or Dutch 't is all one to them they must follow their Instructions 4. There is one Thing yet behind concerning this Action of assuming the Throne which deserves your Observation And that is That these Gentlemen have not given us the last Sentiments that she her self had of it Had there been a Death-bed Declaration we might have believed she had been in good Earnest though as strangely and unaccountably Mistaken as ever Person was And to be sure had there been the least Tittle of this we should have had it rung through the Kingdom to fortify their Cause But the industrious Concealment of every Thing that she said relating to this is a Demonstration that she said nothing to their Advantage but the contrary Here was an Action that alarm'd the World stain'd the Glory of her Life and if Dr. Sherlock and Dr. Burnet may be believ'd was Grief and Sorrow to her self and 't is next to impossible but she must say something of this when she had a visible Prospect of her Death A meer natural Conscience without the Light of Religion must needs both inform and awaken her and indeed there are broad Whispers as if she had said something that was not very grateful to them If these Gentlemen knew nothing of it their Ignorance will excuse them but if they did 't is horrid Hypocrisy to conceal it It seems they were acquainted with the manner of her Dying Dr. Sherlock p. 24 saith She saw Death approaching without Fear and prepared to receive the Stroke with Calmness c. which nothing could give but an innocent Conscience And Dr. Wake p. 35. That for the Clearness of her Conscience his Two Arguments are The Easiness of her own Mind in her Life time and her appearing unconcerned as the prospect of her Death which saith he gave a final Evidence that she accounted her self prepared for it So that here is no Fact but Reasoning and Conclusions drawn from Premisses and 't is extreamly ridiculous to run to Inferences and Collections if they could have proved it by plain Words from her own Mouth 'T is therefore undeniable either that she said nothing at all which is one of the strangest Things in the World or that which she did say is directly against them and the great Care to suppress it is as great an Evidence of it as such a Thing is capable of And here we have the Difference between the two Causes in the trying Article of Death On the one Side We have Two Venerable and Reverend Bishops besides several others who have given the highest Evidence of their intire Satisfaction in their Principles and Practices by venturing their Souls in the same bottom with them and with their last Breath declaring it in the most solemn Manner and in the plainest Words On the other Side There is first one of their greatest Bishops dying without the least mention of the Cause although he himself had as great a Share in it as half a Score of some others And then the Death-bed of the Principal her self carries evident Suspitions of the clean contrary And the Conclusion from these Premisses and the Application and Improvement of this Point is this Let my Soul dwell with those Principles which though they may create me Trouble and Affliction while I Live yet I shall not be ashamed of them when I come to Die II. The next Thing is The Account and Reason he gives of Providence with respect to her Death And of this he tells us p. 23 24. That though we do not know the particular Reasons yet there are general Answers which may satisfy And his Answers are Two One with respect to our selves That God is Angry and by the untimely Death of an Excellent Princess threatens his Judgments unless we Repent The other is with respect to her and then the Answer is 'T is no Loss to change an Earthly Crown for an Heavenly Crown These are Reasons I shall neither dispute nor meddle with but there is another and a very particular one too which the Doctor might have seen if he had pleased and which certainly would never have escaped him on any other Occasion The Question as he puts it himself is concerning her sudden and untimely Death and being cut off in the Vigor and Strength of Age. And has the Doctor never heard of Rebellious and Disobedient Children not living out half their Days I shall not undertake to give any Reasons for this or any other Providence which Providence it self does not plainly and manifestly direct to That is enough for the Doctor to do who hath made more bold with Providence than ever Man did But when there is a Commandment to which a Promise of long Life is particularly and expresly annexed which plainly implies a Threatning of a short Life upon the Violation of it And when the Fact is Notorious and Manifest and a visible Providence following it punctually and in all Points answering the Divine Threatnings I am certain a Man may with more Safety and Modesty assign that as a Reason which God himself in particular threatens to that particular Fact This is not entring into God's Secrets but following the Conduct of his Commandments and interpreting his Providences according to those Declarations which God himself hath made in that very Case And I do not at all doubt to say That here was as great and open a Breach of the FIFTH COMMANDMENT as ever was in the World aggravated by many and heinous Circumstances as unnatural Ingratitude triumphing and persevering in it for a long time And all the Commendations these Gentlemen give of her great Knowledge Vertue and Piety are but as so many more Aggravations as thereby acting against a clearer Light and bringing a greater Dishonour and Scandal upon the Christian Religion and Profession However this is the very Case to which God threatens shortness of Life and here we have the Matter of that Threatning plainly exemplified in the untimely Death of this Princess But whether or no in this severe Providence her undutifulness to her Parents hath overtaken her or whether God hath cut her off in the midst of her Days for this or for any other wise and just Reason I am very certain that from hence there are two Things of practical Observation and which with these Gentlemens good leave deserve to be inculcated to the People on this solemn Occasion and as useful at least as any Thing they have said in their Sermons The one is That from hence Children be admonished to be more dutiful to their Parents lest their Lives also are shortned and they for their Disobedience cut off from the Earth in the Flower of their Age. These Gentlemen indeed have taken the contrary Method and as far as in them lies have tore up by the Roots all Filial Piety For if a Person living in the constant and plain Violation of this Duty may notwithstanding be magnified to the utmost stretch of Mens Wits and Understandings
magnify and advance that Interest as much on the other hand but both very shameless and you shall have a Touch of both I. Their goodly Method of Disparaging and Reproaching And this perhaps you may think foreign to the present Matter which concerns their Praising and Commending Faculty But however this though it seems the contrary Extream is in Truth not so wide of the Mark but like Lines drawn from the contrary Sides of a Circle centers in the very same Point For besides that these were designed for Shadows to set off the Picture they are shewing There are some Men in the World who have not one fair Quality to be commended and a Man cannot honestly say one good Word of them and yet it is necessary for our purpose that they should be commended and that very highly too And what is to be done in such a Case Why when you cannot do it directly you must go obliquely to your Matter and that must be done by Comparison which hath no positive Excellency of it self to admit of it As for Instance If I was to commend a Hawk and in particular for its Mildness Mercifulness Compassion That it is a Sweet-natur'd Bird and a great Benefactor Now to say this directly and without any more ado would look a little Scurvily and Men would not easily swallow such a Character of a Bird of Prey But then you must go to work artificially and tell them There is a terrible and rapacious Eagle that hath Talons as long as one's Arm and will swoop up a whole Flock at once and then your Hawk may look like a pretty and lovely Fowl and the Liberty and Property of the Birds are in a hopeful Condition though he eats Three or Four of them at a Breakfast and pulls all the Feathers from the Backs of the rest Now Sir according to this Method if you have a Mind to see the Character of a Great Prince thus it is in plain English (a) Dr. Sherlock before the Queen June 17. 1691. Great Oppressor Antichristian Tyranny and Powers and one who invades and usurps upon the Liberties of Europe This is in short but if you will have it enlarg'd take it as follows (b) Dr. Tillotson before the King and Queen Oct. 6. 1692. The Pride of all his Glory hath been stain'd by Tyranny and Oppression by Injustice and Cruelty by enlarging his Dominions without Right I pray mark that and by making War upon his Neighbours without Reason or even Colour or Provocation And this in a more barbarous Manner than the most barbarous Nations ever did carrying Fire and Desolation wheresoever he went and laying waste many and great Cities without Necessity and without Pity This is pretty well but you may have it again in other Words thus That (c) Dr. Patrick before the King and Queen Ap. 16. 1690. Grand Oppressor who hath endeavoured to exalt his Nation by nothing but Fraud and Forgery Perfidiousness and Perjury by breaking his Faith and violating Leagues and Solemn Treaties by Wrong and Robbery nay by the utmost degree of Cruelty and Barbarity This haughty Oppressor I say who hath ruin'd many other Countries as well as his own hath highly affronted the Divine Majesty as well as abused all Mankind with whom they had to do Who have been so Atheistical as to advance themselves by all manner of Falshood and Treachery Injustice and Cruelty having mock'd at those Vertues Truth and Honesty c. Once more and then I have done (d) Mr. Fleetwood before the L. Mayor Apr. 11. 1692. Who does not descend to treat Embassadors villanously but their Masters deals with them all as Vassals or as Children does not cut off their Garments to the middle but divests them of the Whole with mighty Scorn and Insolence and cuts not off their Beards but pares them to the Quick Is not at War with all his Neighbours only but with Faith and Honour Truth and Justice and Religion who knows no distinction betwixt Right and Wrong One in a Word That hath almost all the ill Qualities of all the Ancient and Renown'd Sons of Violence without the Shadow of their Vertues or Pretence to any of their Merits These Sir you must needs confess to be very high and extraordinary Flights and cannot chuse but operate and subdue our Faculties and entirely Perswade us But here I know you will ask And Perswade us to what Why that we in England are infinitely Happy and Easy That we know no Want Poverty or Calamity That those who have got the Government are the most Merciful Just and Righteous Persons in the World For thus you must interpret their Words or you mistake the Preachers Now this perhaps may be very Rhetorical but Rhetorick is a very dull Thing to perswade a Man contrary to what he feels Sure these Men think they have got an Ascendant over our Senses as well as our Consciences As if our real Oppressions and Miseries were nothing at all or were transmuted into Glories Bounties and Benefactions because forsooth there are a People on this side the Line who are more oppressed and miserable Just as if you should preach to a Man who hath his Fingers and Toes cut off That he must not Complain nor does he feel any Pain because there is a Man on the other side of the Water who cuts off Men's Legs or Heads Or just as if I should tell you That your Neighbour Lunt and his Tutor A. S. are the honestest People in the World for that there is one T. O. who hath swore through an Inch Board and Evidenc'd I know not how many to the Gallows which the other only design'd and by great Misfortune were not able to effect Alas Sir real and positive Mischiefs will not diminish into Nothing nor change their Natures by all the Degrees of Comparison and Wickedness is Wickedness let the Comparison be what it will And therefore suppose that all that these Men say were true most of which is notwithstanding false What is that to us We have Miseries enough at home without crossing the Seas and looking into other Countries What do they tell us of the Furies and Scorpions of France when we have in England too many Snakes and Vipers that suck our Blood and sting us to Death Let the French King be as great an Usurper as these Men would have him then that is the worse for him but never the better for us who have Usurpation enough nearer hand to make all our Hearts ake We know our own Oppressions and feel them sufficiently And 't is a pleasant Business to plaister us oâ—er with an idle Tale out of the Pulpit of Cannibals and Blood-suckers in the World of the Moon But since these Gentlemen are for the Terms of Comparison if you please we will follow them in their own way and I am very much mistaken if their own Methods does not turn upon them and fly directly in their Faces and those amiable
routed them with his very Looks Now Sir although there is not one Word of this strictly and literally true however it may have a Figurative use and some good Advantage may be made of a very bad Thing to flatter Men out of the Vices which they have and into the Vertues which they have not when they cannot otherwise be dealt with But the Flattery we are speaking of is quite another Thing 't is delivered from the Pulpit as Holy Language and Sacred Oracles and instead of bringing Men to Repentance and Restitution 't is design'd only to Sanctify than Vices to Polish and Guild over the most enormous Actions to Pamper a hard Conscience and to put a Theological Eucus on the deepest Crimes That is in the Prophet's Dialect To call Evil Good and Good Evil. To harden Men in their Sin and sow Pillows under their Elbows And so I come to Dr. Sherlock's Sermon at the Temple Dec. 30. which you must know was designed as a kind of Funeral Sermon on the Death of the late great Lady at Kensington and this was not a Province taken up out of meer Choice or singly allotted to him but the universal Subject of all the Sermons in and about the Town for that Day From whence you are given to understand That this was by order and direction from their Superiors and so you may take it if you please not for a Religious Commemoration but a Politick one to serve some Politick End of their Masters and perhaps of their own and what those Ends are you may easily see and I shall just touch upon as I go along And truly it looks as if their Instructions had been very particular and the Heads upon which they should discourse assign'd them for they all tell the same Tale and almost in the same Words However I am now upon the Doctor 's Sermon and what I have to remark to you is included in these Particulars As 1. The Character he gives the deceased Princess 2. The Account he gives of Providence in relation to her Death 3. An Excursion in Memory of an old Friend of his I. The Character c. And here I shall do what these Gentlemen never knew how to do if they thought it not for their Purpose and that is to speak Modestly of the Dead and therefore whatever Personal Vertues the Doctor or any other ascribe unto her I shall by no means meddle with Let them therefore say what they please of her Charity Affability Diligence and Devotion at Prayers I shall never envy at these Characters but heartily wish she had all those Vertues and many more but these are purely Personal and concern neither Them nor Us. But there is an Action of hers which very nearly affects them and which it highly concerns them to clear up as a Vertue or at least to make it Innocent or else all her Vertues if they were a Thousand sold more will do them no good But this they are either perfectly silent in or mention it so very slightly and poorly as if they were afraid to meddle with it or as if it no way related to her Memory or concerned themselves But these Gentlemen celebrate the Vertues of this Great Lady as the Regicides and their Brood defame the Memory of King Charles the First they load him with all the Vices they can think on to justify their Rebelling against and Murthering of him So these are full of her Praises that they may vindicate their taking an Oath of Allegiance to her Whereas those Things concern the Case neither of the one nor the other The single Question in which those are concern'd is not whether he was a Vicious King but whether he was a Lawful one So here the Question is not whether she was a Vertuous Woman but whether she was a Lawful Queen And as to this Point there are several Things worthy of our Observation as 1. They are so far from conceiving that the Assuming the Crown was a Vertue in Her that the Hypotheses they pretend to Excuse themselves by proceed upon the clean contrary Supposition Dr. Sherlock talks of nothing but the wickedness of Usurpation the wickedness of them that take the Government and God's over-ruling the wickedness of Men. He hath taken abundance of Pains and said all that he can and much more than is true in his Two vile Books to Excuse the Wickedness of Swearing but not one single Word to vindicate his Powers from Wickedness but supposes the direct contrary and upon that Supposition frames all his Arguments and Reasons A King de facto is another goodly Hypothesis and those who are craz'd with this Notion spend all their Arguments such as they are to prove it Lawful to pay Allegiance to such a King but not one of them says or thinks That 't is Lawful to be a King de facto And 't is impossible they should for a King de facto is opposed in their Sense to a King de jure and a Lawful King de facto is a Contradiction in the very Terms 'T is as if a Man should say Legal Illegality Honest Villany or Rightful Wrong one of the Terms is a direct Contradiction to the other Abdication let that Word mean what it will for they are not yet fully agreed about it can extend to none but the Person Abdicating and therefore in an Hereditary Monarchy the Right descends to the next of the Line and I suppose by this time all the World is satisfied of the Legitimacy of the Prince of Wales So that let their Hypotheses be what they will they all sit very heavy on her and the Excuses they make for themselves are but so many broad Accusations of Her For let force excuse as much Submission as Dr. Sherlock pleases it can never excuse it self Let a King de facto warrant as many Oaths as they think fit it can never warrant the invading and exercising an Authority which of Right belongs to another Let Abdication justify the setting aside one Prince it can never justify the setting aside another who hath not Abdicated So that turn their Hypotheses which way you will and grant them all they demand They all load her in this Point as hard as the warmest Jacobites and make this Action highly Faulty by their own Principles They are very industrious indeed to shake off all Injustice from themselves but then they do as industriously lay it at her Door And any Man who reads the numerous Pamphlets that have been wrote on this Occasion will find That they are contented to lay all the Blame on her and her Husband that they may shift it from themselves And therefore Dr. Sherlock hath mistaken his Compliment which he so frankly bestows upon some among our selves in his last Sermon p. 15 Her greatest and most implacable Enemies had no other Fault to charge her with but her Throne For it is the very fault that they themselves charge her with and before they can quit