added preserve its self by means so evidently contrary to the very Nature and End of Religion This is Dr. Tillotson's fam'd Character of Religion and not to descant in long Applications upon it I desire my Reader to consider if it is not as applicable to the New as to the Old Fifth of November and the Worthies of the Protestants as well as the Popish Religion who conspired against James the Second as these did against James the First Tell me O ye Worthies of the Church of England who have hazarded your Lives and Fortunes to preserve our Religion Is it more lawful to Plot and Rebel for holy Church of England than for holy Church of Rome And is it not as much Priestcraft in our Divines to applaud you as Worthies for so doing as it was in the Pope to compare the Duke of Guise and his Partizans to those Jewish Worthies Jephtha Gideon and the Maccabees and do you not despise them for their sordid Flattery of you in open Contradiction to their own Doctrines and the Principles of that Religion which they pretend still to profess May I not say with Dr. Till against himself (a) Serm. Vol. 3. p. 77. That a Miracle is not enough to give Credit to a Man who teaches Things so contrary to the Nature of Religion and that (b) P. 20. the Heathen Philosophers are better Casuists than he This he said of the Jesuists and the Casuists of the Church of Rome for maintaining the Lawfulness of deposing Kings and subverting Government and yet without Blushing he maintained the Lawfulness of this in commending you But this is but one Instance of acting in contradiction to his own Doctrine when the appointed time of tryal came there are many more so well known that I need not mention them For indeed his whole Practice since the Revolution hath been one Series of Apostacy and by which he hath not only dishonoured his Memory and made all his other Good be evil spoken of but been a Scandal to our holy Church and Religion to which our Preacher saith he was such an Honour given the Enemies of them great occasion to Triumph their best and most stedfast Friends great occasion of Grief and Shame And lastly tempted loose and unprincipled Men to turn Atheists and ridicule our Priesthood and Religion and this he hath been told of in such different manners that I do not wonder (c) Fun. Serm. p. 27. it sank deep into him and had such influence upon his Health I cannot imagine but that one Letter which was sent to his Lady for him superscribed for Dr. Tillotson must needs disquiet him very much if he received it and read it It is written throughout with a serious Air and every Line of it speaks to his Conscience and because I know the worthy Gentleman who wrote it and that it is a full and clear Proof of what I have said I present my Reader but more especially the Preacher of his Funeral Sermon with a few Paragraphs of it if he will have the Patience to read them It begins thus (d) Letter p. 2. Sir I shall preface what I am about to say with an Assurance That I have formerly had the greatest Veneration for you as well for your Piety as good Sense and Learning that my Notions of Government are so large that the first Thing I ever doubtfully Examined that had your Name affixed to it was your Letter to my Lord Russel But your Actions since do less quadrate with that Opinion and seriously make me address my self to you to know how you reconcile your present Actings to the Principles either of Natural or Revealed Religion especially how you reconcile them with the Positions and Intentions of that Letter and consequently whether you have a Belief of God and the World to come (a) P. 5. But to come to your more particular Case I beseech you to publish some Discourse if you can clear Things to demonstrate either your Repentance of what you wrote to my Lord Russel or the Reasons that make that and what you now do consistent and that you with the usual Solidity with which you treat upon other Subjects justify the Proceedings and explain the Title of K. W. I know no Body hath a stronger and clearer Head and if you have Truth on your Side you can write unanswerably God's Glory and the Reputation of the Protestant Religion is at Stake Your own good Name calls for it and more especially because you have accepted a most Reverend and Devout Man's Archbishoprick A Man who hath given Evidence how unalterably he is a Protestant A Sufferer formerly for the Laws and Church of England and a Sufferer for those very Principles upon which that Letter to my Lord was written for those very Principles which you disputed for when he had so short a time to Live Nay which you remember'd him of even upon the Scaffold with the dreadful Commination of eternal Woe Really Sir if there be any Truth if there be any Vertue if there be any Religion what shall we say to these Things What will you say to them You must be at the Pains to clear this matter that we may not believe the Boundaries of Right and Wrong the Measures of Violence and Justice quite taken away that we may not be tempted to (b) P. 7. speculative and from thence to practical Atheism This Change has made many sober Men sceptical and gone further towards the eradicating all the Notions of a Deity than all the Labours of Hobs and your part in it hath I confess more stagger'd me than any one Thing else I have been ready to suspect That Religion it self was a Cheat and that it was a Defect in my Un-Understanding that I could not look through it For I think if I can know my Right-hand from my Left our present Government stands upon Foundations that contradict all those Discourses which you as well as others have lent to Passive Obedience The excessive Value I have for you for your Knowledg your Judgment your largeness of Spirit your Moderation and many other great Qualities that have signaliz'd your Name once made you one of the greatest Ornaments of the Christian Church Apostacy from what you preached and wrote pretended to believe and would have others believe shake me so violently in the first Credenda of Religion That I beseech you if you think it necessary upon no other Account that you will publish such a Discourse at least for the Satisfaction of mine and other Men's Consciences who I can assure you of my own Knowledg lie under the same Scruples with my self have the same Scruples in relaion to the Government and the same Temptations to question Religion it self upon your Account (a) P. 8. I beg of God Almighty to lay an happy constraint upon me â—o do what may be most for his Glory and the Good of these Nations and I earnestly supplicate him that
estimated and carried by the major Vote which as it can be an Argument to none but Fools so I dare say no honest and wise Man ever made use of it for the solid Proof of the Truth and Goodness of any Church or Religion If Multitude be an Argument that Men are in the Right in vain then hath the Scripture said Thou shalt not follow a Multitude to do Evil for if this Argument be of any force the greater Number never go wrong I have cited this as I have done all other Passages faithfully out of the Works of these two Authors in the following Discourses and whether the Reflections and Applications I have made upon them be just and right and the Consequences I have drawn from them upon themselves be true must be left to the Reader to judge betwixt me and them THE INTRODUCTION AS nothing of late hath more Entertain'd the World than Funeral Sermons So none of them hath had a more General Reception among Men of all Sorts than that preacht at the Funeral of the late Dean of Canterbury whom the Preacher stiles By Divine Providence Lord Archbishop of Canterbury Primate and Metropolitan of all England It was sent abroad with its Fiocco by the R. R. Father in God Gilbert Lord Bishop of Sarum and Men were curious to see what he would say upon an Occasion so inviting to a Fruitful Invention while his Censors of the House were a Sitting I hapned to make a Visit to a Place where I found one Gentleman reading of it to three more who were very attentive to it I came in almost at the Beginning and having only beg'd the Favour of the Text made no other Interruption But though I said nothing upon hearing the Words I marvelled at his Choice of them That he should pitch upon a Place so emphatical for Suffering at the Funeral of a Man who never Suffered nor loved Sufferings but who on the contrary was of a Temper and Constitution that loved Ease and Indolency of which the Apostle enjoy'd little or nothing in the whole Course of his Apostleship But as he taught so was he always practising the Evangelical Doctrine of Sufferings of which he hath left us several short Accounts in his Epistles and sam'd them all up In fighting the good fight of Faith a little before his final Martyrdom when he was ready to be offered and the time of his Passion was at hand At the End of this private Lecture the Gentleman who read first began to Censure Saith he The little Knowledge I had of Dr. Tillotson makes it not proper for me to judge whether or no he deserv'd so great a Character as this Panegyrist hath given him but if he did it was very unfortunate for his Memory that he should have Bishop Burnet for his Funeral Orator A Man that how much soever he may think himself possessed of the Esteem of the World is very much lost in it both at Home and Abroad and upon whose Authority very few Men will believe Things that are true to be so without other very good proof Saith another I am well acquainted with the Writings of Dr. Tillotson and am not a perfect Stranger to his Conversation and I am sure the Character this Bishop has given him is much above his Merit Fy Fy That Men of this Order should so flatter in the Pulpit where Flattering is so abominable He was not (a) Serm. p. 2.28 an Example of Heroick Piety and Vertue his Life was not free from Blemishes and some great ones too and this the Panegyrist knows very well A third then began to argue against some particular Passages in his Sermon particularly against the Truth of what he (b) P. 22. saith of some of our Suffering Bishops and the Authority that displaced them which I shall hereafter recite And then the fourth after a little Silence said with a Critical Authority That his Sermon was a Boyish Piece of Rhetorick more becoming a Declamer than a Preacher and fitter for a Sophister's Desk than a Bishops Pulpit having too much the Air of a young Student's Declamation and also seem'd in some parts of it to have too much of Common Place in it and in others too much Art to be true Nay saith he his own (c) P. 10. 11. 60. Reflexions on Varillas are here true upon himself His Sermon hath too much the Air of a Romance 't is too Fine to be true He seems to write his own Inventions and sets abundance of Whipt Cream before his Reader And then he told us a Story of a bâ—ind Gentleman but a good natural Critick whose Custom was to repair very early to St. Martin's Church and to ask who preacht Saith he he hapned once to ask me the Question and when I told him Dr. Burnet was to preach then in truth saith he we shall have a Whipt Sillibub And I think said he Smiling Dr. Burnet's whipt Sillibub is as far from the Nature of strong and manly Meat as Monsieur Varillas's whipt Cream A Preacher especially at Funerals ought to avoid Strains and when he speaks of the Defunct to speak more like an Historian than an Orator But this Man's Eloquence to use his own Words of (a) Pref. to Lactantius Lactantius carries him often into Strains that become a young Orator better than an Historian for he hath a heat of Stile that ought not to be imitated by one that would write truth but it may be saith he Smiling again in his Words of Lactantius He design'd his Sermon for a mixt sort of Writing between a Declamation and a Funeral Sermon and so may think that the Figures which agree not to the one may be allow'd in the other (b) P. 1. WHILE NATURE FEELS SO GREAT A LOSS AND SINKS UNDER IT This and some more are the Figures of a young Declamer and the Super sublime of our Lawn-sleeve Orator who should not have been transported with the Heats of a vitious Rhetorick Send him to School to Longinus and Rapine to learn the Rules of true and manly Eloquence They will both tell him That what is not Just is not true Eloquence and that a Stile not fit for the Occasion or the Subject in hand always argues defect of Judgment and that no Speech or Treatise which sticks not with the Hearers after it is read though it tickle never so much in Reading can be a Piece of true Eloquence And speak Gentlemen saith he you have all heard this Panegyrick very many fine Things and Generals are said in it but after all I can scarce tell for what he commends his Metropolitan All his pompous Figures have raised in me no great Idea of the Man for after all my Attention I find very little Sticks behind nor do I think this Performance will do his Memory much Service or transmit it with Advantage to Posterity CHAP. I. THis is the Short of what passed in this little Court of Censure upon this Bishop's
contrary to every part of it as I shall shew in some signal Instances which were blemishes in his Life and will remain such Blots upon his Memory as no Apology will ever be able to wash out My first Instance shall be in his Apostacy from his own avowed Principle and Doctrine of the Church of England the once venerable Doctrine of Non-Resistance or Passive Obedience in which our Church hath taught her Children how they should behave themselves towards Men and approve themselves towards God if she and they should come to be persecuted for the Tryal of their Faith as the purest Churches and best Christians have been in former Ages He did not only (a) In his Subscription to the Book of Homilies subscribe to the Truth of this Doctrine and in the Profession of the Truth of it declare it unlawful to take up Arms against the King upon any Pretence whatsoever but pressed it upon the Consciences of Living and Dying Men And when he preached against Popery he asserted it not only in the most serious manner that good Divines use to do the most important matters of Christiany but with that Strength and Clearness which our Preacher saith is his peculiar Talent In his Letter to my Lord Russel in Nâ—wgate which the Reader will find in the (b) N. 3. Appendix he told his Lordship who did not believe that Doctrine what a great and dangerous Mistake he was in and that his disbelief of it which was but a Sin of ignorance before he was Convinced of the Truth of it became a Sin of a more heinous Nature after his Conviction and called for a more deep and particular Repentance and that if he dyed in a disbelief of it he was like to leave the World in a Delusion and false Peace and pursuant to this in his last Prayer with his Lordship on the Scaffold he said Grant Lord that all we who survive by this and other Instances of thy Providence may learn our Duty to God and the King What could a Man have said more in behalf of any Doctrine of the Christian Religion Or what could he have done more to convince the World he was in good Earnest than to publish it after he said it And yet in his Thanksgiving Sermon (c) Jan. 31. 1688. preached at Lincolns Inn he tells us That our Deliverance then the Phrase of the Revolution was the Lord's doing although it was brought about by the utter Violation of that Doctrine and the whole Duty of Subjects which results from it and then reciting the Strange means by which it was brought about We must not saith he here forget the many Worthies of our Nation who did so generously run all hazards of Life and Fortune for the Preservation of our Religion and the Asserting our Ancient Laws and Liberties Behold the Preacher at Lincolns Inn and the Confessor in Lincolns Inn Fields contradicting one another The Confessor told my Lord Russell That the Christian Religion plainly forbids the Resistance of Authority and that the same Law which established our Religion declares it not lawful to take up Arms upon any Pretence whatsoever But the Preacher now turned Apostate from the Confessor commends the many Worthies as he calls the Traytors and Rebels of our Country for soliciting a Foreign Prince and the Creature of another State to invade their own Sovereign's Dominions and assisting of him in the Undertaking till they had driven him out of his Kingdoms He saith It was generously done of them to run all hazards of Life and Fortune and he might have added of their Salvation too for the Preservation of our Religion and Liberties although he had told the World before that our Laws forbid the Preservation of them by those means nay that the Laws of Nature and the Rules of Scripture had not left us at Liberty to use them which was in effect to say That neither our Laws would have our Religion nor our Religion have it self preserved by the Means those Worthies used for its Preservation The Belief of the Lawfulness of Resisting when our Rights and Liberties should be invaded was a Sin of a dangerous and heinous Nature in my Lord Russel but the Practice of it was laudable in I know not how many Lords and Gentlemen more for preserving our Religion Laws and Liberties by it and if any of them since are gone out of the World in a Delusion and false Peace he is one of those Divines who more especially must Answer to God for it For it was after a close Consult with him and one or two more that a Motion was made in the House of Lords for Appointing a Day of Thanksgiving to God for having made his Highness P. O. the glorious Instrument of delivering this Kingdom from Popery and Arbitrary Power And then it was that our English Worthies as well as the Heroe under whom they acted were applauded in the Pulpits for the Success of that Glorious Enterprize which to think or speak of in a slighting manner was in his Opinion to be guilty of the foulest and blackest Ingratitude both to God and them One would wonder how any Christâ—an Man but more especially how a Christian Preacher should so plainly contradict himself and his most serious Doctrines and yet have the Confidence since to Reprint them as if he had never said nor done any Thing inconsistent with them Hear therefore what he saith of Religion our dear and holy Religion which the Worthies of our Nation run such an Hazard to preserve (a) Serm. preached on the Fifth of Nov. 1678. and Reprinted 1691. As for Religion the very Heathens always spoke of it as the great Band of human Society and the Foundation of Truth and Fidelity and Justice among Men. But when Religion once comes to supplant moral Righteousness and to teach Men the absurdest Things in the World to Lye for the Truth and to Kill Men for God's sake when it serves to no other Purpose but to be a Bond of Conspiracy to inflame the Tempers of Men to a greater Fierceness and to set a keener Edge upon their Spirits and to make them ten times more the Children of Wrath and Cruelty than they were by Nature then surely it loses its Nature and ceases to be Religion For let any Man say worse of Atheism and Infidelity if he can And for God's sake what is Religion good for but to reform the Manners and Dispositions of Men to restrain human Nature from Violence and Cruelty from Falshood and Treachery from Sedition and Rebellion Better it were there were no revealed Religion and that human Nature were left to the Conduct of its own Principles and Inclinations then to be acted by a Religion which inspires Men with so wild a Fury and prompts them to commit such Outrages and is continually supplanting Government and undermining the Welfare of Mankind In short such a Religion that teaches Men to propagate and advance and he might have
For nothing less than a mighty force could make our Athiests submit to Popery no as they despise the special Doctrines of it as much as any other men So the liberties to which they are inur'd make them abhor and detest it for the severity of its Discipline which they know will not allow them to practise their lewdness so openly to curse damn and blaspheme to call the Priesthood Priestcraft and to ridicule every thing that belongs to Religion as they do now and more than ever in the Houses of our King therefore we saw them not long ago as averse to Popery as other men and associating under the common pretence of preserving our Religion with Enthusiasts Hypocrites and Apostates nay with foreign mercenary Papists to drive a Sovereign Prince of that Communion whose Title to the Crown depended not upon his Religion out of all his Realms I now proceed to examine the Libel he hath so maliciously made upon our suffering Clergy and more especially upon our ejected Bishops where his want of Generosity and Charity appears in every Article of it tho' but six lines before he pretends to write every thing in his Sermon with an Air free from Resentment but as I have shewed he writes many Falsehoods where he pretends to write strict Truths So where he pretends to write generously with candour and without resentment I always suspect there is something to follow of a quite different nature and here I found I was not disappointed I could tell him of some of his Hearers and those friends to the present Government who that no man of Honour would have so treated men in affliction as he did and given such an unreasonable Testimony of an unmortified Temper in a Funeral Sermon but let the Sermon be what it will and let him pretend to write with never so much humanity and sweetness I will lay of Natures side against him because his passions are so hard for him that he cannot but shew his Nature and mix his Choller with his Ink when he should write without resentment as he hath done in this Libell with all the ill nature imaginable against the late Archbishop of venerable Memory and the most worthy Bishop of Ely whereof the former made him Doctor when he could not make himself one and the other as is still remembred in Cambridge most generously entertained him in his Lodging at St. John's Colledge while he resided in that University to inspect Records especially at C. C. C. although at that time he was in disgrace at Court and almost every where else And it is a further aggravation of his ill-nature that because he had not he took an occasion of making this Libel against them and their suffering Brethren for after he had told his Hearers that the Defunct rejoyced in the happy deliverance of these Nations then without any necessity or connexion he tells us that many of those who had long'd for it and wisht well to it did of a sudden start back It is plain here that by his many he means many of the deprived Clergy but if by his happy deliverance he means as I have shewed he must our pretended deliverance by the Revolution I challenge him to name one of them who long'd for it or wished well to it for as many of those who have complied abhorred the thoughts of it So of those who have not complied I know not one but did nor he neither I dare say But then let us suppose that many of them long'd for the Prince of Orange's coming and wished as well to it as he himself did might they not afterwards nay were they not in Conscience bound when they saw their error and his design to start back What doth he mean by this Objection against them Must men go on in what they think iniquity and as one of the Bishops who certainly long'd for the Revolution said Over Shooes over Boots Is this too a Maxim of our Preacher would he have men proceed from longing for a thing they thought good to favouring and upholding it when they found it ill and from wishing well to it under one persuasion to acting for it under another I believe he will make no difficulty to say that Dr. Sherlock was in a great error for two years together after the Revolution in refusing so long to close with it and yet if he did well in closing at last with it he ought not to be reproached for having stood out so long against it although he said to some Persons of great honour who consulted him for his Opinion about taking the New Oath That whoever took it would without repentance as certainly burn in Hell-fire as that fire saith he pointing to the Chimney burns there or to that effect But besides him who stood out so long it would be easie to name many more who neither longed for it nor wished well to it that yet at last complied with it and I hope he will not blame them for starting from their first Resolves and coming in at the last hour of the day For men are to be allowed the benefit of second Thoughts and of Repentance which often times is the blessed effect of long and serious Consideration and when they turn Penitents by the Laws of Honour as well as Christian Charity their former faults are to be buried in Oblivion and never to be mentioned with reproach Hath the great Historian of our Reformation forgotten what the first Archbishop of it did through Human Frailty and afterwards repenting died a Martyr and put his right hand first in the Flames because that part of his Body should be first punished which was first in fault But to give other instances of starting back nearer a kin to the matter in hand In the Tragical Reign of Stephen whom the Historians represent as a perjured Usurper Robert the great Earl of Gloucester through fear and surprize took the Oath of Homage with the other Nobles to King Stephen but not long after with some other Lords took an opportunity to renounce it and let the Usurper know by Word and Deed that he was ashamed and repented of the Homage he had done unto him contrary to his Allegiance to Queen Maud and the Historians of those Times Were so far from reproaching him with his first compliances that they have celebrated his Memory upon the score of his Repentance and his constant Allegiance ever after to the Queen In the Reign of Lovis of France whom the Barons set up in the room of King John many Lords began to relent before he died and many more after he was dead revolted from Lovis their own Idol crowned the young Prince Henry the III. and soon made the Usurper glad to compound for a safe conduct out of the Realm In the Reign of Henry the IV. who our Preacher saith in his History of the Reformation traiterously Usurped the Crown Archbishop Scroop and many other Lords who perhaps had longed for it and
which I commiserate from my heart but am much more concerned that you do not leave the World in a Delusion and false Peace to the hindrance of your Eternal Happiness I heartily Pray for you and beseech your Lordship to believe that I am with the greatest Sincerity and Compassion in the World My Lord Your Lordships most Faithful and Afflicted Servant J. Tillotson Printed for R. Baldwin 1683. No. IV. To the KING' 's most Excellent Majesty James the Second c. The Humble Address of the Bishops and Clergy of the City of London WE your Majesties most humble and Dutiful Subjects do heartily condole your Majestie 's loss of so dear a Brother of Blessed Memory And do thankfully adore that Divine Providence which hath so Peaceably setled your Majesty our Rightful Sovereign Lord upon the Throne of your Ancestors to the joy of all your Majesties good Subjects And as the Principles of our Church have taught us our Duty to our Prince so we most humbly thank your Majesty for making our Duty so Easie and pleasant by your gracious assurance to defend our Religion established by Law which is dearer to us than our Lives In a deep sence whereof we acknowledg our selves for ever bound not only in Duty but gratitude to contribute all we can by our Prayers our Doctrine and Example to your Majesties happy and prosperous Reign And with our most sincere promises of all Faith and Allegiance do humbly implore the Divine goodness to preserve your Majesties Person and to establish your Throne in this World and when he shall be pleased to Translate you hence to bestow on you an Eternal Crown of Life and Glory No. V. IN the Name of God Amen Before the Lord Jesus Christ Judge of the Quick and Dead We long since became bound by Oath upon the sacred Evangelical Book unto our Sovereign Lord Richard late King of England That we as long as we lived shall bear true Allegiance and fidelity towards him and his Heirs succeeding him in the Kingdom by just Title Right and Line according to the Statutes and Custom of this Realm have here taken unto us certain Articles subscribed in form following to be proponed heard and tryed before the just Judge Christ Jesus and the whole World But if which God forbid by force Fear or violence of wicked Persons we shall be cast in Prison or by violent Death be prevented so as in this world we shall not be able to prove the said Articles as we wish Then we do appeal to the high Celestial Judge that he may judge and discern the same in the day of his supream Judgment First we depose say and except and intend to prove against Henry Darby commonly called King of England himself pretending the same but without all Right and Title thereunto and against his adherents fautors Complices that they have ever been are and will be Traytors Invaders and Destroyers of God's Church and of our Sovereign Lord Richard late King of England his heirs his Kingdom and Common-wealth as shall hereafter manifestly appear In the Second Article they declare him Forsworn Prejured and Excommunicate for that he conspired against his Sovereign Lord King Richard In the Fourth they recite by what wrong illegall and false means he exalted himselfe into the Throne of of the Kingdom and then describing the miserable State of the Nation which followed after his Usurpation they again pronounce him Perjured and Excommunicate In the Fifth Article they set forth in what a Barbarous and inhuman manner Henry and his Accomplices Imprisoned and Murthered K. Richard and then cry out wherefore O England arise stand up and avenge the Cause the Death and injury of thy King and Prince If thou do not take this for certain that the Righteous God will Destroy thee by strange Invasions and foreign Power and avenge himself on thee for this so horrible an Act. In The Seventh they depose against him for putting to Death not only Lords Spiritual and other Religious Men but also divers of the Lords Temporal there Named for which they pronounce him Excommunicate In the Ninth they say and depose that the Realm of England never Flourished nor Prospered after he Tyrannically took upon him the Government of it And in the Last they Depose and protest for themselves and K. Richard and his Heirs the Clergy and Commonwealth of the whole Realm that they intended neither in word nor deed to offend any State of men in the Realm but to prevent the approaching Destruction of it and beseeching all men to favour them and their designs whereof the First was to Exalt to the Kingdom the true and lawful Heir and him to Crown in Kingly Throne with the Diadem of England No. VI. THat all Parliaments and Ambitious selfe seekers in them who under pretence of publick Reformation Liberty the Peoples ease or welfare have by indirect Surmise Policies Practices Force and new Devices most Usurped upon the Prerogatives of their Kings or the Persons Lives Offices or Estates of such Nobles great Officers and other Persons of a contrary Party whom they most dreaded maligned and which have imposed new Oaths upon the Members to secure perpetuate and make irrevocable their own Acts Judgments and unrighteous Proceedings have always proved most abortive successless pernicious to themselves and the activest Instruments in them The Parliaments themselves being commonly totally repealed null'd and the Grandees in them suppressed impeached condemned destroyed as Traytors and Enemies to the Publick in the very next succeeding Parliaments or not very long after That Kings Created and set up meerly by Parliaments and their own Power in them without any true Hereditary Title have seldom answer'd the Lords and Commons Expectations in the Preservation of their just Laws Liberties and Answers to their Petitions yea themselves at last branded for Tyrants Traytors Murderers Usurpers Their Posterities impeached of High-Treason and disinherited of the Crown by succeeding Kings and Parliaments of c. From these Three last Observations we may learn that as Parliaments are the best of all Courts and Councils when duly Summoned Convened Constituted Ordered and kept within their Legal Bounds So they become the greatest Mischiefs and Grievances to the Kingdom when like the Ocean they overflow their banks or degenerate and become through Sedition Malice Fear or Infatuation by Divine Justice promoters of corrupt sinister Ends or Accomplishers of the private Designs and ambitious Interests of particular Persons under the disguise of Publick Reformation Liberty Safety and Settlement No. VII ALtho' it can no way be doubted but that His Majesty's Right and Title to these Crowns and Kingdoms is and was every way Compleat by the Death of His most Royal Father of Glorious Memory without the Ceremony and Solemnity of a Proclamation Yet since Proclamations in such Cases have been always used to the end that all good Subjects might upon this Occasion testify their Duty and Respect And since the Armed Violence and