Daniel and the Revelations to be accomplisht in England only But other Prodigies so much talked of and still believed by many there is no truth in them For the Saddles said to rise out of the Earth are now as confidently said to come to nothing And all the groanings of men and shrieks and cries of women and children as if under some bitter torments said by a weekly Intelligence about 17. Months since to have been heard at Edgehil in Warwickshire are notoriously false What is become of the Army and the audible reports of Guns said to have been seen and heard at Hatfield some time this winter Where are the Armies reported to have been seen in the air in Leicestershire Where is the blazing Star said to have been visible several nights to people about VVarwickshire and elsewhere I might give in a long relation of Prodigies that have had no being but only the fears fancies and mouths of the people I find a whole heap of such stuff raked up together in a book printed An. Dom. 1662 or 61. wherein we are told of a Drum beating at certain times in a well in Oundle in Northamptonshire and of the waters turned to blood at the time the said Drum was heard which continued by fits such a space that people came many miles and were frequent witnesses to those things but when my self some time after inquired of the truth of this relation I found the inhabitants of the place wholly strangers to any such matters And divers other very monstrous relations from which nothing can be learned but the vanity falshood and religious frenzies of some great zealots By which wild extravagancies they would perswade men to believe that even Heaven it self gives approbation to their cause that the Stars fight in their courses for them that even Nature goes out of her common paths to make way for them that all the Elements and whole Juries of the creatures give in their verdicts for them whence it must needs be concluded that they are Chara Dei Soboles the people of God and the offspring of Heaven Though I know no greater evidences of an overgrown hypocrisie and pride yet it is strange how wonderfully those devices take with the people for whilst every party are of so different interests and Religions yet they all receive these things with such religious regards that they will undertake to spell out of them the fall of Princes the revolution of Government and the advance every one of his own party though as inconsistent together as the present establishment and themselves Now whilst it is made a very heavy charge upon the Church of Rome that they uphold their Religion by officious lies and pious frauds all parties amongst us do the very same thing For by these stratagems men gather keep and increase their parties for poor well-meaning people seldom question the truth of such pretended Prodigies but receive them as signs from Heaven sent to condemn what they dislike and approve what themselves espouse and as assurances that in little time God will appear for them Whereas would men speak truth all those spreading parties would soon shrivel to a little substance And that we may not be overtaken with the error of the times and the strong delusions the Scripture mentions we should be careful not to make Prodigies the touchstone whereby to try the truth of a Religion the lawfulness of a Government or the goodness of a cause Nor should we receive the reports of any Prodigies till we see sufficient confirmation and good reason to do so By which means we shall exclude many of those fears that otherwise may terrifie and discompose us For as peoples attendance to such things is the greatest evidence of unsetled minds and reaching after some new thing so it is the ready course to hurry men into rash Counsels and those precipitant actions they may afterwards have all the reason in the world to repent But we should bottom our selves upon the best foundation which is a good life and a clear conscience from all forbidden things and works of darkness and then we need not be much concerned what colours may be hung out from the battlements of Heaven but may compose ourselves into a faith and confidence that whatever comes it shall be well with us and therefore not fear though the Earth be removed and the mountains cast into the sea 4. Many men are mightily moved to such sentiments viz. of the necessity of a resistance by evil reports raised on Governours For while we should not revile the Gods nor curse the Ruler of the people Exod. 22.28 it is become the humor of the times to blast their names and bespatter all their Actions Were they never so vile this can be no part of our Religion but is the work of him who is an accuser of the brethren and therefore is called the Devil from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to calumniate or slander But we may observe that all the Actions of Governours are backwards and forwards turned to evil For while any part of the Army raised for Flanders were in Arms they are said to be kept up to secure our ruine when they are all disbanded the design must needs be to leave us naked and exposed to slaughters This time was two year there was no Fleet out the reason of which was said to be that we might lye open to Forreign Invasions when the King would have set out a Fleet in April 1679. the design must then be to impoverish the Nation These two instances may mind the Reader of many others of like nature from which it is most palpably plain that a Spirit of jealousie in some men and evil intendments in others make dangers where they cannot find them and where there is no Bear nor Lyon in the way will affright fools with their own shadows But where men know no more than what is told them and easily receive whatever is offered it is no wonder that the ignis fatuus of pretended Prodigies and the black representations of Governours and Government bring them to their wits end and make them think there is no safety left when the greatest dangers may be of their own making It is from hence that as I have often observed the same times have two faces the one blear-ey'd and alwayes weeping the other more fair and comely For go amongst the common people of the Town hear their stories and you will think the world is at an end for you shall see nothing but Signs in the Sun and in the Moon and on earth Goblins and Furies distress of Nations mens hearts failing them for fear and for looking for the things that are coming on the world but discourse with men that are more wise and observing who fetch their knowledge from the things themselves not from the reports and sentiments of others and we find a place still left for hope and a comfortable enjoyment of our selves and what evil
obligation of honouring their Father by which even Presbyterian Writers Mr. Dod in particular understand not only natural Parents but Kings with the natural and indispensable duties of tribute custom fear and honour Rom. 13.7 We may yet further observe that the Jewes had really such a Tradition which our Saviour there overthrows but we have no such Law therefore these Pleas run upon a false presumption and have no foundation and therefore are false in themselves and need not the authority of a Divine command to the contrary to put them to shame and silence I wish such men would consider that by such corrupt discourses they utterly destroy that argument which themselves are ready enough to use in order to the perswading Princes to beat out Popery and to establish the Protestant Religion in their Dominions drawn from their own safety among Protestants and dangers among Popish subjects since resistance is favoured justified and practised by both Where was the safety of King Charles the First among Protestants What is the difference between an Ax and Poison or a Pistol What is the difference between the Popes absolving some Subjects from their Allegeance and your teaching that no Allegeance or duty is owing to some Princes What difference between the Popes disposing of Crowns and your setting up an Usurper Here is no room for any unless a School distinction which is sometimes so nice that the difference is not to be found But you will say that Princes are secure enough among Protestants when they rule well but I pray who must be Judge of that Even your own selves and then the meaning is they are safe while they rule according to your own minds but not otherwise and so much safety there is for them amongst the worst Papists in the World Therefore resisters utterly destroy this argument and lose the great advantage they might otherwise have made of it It is then neither our interest nor duty nor the priviledge of our Laws to make resistance against Authority But there are doubtless divers motives and considerations yet remaining from which the fondness of some men and the subtilty of others raise a fancied necessity of such proceedings else they think they are all undone Horse and Foot Soul and body for else say they Popery will come in for nothing is now likely to keep it out but the Sword To which I answer 1. When the Heathen Emperours commanded the Christians to deliver up their Bibles and by confiscation of Goods imprisonments deaths and all possible artifices and cruelties endeavoured to root the name of Christians out of the World might not they have said nothing but standing on our guards can save us Yet in the time of Tertullian they told the Emperour that they had Christians in his Armies in every Town and City that they wanted not Arms men nor courage to defend themselves from persecuting hands yet they dare do no such thing because their Lord and Master Christ Jesus had left them no other weapons but prayers and tears And what was the issue God carried them through all those fiery Tryals and increased them as he did the Israelites of old under the very means used for their extirpation It is God that rules over all and his providence extends to the meanest creatures not a sparrow falls to the ground without his will be sure then that his Church shall not be left to the will of his enemies any further than serves the wise ends of his providence The Jews when few and weak were preserved in the midst of a world of enemies the Christian Church upheld in the bosome of an Heathen Empire who patiently submitted to all severities and waited milder providences till he pleased to bring them forth to the light and shew them his righteousness Mic. 7.9 These all trusted in God and were delivered Why then should we be faithless as if the Lords arm were shortned that he cannot help us This in Rev. 13.10 is called the Faith and Patience of the Saints that they suffered and would not resist persecuting Governours And indeed such resistance most plainly evidences the want of Faith and Patience both for men first doubt God will not deal well by them and then resolve right or wrong to carve for themselves And for this reason God is more glorified and Religion more advanced in unjust sufferings than in unjust resistance because in such sufferings men shew their Faith their Hope their Patience Fortitude and other graces which evidence the excellency of the Christian Religion by which they wearied and overcame their fiercest persecutors and moreover the wisdom goodness and power of God is more clearly seen in their preservation and deliverance when men sit still and see the Salvation of God than when they seek by humane policy and strength to save themselves for this speaks both their weakness and derives a reproach upon the Religion they profess and also disposes themselves and others to attribute what safety they have not so much to God as to themselves 2. The doing evil that good may come on it never ends well Where I pray is all the fruit and gain of the last Civil War What is the Protestant Religion the better or Protestants the safer thereby Nay what have not both suffered since then and as we may undoubtedly affirm for that very cause For are not the confusions of our Religion and the danger of us all both occasioned by our present differences and these differences occasioned by that resistance and the lawless liberty it took to it self greater now than ever God commonly payes men in their own Coyn. Thus upon the Babylonish captivity God told the remains of the people Jer. 42. that in case they would continue in their own Land he would build and not pull them down v. 10. But if they would go into Egypt for fear of the Sword and Famine which they afterwards did do then v. 16. The Sword which you feared shall overtake you there in the Land of Egypt and the Famine whereof ye were afraid shall follow close after you in Egypt and there shall ye dye Divine Justice overtakes men in their own wayes and snares them in the works of their own hands making those very courses whereby they would keep off judgments to prove their ruine I am sure the Jews found it so for John 11.48 they plead the necessity of crucifying our Saviour in order to the preservation of themselves and their Religion If we let him thus alone all men will believe on him and the Romans will come and take away our place and Nation and for that very sin God brought the Romans upon them who indeed took away their Place and Nation too And if these things are written for our example upon whom the ends of the World are come we cannot in any reason think we may run into those great sins of Rebellion and murther which are a breach of so many Gospel precepts and so contrary to
the example of Christ and all his Apostles out of a design to secure our Religion but we must expect a curse upon our proceedings Did men but seriously consider that the last war which was pretended purposely to keep out Popery proved so mighty and suddain an inlet to it that it had almost overtaken us and the reasons of men cannot think of any thing which in those circumstances was like to have kept it off but his Majesties restoration they must needs see the finger of God in that judgment and own it exactly parallel with the two instances just before us unless in this only that it did not proceed to an utter ruine And if men shall use the same methods not only condemning things for Popery which are not so as the Church of England and Church-men who have done an hundred fold more to confute and bar out Popery than all the parties in England besides can pretend to but shall actually oppose the Powers too which were the two instances of the madness and error of the late times I shall expect the sin shall breed and bring forth that judgment which they fear and which shall destroy the Actors of it Truth needs not our lie but abhors it nor will Religion be supported by the hand of sin any more than the wrath of man can work the righteousness of God 2. Some are further confirmed in the perswasion that nothing but resistance can save us from hence that they see but little execution of Laws upon Papists I answer That it cannot be denyed but that some Protestants have abundantly outdone the Papists even in those very things for which the Papists are condemned For did the Papists design the murther of the King and alteration of the Laws and Religion established and I pray did not some Protestants actually do all this in the memory of thousands amongst us and that in the most open and daring methods the world hath ever heard Yet I can find but ten executed for all those Murthers and Usurpations and which is the complement of all for the murther of the late King beyond the example of all ages and the banishment of this Look back to May 1679. when the Scots most barbarously butchered Dr. Sharp their Arch-Bishop and to the Rebellion which it seems uses to begin with the Bishops that broke out in the same month and their standing a Battle with the Kings Forces of all whom and for all which wickedness which is death by the Law as well as any thing charged upon the Papists I could never understand that above two suffered Whereas about twenty of the Papists have suffered within two years and three Months last past Therefore we may with more truth and reason affirm the procedure of the Laws more slow against Protestant than agaist Popish offenders What reason then have some Protestants to complain of the slow paces of Laws in judgment and execution when themselves are the greatest sharers in the mercy And if from hence a party should increase and their sentiments advance the faster the advantage is more their own than those mens whom they complain of Nor have any among us any cause from thence to conclude the inclination of the Powers either this way or that but must impute it to clemency and mercy which hath ever been accounted an admirable qualification of persons in Authority and ought to oblige all honest and ingenuous men to a more free and hearty love and obedience And that the Lords in the Tower are not yet tryed is very unjustly made a reflection on the King For there is no man that knows and considers things but must if truth and honesty may speak own that the cause is not in him For no Prince in the World would have left them more freely to justice than the King hath done especially to the Parliament that sat in October 1680. For that part of the Speech which relates to them seems somewhat pressing in this particular when the Lord Stafford was tryed and Sentenced to death he quickly suffered and that no more of them were tryed at or about the same time was not in any thing that his Majesty hindred Therefore though I do not blame that Parliament who best knew the reasons of their own Actings yet I must in justice and for the cause of truth as well as the better satisfaction of the people argue against every evil surmise and imputation that in this affair is cast upon the King Men are very ready to shoot their bolts and make every thing they fancy a miscarriage to be the Kings evil but when men are told and their reasons pressed upon these considerations I cannot hear any one so unjust to his own faculties as to maintain the charge against his Majesty But indeed we that are subjects should study to be quiet and mind our own business and not meddle with persons and things above us Though I must needs confess that some reasons we have no more of settlement yet is rather from the crys and vogue of the people than from the Policies of the King For when men will not hear of the Tryal of the Lords in the Tower unless they first see the Bishops routed When they desire not to see Popery excluded unless they may first see the Protestant Religion laid open by a Liberty a Toleration of all Sects persons and things When men would not the King should have four penny-worth of Taxes till he shall give away eight penny-worth of Prerogatives When they would not have Tangier and the Trade of the Nation secured till the King leave himself and friends indefensible When they would not have the Papists beat down unless they may be made capable of setting up themselves When every man must be a Church-Papist or a Field-Meeter which is in plain English a bold Rebel It is no wonder there be rubs in the way and a great distance between our selves and that security and settlement we long since expected And that the blame is still laid upon the King is but the old way to blacken his Majesty whereby to make men that have more faith than reason more honesty than wit or knowledge to become his enemies It was indeed the sad fate of the late King that he was mis-represented by some and mis-understood by others of his Subjects as a favourer of Popery but now all men that will see and acknowledge the truth place him in the rank of true Protestants and the best of Kings And I doubt not but the Ages to come will acquit his present Majesty from any such imputation since the designs upon his Person from the Popish Party have been so many and so desperate since he hath so constantly declared for the Protestant Religion as it is established by Law and since he hath done so much for the security and preservation of the same and since he hath condescended to offer any safe and reasonable expedient for the security of the fame under a