and Son of Impiety and Injustice Edmund the Great Earl of Kent with some other persons began to Conspire against them Which Q. Isabel who deserves the name of Jesabel perceiving privately encouraged the Keepers of her Husband to murder him but his Son coming to Maturity of Understanding avenged his blood on Mortimer his Mother's Minion and his Accomplices whom the Lords of Parliament with his assent adjudged and condemned to be executed as Traitors for murdering the King after he was deposed The Queen her self also had like to have been questioned and in the Roll 4 Edw. III. which gives an account of this matter he is stiled by all the Lords and the young King himself their King and Leige Lord. And in the 21 R. II. N. 64 65. the Revocation of the Act for the two Spencers Restitution in the Parliament of 1 Edward III. was repealed because made at such a time by King Edw. III. as his Father being very King was Living and Imprisoned These two Acts of Parliament Doctor do not at all agree with your Reasonings for the Providential King but they agree most exactly with the Reasonings of Some Men which you say contradicts the general sense of Mankind For as Mr. Pryn well observes they shew that Edw. II. was King de jure or King in the Eye of the Law as much after his Deposition as before it and by consequence that his Deposition by the Estates who had no Authority to Depose him was a void Act and if he was very King when he was in Prison and his Regnant Son's King and Leige Lord at the time of his murder as the aforesaid Acts declare him then Doctor I fear it will follow that a pure Providential K. in Possession is no King at all 11. But from this Usurpation let us pass to that of Henry IV. who was set up by Providence and the Estates of the Realm who took upon them to depose Richard II. and place Henry in his Throne But Henry being conscious to himself that he wanted Legal Right though he had all the Right that Providence could give him yet not daring to trust to such an airy Tite nor his false pretences of being the right Heir caused Richard to be murdered but between his Deposition and Murder Thomas Merks Bishop of Carlisle a Brave and Godly Prelate preferring his Duty before his Safety took the courage to make a Speech in Parliament against the Validity of Richard's Deposition and the Justice of Henry's Election and if you please Doctor to read this Speech as it is at large in our Historians you will find in spight of all your prejudice that he was a very Wise and Considering Man and entirely of these Mens Opinion and produced those Reasons for it which you say Contradict the general sense of Mankind in all Revolutions The first part of his Speech is to prove that a King may not be deposed by his Subjects for any imputation of negligence and Tyranny and to make this out clearly he brings an ugly Arbitrary distinction betwixt Kings in a Popular or Consular State which really have not Regal Rights but are subject to a Superior Power and Kings in whom the Sovereign Majesty is as it formerly was in the Kingdoms of Israel and Judea c. and now is in the Kingdoms of England Spain France and Scotland c. in which the Sovereignty or Supream Authority is in the King After this distinction which Some among us now use he asserts that in such Kingdoms where the Sovereignty is by Law in the King although the Prince for his Vices be unprofitable to his Subjects yea hurtfull yea intollerable yet they cannot lawfully harm his Person or hazard his Power by Judgment or by Force because neither one nor all the Magistrates have any Authority over him from whom all Authority is deriv'd and whose only presence doth silence and suspend all inferior Jurisdictions and Power and as for force saith he what Subject can attempt assist or counsel or conceal Violence against his Prince and not incurr the high and heinous Crime of Treason Then he proceeds to prove this as you do in your Case of Non-resistance from Examples of Saul and Ahab in the Old Testament and many Texts of Scripture Then he proceeds to answer the great Objection thus Doth the King enjoyn Actions contrary to the Law of God We must neither wholly Obey nor violently Resist but with a constant courage submit our selves to all manner of Punishment and shew our subjection by enduring and not performing Oh how shall the World be pestered with Tyrants if Subjects may Rebel upon every pretence of Tyranny How many good Princes may be suppressed by those by whom they ought to be supported If they Levy a Subsidy or other Taxation it shall be claimed Oppression if they put any to Death for Traiterous attempts against their Persons it shall be exclaimed Cruelty if they do any thing against the lust and liking of the People it shall be proclaimed Tyranny Having shew'd as his words are that King Richard was deposed without Authority Then he proceeds to shew that Henry had no Title First Not as Heir to Richard which he pretended for then he ought to stay till King Richard was dead but then if K. Richard was dead it was well known there were Descendents from Lionel Duke of Clarence whose Offspring had been declared in the High Court of Parliament next Successor to the Crown in case K. Richard should die without Issue Secondly Not by Conquest because a Subject can have no right of Conquest against a Sovereign where the War is Rebellion and the Victory High Treason Nor thirdly by K. Richard's Resignation because he made it in Prison where it was exacted of him by force and therefore it had no force or validity to bind him Nor last of all by Election for saith he we have no Custom that the People at pleasure should Elect their King but they are always bound unto him who by Right of Blood is Rightfull Successor much less can they make good or confirm that Title which is before Usurped by violence Then he saith that the deposing of Edw. II. which the Barons produced for an Example to depose Richard was no more to be urged than the Poisoning of K. John or the Murdering any other lawful Prince and that we must live according to Laws and not according to Example and that the Kingdom however then was not taken from the lawfull Successor Then after saying many other things he concludes thus I have declared my mind concerning this Question in more words than your Wisdom yet fewer than the weight of the Cause requires and boldly conclude that we have neither Power nor Policy either to depose King Richard or to Elect Duke Henry into his Place and that K. Richard still remaineth our Sovereign Prince and that it is not lawfull for us to give Judgment upon him and that the Duke whom you call King
that Right be in the King Senate or the People And to these saith he we are to reckon the Tutors and Guardians of young Princes as Jehoiada was to Joash when he deposed Athaliah From these Men whom you did not know I proceed to some of your Acquaintance and I hope Doctor you will not take it ill to hear them speak The first shall be Dr. Stillingfleet now Bp. of Worcester who is reputed a wise and considering Man and Writer that did not use to write Contradictions to the general Sense of Mankind and yet in several places of his * Vid. p. 58 80 81 83 85. Grand Question he hath asserted that several Acts of Parliament made by Edward III. in his Father's life time and by Henry IV. were null and void because they were Usurpers or in your Language Providential but not Legal Kings And in his Sermon before the Commons Novemb. 13. 71. He tells them that Providence doth not found any Right of Dominion but onely shews that when God pleases to make use of persons as Scourges he gives them Success above their hopes but Success gives them no Right The next is Dr. Burnet who in the first Part of the History of the Refarmation speaks of Henry IV. as a Traitor and Usurper and how doubtfully he speaks of Providence in his Sermon before the Prince at St. James's you may remember as well as I. The third is Dr. Comber who as I hear confesseth that he and others went too far but however I that think the Doctor as good an Author before as since the Revolution will not balk his Authority especially since he hath retracted nothing publickly and he saith on the Collect for the King That his Friends are our Friends and his Enemies our Enemies for whoever attempts to smite the Sheepherd seeks to destroy the Sheep and he is a mortal Foe to the whole Nation I know nothing so common with Rebels and Usurpers as to pretend Love to those they would stir up against their lawfull Prince but it appears to be Ambition and Covetousness in the latter end and such Persons design to rise by the fall of many thousands Or if Religion be the ground of the Quarrel besides our late sad Experience Reason will tell us that War and Faction Injustice and Cruelty can never lodge in those Breasts where that pure and peaceable Quality doth dwell If it be a foreign Prince that opposeth our King he is a Robber and unjust to invade his Neighbour's Rights If he be a Subject who riseth against his Sovereign he hath renounced Christianity with his Allegiance and is to be esteemed a troubler of our Israel Therefore whosoever they be that are Enemies to the King or whatsoever the pretence be we wish they may never prosper in that black Impiety of unjust Invasion or unchristian Rebellion How like a Saint and an excellent Casuist doth the Doctor write here but how this agrees with his Speeches Letters and Actions since the Insurrection at York Time and Opportunity of Printing will shew The fourth is Dr. Tennison who had occasion to consider your Doctrine long before it was yours in his Book entituled the Creed of Mr. Hobbs examined In his Epistle dedicatory to that Book saith he Mr. Hobbs hath framed a Model of Government pernicious in its consequence to all Nations and injurious to the Right of his present Majesty for he taught the People soon after the Martyrdom of his Royal Father that his Title was extinguished when his Adherents were subdued and that the Parliament had the Right for this very reason because it had Possession And in Art 8. p. 156. first Edit It is not for you to pretend to Loyalty who place Right in Force and teach the People to assist the Usurper with active Compliance against a dispossessed Prince and not merely to live at all adventure in his Territories without owning the Protection by unlawfull Oaths or by running into Arms against the dethron'd Sovereign And p. 157. I say then again that you give Encouragement to Usurpers and also when Civil Disorders are on foot as it happens too frequent in all States you hereby move such People as are yet on the side of their lawfull Prince whose Affairs they see declining streightway to join themselves to the more prosperous Party and help to overturn those Thrones of Sovereignty to which a while before they prostrated themselves The People thus mis-instructed will imitate those Idolatrous Heathens who for some years worshipped a Goddess made fast unto a Tree but assoon as the Tree began by Age and Tempest to appear decaying they paid no farther devotion to their Deity neither would they come within the shadow of the Oak or Image You see Doctor how this Author wrote then against Hobbs just as some among Vs write now against you and as well as you are acquainted with him yet I believe he would swell as big at you as at the sight of any Jacobite if you should tell him that the most sober and considering Men rejected his Reasonings as contradictory to the general sense of mankind The last Authority Doctor is your Great and Dear Self who not long since was a Man of those Reasonings and that Opinion by which some among our selves have the impudence since you were of another Judgment to contradict the general sense of Mankind I shall not trouble you with a review of your Writings before the Revolution but take you as you were almost two years after it whilst you were under the stupid Dispensation of slavish Loyalty nor as yet had discover'd the Mysteries of Providence but were as zealous as any of these Men to deferd Laws and legal Rights against the Events of it but whether factiously or not factiously as you * Vindic. p. 79 80. pretend some matters of Fact will shew I shall not insist on the half Sheet you published at the sitting down of the Convention against making the P. of Orange King but onely observe that then you supposed the Throne to be full and asserted That the Estates then convened could not give him the Crown because it was not theirs to give A little after this you wrote the Answer to Dr. Burnet's Enquiry which I mentioned before in which you assert in opposition to the Doctor that King James was a King not by governing well but by Birth right and could no more cease to be King by governing ill than a Traitor or a Rebel cease to be a Subject And this you proved from the paternal Relation of a Father who never cease to be a Father how great a Tyrant soever he be You also challenged the Doctor there to shew you any Law of God or our Country which upon any Cause dissolves our Allegiance and asserted that the Descent of the Crown must be governed by the Laws of the Land I must here tell the Reader that this Answer of yours was never published lest he should lose his labour in
Ease or Wellfare have by indirect Surmise Policies Practices Force and new Devices most Usurped upon the lawfull Prerogatives of their Kings or the Persons Lives Offices or Estates of such Nobles Great Officers and other persons of a contrary Party whom they most dreaded maligned and which have imposed new Oaths and Engagements on the Members to secure perpetuate and make irrevocable their own Acts Judgments and unrighteous proceedings have always proved most Abortive Successless Pernicious to themselves and the activest Instruments in them the Parliaments themselves being commonly totally Repealed Null'd and the Grandees in them Suppressed Impeached Condemned Destroyed as Traytors and Enemies to the Publick in the very next succeeding Parliaments or not very long after That Kings created and set up meerly by Parliaments and their own Power in them without any true Hereditary Title have seldom answered the Lords and Commons Expectations in the Preservation of their just Laws Liberties and Answers to their Petitions yea themselves at last branded for Tyrants Traitors Murderers Usurpers their Posterities Impeached of High Treason and disinherited of the Crown by succeeding Kings and Parliaments as you may read at large in the Parliaments of c. From these three last Observations we may learn that as Parliaments are the best of all Courts Councils when duly Summoned Conven'd Constituted Ordered and kept within their legal Bounds So they become the greatest Mischiefs and Grievances to the Kingdom when like the Ocean they overflow their Banks or degenerate and become through Sedition Malice Fear or Infatuation by Divine Justice Promoters of corrupt sinister Ends or Accomplishers of the private Designs and ambitious Interests of particular persons under the disguise of publick Reformation Liberty Safety and Sentlement You see Doctor here how Mr. Pryn distinguishes between legal Kings by Hereditary Title and Kings that are not legal and between Parliaments Convened and acting legally from Parliaments that are not so Conven'd and do not so Act But in your Providential Hypothesis which must damn all such distinctions as Groundless and Arbitrary it is enough that any Man Jack Cade or Oliver Cromwel be set up for King by the Estates of the Realm howsoever Conven'd and Acting Once the Estates of this Realm did most illegally call in a French King and set him up in the Throne and swear Fealty to him and if in the late designed French Invasion which if God had thought fit might have succeeded they had set up the great Oppressor of the Liberties of Europe then according to your Doctrine he must have been King and by your Principles and all the seriousness which the Subject of the Last Judgment requires you must and would have professed without any regard to the Recognitions of their Majesties right that you were his most faithful Subject and Servant To this Authority of Mr. Pryn I shall add that of Judg Jenkins who protested against the Power of the two Houses when they had made the King their Prisoner and usurped his Sovereign Authority and had power to crush his Majesty and much more any other Man in the Kingdom Shortly after Judge Jenkins printed his Protestation and a Justification of it from Law in which he declared he should hold it a great Honour to dye for the honourable and holy Laws of the Land It was for the King then and his Authority that he stood up against the Powers in being who were then in your 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and he asserted before them That Allegiance followed the King 's natural Person then Prisoner at Holmby And as for the times before him he declared that all Deposers of Kings were Traitors that Henry IV. was an Usurper and that Kings de facto are Vsurpers that come in by the Consent of the People This is the Doctrine of Judge Jenkins of famous Memory but yours Doctor is the scandalous Doctrine of presbyterian Mr. Jenkins and Mr. Baxter's Holy Common-wealth as has been observed by a plain honest Layman in a †Providence and Precept Book which he wrote against you and which I believe you can never answer I wonder how Dr. Grove your old Acquaintance who wrote against Jenkins takes it to have his Reasonings condemned by you as contrary to the general Sense of Mankind they were received with great Applause by all wise and considering Churchmen when they were first published and I do not hear he hath retracted them And therefore Doctor give me leave to make use of his Testimony among others to prove that the Reasonings of Some among our selves are not contrary to the general Sense of Mankind To these common Lawyers let me add the Authority of one Civilian the learned Sir John Hayward in his Answer to the First Part of a Conference concerning Succession by R. Doleman and to these single Authorities that of all the Judges in the famous Case of the Postnati which two of your learned ‖ d. p. 101. c. p. 37. Adversaries have cited against you viz. That Allegiance follows the natural Person of the King and that †Sir Francs Moorts Reports 79. it is not taken away though the King is expulsed by Force and another usurps When you were first acquainted with this Opinion of the Judges by a learned Lawyer you express'd your Satisfaction with Joy and talkt of printing the discovery but since you have taken the Oath their Authority signifies not a Straw for you are become the true Son of your Sire Leviathan who was above all Authority but his own To these Lawyers of our own Countrey I beg leave to add that of two or three foreign Lawyers whereof two are Scotish Men the learned Craigy and Sir George Mackenzy the former's Opinion is to be seen in a learned MS. of his entituled Thomae Cragii de Jure Successionis Regni Angliae Libriduo adversus Sophismata Personati Dolemani quibus non solum Jura Successionis in Regnis sed etiam ipsorum Regum Ss Auctoritatem nititur evertere The Opinion of the latter is to be read in his JVS REGVM or Defence of the Succession in Scotland and as he wrote in that Book so he lived and dyed a faithfull Subject or if you will Doctor a stupid Slave of Loyalty for he was one of these Men And it is well for you that he dyed when he did for had he survived in Health you and some other Writers would as I have been informed have soon heard from him The third is a Dutch Man of no small Authority even Hugo Grotius who was a wise and considering Man indeed and did not use to write Contradictions to the general Sense of Mankind but yet he as you have been told already by a very learned * aa p. 93. Man saith expresly in contradiction to your Doctrine †De Jar. Bell. Pac. l. 1. c. 14. that it is lawfull to kill an Vsurper if it be with the Authority of him that hath the Right to govern whether
favour of him from the Oath of Allegiance which the People had made to him from divers Acts of Parliament whose Authority was laid against his Title from the Entail of the Crown made by the Parliament upon his Father and his Heir and lastly from his Grandfather's Claim to the Crown as right Inheretor from Henry III. which Richard proved to be false And here Doctor I cannot but observe unto you that among all the Pleas which Henry and his Counsellors made use of to defeat Richard's Title they never thought of your Divine Title from Providence being so infatuated as not to attend to the General Sense of Mankind Wherefore Doctor either your Principles of Government are not the general Sense of Mankind or this Providential King with his Privy-Council and Great Council in Parliament were all bewitch'd that they could not think of them to stop the Duke of York's Mouth He advised with the greatest Divines and with the greatest Men both among the Common and Civil Lawyers and yet not one of them suggested the Title of Providence or full Providential Possession but had they hit upon it and urged it Richard would have answered them as he did to their Plea taken from their Oaths viz. that God's Commandments which prefer Right and Truth and Justice and not the Events of Providence are the Rule for them to walk by and that all Acts of the Estates against Law Truth and Justice are void and of no effect The same is as true of all Possession against Law Truth and Justice let it come by never such amazing Providences and therefore Doctor either your Notion of Providential Right is not agreeable to the general sense of Mankind or else Henry and his whole Council were out of their Wits and common Senses not to perceive it but in truth Doctor it became the general Sense of Mankind only since the Victory of the Boyn made it become yours From this Judgment of the Parliament 39 Hen. VI. I send you to the Judgment of another 1 Edward IV. which after reciting the Lineal Title of Edward Son of Richard Duke of York from Lionel Duke of Clarence and declaring how Henry Darby did rear War against Richard II. contrary to his Faith and Allegiance 2dly That he took upon him Usurpously the Crown and Name of King King Richard being in Prison and living 3dly That against God's Law Man's Legiance and Oath of Fidelity and in a most unnatural Tyranny he put him to Death They then declare That Edward rightfully amoved Henry VI. from his Occupation Intrusion and Vsurpation of the Realm and that he and no other ought to be their Lord and Sovereign by God's Law Man's Law and the Law of Nature and that Henry Darby called K. Hen. IV. his Son called K. Hen. V. and his Son called K. Henry VI. had against all Law Conscience and Custom of the Realm usurped the Crown and exercised the Government by unrighteous Intrusion and Vsurpation and if they did so then they had no Providential Divine Right I must also observe unto you that it was in this King's Reign that the distinction between the K. de facto to signifie the Usurper and the K. de jure to signifie the true legal K. was first used in Parliament and I appeal to your own Conscience if it be not yet feared whether that be an Arbitrary distinction and to be * XXIX p. 17 20. rejected as having no solid Foundation in Reason and Nature I will maintain that it hath as much Foundation in Reason and Nature as that famous distinction in the Civil Law betwixt Malae fidei and Bonae fidei Possessor But if your Reasons about Providential Right be true then this distinction also must be Arbitrary as to Possession of Kingdoms because no Man in full Possession can be Malae fidei Possessor of a Crown To these Authorities let me add those of the generality of the Nobility Gentry and Clergy of the late Usurpations They used the same distinction of Powers which you call Arbitrary the same reasoning which you call uncertain and were of the same Opinion which you say contradicts the general Sense of Mankind Dr. Sanderson whose Authority will be venerable and much greater than yours * Praelect V. is for that unchangeable Allegiance to the Legal K. out of Possession which you most prophanely call Stupid and Slavish Allegiance and in his Censure of Ashcham as one of your learned Answerers hath observed charges your Opinion with the these immoral Consequences 1. That it evidently tends to the taking away of all Christian Fortitude and Suffering 2. To the encouraging of daring and ambitious Spirits to attempt continual Innovations with this confidence that if they can possess themselves of the Supream-Power they ought to be submitted to 3. To the obstructing unto the Oppressed Party all possible means without a Miracle of recovering his just Right of which he shall have been illegally and unjustly dispossessed And lastly to the bringing in of Atheism and the contempt of God and Religion The Bishop of St. Asaph was very sensible of this last Consequence since he took the Oath for he told the A. B. with great Gravity and Seriousness That he could not but admire the Providence of God that so many took the Oath and some among whom saith he there are great and considerable Men have refused to take it for we saith he to my Lord who have taken the Oath have preserved our Religion from Popery and you who stand out preserve it from Atheism and if they do Doctor as you also once thought then their Opinion cannot contradict the general Sense that Mankind have of Right and Wrong I am sure the old Caviliers had the very same Sense that these Men to their sorrow have now for they both called Charles II. King and thought him to be so tho' he was out of Possession and out of the Land too Nay they took Commissions from him as King of England and sought for him as their King and not to make him so as you Sophistically speak in your * p. 27. first Letter concerning the French Invasion Nay the Convention that call'd him home call'd him in as King not to make him so and dated their first Session in the Twelfth year of his Reign which according to your Principles and Reasonings was but the First Mr. Pryn was one of the Members of it and his Sense and Opinion was point blank against yours as you may find at large in his * p. 463. to 498. Plea for the Lords and his Concordia Discors and I cite him because it was his studied Opinion and the Practice of his latter years was according to it as appears also from a Paragraph or two in his Preface to Cotton's Abridgment which I here declare I produce against no Person nor no Authority but yours That all Parliaments and Ambitious Self-seekers in them who under pretence of a Publick Reformation Liberty the Peoples
Estates of the Realm This Doctour I fear is the Spirit and these the Principles generally speaking of the Refugees and this Spirit and these Principles of which they give so many Signs obliged the King for his own Security to send their Ministers out of his Kingdom but he did not send them away empty he did not send them to the Galleys as you know who did What I have said Doctour is out of justice and not out of kindness to the French Monarch I am none of those that wish he may prevail and bear all before him like a Torrent but I do not like that he should be ignorantly and partially traduc'd by every soul mouth'd Pulpitier when were it not for his invincible Mistake in Religion he would be thought even by you one of the bravest Princes that ever wore a Crown Nor have I any ill Will at his Protestant Subjects I have been as great a Reliever of them in proportion to my Ability as any other Man in the Kingdom and should be glad to see a Vindication of them that I might have a better Opinion of them I grant the King hath persecuted them with very great Severity and made havock of their Church and am as sorry as you can be for it and for the Cause of it but then are there no persecutors among the Confederate Princes Look about you Doctor set the Acts and Edicts and Executions of other Princes against his and then you will find that other Protestants besides the French have been dragoon'd and lost their Estates their Lives their Liberties and their Countrey for Conscience sake In short the French Apologists tell us that the King persecuted them because they intended to persecute him This their own Consciences can tell them whether it be true or no and if it be true then their destruction is of themselves and they have brought down their Ruine upon their own Heads The Bishop of St. Asaph who foretold the Downfall of their King hath now foretold his Conversion and their Restitution It is some Months ago since he foretold that this would happen within a year God grant his Prediction may prove true it would make his Majesty a Constantine to his People But yet I fear that would not satisfie some Men nor reconcile their ulcerated Minds to him unless with the Popish Religion he quitted the Interests of King James This Doctor is another crowned Head against whom you love to croak All your malicious Speeches and Slanders of him and particularly those in your first and second Letter concerning the French Invasion are filed up in Heaven and shall be brought in Evidence against you at the great Day of Judgment when without publick and bitter Repentance you will appear at the left Hand with Cromwell Bradshaw Cook Milton and Thom. Good win and be sent with those Worthies of the Old Cause into your own place You cannot be content with sober and wise Men among your Brethren to say nothing of him or when you speak to speak of him as they do with Decency and Respect but you fall upon him as the Mob did at Feversham with a brutal Rage without any Regard to his Royal Name and Person or to her Majesty and the Princess whom you dishonour in reproaching of him For let me tell you Doctor the Disgrace of the Chief always terminates in the Clan and the Men of Honour will tell you they are bound to revenge it as soon as they have the Opportunity 16. In this Sermon you also upbraid him with his Misfortunes which no good Man can think of without the greatest degree of Compassion scornfully calling him the late unfortunate Prince It is true Doctor he is unfortunate but you should have remembred what Solon said of Croesus and that what happens to Kings may also happen to Divines You live now in great Prosperity and State but God may yet bring you down He can when he pleases take off the Wheels of your Chariot turn your Silver Candelesticks into Brass and your Wax Candles into Tallow and reduce you even beyond your first principals yet before you dye I wish this may not happen to you nor none of those who insult over the Calamities of that unfortunate Prince but if it do so remember you saw the Anguish of his Soul and had no Pity for him and then say therefore if this Distress come upon us One of the Nine Men when he heard him pitied had the Barbarity to say Why what matter is it He is but a Bastard St. Alban 's Bastard and it is great pity that her Majesty had not been told of it before he put on his Lawn Slieves We commonly say Misfortunes are no Crimes and before you upbraid him with them again remember his Father the Martyr of the Church of England was unfortunate before him and had this also added to the rest of his Misfortunes that he was reviled and had in derision by such Sons of the Earth as you But God supported him by his Grace and made him more than Conqueror and the same God which supported the Father hath also upheld the Son under his Misfortunes which let me tell you had never come upon him had you and your Brethren the Clergy done their Duty as some of them did And therefore methinks you should take no pleasure in ripping up his Misfortunes which are your Crimes He was unfortunate in you more than in his Lay Subjects You might have saved him as well as your Religion if you would have preached but half as much for him as you did for that but your general Silence in the needfull time betrayed him to all his Misfortunes and Now such as you among your Brethren are very sorry that they are not greater and mad against the suffering Remnant because they do not renounce him in his Misfortunes and murmur against God that hath preserved him and laid Help upon one that is mighty for him a mighty Prince who hath long maintain'd more Legions than the Roman Empire did at the highest Pitch of Greatness and who perhaps one day like Augustus and Trajan may inscribe upon his Medals coined upon such glorious Occasions REX PARTHIS REX ARMENIS DATVS for God seldom raises Princes to that Greatness but he hath something extraordinary for them to doe I must also remind you of another great Blessing which God who remembers Mercy in Judgment has bestowed upon him and thereby enabled him the better to bear the loss of his Kingdoms He hath given him of his most virtuous Queen a Royal * See the Observator published Monday Aug. 21. and Wednesday Aug. 23. 1682. Son and Daughter by whom I trust the Royal Family will be multiplied into many Branches and come to be restored to its antient Rights and Glory The Seed of the Royal Martyr is in them and I hope it is no Crime to pray that God would give them the sure Mercies of David and let them grow up like