this day, and the consequences that have arisen from it, we shall be convinced how necessary it is for those in power to curb in season all such unruly spirits as desire to introduce new doctrines and discipline in the church, or new forms of government in the state. Those wicked puritans began, in queen Elizabeth's time, to quarrel only with surplices and other habits, with the ring in matrimony, the cross in baptism, and the like; thence they went on to farther matters of higher importance; and at last they must needs have the whole government of the church dissolved. This great work they compassed, first, by depriving the bishops of their seats in parliament; then they abolished the whole order; and at last, which was their original design, they seized on all the church lands, and divided the spoil among themselves, and, like Jeroboam, made priests of the very dregs of the people. This was their way of reforming the church. As to the civil government, you have already heard how they modelled it, upon the murder of their king, and discarding the nobility. Yet, clearly to show what a Babel they had built, after twelve years' trial, and twenty several sorts of government, the nation, grown weary of their tyranny, was forced to call in the son of him whom those reformers had sacrificed. And thus were Simeon and Levi divided in Jacob, and scattered in Israel.

Thirdly, Although the successors of these puritans, I mean our present dissenters, do not think fit to observe this day of humiliation; yet it would be very proper in them, upon some occasions, to renounce, in a public manner, those principles upon which their predecessors acted; and it will be more prudent in them to do so, because those very puritans, of whom ours are

followers, found, by experience, that after they had overturned the church and state, murdered their king, and were projecting what they called a kingdom of the saints, they were cheated of the power and possessions they only panted after, by an upstart sect of religion that grew out of their own bowels, who subjected them to one tyrant, while they were endeavouring to set up a thousand.

Fourthly, Those who profess to be followers of our church established, and yet presume in discourse to justify or excuse that rebellion and murder of the king, ought to consider how utterly contrary all such opinions are to the doctrine of Christ and his apostles, as well as to the articles of our church, and to the preaching and practice of its true professors for above a hundred years. Of late times indeed, and I speak it with grief of heart, we have heard even sermons of a strange nature; although reason would make one think it a very unaccountable way of procuring favour under a monarchy, by palliating and lessening the guilt of those who murdered the best of kings in cold blood, and, for a time, destroyed the very monarchy itself. Pray God, we may never more hear such doctrine from the pulpit, nor have it scattered about in print, to poison the people!

Fifthly, Some general knowledge of this horrid rebellion and murder, with the consequences they had upon the nations, may be a warning to our people, not to believe a lie, and to mistrust those deluding spirits, who, under pretence of a purer and more reformed religion, would lead them from their duty to God and the laws. Politicians may say what they please; but it is no hard thing at all for the meanest person, who hath common un

derstanding, to know whether he be well or il governed. If he be freely allowed to follow his trade and calling; if he be secure in his property, and hath the benefit of the law to defend himself against injustice and oppression; if his religion be different from that of his country, and the government think fit to tolerate it (which he may be very secure of, let it be what it will); he ought to be fully satisfied, and give no offence by writing or discourse, to the worship established, as the dissenting preachers are too apt to do. But, if he hath any new visions of his own, it is his duty to be quiet, and possess them in silence, without disturbing the community by a furious zeal for making proselytes. This was the folly and madness of those ancient puritan fanatics: they must needs overturn heaven and earth, violate all the laws of God and man, make their country a field of blood, to propagate whatever wild or wicked opinions came into their heads, declaring all their absurdities and blasphemies to proceed from the Holy Ghost.

To conclude this head. In answer to that objection of keeping up animosity and hatred between protestants, by the observation of this day; if there be any sect or sort of people among us, who profess the same principles in religion and government which those puritan rebels put in practice, I think it is the interest of all those who love the church and king, to keep up as strong a party against them as possible, until they shall, in a body, renounce all those wicked opinions upon which their predecessors acted, to the disgrace of Christianity, and the perpetual infamy of the English nation.

When we accuse the papists of the horrid doc

trine, "that no faith ought to be kept with heretics," they deny it to a man; and yet we justly think it dangerous to trust them, because we know their actions have been sometimes suitable to that opinion. But the followers of those who beheaded the martyr, have not yet renounced their principles; and till they do, they may be justly suspected; neither will the bare name of protestants set them right; for surely Christ requires more from us, than a profession of hating popery, which a Turk or an atheist may do as well as a protestant.

If an enslaved people should recover their liberty from a tyrannical power of any sort, who could blame them for commemorating their deliverance by a day of joy and thanksgiving? And doth not the destruction of a church, a king, and three kingdoms, by the artifices, hypocrisy, and cruelty, of a wicked race of soldiers and preachers, and other sons of Belial, equally require a solemn time of humiliation? especially since the consequences of that bloody scene still continue, as I have already shown, in their effects upon us.

Thus I have done with the three heads I

pro

posed to discourse on. But before I conclude, I must give a caution to those who hear me, that they may not think I am pleading for absolute unlimited power in any one man. It is true, all power is from God; and, as the apostle says, "the powers that be are ordained of God:" but this is in the same sense that all we have is from God, our food and raiment, and whatever possessions we hold by lawful means. Nothing can be meant in those or any other words of scripture, to justify tyrannical power, or the savage cruelties of those

heathen emperors who lived in the time of the apostles. And so St Paul concludes, "The powers that be are ordained of God:" for what? why, "for the punishment of evil doers, and the praise, the reward of them that do well." There is no more inward value in the greatest emperor, than in the meanest of his subjects: his body is composed of the same substance, the same parts, and with the same or greater infirmities: his education is generally worse, by flattery, and idleness, and luxury, and those evil dispositions that early power is apt to give. It is therefore against common sense, that his private personal interest, or pleasure, should be put in the balance with the safety of millions; every one of which is equal by nature, equal in the sight of God, equally capable of salvation: and it is for their sakes, not his own, that he is entrusted with the government over them. He hath as high trust as can safely be reposed in one man; and if he discharge it as he ought, he deserves all the honour and duty that a mortal may be allowed to receive. His personal failings we have nothing to do with; and errors in government are to be imputed to his ministers in the state. To what height those errors may be suffered to proceed, is not the business of this day, or this place, or of my function to determine. When oppressions grow too great and universal to be borne, nature or necessity may find a remedy. But if a private person reasonably expects pardon, upon his amendment, for all faults that are not capital, it would be a hard condition indeed, not to give the same allowance to a prince; who must see with other men's eyes, and hear with other men's ears, which are often wilfully blind and deaf. Such was the condition of the