Prime Apostle and Principal Teacher 2. In Judgement at his second Advent but first Eminent judicial Return after his Glorious Instalment in his far Country in the Destruction of Jerusalem when these Rebellious Citizens or their Descendents suffered all the Extremities of temporal Calamities 3. He shall Reign over them at his third and last terrible Advent when He shall come with all the Solemnities of Majesty to judge the world pronounce Sentence upon these wicked Citizens and make them the Vassals of Eternal Vengeance the certain Doom of all unrepenting Rebels From this short Illustration of the Text I hope it appears how well it suits with the Business of the Day a Day of Publick Thanksgiving for the Deliverance of his Majesty his Royal Brother and the whole Government from the Hellish Conspiracy of Fanatical Republican Rage I shall therefore 1. Shew the Hatred of these Citizens to Monarchical Government in General 2. Insist on the several ways they pursued in the carrying on this damnable Conspiracy in Particular 3. Take notice that when these fail'd like the desperate Citizens in the Text they betook themselves to desperate means and wickedly resolv'd that the King should not Reign over them 4. And lastly shew the folly and impiety of such mad Resolves for the King whom they devoted to Destruction do's and shall Reign over them First The Hatred of these Citizens to Monarchical Government in General You have been already told that the Jews were always a Rebellious Generation but never so bad as when the Pharisees had got so much the ascendent over them I am sorry to tell you that the frequent Tumults and Insurrections which have infested the Reigns of our British Kings gave occasion to that Sarcastical saying Rex Angliae Rex Diaboloâ—um but you may tell your selves that these Devils never acted more like Devils than since they were possess'd and guided by the Turbulent Spirit of our Modern Pharisees the Presbyterians who are the very Citizens that from their first Institution have shewn their Hatred against Monarchs and Monarchy And they must be content which perhaps they Glory in to bear a Principal part in most of the unnatural Wars and Commotions which have happen'd in Christendom since they took upon them to carry on their Blessed Work of Reformation The rest of the Schismaticks are but their Spawn and consequently included in this Denomination though like a Cadmean Progeny they have always fought against one another And to the eternal honour of Presbytery be it spoken that John Calvin confirm'd his Discipline the same year that Ignatius Loyala the first Founder of the Jesuits was chosen their first General in a solemn manner and that as He founded his Presbytery in Treason and Rebellion the Citizens having prepar'd his way by expelling from Geneva their Lawfull Prince and Governour which violent Act was encourag'd approved and confirm'd by Calvin so has it ever since been carried on by Schism and Sedition Never was it receiv'd into any Church but it presently dissolv'd the Catholick Unity of Faith and broke the Bond of Peace never into any State which it did not embroyl and throw into very dangerous Convulsions never into any family which it did not divide and set at variance never did it get possession of any single man whom it did not strangely transform with Pride and Moroseness made him unfit for civil Society and common conversation Are not the Writings of the Leaders in this Schism not only stuff't with irreverent and reproachfull Language against the Sacred Persons of Princes but likewise with dethroning Principles and King-killing Doctrines witness several passages in Calvins Institutions and other his Works That pestilent Pamphlet entituled Junius Brutus or Vindiciae contra Tyrannos supposed to be written by Beza his Successor and to mention no more Knox's Appellation to the Communality and Buchanans Jus Regni apud Scotos a Book which for subtlety and wicked position scorns to give place to the Jesuit which nevertheless He had the impudence to dedicate to King James In these you may find Dignities evil spoken of Majesty reviled that a Sovereignty is erected either in the People or the subordinate Magistrate that they are the Original of all just Power that the Supreme Magistrate is prostituted to their Lusts that wicked and irreligious Kings i. e. all whom they please to call so may be question'd and consequently dethron'd sentenc'd and put to Death If it be said that these are but the Doctrines of private men and therefore unjustly chargeable upon the whole Order I answer that Calvin and Beza were more than Private men they were leading Foundation Apostles their Authority was as great and held as Infallible at Geneva as ever the Popes was at Rome Besides this is the very same argument which the Papists use to clear their Church from the Guilt and Scandal of Bellarmine Mariana Sanctarellus or any other deposing King-killing Jesuit For we do not find that the dethroning Power which these frontless Flatterers have seated in the Pope is either made an additional Article to Pius's Creed or trick't into the Canons of the later Editions of the Councel of Trent besides this Deposing Principle of the Jesuites has been publickly censured and condemn'd as erroneous and impious in several Forein Universities written against by Men of the Romish Communion and is most solidly and unanswerably confuted by Barclay in his excellent Book de Potestate Papae c. which Book is dedicated to Clement the Eighth But have the Presbyterians in any of their Synods censured or condemn'd the pernicious Tenets of Calvin or Beza has any of them had the Grace to disown or write against their dethroning Doctrines if they have their Books have proved very ineffectual for if we pass from their Principles to their Practices we shall find that the Presbyterian has always been a Turbulent Imperious Bloudy Religion that it has embroyl'd all the Kingdoms and Estates in Christendom where it got footing with Rebellion Civil War and Misery from its first Rise at Geneva to its remove into France from thence into the Netherlands from thence into Scotland and from Scotland to its unfortunate Arrival into this Island 'T is not expected I should enumerate the several wicked Plots and Designs of these Hypocrites during the Reigns of Queen Elizabeth King James and King Charles This is the business of an Historian and is already faithfully done to our hands by the Reverend Dr Heylin and others who have writ the Histories of Presbytery and Calvinism I shall only at present lay to their Charge all the Bloud that was shed all the violence that was acted during our late unnatural Wars that they were the Dethroners and Murtherers of their Glorious Sovereign under a cloak of Justice and Mock-formalities of Law A Villany of so deep a Dy that the Roman Conclave blushes at it and was never debated and resolved but in the Deep Infernal Councels of a Presbyterian
his unalterable Right by Religion Law History and Reason Next call to your minds their strange Illegal Votes That if the King should come to any violent Death they would Revenge it to the utmost on the Papists Whereby they both prompted any bold Enthusiastick Hone to commit the Execrable Parricide and irritated the Rabble to the Massacre of innocent Persons That whosoever should lend the King any money upon the several Branches of His Revenue should be adjudg'd to hinder the sitting of Parliaments and be responsible for it in Parliament whereby they not only took away all hopes of necessary Supplies tyed up as much as in them lay the hands of all Loyal Subjects but moreover as His Majesty complains would have reduced Him to a more helpless condition than the meanest of His Subjects Their resolving that the Prosecution of Dissenters upon Penal Laws was grievous to the Subject an encouragement to Popery and dangerous to the Peace of the Kingdom whereby they assumed to themselves a Power of suspending Acts of Parliament of Licencing Riotous and Seditious Conventicles and added strength and boldness to the Leaders of the Faction If any Loyal Member though never so Eminent for his Talent in speaking and other Abilities stood up in the Defence of his King or Country He was either rudely hiss't at or run down with a Train of clamorous Speeches How that they would have made use of an Impeachment to have rescued a Profess't Papist and a notorious Traytor from Punishment How importunately they Address't His Majesty for Pardons and Pensions for a pack of Prosligate Villains whom they kept in pay to accuse any man that stood in the way to their wicked Designs How they Voted several Eminent Persons Enemies to the Kingdom without Process of Law hearing their Defence or any Proof so much as offered against them Lastly How that at the same time when they amused the People with Jealousies and apprehensions of Tyranny and Oppression they assumed to themselves an unpresidented Arbitrary Power of taking into Custody their Fellow-Subjects for Matters no way Relating to Priviledges of Parliament How they had an Intercourse with Traytors a Correspondency with the common Agitator for the Conspiracy A Villain who declares King-killing a Glorious Act hopes to see Regicides Rewarded by Parliaments Statues Erected to their Memories and they styled Liberatores Patriae i. e. in the Blasphemy of the Modern Stile Saviours of the Nation And all this time we must be born in hand and accurs'd for Tories and Papists if we will not believe them to be true Patriots the only Assertors of our Religion Liberties and Properties that they alone provided for the Safety of His Majesties Sacred Person and the Dignities of the Imperial Crown Fourthly These audacious Proceedings having forc't His Majesty to an Interval of Parliaments They obstruct the ordinary Course and Methods of Justice by pack't Ignoramus Juries whereby Faction and Treason became secure and frontless being now above the reach of the Laws an Impunity was Proclaim'd to the greatest State-Malefactors the Principal Conspirator was Rescued out of the Hands of Justice and Triumphant Medals dispers'd for his Deliverance such a bare-fac't Affront to Authority as can scarce be Parallel'd To accomplish this Matchless Violation of Justice Notorious known Dissenters are brought to the Communion and Sacraments of the Church of England to Capacitate them for Places of Trust and take Oaths to Conform to the Government which they intend to Destroy and so become Perjured in the very Act of swearing And for this they have the Resolution of their own Casuists that an Oath obligeth not in the sense of the Imposer but the Taker A more sure and Compendious way of Ruining our Church and State than the Jesuit with all his Equivocations and Dispensations hath hitherto Attempted For it is now no longer an open Enemy but a Familiar Friend that hath done us this Dishonour Fifthly By their Republican Clubs Riotous Rambles and Descents into the several Parts of the Nation to number the People and try the strength of their Party whilst their Chief like another Absolon takes his Glorious Progresses addresseth to the Populace and receives their Caresses insinuates himself into the Minds of the Discontented and alienates their Affections yet farther from their Obedience to their Lawfull Prince Sixthly By Bandying themselves into an Accursed Association which was neither better nor worse for worse it could not be than a transcript of the old Scotch Covenant as that was of the Holy League of France which laid three Kingdoms in Bloud murthered the King and dissolv'd the Monarchy These were the Principal Methods which they pursued in the carrying on their Trayterous Purposes but these failing and their Villanies rendring them every day more and more odious in the sight of all good Men and the Unanimous Addresses of all Loyal Subjects from all Parts of the Kingdom Proclaiming a Detestation and Abhorrence of their wicked Proceedings and giving the greatest assurances of Fidelity and Affection to the King and the Establish't Government by a free and Generous Proffer of their Lives and Fortunes in the Defence of Both they became desperate and resolving to trust no longer to the slow Methods of Sedition betook themselves to open force Which brings me to my third Particular that when these means fail'd they resolved with the desperate Citizens in the Text Nolumus Hunc We will not have This King to Reign over us And this was to be effected either by raising an Army to master His Guards and seize His Person or by a Barbarous Assassination and both these Designs were carried on by several Interests at the same time the Particulars whereof are so Plainly and Methodically set forth in His Majesties Declaration which has now been twice Publickly read that it supersedes any further Relation I shall therefore very briefly consider the Quality of this Hellish Conspiracy and then set before your eyes that Scene of Horrour and Desolation which had overspread and blackned the Land in case it had taken Effect If we consider the Quality it is compounded of so many Malignant Ingredients that it looks more like a Confederacy against Religion Morality and the common Sentiments of Humanity than a Conspiracy against the Frame Constitution and Administration of the Government Ambition Avarice Revenge have often bewitch't men and led them into Treasonable Associations but this seems to be the sole Result of Abstracted Malice of men abandon'd to the Curse of a Reprobate Mind For what would they have enjoyed which they had not or what could they have desired which they might not have had Was not the Chief of the Conspiracy in the quiet Possession of all Places of Trust Profit and Honour which could make him either Happy in himself serviceable to the Government or Gratefull to the People Did not many of the Rest owe their Forfeited Lives and rais'd Fortunes to His Majesties Grace and Bounty Were not all of them
even glutted with the Blessings of Peace Plenty and Liberty Here then is an unparallel'd Ingratitude against a Prince of the Highest Bounties towards them whose whole Reign hath been so mild and mercifull that He hath even Exceeded our Saviours Precept of Loving His Enemies and doing good to those who despitefully use Him We want not some few Examples in History of some Enthusiastick Ravillaâ— or other Bloudy Assassin who not regarding the Sacredness of Majesty has made his way to the Heart of an Imperial Monarch But for so many Flagitious Villains to Complot the Murther of their Lawfull Prince His Dearest Brother the Hopes of the Succession to Design the utter Ruine of the Loyal Interest to carry this on for so many Years in so many deliberate Cabals and Consultations in defiance of Heaven and so many Providential Disappointments to continue all this while without any discomposure of mind or Remorse of Conscience the Assassination to be perform'd after such a Barbarous Butcherly manner this is such a Villany and Obduracy not to be met with in the Christian world but in the more obdurate Hearts of Fanaticks blasted under the Curse of an unconverted Saul that all this time they thought they did God good service but amongst Fanaticks whose Loyalty is Rebellion whose Religion is Treason and whose very Gospel is the Mystery of Iniquity lastly but amongst Fanaticks and Atheists transform'd into malicious Fiends by the Hellish Divinity of that Monster of a Priest the Author of Julian the Apostate whose whole Book is as great an Apostacy from the Practice of the Primitive Christians the Precepts of Obedience deliver'd by Christ and his Apostles and Christianity it self as ever the Apostate Juliaâ— was guilty of and is indeed no other than the very Platform of this Hellish Conspiracy and aims as directly at the eternal Ruine of the Conspirators as the temporal Death of the King and the dissolution of the Monarchy Secondly Set before your eyes that Scene of Horrour and Desolation which had overspread the Land in case this wicked Treason had succeeded The King His Royal Brother the Ministers of State Judges and Principal Magistrates all slaughter'd after a most inhumane Savage manner the Government dissolv'd our Altars polluted our Liberties enslav'd our Properties wrested from us and all things laid open to the Violence of implacable Men. And indeed who can say had that Tragedy been begun how far it would have gone or where it would have ended For in case of Opposition it must have been seconded with such a Devastation of Fire and Sword as never before had been heard of in this Nation Our streets had been fill'd with the Cries of Widows and the Fatherless with Murders Rapins Incests Adulteries Sacrilege Massacres and Conflagration No Cruelties would have been thought Cruel enough to satiate the Revenge of Fanatick Rage upon I Papists and Tories A sudden Dispatch had been the greatest Favour we could have ask'd or receiv'd from the hand of so base and merciless an Enemy For what satisfaction would it have been to any Loyal Subject to have surviv'd the ruines of the Church and State to have lived in a Land polluted and stain'd with Royal and Noble Bloud to have had daily before his eyes the dismal Spectacle of his enslav'd undone Country and to have liv'd in perpetual fears of being made a Sacrifice himself But it pleased that God who allotteth to Atheists and Rebels a portion with the Hypocrite to Rescue His Majesty from the Paws of these Bloudy Miscreants and to lay both Parties of the Conspiracy under the same Fate and Disappointment Which brings me to my fourth and last observation the Folly and Impiety of Treasonable Attempts For notwithstanding their Nolumus He whom they devoted to Slaughter do's and shall Reign over them That good Kings should be the more immediate Care of God seems agreeable to the Oeconomy of His Providence and is confirm'd by Examples in all Ages For They are His anointed His Vice-gerents set over us by His Appointment and in theirs is involv'd the Fate of particular men And therefore their publick Sacred Character entitles them to a special Right in the Divine Providence Of this truth our Gracious King has been a very rare Example through the whole Course of His Life never did any Righteous King receive more strange and miraculous Deliverances nor He himself ever a Greater than this last when Mercy was turn'd into Judgement and the Dreadfull Fire at Newmarket became to Him a Tower of Salvation Which consideration alone was enough to have deterr'd any but such bold Sons of Anak who were not afraid to become Fighters against God from attempting the Life of a Prince who had been hitherto so wonderfully preserv'd But He shall Reign over them First in Judgement in a legal Execution of those Bloudy Conspirators who would have murthered Him They must suffer or He cannot be safe Mercy would here prove Cruelty Pardon an affront to Justice and the highest Ingratitude to Heaven They are now under the command of those Laws which they would have destroyed under the hands of those Judges whom they had destin'd to Slaughter and every Judge must remember that He is the Minister of God a Revenger to execute wrath upon him that doth evil That which seems truly deplorable in their Fate is the execrable Treason for which they die and the Hardness and Impenitence which accompanies them at their Deaths And wo be to those wretched Guides who led them into both those Betrayers of Souls who instead of disposing them to Christian Confession Repentance and Resignation have caus'd them to Publish such Justifications as seem written with Design to incite their Accomplices to do the Work of the Conspiracy here whilst they are answering for it in the other world this consideration makes the Hearts of all good Christians ake For never did any Criminals suffer for a more Flagitious Crime upon clearer Evidence fuller Conviction fairer Tryal juster Condemnation or fall under a more mercifull Execution one of them receiving that mitigation of his Sentence which He had formerly denyed to be in the Power of the King to grant And therefore we must believe those men are given over to believe a Lye who impudently cry up their Innocency and boast their Martyrdom This can only demonstrate the Incorrigible malignity of the Faction and awaken the Magistrate into a vigorous Execution of the Laws against such Boldness as in the very Discovery and Prosecution of a Fanatick Conspiracy dares justifie Treason and Canonize Traytors And therefore Secondly He shall Reign over them in making a right improvement of this great Advantage which God hath put into His hands The wonderfull Deliverances He has already receiv'd do plainly say that He is still reserv'd for some extraordinary Work in the world And from His last miraculous Escape we may easily Presage what mighty Acts He shall perform for these Kingdoms in Particular Now shall it be