of our deliverance appearing the Righteous God hath looked down through the Cloud of confusion and disorder and hath troubled the Host of our Egyptian Task-masters taking off the Chariot-wheels so that they drive heavily and troubling their Counsels in such sort that I hope they will never be praevalent more but if they continue obstinately impenitent will bring back upon them the Waters of trouble despair agony and final destruction that so when these Egyptians are over whelmed in those Flouds by which they intended to swallow up the Innocent we may with joyfull hearts sing Praises to him our Deliverer in the Church and pay our Vowes in the Assembly of the Great Congregation and I presume with confidence that if it shall please the Lord once more to return in mercy to this poor Nation to lay our Foundations firmly anew to heal our breaches and to restore unto us our Judges as at the first and our Counsellors as at the beginning we shall then be wary hereafter how we slight Gods Blessings and loath Manna lest if we again relapse into the same or the like sinne a worse Judgement overtake us As for our King 's being maintained during his Exile it hath been almost a Prodigy in Providence of his own he might say as David to Saul They banished him from the presence of the Lord saying in effect Goe serve other Gods and if David the Chosen of the Lord and a man after his heart when banished Israel fled to Achish King of Gath a Philistine who shewed him kindnesse and treated him with courtesie who can condemn our Exiled Prince far from Friends and Relief hunted from England into the Low Countreys and France from thence recalled to Scotland and as soon pursued by that implacable Bloud-hound who had not quenched his thirst with his Royall Fathers bloud and by him persecuted and driven into England thence forced again to flye to the Low-Countreys and France where he had the relief and converse of Protestants but even this was envyed him by our late infamous Vsurper who partly by force partly by policy ejected him out of both those Jurisdictions yet when destitute of Friends and succour God put it into the Tyrants minde to quarrell with Spain our most profitable Ally and that Prince relieves our distressed Royall Orphans Here was Gods goodnesse triumphing over mans basenesse his mercy over their cruelty to him be the glory but in greater mercy he hath kept our King and Royall Issue from being tainted in their Religion which is a favour for which Immortall praise is due to his Name And thus Mr. Milton I have run through your Discourse and in answering it I have obviated whatever is material in what you wrote against Salmasius either derogating from Kingly Government or justifying that Execrable murder of our lawfull and once happy yet for ever glorious martyr'd King CHARLES and in prosecuting my own Assertion in opposition to yours I have I