with all those marks of his justice and condescension, urged still for more; and joining with a factious party from Scotland, who had the same fancies in religion, forced him to pass an act for cutting off the head of his best and chief minister; and at the same time compelled him, by tumults and threatenings of a packed rabble, poisoned with the same doctrines, to pass another law, by which it should not be in his power to dissolve that parliament, without their own consent.Thus, by the greatest weakness and infatuation that ever possessed any man's spirit, this prince did in effect sign his own destruction. For the house of commons, having the reins in their own hands, drove on furiously; sent him every day some unreasonable demand; and when he refused to grant it, made use of their own power, and declared that an ordinance of both houses, without the king's consent, should be obeyed as a law, contrary to all reason and equity, as well as to the fundamental constitution of the kingdom.

About this time the rebellion in Ireland broke out, wherein his parliament refused to assist him; nor would accept his offer to come hither in person to subdue those rebels. These, and a thousand other barbarities, forced the king to summon his loyal subjects to his standard in his own defence. Meanwhile the English parliament, instead of helping the poor protestants here, seized on the very army that his majesty was sending over for our relief, and turned them against their own sovereign. The rebellion in England continued for four or five years: at last the king was forced to fly in disguise to the Scots, who sold him to the rebels. And these puritans had the impudent cruelty to try his sacred person in a mock court of justice, and cut off his head; which he

might have saved, if he would have yielded to betray the constitution in church and state.

In this whole proceeding, Simeon and Levi were brethren; the wicked insinuations of those fanatical preachers stirring up the cruelty of the soldiers, who, by force of arms, excluded from the house every member of parliament whom they apprehended to bear the least inclination toward an agreement with the king, suffering only those to enter who thirsted chiefly for his blood; and this is the very account given by their own writers. Whence it is clear that this prince was, in all respects, a real martyr for the true religion and the liberty of the people. That odious parliament had first turned the bishops out of the house of lords; in a few years after, they murdered their king; then immediately abolished the whole house of lords; and so, at last, obtained their wishes, of having a government of the people, and a new religion, both after the manner of Geneva, without a king, a bishop, or a nobleman; and this they blasphemously called, “The kingdom of Christ and his saints."

This is enough for your information on the first head: I shall therefore proceed to the second, wherein I will show you the miserable consequences which that abominable rebellion and murder produced in these nations.

First, The Irish rebellion was wholly owing to that wicked English parliament. For the leaders in the Irish popish massacre would never have dared to stir a finger, if they had not been encouraged by that rebellious spirit in the English house of commons, which they very well knew must disable the king from sending any supplies to his protestant subjects here; and therefore we may truly say that the English parliament held the

king's hands, while the Irish papists here were cutting our grandfathers' throats.

Secondly, That murderous puritan parliament, when they had all in their own power, could not agree upon any one method of settling a form either of religion or civil government; but changed every day from schism to schism, from heresy to heresy, and from one faction to another: whence arose that wild confusion still continuing in our several ways of serving God, and those absurd notions of civil power, which have so often torn us with factions more than any other nation in Europe.

Thirdly, To this rebellion and murder have been owing the rise and progress of atheism among us. For men, observing what numberless villanies of all kinds were committed during twenty years, under pretence of zeal and the reformation of God's church, were easily tempted to doubt that all religion was a mere imposture: and the same spirit of infidelity, so far spread among us at this present, is nothing but the fruit of the seeds sown by those rebellious hypocritical saints.

Fourthly, The old virtue, and loyalty, and ge nerous spirit of the English nation, were wholly corrupted, by the power, the doctrine, and the example, of those wicked people. Many of the ancient nobility were killed, and their families extinct, in defence of their prince and country, or murdered by the merciless courts of justice. Some of the worst among them favoured or complied with the reigning iniquities; and not a few of the new set, created when the martyr's son was restored, were such who had drunk too deep of the bad principles then prevailing.

Fifthly, The children of the murdered prince were forced to fly, for the safety of their lives, to

foreign countries; where one of them at least, 1 mean king James II., was seduced to popery; which ended in the loss of his kingdoms, the misery and desolation of this country, and a long and expensive war abroad. Our deliverance was owing to the valour and conduct of the late king; and therefore we ought to remember him with gratitude, but not mingled with blasphemy or idolatry. It was happy that his interests and ours were the same: and God gave him greater success than cur sins deserved. But, as a house thrown down by a storm is seldom rebuilt without some change in the foundation; so it hath happened, that, since the late revolution, men have sate much looser in the true fundamentals both of religion and government, and factions have been more violent, treacherous, and malicious, than ever; men running naturally from one extreme into another; and, for private ends, taking up those very opinions professed by the leaders in that rebellion, which carried the blessed martyr to the scaffold.

Sixthly, Another consequence of this horrid rebellion and murder was, the destroying or defacing of such vast number of God's houses. "In their self-will they digged down a wall." If a stranger should now travel in England, and observe the churches in his way, he could not otherwise conclude, than that some vast army of Turks or heathens had been sent on purpose to ruin and blot out all marks of Christianity. They spared neither the statues of saints, nor ancient prelates, nor kings, nor benefactors; broke down the tombs. and monuments of men famous in their generations; seized the vessels of silver set apart for the holiest use; tore down the most innocent ornaments both within and without; made the houses

of prayer dens of thieves, or stables for cattle. These were the mildest effects of puritan zeal and devotion for Christ; and this was what themselves affected to call a thorough reformation. In this kingdom, those ravages were not so easily seen; for, the people here being too poor to raise such noble temples, the mean ones we had were not defaced, but totally destroyed.

Upon the whole, it is certain, that although God might have found out many other ways to have punished a sinful people, without permitting this rebellion and murder; yet, as the course of the world hath run ever since, we need seek for no other causes of all the public evils we have hitherto suffered, or may suffer for the future, by the misconduct of princes, or wickedness of the people.

I go on now, upon the third head, to show you to what good uses this solemn day of humiliation may be applied.

First, It may be an instruction to princes themselves, to be careful in the choice of those who are their advisers in matters of law. All the judges of England, except one or two, advised the king, that he might legally raise money upon the subjects for building of ships, without consent of parliament; which, as it was the greatest oversight of his reign, so it proved the principal foundation of all his misfortunes. Princes may likewise learn from hence, not to sacrifice a faithful servant to the rage of a faction; nor to trust any body of men with a greater share of power than the laws of the land have appointed them, much less to deposit it in their hands until they shall please to restore it.

Secondly, By bringing to mind the tragedy of