abroad upon the British shoar with inestimable Blessings in Her hands to bestow upon all but the unthankful the evil tho' upon them too She found the Nation tir'd out with Sorrow a Leaning her weary drooping Head on the Bosome of her Dearest Prince who surely then if ever any one before bad the fairest for our most sincere Love and Fidelity And she kind virtuous Soul as she ever lov'd to do Good was glad to be by at hand an Assistant a Counsellor and a Witness of our Wonderful Restauration She found the Nation that She lov'd the most in it the Church of England a' entring in melancholy plight the Plague of an Aegyptian Darkness the Land from one corner to another a swarming with Popish Emissaries and like the Locusts there darkn'd the Skye I mean the Nation full and crowded with ' em But tho' so full emptied much faster than they fill'd in well nigh six years before in a very short time as our day broke up again when our Guardian Angels in conjunction at God's immediate Direction appear'd above our Horizon with Healing in their Wings I think 't is own'd on all hands that Popery especially as 't is of late years refin'd by new Jesuitical Morals is a Terror to all Protestant Kingdoms As for us we are not half so much afraid of St. Peter's Keys as St. Pauls Sword which of late for some Centuries past the New Church of Rome takes indifferently into her hand with the other We need not go far to have the footsteps of her Cruelty which bleed so fresh in our own Annals and tho' our English Courage has been far ever from being thought contemptible yet we have always been very backward to Defend our Religion by such Material Weapons 'till the time we believ'd our Lives as well as our Consciences were assaulted which if any thing will prove the Justice of our Arms when imploy'd at the Command of our Lawful Governors As for the Truth of our Religion we modestly conceive we have made it good with no small advantage and have shew'd abundantly that our Church is very far from fearing any reasonable Engagement of that kind having never been once outpowr'd since our Reformation onely rudely oppress'd and Discountenanc'd sometimes by Brutish Cruelty and Force of Arms. When a Popish King our late Dread Sovereign was ready with a Numerous well appointed Army in the Field and our Charters and our Properties for a great part Seiz'd and constru'd into Forfeiture and Prerogative and a new fine Aequivalent offer'd us in exchange for our most Antient Franchise Our Penal Laws to be voted down with our Protestant Test by a choice prepared Assembly when a Conversion to Popery was a currant Excuse to other Crimes and Illegalities it self the greatest Execution of Good wholsome Laws generally suspended and a wide door set open upon a Religious Design to entertain all the Debauchery Licentiousness and Atheism of a Wicked Age and an unlimited Liberty tacitly allow'd to Mens Lusts and Passions with a very small share of Wit and no Religion to push on for Tumult and Confusion as fast as they could Besides what we don't love to remember but cannot so soon forget as it suppos'd us much more Dull and Wretched than indeed we were injoyn us to Subscribe publish I mean a large Form of Declaration virtually to the overthrow of our Establish'd Religion and all whatever else is ours We blush'd at this time to think being Innocent how we had so ill-deserv'd of our Governours as to find so little Credit with 'em We were as many as observ'd it extreamly sorry at this and that we could now Obey no longer tho' threatn'd aloud with Penalty enough to our Temporal Vndoing We trusted in the Mercy and Compassion of our Good God who Deliver'd us then with the Rescue of those famous Confessors of our Sacred Hierarchy Men of Renown The honest good peaceable Loyal Subject all this while nothing in his hand for his sustenance but a Dry unsavory Morsel of Passive Duty which he had already chew'd and Liv'd so long upon that he became every day more and more naked of all other Refreshments and thought he was a'shipping ready for the stake of Martyrdom When our Popish Governours were so impatient tho' of prudent Delays and were all for making long steps hastily to our Overthrow And alas our Unfortunate Monarch so Bigotted and plainly infatuated by Jesuited Counsels that nor the most humble modest Complaints nor Tears of his Faithful Subjects could prevail any thing When Altars and Popish Habits appear'd openly in the Imperial City and Countrey and began to Nest together in Societies and in the name of a Catholick King outbrav'd all even the most modest Pretences and Priviledges of a Different Religion and would have stifled and suffocated all our Learning and smother'd our Profession with an heavy indigested Mass of their Exploded Forgeries and Nonsense which turn'd upon our judicious Desence so much to their Shame and Decay which indeed was the greatest kindness they could do us to give us opportunity thus to shew our strength on this manner I would not be misunderstood all this while as tho' in what I have said I should seem the least inviduous I am forc'd to mention a little for that our Publick Blessings receiv'd cannot be duly prized without some competent sence of our former Vnhappiness and undoubtedly we should deserve to be constru'd more than Passive could we so soon forget our own History which is so plain and dates so close upon our Memories Briefly then when our Reform'd Religion which we place ever before all other our worldly Comforts was in such unquestionable apparent Danger that upon our most accurate Projections all Humane means fail'd for our Deliverance and our Misfortunes too inspir'd and back'd by so potent an Enemy a Tyrant Neighbour who upon his own single stake for many years together has held almost all Christendom in Play In this Critical juncture by a strange Miracle of the Divine Providence say others what they will came the Blessed Pair William and Mary to our seasonable rescue which by the same indulgent Providence they effected without one Drop of Blood by a natural chearful Surrender of their own Rights into their hands after the Royal Zealot was gone when He had so unkindly Refused a just Restitution of our Laws and Liberties then by a general Consent of the Desolate People for how can any Kingdom stand without an Head to Govern it They the next together in Succession are both plac'd in the Throne And then and just before the Pride of the New Catholick Religion and it's Empire utterly vanish'd The Zealous Priests make haste away and leave their Devotion as their Saints too of both Sexes a'starving at their Shrines The Crafty Jesuite packs up with the first and leaves the new Converts behind astonish'd at their Religion suddainly grown so unfashionable and some came back to us again
Deferr'd till his Death inasmuch as his Heart was tender and He humbled Himself before God here Cap. 34 27 28. He Dyes at his Royal City and was Buried in the Sepulchres of the Kings his Fathers and all Judah and Jerusalem the whole Kingdom mourned for Josiah And no doubt a sad Mourning 't was The Loss of so Good a King and at such a time when we must think the Eyes and Hearts of all his People were upon Him Jeremiah upon this sad occasion Weep'd and penn'd a Mournful Elogy emphatically a Black Book of Lamentation in such a deep natural racy strein that it weeps yet afresh to every eye that reads it see there Cap. 4.20 The Breath of our Nostrils the Anointed of the Lord was taken in their Pits of whom we said under His shadow we shall live among the Heathen And so famous was this Solemn Mourning of the Jews that about an 100 years after where the Prophet Zechary foretells of the Coming of the Kingdom of the Messiah and the fearful Desolation which should at that time befal the Jews in the Total Devastation of their Second Temple and their City with their whole Government by the Romans He could not express their Sorrow to greater advantage than by this Deplorable instance of the Death of Good Josiah Cap. 12.11 In that day says he There shall be a great Mourning in Jerusalem as the Mourning of Haddadrimmon in the valley of Megiddon which is the Mourning of the Text here And such was the Jews estimation of their Great Loss and Misfortune that 't was not only a little time which once they set apart to this their Mourning but they made it an Anniversary Fast in their Generations by an Ordinance for ever in the v. next after the Text. From whence it would seem The Book of Lamentations was the Form of their publick yearly Humiliation upon this account So great the Loss and so great the Sorrow of this unhappy people And yet not so great but in good sence of Resemblance it may become a Pattern of ours now 'T is confessed Blessed be our Good God who in Judgment remembers Mercy our Circumstances are not in Prospect so Deplorable as theirs were The proud King of Babylon has not yet set his foot upon our Land nor Burnt our Church and made us his Captives nor we hope ever will so long as we have God and a Good King our Protectors who is as Josiah was an implacable Adversary to his our Church and Nations Enemies The Glorious Champion of our Holy War The Greatest Patron of all the Protestant Churches Born indeed the Son of War whose Sword invincible as 't is glisters astonishment in the Hearts of those who are only great in this that they have the honour to fall under the resistless stroke of his Victorious Arms. His Royal Great Soul untaught to yield to any other Adversity to shew He had an Heart of Flesh and Affections tender as his Religion is Wept over the Royal Ashes of his Dearest Consort our Good Queen Mary Nor was this any light faint transient stricture of his inward Sorrow His indelible Piety so deeply rooted in his Breast sunk him down low in this his Affliction as low as 't is possible Love and Virtue could Behold here a Brave Glorious Constellation of the greatest Fortitude and the greatest Love such an one seldom never shone before in our Hemisphere How then shall we Subjects Dispense with this Free Subsidy yet naturally a Debt of our Funeral Lamentation unless we have in this Distance to Her much Lamented Death spent all our Stock already and in so doing exhausted the Fountain of our Tears Alas our cheap vulgar Weeping here is not big enough at lowdest to ballance one single Sigh of our Josiah's Royal Grief We who had so great a part and interest in her Princely Care and Indulgence and might have had so still but that our Ingratitude that unpardonable sin for which we and this poor English Nation have so often smarted our hateful Ingratitude rendred us by so many degrees unworthy of her longer Life A Blessing so infinitely desireable as I believe you think that I Despair of adding any thing to your present Information I 'll not therefore now touch upon any Preliminaries as her Royal Birth and Descent her Natural and her Acquired Perfections exceeding great with her truly Christian Education here under the sacred influence of our Dear Mother the Church of England Which in her by plainest experiment has taught us the most incomparable Temper of her wise Guardiancy and Tuition and would make us all lovely and belov'd as She for th' inestimable Beauty of Virtuous Christian Life and would Teach our Docility not to shift so improvidently from under her Heavenly Doctrine and pious Discipline when her Spiritual Gifts are so many and so highly advantageous and would easily Blush and shame all that unreasonable Prejudice which drives some of us foolishly away and bewilders us in a dark Superstitious Maze of a stubborn forgetfulness of our Duties and ourselves See here and wonder an Angelical Mind fram'd by God and perfected into Bliss by true Religion This Noble Affectionate Theme wings the highest flights of our most grateful Thoughts I am too weak to support thus the Greatness of her Character only wish sincerely that the radiant Honours of the English Crown may ever Descend a portion to so Good Examples as 't was in Royal Her is now and we pray will ever be Beloved you know how we were left before their Majesties happy Arrival joyntly in the Throne Left so that we were at a Loss on both sides how to state probably the reasons of our publick welfare Behold a Dreadful Enemy to our English Nation Popery on one hand and Anarchy and Confusion on the other We could not be prevail'd upon to change our Good Religion for a worse and if not we must part with our Property and Establishments 'T is true these things were not wrested yet quite out of our hands but we were throughly taught what we were to expect by a costly sad Tryal of another Neighbouring Kingdom before as well as since by one of our own all this over and above to what was miserably indur'd in a former Reign upon the same Name and Principles and however we are misrepresented we stook close enough to our Passive Obedience to the visible Joy and Triumph of our Enemies that hated us this so long 'till He that should have Govern'd us left us without our fault and what reason we should indure longer must our Antient Government rot and sink into Ruine upon its own Foundations It must certainly have done so had not God sent us and He came the Defender of his own Rights and together with them our Protestant Faith William by the good Providence and Grace of God with his Royal Consort whose Death we now Lament This Latter is my Subject more especially now Who when she Landed from
asham'd now to think their Civility carry'd them so far beyond the reasons of their Faith But tho' these Holy Men left their Converts here too few by many to raise a Monument to their pretended Learning and Art of Perswasion they forgot not to take their Riches with 'em the vast Treasure by their pious Frauds they had cheated the Nation of Thus we of this National Church are happily restor'd to our Religion it 's free Profession to our Properties to our Laws to our Liberties to our Lives Rid of our urgent Fears and Jealousies all but what the Sons of Trouble studiously strive to nurse in their restless Bosoms Our True Religion has gain'd much honour by the invincible Courage and Constancy of its true Professors which is God's Cause as well as our own Our Government is re-establish'd upon its old best Foundations and all the slubber of our Grief wip'd off till now as we lay a long time a'weeping under the Cross Popery in it's insulting Greatness for ever banish'd our Isles Briefly we have lost nothing but what we could not keep and hope to live as contentedly as we can without and tho' at present ingaged in an expensive Forreign War we fight Honourably in Defence of ourselves and Confederates thereby to lay which must be done with time a sure stable foundation of our Security and common Prosperity for the future And now upon the foot of the Account tell me seriously ye Sons of Wisdom are not these I have named Lovely great Advantages which we owe and confess as many as are impartial next to the good Providence of God to the Care and Vigilance of our Governors and to Her tho not to Her alone whose Obsequies we this day Celebrate She who planted Religion both by Precept and Example in the Court the Head and Fountain of our Government and would have made it all of one piece i. e. Religious took great pains in her Publick and Private Devotion and by her excellent advice and Illustrious Pattern taught others so to do if any other certainly a Nursing Mother of this Church of England which we have reason to think is more indebted to two of our late Queens than well-nigh all the Kings we have had till now since our Happy Reformation Good Edward liv'd but a while and though He did as much as 't was possible for the time being young yet 't was the Rudimental Beginnings only of so great and noble a Design but what we wanted in his was in some good measure compensated by the shortness of the next Reign and especially by the happy Length of that which follow'd close upon it She who did most Queen Elizabeth of ever Blessed Memory the next a Peaceable Learned Prince but came late to our Government succeeded by a Son Religious and Wise who had our Civil Distractions suffer'd him to Live as 't was probable otherwise He might had raised and beautify'd to it 's best advantages our Religious Communion as establish'd but since He could no longer stand He chose to fall a Glorious Martyr with it and when upon our famous Restauration our Regular Worship began again to smile upon us as we did cordially upon it it flourish'd more than a little whise under a Good natur'd King 'till it was again too pitifully beclouded in the last Reign which left it harass'd to the more happy Success and better Government of our King and Queen who had She longer liv'd as She did more than a little in such a narrow stint of time so would have done wonderfully much more for it's Beauty and Prosperity But She is alas untimely Dead not as to Herself but us who promis'd as we had great reason every Day more and more felicity to ourselves under the shadow of Her Government Who as She came with much unwillingness to the Throne so She as willingly resign'd at Gods Command the Burden of it tho' by Her so easily born and taught all Christian Princes by her Illustrious Example how 't is really practicable and their best Interest to be Good and Great at the same time I have excus'd my self already give me leave but this once Alas Christians The Lovely Ornament of our Peace The Beauty of our Regular Devotion A Rare Example of Virtuous Life The Glory of Christian Princes the Greatest of Her Sex the Darling of all Her Good People The Dearest Pledge of God's good Providence our Glorious Princes is Dead and gone Let all our Judah and Jerusalem weep and Mourn for our Good Queen as they did righteously for Josiah 'T is indifferent whether we Lament Her or our Religion they were inseperable in Her and how then shall we distinguish ' em I cannot blame the profuseness of our Grief upon this extraordinary Subject if there be any Venial Sin we Christians can commit surely this is it the great extremity of our present Sorrow and tho' we reasonably conclude this our great Concern will touch the hardest heart in the whole Nation yet if there be any who cannot weep for it and us I hope without injury we may take leave to weep for ourselves and them 'T were well the reasons of our Sorrow were not real as we believe they are upon impartial view Tho' yet we are not in the least unthankful but know how to prize all the Blessings we have left behind our Good King and Royal Family But these all Mourn as well as we and we humbly think we have as great a cause as any tho' all this we know is fruitless and in vain But how can tender hearts express themselves and their passionate resentments in a milder way not that we should seem fondly envy Her her Happiness above who stood ever the fairest Candidate for an Immortal Crown But we beg leave here thus to acknowledge and confess our many obligations and to embalm and preserve her Sacred Memory to perpetual Generations with the Dearest expressions of our most unfeigned Love I fear I have held you too long in this Melancholly Scene I have done then only mind you very briefly of two things to which our present Affliction seems nighest ally'd The reasons I mean that lye uppermost to our knowledge and are most Legible in such an harsh Providence as this is 1. Either by this sort of Discipline God in his infinite wisdom has a mind to mean us from an over fondness we are too apt to create to ourselves of any Humane Help we think stands nighest our Temporal Happiness and then 't will teach us Patience Thus we know He exercised the People of the Jews when under th' immediate Jurisdiction of his Theocracy in Egypt in the Wilderness in Canaan and after when they were embodied and had Kings as th' other Nations depriving 'em of Success oftimes by many secret methods of his good Providence thereby to hold 'em the closer to himself in their Dependence and the Counsel of his own Divine Will who has many more ways for our Succour in the unerring Conduct of his Eternal Wisdom than we can imagine Or 2. God punishes us thus severely for our manifold abominable sins as He did the Jews oftimes particularly here in the matter of Josiah and then Mourning is the least part of what we have to do which concerns us most in a speedy Reformation of our Wicked Lives lest otherwise upon our continued provocations our Judgment as it proceeds from the Divine Justice should thus conclude our Good King too whom God long preserve with th' other Royal Branches this needs every good sober Christians consideration Finally If our Grief be real upon the sence of our great Loss it supposes we understand the worth of Good Princes and consequently as we now Mourn for Her whose Funeral Day we celebrate so we from henceforth apply ourselves with all dutiful and Loyal Love and Fidelity to Him who is now in the Throne and to this good end shun and disencourage the most we can in ourselves and others all causeless Jealousies and turbulent Counsels which in the effect should any way cool and diminish from our cheerful Obedience and learn to submit ourselves Dutifully to our Governors as well as to Pray for 'em That God would grant our King a long and an happy Reign over us and that we and all his Subjects duly considering whose Authority he hath may faithfully serve honour and humbly obey Him according to God's Holy Word and Ordinance and that He may ever study to Preserve thy People committed to his Charge in Wealth Peace and Goodliness Grant this O Merciful Father for thy Dear Sons sake Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen FINIS