mity, and subverted the constitution." They too, my Lord, had their specious pretences in the midst of their evil pursuits, and talked of God's true religion, of asserting the rights of the church and monarchy, of suppressing schism; " and that they intended nothing, if you would believe them, but the true service of God and the king." So that the sectaries afterwards wanted not a pretence for their pious cant and violent measures.

There is the more reason for reviving these truths, (for truths they are, as certain as any in history) for that most of the sermons on this occasion have been nothing else but confident apologies for all the notorious usurpations of the court and the clergy; and the preachers generally either boldly defend them, or deny them, or are silent about them. I could wish your Lordship had been more candid and explicit upon the same subject. You dwell upon the consequences of the war, and the change, the violent change which it produced; and labour to raise the passions of your hearers and readers against one side. only. The excesses, the provocations, the continued enormities of the other side, which occasioned the rest, you hardly touch; and when you do, 'tis with a gentle and palliative hand.

My Lord, I who have no reserves, and love a fair representation of things, can see and confess wicked counsels, hypocrisy, execrable measures, and flagrant breach of trust on both sides I own that the king and the clergy had hard and cruel usage; that he was destroyed by a faction; that the laws were abolished, and a tyranny set up: but still, from whence are we to trace the first cause? And did it nof begin from the court and the clergy? Hence proceeded the first distrust, and breach of union and confidence between the king and his people : hence arose the first aversion to the churchmen: and, as it was the monarch who created a disgust to monarchy, it was the insolent spirit of churchmen that made the church odious.

Your Lordship justly detests the murder of the king: so do I. But I likewise detest the murder of the constitution, which he and his counseilors had for many years trampled upon, and endeavoured to overturn for ever. One of the uses therefore to be made of the day is, to expose lawless rule, flattering counsels, an aspiring and corrupt priesthood, with the danger and sin of violating public trust, and abusing

power.

Your Lordship" will not say that there had been no occasion given by the court for jealousies and fears." How tenderly spoken; when the law was actually preached down, when the king's will was preached up as the only law; when no man obnoxious to the court had the benefit of law; when the liberties and properties of all men were subjected to the caprice and passion of one. My Lord, he had been guilty of as many public violences, as his son king James was afterwards, and continued them much longer.

Your Lordship will not say, that "there was not sufficient reason for opposition in a parliamentary way." Had he not laid aside parliaments? laid them aside for twelve years together? Had he not made it penal even to talk of parliaments? Nor does it at all appear, that he ever intended to call another, till the distresses brought upon him by his wanton conduct, and by the wise advice of the bishops, (who involved him in a war with his own people for words and forms, and the

violent establishment of prelacy in Scotland) forced him to it. Nay, I think it apparent, that he very early meditated to rule like his brother of France; at least, that this bad spirit was infused into him by his traiterous counsellors, and particularly animated by the bishops and clergy. But I avoid, as your Lordship does, to enter minutely into. the history of those unhappy times, though perhaps not for the same reason. I only ask your Lordship, suppose he had never called a parliament, what would have been the adviseable remedy, what the method of opposition then?

You say, "That whatever wrong measures had been taken, which might endanger the liberties of the subject," (my Lord, this very soft language no wise represents the excesses of that reign) "what was most offensive of that kind," (still very tender) was by the advice of his council, &c." So were the worst of king James's measures; so are the measures of the Great Turk, and of every tyrant and usurper in the world. It is too true, that the worst kings, the greatest oppressors, will ever find complaisant and officious counsellors, and the most wicked measures find parricides to defend them. Had not Nero, had not Caligula, ministers and instruments, as barbarous as themselves, to justify all their barbarities, and even to advise and inspire them? Have not all the most bloody tyrants that ever plagued and afflicted men, found such impious counsellors and defenders? Indeed, had there never been any such wicked advisers and instruments, there never could have been such mischievous and pernicious princes.

You add (very surprisingly)" with the concurrence of his judges, judges in general of good character, and well esteemed in their profession," I cannot help thinking that this account is extremely amazing from your Lordship. My Lord, they were public traitors, enemies to their country, the hirelings of power, wretches who sanctified by the name of Law, as many of the clergy did by the name of Christ, the most complicated wickedness under the sun, that of overturning all law human and divine, and of enslaving a whole people. It avails not what sufficiency they had in the knowledge of the law, farther than to condemn them; nor does it avail what has been said to their advantage, nor what your Lordship says, since facts the most notorious contradict it. Will your Lordship say thus much of king James's judges? And did king James's judges go greater lengths to legitimate lawless power and oppression? Amongst them too there were able men; they were therefore the more inexcusable. The truth is, both these princes seem to have considered their judges as the machines and champions of usurpation, as the abandoned instruments of cancelling law by chicanery.

What your Lordship labours next, is to vindicate the sincerity of the king's intentions in his declarations and concessions, "to govern for the future by the known laws of the land, and to maintain the just rights and privileges of parliaments." I have already taken some notice how sincere he was, and how much his actions contradicted his declarations. He had already contradicted over and over, all his professions to former parliaments; he had manifested such an affection for lawless power, and such a settled intention to introduce it, such a fondness for the promoters of it, and such dislike of all other men and measures; that it was no wonder his last Parliament was loth to trust

him, and for guarding themselves with all possible securities against a relapse into their former bondage. And I doubt his readiness in his concessions, was no proof of a purpose to observe them. They still remembered how wantonly he had broke his coronation oath, the bill of rights, and all the ties of law, seized their properties, and imprisoned their persons. And all his compliance seemed only the effect of distress, all his other resources having failed him; nor had he recourse to Parliament till violence, and power, and stratagems, and every scheme of support from any other quarter, had miscarried; and he conformed to old ways, when new would no longer do.

This seemed to be the opinion of the Parliament, and this the ground of their distrust. They remembered his professions to former Parliaments, and how little his actions had corresponded with these his professions; how he had insulted parliaments when he thought he could subsist, however lawlessly, without them; how wantonly he had dissolved them, how barbarously he had used their persons after such dissolution, a dissolution called by my lord Clarenden, unreasonable, unskilful, and precipitate. These jealousies, my Lord, possessed the whole Parliament, at least a great majority; and some concurring accidents terribly heightened them, particularly his supposed tampering with the army in the north, and the Irish massacre. Yet amongst all these alarms, which your Lordship must allow to have had great weight, there seems not the least view, (I think 'tis plain there was not) in that assembly, to abolish the monarchy, or to introduce a new government. It was composed of many great and able men, who all concurred in putting restraints upon the king, such as he might not be able to break through. What events followed no man then foresaw, or could foresee. A war ensued, and on both sides there appeared considerable men.

Yet the great men who adhered to the king, though they thought the Parliament too violent, seem to have had no confidence in him, that he meant well to the constitution: and it was probably owing to such their distrust of his humour and designs, that after the battle of Edge-hill, where he had the advantage on his side, they did not proceed to London, where he might have had a chance for being master. They who gave him good counsel at Oxford, found but cold countenance there, and some of them were disgraced. Nor could he ever prevail upon the members whom he had drawn thither, and called his Parliament, to declare the Parliament at Westminster rebels, though this was a point which he had much at heart, and laboured hard, and complained heavily of his disappointment; nay, reviled them by the name of his Mungril Parliament. The fate of the excellent lord Falkland, his principal Secretary of State, deserves notice, and seems to have proceeded from his utter despair of seeing a good issue from either side. And, if I remember right, it appears even from my lord Clarendon, that the concessions which the king made, proceeded from no purpose to observe them.

What your Lordship says of the king's adherents, is not conclusive. If they were of the nobility and gentry, and men of fortune; so were those of the other side, especially till the army desperately and wickedly assumed the government to themselves. What followed was indeed infamous and horrible, the murder of the king, and a military

government. Cromwel was a notorious hypocrite and usurper, and richly deserved the fate which he made the king suffer.

Your Lordship seems likewise to fail in the last proof which you offer of the king's sincerity and good intentions, namely, his Christian fortitude at his death.

My Lord, this reasoning will justify those who doomed him to die. Did not the Regicides meet death with great intrepidity, some of them with raptures? Do not almost all enthusiasts die so, even the most criminal and bloody, even traitors and assassins? I think the goodness of his intentions had been more clear, had he fairly owned the many grievous iniquities of his reign, his oppressions and arbitrary rule. But we see in this, as in other instances, the great partiality of men to themselves and their own actions, and how little their opinion ought to weigh in such cases. Cardinal Richlieu, who had done a thousand acts of violence and injustice, saw at his death no guilt in any part of his life, especially as a minister. Did not the earl of Strafford, who had been a great oppressor of public liberty, and of his country: did not arch-bishop Laud, a hot-headed monk, who had caused so much violence and confusion, both die with clear consciences? Nay, did not Gortz, baron Gortz, the most barbarous villain that ever counselled or served a prince, he who had served his master the late king of Sweden in the most merciless measures, and indeed advised them; go to his execution, not only without any reproach from his own heart, but even praising himself? These wicked men valued themselves upon their loyalty to their prince. But execrable, and infamous, and inconsistent is that loyalty which misleads princes, and ruins their people.

In your vindication of the kings adherents, your Lordship is again. too loose, and you say many things at random.

To what you say against Cromwel, and against the violence and hypocrisy of his agents, I have no objection; only that the style seems not to resemble that of a sermon. I should however have thought you impartial, had you shewn the like warmth against the first authors of our confusions. Some of your language is applicable enough to the latter: "There was so much injustice, violence, and oppression; so much arbitrariness and cruelty in their proceedings, accompanied with the vilest hypocrisy and falsehood:"-for law and religion, my Lord, were still pretended by Laud and his faction, even whilst they were oppressing justice and conscience.

You just confess, that "the indiscreet zeal of the friends of the church, and the severity with which they pressed a compliance in things indifferent, or of small consequence, upon persons of different persuasions, whose aversion to a compliance increased in proportion. to the zeal with which it was pressed, prepared fuel for that unhappy fire." This is mentioned in a very temperate style, though as proper a topic as any in your Sermon, to have been opened and explained with warmth and indignation. My Lord, do these few cold words make a proper picture of that violent and arbitrary time? What your Lordship thinks, I know not; nor do you perhaps care what I think about it Let us leave it to our impartial readers.

I have before answered what you repeat and dwell upon; namely, that the king could not have fallen, had the church stood.

You say, that they who ruined the church, had for their pretence pure religion, and a further reformation. Had there no ground been furnished for such a pretence? Was there no need of some reformation, when the clergy were, (very many of them) going back every day to Popery, and ruining all their brethren who would not go back with them? Were they not daily introducing Popery, the most dreadful part of Popery, its terrible power, its vindictive and untolerating spirit? Perhaps they meant not to restore the Pope but the superstition of Popery was increasing every day, as also the pomp of Popery, with persecution, the most dreadful engine of Popery. Arch-bishop Laud was already affecting the title of Holiness, and Most holy Father. The books of Papists were licensed by his chaplains, or approved by himself: new books against Popery were by him forbid to be printed; some such already printed were called in: passages against Popery were struck out in others. The best Protestant books of long standing, and formerly published by authority, were not suffered to be reprinted, not even Fox's famous Acts and Monuments, a common-place book to Protestants of their sufferings and burnings under Queen Mary, and of the Popish cruelties then and before. The very Practice of Piety, a Protestant book, which had gone through six-and-thirty editions, was not permitted to be reprinted. Bishop Wren put this extraordinary article amongst those of his visitation, "That the churchwardens in every parish of his diocese, should enquire whether any persons presumed to talk of religion at their tables, or in their families." It was made one of the articles against bishop Williams, that he had said, “He did not allow the priests to jeer, nor to make invectives against the people." It was another article against him, "That he had wickedly jested on St. Martin's hood:" and it was another article against him, "That he had said, that the people are God's and the king's, and not the priest's people;" though for this he quoted a national council. Poor Gillebrand an almanack maker, was prosecuted by the archbishop in the High Commission Court, for leaving the names of the old Popish saints out of his calendar, and inserting in their room, the names of the Protestant martyrs. Bishop Cosins of Durham, caused three hundred was candles to be lighted up in the church on candlemas-day in honour of our lady he forbade any psalms to be sung before or after sermon, but instead of psalms, an anthem in praise of the three kings of Colen. He declared in the pulpit, that when our reformers abolished the mosE, they took away all good order. He said that the king had no more power over the church, than the boy that rubbed his horse's heels. For the clergy had then assumed to themselves the regal supremacy; and as the crown had taken it from the Pope, who had usurped it, they had usurped it now from the crown, to the disgrace of the king, the subversion of the constitution, and to their own shame, and even perjury.

To all this, which your Lordship's silence has given me occasion to say on this head, give me leave to add the unquestionable testimony of the judicious and excellent Lord Falkland, in his speech concerning the bishops and their adherents. "It seemed, says he, their work to try how much of a Papist might be brought in without Popery, and to destroy as much as they could of the gospel, without bringing themselves into danger of being destroyed by the law. Some of them