Collonel Talbot dated July 1671. Supposed to be drawn up by his Brother Peter Talbot then Titular Arch-bishop of Dublin and accidentally dropt about that Time Several Copies of which have for many years been in Protestants hands In this Paper are proposed the Modelling the Army the admitting Papists into Corporations the bringing them to serve in Civil and Military Employments and the raising a vast Army of them to be transported into England on occasion One Particular in this Paper is Remarkable 't is in these Words The Toleration of the Roman Catholick Religion in England being granted and the Insolency of the Hollanders taken down a Confederacy with France which can influence England as Scotland can also will together with God's Blessing make His Majesty's Monarchy absolute and real Where we see that the Design was to make the King absolute And the Means proposed Toleration of Popery a War with Holland and a League with France all which were at that time put in practice and have been prosecuted vigorously to this day But 2 dly We shall better understand the Depth of this Design against us if we reflect on the Power Policy and Number of the Persons engaged The Power and Money of France the Cunning and Craft of the Jesuits the numerous and bigotted Roman Clergy the Wealth and Arms of England were all to be employed to our Ruin The indigent and desperate Papists of Ireland were to be Armed and let loose upon us The common Enemy of the Christians the Turk and Ravaging Tartars were called into Christendom to promote this Design and their destructive Methods of managing Wars by universal Slaughters Havock and Burnings brought into Practice by the more Vnchristian French And to Crown their Design for the general Slavery and Desolation of Europe Protestants were cajolled bribed or compelled to fight against persecute and devour one another All which might be proved by undeniable Instances if this Sermon were designed for a History But 3 dly We may have a further Idea of the Depth of this Contrivance from which God has hitherto delivered us if we consider the Methods used for effecting it Had it been hatched in Hell it could not have been more a Mystery of Iniquity than it was more Black and Villainons Means could not have been applied to bring it to Perfection For 1 st We find Wicked and Treacherous Leagues and Conspiracies entred into in order to carry it on One of which is more especially Notorious and Remarkable for its Folly and Falshood A League so contrary to all Sence as well as Faith that the great Princes concerned in it are yet ashamed to own it a League so mischievous to Europe in general and so destructive to England in particular that it has brought them to the very Brink of Destruction And it is only God's Miraculous Providence that could or yet can preserve them a League that broke the Ballance of Europe so carefully preserved by our wise Fore-Fathers and by that means has advanced one by depressing and sinking all the rest This is that Fatal Confederacy with France proposed in the Fore-mentioned Paper These are the Engagements of Friendship and Alliance which Monsieur D' Avaux the French Ambassador tells the States of Holland in his Memorial of September the 9 th 1688. The King his Master had with the King of Great Britain This is the secret Treaty Abbot Primi tells us His Britannick Majesty signed in the Year 1670 whereby he should have secured to him an absolute Authority over his Parliament and the Re-establishment of the Roman Catholick Religion in his Three Kingdoms This is the Alliance with France which Moloony the Popish Bishop of Killaloo in a Letter of his to Bishop Tyrell of March 8 th 1689. the Original whereof was found amongst the Bishops Papers and is ready to be produced is so very angry that some Trimmers as he calleth them obliged King James to disown and this is the very Source and Fountain of all the present Calamities of Europe but more particularly of ours A second Method of carrying on of this Conspiracy to Ruin us was by corrupting Ministers by granting large Pensions and multiplying Bribes I wish this means of promoting this wicked Design had stopped at Ministers and that the Honour of Princes had set them above the Suspition of taking Bribes for we are willing to think that it should be below the Majesty of a Crowned Head to turn Pensioner or to sell his Crown or People for Lewis d' Ors. A Third Means for carrying on this Contrivance against us was Murthering and Poysoning An Art too much practised of late in some Courts And 't is observable that wherever the Life of a Protestant stands between a Papist and an Inheritance it is of no long continuance nor doth any Prince begin to appear vigorous or terrible to France but he is in danger to be taken off in the Prime of his Age and that not without Suspicion of Foul Play witness Prince Lewis of Brandenburgh and the Duke of Lorrain There is much Gold in France and there are every where wicked Men ready to be bribed to do any thing and 't is not supposed of some that they scruple much to make the Experiment what it is able to do But 4 thly Where they could not Murther Protestant Princes it is hard to say where they have not attempted it they endeavour to defeat them of their Succession We all are satisfied that this was the only Womb that conceived a Prince of Wales for us and gave him a Birth There was an Attempt of the same kind in the days of Queen Mary which did not succeed to their mind but Time and Experience make Men wiser Hence it is that the Contrivance that proved abortive then did with us come to Perfection but in such a manner that at the same rate if allowed we might be sure never to fail of an Heir to defeat a Protestant Successor A 5 th Means of promoting this Design was by calling the Turk into Europe and by supporting that common Enemy of Christianity to the Ruine of those that profess the Holy Name of Christ. And the French King that he might embroyl Christendom by Sea as well as by Land has made his Pride stoop to his Interest and condescended to buy a Peace with the Algerines Covenanting with them to assist them in their Pyracies and their Enslaving Christians A Man and his Designs are known by his Friends and Confederates Now the French King's Allies are the Banditi of Italy the Pyrates of Algiers the Turks and Tartars of Asia and the Tories of Ireland What a Mercy of God is it to give us a Deliverance from the Conspiracy and Designs of such Monsters The Depth of this Design appears from a sixth Method used to Effect it and that was to stir up and Animate one Party of Protestants to Bite and Devour another 'T is not bare difference of Opinion that makes Men of different Sects
as one would imagine was most deeply concerned in the Success of it should upon a trifle break with the French King and not only desert his Party but most cordially espouse the opposite side And that the King of France who never before struck at any thing when Interest was in the case upon the Worlds counting it base or wicked should refuse his Ghostly Father common Justice in Matters of so little moment as the Regale and Franchises It is plain that the Pope has Right on his side on both these and that the French King was not much concerned either in Profit or Honour to defend them The Regale being a new Usurpation and the Franchises an ancient Nusance Yet so obstinate have both sides proved in the Contest that we hope 't is become irreconcilable Now if this had not happened the Counter-League of the Princes of Europe to the French Conspiracy could hardly have been entred into or continued 'T is this takes off the Odium from the Emperor â—nd King of Spain of assisting His present Majesty to redeem England and deprives the French King of the Advantages he proposed to himself by declaring this a War of Religion It being ridiculous to pretend a Holy War against the Father and Head of his Church This aversion of the Pope to the French designs is an Obstacle in the way that neither Lewis nor James can yet get over tho' the one begs hard and the other offers fair to remove it Having proffered the Pope all that he desired at first and to oblige the French Clergy to own his Infallibility into the bargain Thus God shews that the Hearts of Kings are in his Hands that he can make them stoop and do mean things when it will do them no good and obstinate when yielding would be serviceable to them It cannot but be esteemed a further Providence that two Popes should succeed one another of the same humour which is not common and should persevere in the same Enmity to France But 2 dly It must be owned as a signal piece of Providence in God to have raised up a man endued with the Courage Closeness and Activity of his present Majesty who durst attempt so strange and in human probability such an impractical thing as our Deliverance 'T is a rare thing in the World that one man should have the Dexterity to Engage and the Wisdom to Manage so many Different Interests into a Confederacy and argues a particular Providence 3. It was another piece of Divine Ordering that His Majesty should be so particularly interessed and engaged to undertake this Work before it was too late and our Destruction unavoidable If we had gone on a few years in the course in which we were in all probability our Condition would have become altogether desperate But the eagerness of the Conspirators to cut off Their present Majesties from all hopes of Succession to the Crown made them introduce a Prince of Wales two or three years sooner than they were ready for him They knew very well when he appeared the Persons concerned would be provoked to the height and that then if ever Their present Majesties must appear for their Right and the Kingdom for their Deliverance against which They were not as yet prepared For they had not yet sufficiently trained the Irish nor filled the Army in England with Papists for want of which they were not able to make any Resistance against the Prince of Orange having awakened him before they were prepared for him and necessitated him to make his Descent into England whilst the Arms were still for the most part in the Protestants Hands and the Papists in no capacity to awe them 4 thly The very pretended Birth of the Prince of Wales was so ill managed that it was not so much as a well-contrived Cheat. The very Papists complained of it and that publickly in print There was published here amongst many others under the late Government a virulent Paper against His present Majesty entituled England's Crysis or the World well amended To give it the greater Credit the Author pretends to be a Protestant and the Evidence of Truth forced from him this following passage One Reason of his the Prince of Orange's Expedition had at least a shew of Justice in the Quarrel I mean the business of the Prince of Wales which I cannot but confess some People managed as if they designed either that we should not believe at all or if we did our Belief should be as implicit as to Successions and Inheritances here as that of the Romanist is in his expectation of Inheriting the Kingdom of Heaven hereafter This it is true they imputed to the Treachery of Councellors and Managers But when their Zealots writ and King James permitted such Accounts of that matter to be published 't is a sign the business needed an Apology and that by God's just Judgment on them their usual Dexterity failed them in it 5 thly It was a Peculiar Providence in this Affair that King James did not adhere determinately to any Counsels or Counsellors but did things irresolutely and by halves I find Papists in their Letters to him complaining of this and cautioning him against it One entreats him for Gods sake not to listen to Trimming Counsellors whose Aversion to his Religion and cunning design of spinning out his Life with their Pian Piano put them upon urging to him that great Alterations are dangerous when carried otherwise than by slow and imperceptible degrees The same tells him That nothing causes Irresolution more than a Medley of Councellors of a Different Religion from their Prince Yet King James could never free himself from this Medley And that is the Reason that his Actions were never of a Piece and that he commonly spoyled his Business by doing too much and yet too little Thus he ought either not to have brought any Irish or French into his Army or made the whole entirely Papists he ought either to have accepted the French King's Assistance and Fleet without Reserve or else broken with him altogether and declared against him But by hanging between both he lost the Affections of his own Subjects which might have supported him and the Benefit of Forreign Assistance His doing and undoing things had the same effect In whâ—ch and many other particulars his not sticking entirely to one sort of Counsellors was to us a great Providence I must reckon it as a Sixth that the States of Holland should without scruple trust their All into His Majesty's Hand and be content to run his Fortune Which they plainly did in his Expedition We all know that the United Netherlands are a Free People most Jealous of their Liberty and who have done and suffered more to maintain it than perhaps any Nation in the World And as they are jealous of their Liberty so they are close and wary and not apt to venture too much at one stake Now that such a People should commit the Absolute
so strange and unsociable to one another as we commonly observe them to be but their Strangeness and Enmity proceeds either from Interest or from some peculiar Principle that obliges them to Persecute and Destroy all that differ from them tho' in a Trifle Where neither of these happen or where Men of different Opinions are not Encouraged or suffered to hurt one another we see they live very easily and lovingly together Of which Holland is an undeniable Instance And likewise this City under our Late Common Sufferings in which the Generality of Protestants notwithstanding their Difference in Judgment lived with much Mutual Confidence and Friendship But it is a Principle of the Roman Church that every Prince within his own Dominions is obliged to Extirpate and Destroy all Hereticks And that under no less a Penalty than Deposition This is required of Princes by the Councils of Lateran and Constance and all Popish States and Princes have been so True to it in their Practice that I do not remember that there has been nor believe that there is at this present any Prince or State of that perswasion who doth Tolerate any Religion besides their own in their Country where they are able to suppress it with safety to themselves And they have generally been so eager upon it that many have attempted it to their own destruction No wonder therefore if their Persons and Religion be very Odious to Men of different perswasions since Every body Naturally hates one that is always ready to do him a Mischief But I wish that they had kept this Principle to themselves and not industriously sowed it amongst Protestants among whom they first by their Emissaries sow False Doctrines and raise Schisms and then set up others to Persecute and Destroy those whom they themselves have seduced And when they have prevailed with one party to Bate Worry and Exasperate another to the Height they then take them off for a time put the Rods and Axes into the Hands of the Oppressed and whilst they yet smart under their sufferings they stir them up and Encourage them to Revenge themselves on their Persecutors By which arts they make the breach irreconcilable and the difference tho inconsiderable in it self to become the ground of an Eternal Schism and Feud between the Parties whom they have thus Dashed against one another We all know that these were the Methods used to set us together by the Ears ever since the Reformation and in the Two last Reigns 't was particularly observable that Toleration and Persecution succeeded one another by turns and were timed just as they served most effectually to set People a madding against one another One day the Laws must all be put in execution and none must be a Favourite that would not be forward to execute them the next day the Persecution must not only be stopped but the instruments of it exposed to the revenge of those they had exasperated and forced to take their turn in suffering by the Actions and Law-Suits of such as they had wronged Thus the common Conspirators against our Peace Liberty and Religion blew the Coals and kindled a flame amongst us that was like to devour us all And 't is God's great Mercy that we have escaped it These are a few of those considerations which might be offered to shew the depth of this Design from which our good God has graciously redeemed us II. But I haste to the second Head of my Discourse whence we may have occasion to magnifie God's goodness in our Deliverance and that is from the extent of the design against us which was equal to its Depth it being of a vast and comprehensive Nature The true and great Design was to satisfie the Ambition of the King of France by advancing him to the Vniversal Monarchy of the West England might be cullied and wheedled with the imaginary pleasure of Mastering his Parliament of getting his will of his People and settling Popery Holland with the hopes of Gain and free Trade the Pope and Emperor with the specious pretence of re-establishing the Catholick Religion but the true and bottom design was to enslave Europe and to make the French King as great and as pernicious to the Western Princes and States as the Turk has been to the Eastern And they did not miss the matter who in the Emblem represented these two as sawing the Globe a sunder whilst the King of Englands part was to pour in Oyl to make the Work more easie for them A thing so destructive to the true Interest of his Crown that it is a Miracle how he could be prevailed on to accept of the Employment much more how he should be able to prevail with his Subjects to assist him in it Whatever he pretended of the Stubbornness or Vngovernableness of the People of these Nations it certainly argued a very Passive and Submissive Temper in them to give Money so liberally and to Fight so fiercely as they did to destroy themselves and their Fellow Protestants to make sport for their common Adversaries and serve the Interests of their most inveterate and most dangerous Enemy the French King Secondly The Design was Vniversal and aimed at the destruction and enslaving all the Kingdoms and States of Europe no Distinction of Protestant or Papist Enemy or Ally All were equally devoted to Destruction in it The Duke of Lorrain was actually turned out of his Dukedom the Prince of Orange His Present Majesty was deprived of his Principality of Orange the Empire was partly to be given up to the Turk and the remaining Princes were to apply themselves to France for Protection and to chuse his Son King of the Romans the Dukedom of Savoy was to be brought in under the Notion of Pupillage the Princes of Italy were frightned bought or wheedled out of their strong Holds and the Keys of their Country such were Cassal and Guastale put into French hands Scicily was perswaded to Rebel and sollicited to serve the Spaniard as they had done the French before in the famous Vespers Genoa was to be bombed England bought and Holland drowned Spain had a barren Queen designedly made so as many believe put upon him that his Crown might fall to France by Succession the Northern Kingdoms whose Cold and Distance secured them from immediate Attempts were yet taken off from assisting their Neighbours and brought into something worse than a Neutrality The great Contrivers and Managers of these were the French King the Great Turk and I need not name the Third in Triumvirate 'T is too much that we groan yet under the Mischievous effects of their Conspiracy which has been no less pernicious to all Europe than that of Anthony Lepidus and Augustus was to the Roman Common-Wealth There is no doubt but all these have been designed attempted and almost brought to Perfection within these Twenty Years by strength of this Confederacy· And there is not one Prince or State in all Europe that has not
been concerned in the fatal effects thereof But 3 dly This Design was levelled more immediately at the Destruction of the Protestants of Europe the Extirpation of the Pestilent Northern Heresy has been long known to be the principal Article in it and was probably the Pretence and Bait that induced His late Majesty to espouse it He was not fonder of being obeyed without Reserve than of propagating his Religion and perhaps he chiefly desired an Absolute Authority over his Subjects that he might compel them to come into the Bosom of his Church What business had he with a standing Army or numerous Troops of Dragoons but to employ them as Missionaries to Convert his Heretical Subjects The Example of France had taught him their use and that Dragooning was a much more effectual way to Reconcile Men than Sermons or Arguments In short by this Conspiracy the Protestants of France are already destroyed those of Savoy turned out of their Country those of Holland have been invaded and forced to cover themselves with their Waters and as for us in Ireland I need not tell you how we have been used the least hint is sufficient to refresh your Memories and the Danger we have escaped is yet so near that it supersedes all Necessity of a Description It has been said of some that when they have been shewed the next morning the Danger they escaped in the night they have dyed with Apprehension I am sure no Precipice can have a more dreadful prospect to those that have escaped it than our Danger ought to have and will have to all that duly consider and look back on it But God has Redeemed and Saved us out of our Enemy's hands He has brought us back into our own Land and we are now before him this day to magnifie him for our Deliverance Let us therefore join in that which is the Chorus of this Psalm O that Men would praise the Lord for his Goodness and declare the Wonders he doth for the Children of Men. But 4 thly This Conspiracy had a peculiar respect to the Free States of Europe 'T was about the time of the entring into this League that famous Saying was applied to Holland Delenda est Carthago it was pretended to be of ill consequence to Princes and Crowned Heads to let a Common-Wealth be their Neighbour lest the sight and example of Liberty might influence their People they combined therefore to destroy them that the Slaves of France might not understand that there was a milder Government in the World than the Tyranny of their Master If His present Majesty could have been prevailed on to come into the Confederacy he needed not have ventured his Life to rescue England and merited a Crown by such hazardous Undertakings He might have been a KING out of hand in his own Country and secured of his Succession to the English Throne but he scorned Crowns of Lewis's giving much more one that he could not take without injuring his Country the Liberty of which is due to his Ancestors and the Preservation of it to Himself But when they could not corrupt they resolved to destroy him and that more particularly because they look'd on him as the Patron and Defender of the Liberty of Europe to which they on all occasions declared their Enmity 'T is not imaginable with what Passion and Zeal their whole Party here used to enlarge on the Praises of an Absolute Government how impatient they were to hear any one name to them the Laws the Liberty of the Subjects or a Common-wealth No the King's Will was the only Law they could endure to hear of and they mightily admired and praised the submissive Temper of the Mahometans that counted themselves happy to be under a Power which when it pleased might present them with a Bow-String They did not mince the Matter but only professed That they designed to free the King from the Chains of the Laws and the Pupillage of Parliaments Or as the Irish Proposals I mentioned before word it Make his Monarchy absolute and real The very Terms of the League according to Abbot Primi were to secure to the King an absolute Authority over his Parliament and the Re-establishment of the Roman-Catholick Religion in the Three Kingdoms of England Scotland and Ireland But 5 thly This Confederacy or rather Conspiracy had a peculiar relation to Ireland The great Body and Magazine of Men whose Hands were to perform this Work in these Kingdoms were to be raised out of Ireland the Irish Proposals I have so often mentioned promise 150000 part of them were to be the King 's immediate Guards part of them the standing Army of England and all of them the Instruments of our Slavery In order to make them considerable and to hire them to do their Work cheerfully Ireland was to be separated from the Crown of England and made independent on it The English Interest in it was to be destroyed and the Protestants under the Notion of Whigs Fanaticks Cromwelians rooâ—ed out of it How near these things were to taking effect you can all witness They were not only designed and attempted but actually for the most part executed upon us our Estates were taken away and this Kingdom cut off from England by Acts past in their late pretended PARLIAMENT our Houses were filled with Souldiers and Dragoons our Churches possessed by Romish Priests our Persons shut up in Prisons and our Religious Assemblies interdicted Our Friends and Relations our Nobility Gentry and Clergy driven for the most part out of the Kingdom attainted for Life and Estates and an Army ready to be transported into England if God had not put a stop to their Designs and confounded their Devices 'T is by His mercy we are redeemed from the Lands from the North and from the South and therefore let us give Thanks unto Him and Praise Him You see then the Extent of this Design that it took in all the Princes and States of Europe that it struck at our Estates our Liberty our Lives and above all at our Religion that it was carryed on by many and powerful hands and by the most secret and efficacious Methods And who else could defeat such a Contrivance or put a stop to it but the same God that bounds the Sea with a Heap of Dust and says to the Waves thereof hither shall you come and no farther III. Which is a proper Introduction to my third Head The Miraculous Concurrence of Providences for our Deliverance in breaking this Design so deeply laid and vigorously prosecuted These were so many and so remarkable that I doubt whether ever any Revolution was accompanied with a Chain of such strange and unaccountable Accidents I shall mention only a few that every body must have observed and leave you to judge whether the Finger of God must not be acknowledg'd in them First therefore it was strangely unaccountable that the Pope who seemed to have a great Stake and Interest in this Design and
Disposal of their Navy their Armies and their Money the very Sinews of their State to one man and venture all in the same Bottom with him was an unbounded Trust and Kindness as His Majesty himself is said to have expressed it to them They trusted not only Him but the Winds and Seas for his sake And tho' they had such entire Confidence in his Conduct and Faith as not to ask him what he designed yet the Hazard of a Winter Voyage where the whole of their State was at once exposed to the mercy of a Tempest was sufficient to have sâ—umbled them had not the same God that inclined the Hearts of Israel as of one man towards David knit their Hearts to him and made them tender of his Life and Person where they without Hesitation ventured their State 7 thly It must be owned as an Effect of the same Providence that King James's Court and Ministers was so blinded that they could not see into His present Majesty's Designs and so secure that they would not give credit to the many Advices given them of these Preparations of which we can give no other account than that of Job Chap. 5.13 He taketh the Wise in their own craftiness and the Councel of the Froward is carryed headlong They meet with Darkness in the Day and grope in the Noon-day as in the Night 8 thly I shall only mention King James's Deserting his Army in England on which if he had absolutely cast Himself and depended on their Fidelity it is certain by what has happened since that a great part of them would have stood by him There were enow to make a Vigorous Opposition who were willing to run his Fortune if God had not Enfeebled their Courage and put fear in their Hearts It was this opened the way to one of the greatest Revolutions that ever happened in that Kingdom almost without a Drop of Blood Which must be owned as a singular Providence 9 thly It was an over-reaching Act of Providence to make that the Key to open a Way for our Settlement which was projected by our Enemies as the certain means to Embroil us for ever I suppose no body doubts but those who advised King James to Desert the Kingdom believe that we could never come to a Settlement without him and yet the Event proved directly contrary to their Expectation For his Presence in all probability had been such a Rub to our Settlement that it had not been easie to get over it It was indeed strange we should come to a Resolution so soon especially where the Weight of the Matter was so great and the Opinions of Men so divided that in the near equality of Voices the Wisest could not foresee how it would end till Heaven it self determined it For what else could have brought such different Interests and Judgments to acquiesce in the Conclusion Neither in the 10 th Place must we imagine that that strange and absurd Division of Protestants in England into Jacobites and Williamites happened without a Providence Whatever Sense some may have of it in other respects we of this Kingdom must own it as a great and signal Mercy King James and his Adherents here reckoned upon a strong and numerous Party in England and were afraid if they had utterly destroyed us that they should have lost them and therefore in many cases were oblig'd to bear an easier hand towards us than otherwise they would have done And whatever Favour or Forbearance we received from them it was intirely due to this Consideration This was the Use God made of this Faction and now it has served his Purpose I hope he will extinguish it 11 thly God in his Providence so order'd it that King James found an unexpected Diversion in Ireland that employed all his Forces till things were settled in England and till his Present Majesty had leisure to break the Enemies Power in Scotland and prepare for the Conquest of Ireland Had King James on his Landing in Ireland found no Opposition in it but been intirely at Liberty to join his Forces with that Party that appeared for him in our Neighbouring Kingdom every one is sensible how fatal the Event might have proved Not only to England but also to the Liberty of all Europe But it pleased God to find him Work here by an unexpected Opposition which not only imployed but ruined his best Men and lost him such an Opportunity as never could again be expected If we consider the Places and Persons that made this Opposition it is a Miracle that they should undertake much more that they should succeed in it And it looks as if God Almighty in his Providence had raised them up for that Juncture and inspired them with Resolution in an extraordinary Manner to shew his Power in their weakness and his Care of us in the Seasonableness of their Undertaking Our Enemies were very sensible of the Unluckiness of this Accident as they called it and curst Derry and Eniskillin as the Occasion of the Ruin of their Affairs 12 thly It was certainly a great Providence to us that his Majesty in Person should undertake the Reduction of Ireland at a time and in such Circumstances that King James and his Party judged it impossible And promised themselves that they had made him such Work at home that he should rather fear an Invasion from Ireland than think of an Expedition into it But the Providence of God by his single Courage and Resolution broke all their Measures and put them out of those Methods which they imagined so well concerted that it must be impossible to defeat them 13 thly Can it be ascribed to any thing else than a singular Providence that they should mistake themselves and disregard the Advices or rather as they themselves used to call them their Orders from France so as to put themselves to the hazard of a Battle when delay was so much their Interest whatever it cost them and so easie to them had they not been infatuated 14 thly It was no less an Over-ruling Providence that an Army so well Trained Disciplined and Armed and so advantageously posted should make so little Opposition The Advantage of their Post by all Intelligent men was reckoned above three to one and it had been impossible to beat them from it had not the God of Battles enfeebled their hearts and animated his Majesty to an Attempt that seems next in strangeness to that of Jonathans on the Philistines And which perhaps only his Majesty of all Men living would have attempted 15 thly Add to this the strange Panick Fear that seized the Vanquished Tho' their Troops were for the most part untouched and a very few fallen yet such Dread and Terror possessed them as did formerly the Syrians at Samaria and they fled where no man pursued them King James did not stop till he got out of the Kingdom and his Army fled as far as the Sea would let them had they had ships they would
have gone all together 16 thly I must remark it further as a peculiar Providence that his Majesties Victory happened at such a Critical Time that the Peace of England nay perhaps the Fate of Europe depended on it Had it but been delayed one Week no body knows what would have been the Consequence 17 thly The saving of this City of Dublin from so often threatned and as both we and the generality of our Enemies believed resolved Destruction is another piece of Divine Goodness And withal so strange that we can yet give no Account of it or so much as guess at what altered their Resolution I need only mention this to most of my Hearers to fill their hearts with Admiration and open their Mouths with Thansgiving to God for the Miracles of his Mercies 18 thly And yet there is still behind a greater Miracle and Mercy than this and which we can hardly think on without Terror and that was the Miraculous Preservation of his Majesties Person in the Battle To whom we may apply what David affirms of himself there is but a step between me and Death our danger came nearer even within a hairs breadth If there were no dangers difficulties in Life we should not be sensible of particular Providences But one such escape as this awakens the Sense of Religion and of Gods Power more in our Hearts than many years of even and un-interrupted Happiness We must acknowledge that all our Lives in him were at the Mercy of that one Bullet And 't was surely the God of Battles in his unspeakable Mercy and Providence preserved us If Thousands of us had dyed the Enemy would not have cared for us And notwithstanding they lost the Battle yet they would have counted it a Victory and their loss sufficiently Ballanced by the single Life of his present Majesty 'T is certain they would willingly have given their Army for it And this alone is sufficient to teach us how to value it and what thanks we owe to God for preserving it In short we had not neither have we yet in our utmost view another chance to save us our Liberties Estates or Religion but this one of His Majesties coming to the rescue of these Kingdoms And his undertaking it has been carried on by such a miraculous Chain of Providences that we must acknowledge it is by the Grace of God that William and Mary are now our King and Queen Perhaps they have more visible reasons to put that in their Titles than any Princes in Christendom Let us therefore own the whole of our Deliverance to be a work of God and ascribe it intirely to him without assuming any part of it to our selves God in his Providence has so ordered the matter that we in this place have had no hand in it or pretence to it And as for others it plainly appears not to be so much a work of man or carried on by humane means as by the over-ruling Providence of God 'T was manifestly God rather than the People set our King and Queen on the Throne The People Obstructed it as much as they could by their Divisions the Nobles Opposed it the Mighty stood up to hinder it the Nations Combined against it but God had them in Derision and not only delivered their Majesties from the Striving of the people but also made them their Head 'T is He the most High that Ruleth in the Kingdom of Men and giveth it to whomsoever he will 'T is He raised up King William to be a Deliverer to us And to sum up all 'T is He that delivered us from so great a death and doth deliver In whom we Trust that he will yet deliver us And therefore to him be the sole glory of it And now that God has so signally appeared for us let us which was the Second General Head I proposed Consider what Returns we are Obliged to make him First Let us Remember that it was not for nothing that he Delivered us He had Certainly a Peculiar design in saving us from the Hands of our Enemies by so many and so Remarkable Providences even that we might serve him without fear Let us therefore Employ those Lives Liberties Estates and Churches to his service that he has preserved for us and restored to us Let us avoid those provocations that induced him to bring such Heavy Judgments upon us and let us Remember how Easy it is for him to bring us to a condition much worse than that from whence he delivered us and assure our selves that if instead of serving him we serve his Enemies the Devil and our Lusts he will make his Providence as signal in our future punishment as it has been in our present Deliverance It were Easy to point out the sins that provoked God and Occasioned our late Sufferings and the same causes will always have the same Effects 2 dly Let us own God's goodness to us in our late Sufferings how in the midst of his anger he remembred Mercy how he made our Sufferings easier to us than we expected and relieved us sooner than we could have reasonably imagined he continued us amongst the living when we expected Death He gave us Hearts to bear up under our Pressures and made us Unanimous and kind to one another He prâ—served us from Famine and Pestilence which we feared and granted us for the most part Opportunity of Meeting together to Worship him and in many things rather afforded our Enemies an occasion of shewing their Malice and wicked Intentions against us than of Executing them So that we must acknowledge with the Psalmist That the Lord has Chastned and Corrected us but hath not given us over unto Death 3 dly Let us be thankful to God for our Deliverers and thankful to them for the great Pains they have taken and the great Dangers they have run to effect it This is in a manner all we can return them at present for all the Pains and Costs they have been at for us and for all the Generosity they have shewed towards us Our Enemies having disabled us in a great Measure either to help our selves or make any Retribution to them However what we can do let us do cheerfully And let us return at least our hearty acknowledgments and Prayers to God for them Especially for their Majesties whose Parts have been so signal in it that they revive in our Minds the Memories of the Ancient Heroes the Kings of England the Edwards Henries and of Queens the fam'd Elizabeth that made us safe at home and dreadful to our Neighbours If we consider what we have seen the King do in Ireland and what part her Majesty in the mean time acted in England it must be our own faults if we are not a happy People under such Princes and we must be very ungrateful both to God and Them if we are not sensible of his Goodness in blessing us with such Governors either of which seems capable of Governing much larger Territories than they yet possess And I hope as they are Entitled to them so in time they will acquire them 4 thly Let us spare no pains nor costs to perfect this happy Work of our Deliverance And let us remember that if this had not happened we must have lost our Estates and Liberty and perhaps together with them our Lives Who would not within these last Three Years have given one half of his Estate to save the other And then what great matter if we give half of our In-comes for some Years to Enable Their Majesties to secure the whole to us since whatever it cost us 't is but restoring part of what we have saved or had Restored by their Means 5 thly Let us not grudge or murmur at the Hardships or Difficulties with which we may be obliged to struggle for a few Years No great Cure was ever perfected without putting the Patient to some pain and then why should we expect it Those that saw not what we suffered under the Late Government may think some things hard at present But I observe that the People of this Kingdom that seem to have the greatest Cause to complain are best satisfied Which gives us reason to suspect that if any complain 't is rather from their dissatisfaction with the present Government than their Particular Uneasiness And I am afraid some among us are become like the Roman Common-Wealth in the Time of Sylla which as the Historian observes could neither indure its Wounds nor its Remedy 'T is want of Experience in the World for any one to Expect that such a great Revolution should be brought about without Exposing many to Hardships and Difficulties But he that has Patience shall see the end of his Hope Lastly Let us lay aside all Animosities amongst our selves and all Virulency against our Enemies Let us be Charitable to the Distressed and mindful of those that have not yet obtained their Share in this Deliverance Let us perform our Vows and Engagements to God which we made in our Distress Let us lay aside self-Interest and set our selves to lay the Foundations of a solid Peace in Piety and Justice That the God of Peace may delight to bless us and our Governours and grant us an intire Victory over our Enemies a Happy Union and Agreement amongst our selves and Minister unto us many more occasions of Thanksgiving FINIS * Sir Henry Sidney Five times Chief Governor between the years 1557. and 1578. Adam Loftus Arch-Bishop of Dublin three times Lord Justice between the years 1582. and 1600