others tears of compassion It is a work worthy the Disciples of Christ as often to weep for themselves so with tears to water the barrenness of such hearts as know not the curse to which they are condemned and if God so please thereby to make them fruitful to repentance not to be repented of that sorrow which is the assured Page to felicity Amen REturn O Lord unto the many thousands of thine Israel thou and the Ark of thy strength return we pray thee and have mercy upon thy people Preserve the Head and members of this Realm even all the people of the land from the highest to the lowest and unite us in Christ Jesus Distractions have crept in among us so that by the pretensive honour of thy name thy worship is made even the reproach of the multitude It is time for thee O Lord to work for they have by the name of religion made void thy Law that high Injunction Fear God and honour the King Lord how long shall the wicked how long shall the wicked triumph how long shall they utter hard things and the very workers of iniquity boast themselves Should not all who name thy name depart from iniquity yet there is a sort of men in whose mouth thou art near but far from their hearts O God the God of thy people and their portion for ever we pray that all who are called by thy name may have no aims but thy sole honour neither suffer thou thy religion to be in our mouths to cover the deceitfulness of our hearts running after iâ—â—trange God If any of us should be willing to believe if we should have any reason to think we had deserved more then ordinary yet let the greater truth overcome this reason assuring us that we can never do more then duty requireth for God our King and countrey But as we hope by thy especial grace preventing us we shall never do a good work to a bad end so not attempt to pull down thy Church by performing any part of our Allegiance But it was thou not man who didst set thine Anointed upon high for thy Churches establishment Rebuke therefore those tumultuous Zealots who being enemies to Christian felicity while they pretend to divine peace have no other method for it than by making war upon his and their own Souls Let not the rebellious Children exalt themselves neither their devices prosper for they have imagined evil against thee When they speak great swelling words of vanity fill their faces with shame and confusion and their mouths with the fruit of their own lips Yet rather if it be thy will let thy mercies overtake them then thy judgements that knowing the errours of their lives they may hereafter take pleasure in sincere obedience rejoycing in thy testimonies as in hid treasure Reduce all who have erred from thy commandement and put into their hearts a desire to follow the prescriptions of Religion Reason and Convenience which are the best Counsellours of both Prince and people And forasmuch as our help standeth in the Name of the Lord who made Heaven and Earth not to our selves be the praise of Restauration given but to thy glorious Name Do thou whose countenance doth uphold the upright rejoyce the hearts of such as have therein served thee disdaining the petty triumphs of vain glory and seeking of no recompence but thy favour which indeed exceedeth all that we can desire O that our ways were made so direct that we might keep thy lawes for thy sake and Love thee because by thy mercies in thy best Beloved thou leadest us to good actions stirring up in us a burning zeal to the immortal honour of thy most sublime and infinite Majesty Whom have we in Heaven but thee What can we desire on Earth without thee O how wonderfully blessed are they whose light and defence thou art first guiding them to good and afterwards fortifying them against the strong temptations of self-admiration We are then best when least ourselves then strongest when desparing of help in our selves we put all our confidence in thy wonder working arm and having our desires fulfilled do submissively and faithfully acknowledge thee the good Author of success Thine is the Kingdome the Power and the Glory To thee therefore alone we recommend the tuition of him whom thou hast given to be a Prince and a Ruler over us Remove from him as lying lips so the deceitfull tongue and also far out of his sight the sinner that goeth two wayes Let his right hand find out break in peices and scatter all those who hate him let his enemies lick the dust before him Give him knowledge to Crush out the malignant humors which in some are predominant to their ruin Let the humours be dispelled but the men preserved that all his people may be of one mind endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace Adorn us who profess a Faith in thee outwardly with the fair fruits of good works and beautifie our Souls as meet for thine approbation and love with reality of pious intentions Then will our obedience please thee as the best of offerings then wilt thou be our glory and the lifter up of our Head for ever Amen Our Father which art in Heaven c. CHAP. V. Of the different murmurings of all Parties IT is not so much to be admired that men ever looked upon as high mindded and insincere should by the ill breath of their own commendations blast and raise a scab upon the graceful countenance of a good deed as that amid such variety of Blessings as God hath by his Majesties happy return shoured down upon this whole nation the shrill voyces of complainers have and do drown the most acceptable acclamations of thankfulness Being full of the coelestial Manna we become wanton and will not want words to reproach the Giver Every condition is fairer and more contenting then the present so much do our thoughts run division and we abhor the touch of the same string twice together We desire yet frustrate our selves of the enjoyment of our desires obtained by giving nourishment to new desires We droop under one want which is scarce removed but we beg others and more intollerable When we roar for very disquietness of heart being born down by some weighty calamity it commonly happeneth that deliverance was never so acceptable that we were never so weary of the burthen as we quickly become weary of ease The man in the Gospel who had the Devil cast out and the possession of his own home wholly to himself could not in his heart enjoy a colitary blessing nor retain a profitable guest but after sweeping and garnishing his house readmitteth his plague and with him seven more worse than himself That which of a place of misery had begun to be a Paradise how soon doth he convert it into a real Hell what greater misery than to be still jerked with our restless fancy and tossed by our
observed by one that the greatest disease of distrust Dalinâ—â— lib. 3. A◠〈…〉 and most incurable is in him who hath wronged his Prince whose guilty Conscience feedeth on fearful distrust 〈◊〉 just occasion be offered These un◠〈…〉 â—rits although they have promised 〈◊〉 sworn Allegiance yet sound Reason 〈◊〉 biddeth any too confidently to trust thâ—m whose refuge is Medea's Absolution Quae scelere pacta est scelere rumpetur fides What they perfidiously swear they will as deceitfully break Peace they love no longer than necessity compelleth them to it debarring them the opportunities of Commotions which they most artificially court and diligently solicite Rather than not commit their beloved sin they will tempt all occasions till they find a way to advance both it and its interest Therefore they violate truth obligations duty and conscience lest any of these should by the help of inquisitive fear make them see and pursue better things They who adore impiety making the successes thereof their Paradise must reer their conscience and do abominate scrupulous niceties onely using the name of good for the greater confusion of such as embrace the substance TO know whether their devises tend we must guess by the rules of contrariety their meanings having ever contradicted their professions They pretend to reformation but let such as have had the most aged experience of their performances speak plainly and acquit others of the dangers of fallacies We might well think the subversion of a Kingdome to be no good Physick for the Church therein neither that civil wars which do license misdeameanour can introduce good manners Their words had heretofore instead of more soundness infused madness into the people and too much action heightened the distempers of the Nation which convenient rest will qualifie Until they prescribe this they will never be good Physicians Give it this and each part of the body will thereupon be reduced to its order and duty When temperance guideth those who now trouble themselves and others we may have just cause to Hope for the so much discoursed Reformation But no encouragement is there for us to suppose that they can ever do others good who do themselves so much harm in being the professed factours of disobedience men who make it their sole employment to bring up an evil report upon God's inheritance and to stir up the peoples malignity against the King and Church They who taught the Israelites the scurrilous lessons of reproachful taunts against the Prince and the Arch-Bishop Moses and Aaron brought a plague upon themselves and the misadvised tribes yet did they pretend a remedy against some I know not what evils There can no plague prove so destructive as this spreading one brought in by sedition which to our great sorrow and shame hath been known to search and sweep each corner and part of these miserable Kingdomes and when after its long rage by discontinuance we hoped for respite by these poysonous blasts it threatneth anew its return and triumphs But God we trust will make these menaces to be but the regardless puffes of angry vanity For these Hopes we have ground from the rich authority of God's word which testifieth that He who hideth hatred with lying lips and he that uttereth a slander is a fool And then we are sure that he answereth the fool according to his folly God can do what he pleaseth and is most gracious and merciful whom we ought earnestly to beseech that he would not use these men as the scourge of our transgressions neither make us a rebuke unto the foolish But certainly such as have seen the event of those former dishonorable reports raised and kept on flight by the complicies of rebellion cannot otherwise judge of the same things again practised but that the intents are the same and would produce the like effects did not God's mercy prevent and frustrate He who rebuked the winds and the Sea roaring against the Church both in Christ the Head and the Disciples the Members who with with a Peace be still quieted the loud voyce of the disobedient winds and laid the rude tumult of the rebellious waves can soon subdue these pestilent tongues and he who doth Let them from proceeding further in mischeif will we need not doubt still let until they be taken out of the way BUT to see of what a various and partly-coloured substance Hypocrisie is composed would make any one much to marvel how such antipathies could be combined in one body to make a publique cheat Nil mortalibus arduum est Caelum ipsum petimus stultitia Men alarm Heaven it self as if they would O wretched Age pull God's Children out of his bosome and all pretensively for his sake who abhorreth the cruelty as much as he disowneth the service The Church being reproached and the King the Head thereof aspersed with calumnies they say it is all for Religions sake and Gods glory of vain are some to shake hands as that glorious Martyr observed with their allegiance K. Char. I. and obedience under pretence to lay faster hold on their religion These filthy dreamers how regardless they are of so grant a crime as the despising Dominions and speaking evil of Dignities nay of fathering the same upon God as if he took not vengeance of villanies but countenanced and rewarded them They cast out the name of religion to beguile some silly souls pleading God's Ordinance and will for what they sacrilegiously attempt against his Anointed ones as if that spotless Purity and purely perfect Vnity were too liberally divided into contradictions of its own writ and patern But he is the same ever constant and good God who so far detesteth such wickedness that by the decree of his dreadful justice is ordained for such reprobates a place of endless bitterness and torment with the Divel and his Angels company and reward suitable to such galiish spirits which triumph intortured reputations and bloody delights into which the weight of their sins will most deeply repress and over-whelm them Sin is a weighty evil and sins against Authority are excessive but the largest term is too narrow for this which capaciously compriseth a design against the Powers coelestial and terrene Into the inferior parts of the bottomliless pit where the dregs of treasured fury must this soaring ambition unrepented of irrecoverably fall O let us humbly Sollicite Heaven begging for them the rescue of repentance and the expiatory blood of that Innocent Lamb whom they Religiously revile and persecute Let not their reproachful words sound louder than our importunate prayers God is gracious who knoweth but that he may turn and have mercy upon them although their provocations have never so impetuously resisted his Clemency BUT although many whom they injure doubtless forget not this holy Office this Divine Charge given by him who did vouchsafe to be a General Satisfaction and the Saviour of all yet these would if possible discourage all good and by their continuance or
be open to the frequent demands of State-Collectours These and the like or worse seditious murmurings grate those eares which had sometime been delighted with more pleasing language So doth the humourous changling who preferreth himself before all the world yet hath not the wit to love himself aright shew the deceitfulness of his heart that although he sometimes speaketh well there is not a greater stranger to well-meaning There is no time or thing which cometh a miss to him who is resolved to let loose his tongue into any manner of language and of all other the Father of mischeifes hath for these his industrious Sons in the first place instructions to obloquy as the most plain and easie Biting is sutable to a malicious nature and envy taketh occasion to spit venome at any thing which thriveth These evils although in some respect we call them natural are yet but the distempers of nature and the depraver Satan who undermining our reason and taking advantage of our fluctuating opinions by certain diabolical injections sometimes utterly disolveth whatsoever in the whole man is noble and Divine and too too commonly bringeth it almost to despair From him come causeless jealousies fears and discontents they are his work and contrived for mans overthrow But God the Authour of peace and lover of Concord religiously invocated soon cleareth these mists which the Deceiver casteth before our wronged judgment While we adhere to the dictates of his sacred Spirit pride and self love the causes of discontens are removed With which whosoever is filled is apt to be strict in examination of other mens actions and to procure to himself trouble from conceits of disrespect want of love forgetfulness of worth and the like But meekness and pure devotion will work for us better satisfaction and give every one to understand it to be his duty to be thankful to him who giveth abilities rather then to be impatiently disloyal in the love of bewitching discontent and producing its broods of impieties I call it without injury bewitching it being that Harlot which calleth passengers going right in their way saying whoso is simple let him turn aside hither It enticeth none but the ignorant them it bewitcheth to its counsells and wayes Men who cannot hold a stedfast progresse in that good which they have opportunely fallen into cannot but together with their folly manifest a base incontinence delighting in painted harlots and evils disguised under the colour of good They who with their tongues sometime so much magnified the royal cause and seemed exceedingly zealous of the glory of God had even then as is most evident some other ends which they would more willingly pursue some castles which they were building in the air some upon the sands but although discoursing of it they were forgetful of the Rock whence they were hewen and the Heaven to which they should aspire It is an ill token of Love in those who pretending a longing for the Kings return which they could be content to purchase at any rate O the pity that so noble a passion should be so short liv'd and happen to meet with a floating habitation whether of life liberty or estate all temporalities and present blessings together that these should as much as others let loose their tongues to all manner of repining complaints and seditious murmurings that these should by the impurity of their words soyl that glorious garment of Loyalty and break the well accepted bands of sacred allegiance Oh? that they would but discreetly and to their assured safety consider from how blessed an estate they have run in how bad a condition they at present are to what danger what misery they post away Having that upon easie terms which they wished for upon any whence cometh the dislike or what occasioneth the grief The blessing too cheaply obtained is slighted yet the complaint speaketh greivvances and burthens intolerable These ways however they seem right in some eyes yet surely the end thereof is the way of death Undoubtedly the bacâ—slider in heart will be filled with his own ways and he who will not be constant to the entertainment of his prosperity shall by inconstancy weary it and make it forsake him The forementioned wishes and the joyes of the ensuing successe had perseverance crowned them could not have been sufficiently extolled But how are the desires extinguished how is the joy abated how hath darkness seized upon those temples of piety which were sometime bright with the lust of a coelestial fire To see a bad beginning have a good end is very much desireable but to have the former part of life bedecked with ornaments of dignity and the later disfigured with the strange contrariety of base and sorded rags is such an odious evil as maketh the eye which behold'st it almost hate the light by means whereof it had so unwelcome a spectacle Such are these who are either sluggish or false in the best time who upon victory obtained forsake the field and releive the vanquisht enemy For so it is The murmurings of those who deny the King due aid doth give heart and impious succour to the rebel who seeketh nothing but an opportunity to act over his old villanous commissions And thereby do these men punish themselves and the backslider cometh to be filled with his own ways By their clamours they wheâ— the appetites of some who were alway too sharply set upon innovation The murmurers corrupt the circumbient air and still the plague spreadeth further and further whereby his Majesty hath more foes and consequentry more need For besides homebred conspiracies hereby strengthened forreigners make it their pleasure to affront him so that the speedy supplies given their King is each Subjects Profit and Honour because the Kings injuries is the Peoples both damage and shame If I account the labourer worthy of his hire and him who reapeth and inneth my harvest to merit a recompence shall I not much more to him who by his labour care and armes secureth it in the field and garner return a free-will offering the purchase as I may in a soâ—â— speak of my continuing fecundity My reason dictateth no less to me but that it befitteth me Which when some pious assertors of the Peoples true liberties and happiness had well apprehended and desired a general compliance in a matter of such publick benefit and importance how have others who would speak boldly against the Kingdoms welfare in performance of his duty been extolled for their wisdome and care by those who would seem most affectionate to his Majesties just cause and person and also to the Peoples tranquility No man is his own or anothers friend who advisedly multiplieth or in the least uttereth words in commedations of busie and seditious disturbers of other mens good intentions or speaketh language which is sowre with inward disrelishes It was a very religious expression of that wise Senator who said Vniversos affligit Cassiod l. 1â— â—pist 19. qui Regi