The English ballance weighing the reasons of Englands present conjunction with France against the Dutch vvith some observes upon His Majesties declaration of liberty to tender consciences. McWard, Robert, 1633?-1687. 1672 Approx. 233 KB of XML-encoded text transcribed from 56 1-bit group-IV TIFF page images. Text Creation Partnership, Ann Arbor, MI ; Oxford (UK) : 2003-01 (EEBO-TCP Phase 1). A51057 Wing M232 ESTC R18026 13405410 ocm 13405410 99398 This keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership. This Phase I text is available for reuse, according to the terms of Creative Commons 0 1.0 Universal . The text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. Early English books online. (EEBO-TCP ; phase 1, no. A51057) Transcribed from: (Early English Books Online ; image set 99398) Images scanned from microfilm: (Early English books, 1641-1700 ; 465:11) The English ballance weighing the reasons of Englands present conjunction with France against the Dutch vvith some observes upon His Majesties declaration of liberty to tender consciences. McWard, Robert, 1633?-1687. 110 p. s.n.] [London? : 1672. Reproduction of original in Huntington Library. Created by converting TCP files to TEI P5 using tcp2tei.xsl, TEI @ Oxford. Re-processed by University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. Gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. 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Copies of the texts have been issued variously as SGML (TCP schema; ASCII text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable XML (TCP schema; characters represented either as UTF-8 Unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless XML (TEI P5, characters represented either as UTF-8 Unicode or TEI g elements). Keying and markup guidelines are available at the Text Creation Partnership web site . eng England and Wales. -- Sovereign (1660-1685 : Charles II). -- His Majesties declaration to his loving subjects March 15th, 1672. Dutch War, 1672-1678. Freedom of religion -- England. Great Britain -- History -- Charles II, 1660-1685. 2002-01 TCP Assigned for keying and markup 2002-01 Apex CoVantage Keyed and coded from ProQuest page images 2002-04 TCP Staff (Michigan) Sampled and proofread 2002-04 John Latta Text and markup reviewed and edited 2002-05 pfs Batch review (QC) and XML conversion THE ENGLISH BALLANCE , Weighing the Reasons , of Englands present conjunction with France , against the Dutch. With some Observes upon his Majesties Declaration , of Liberty to Tender Consciences . PROV . 20 : V. 18. Every Purpose is established by Counsel , and with good advice make War. PROV . 24 : V. 6. For by wise Counsel thou shalt make thy War , and in multitude of Counsellours , there is safety . Printed in the Year MDCLXXII . THE ENGLISH BALLANCE , Weighing the reasons of Englands present Conjunction with France against the Dutch. With some Observes upon his Majesties Declaration , of liberty to Tender Consciences . THE present aspect of affairs , being obviously such , as not onely amuseth all , but really concerneth the greatest part of the Christian World , and my own proper interest ( not more from pure incapacity , then , real choice and inclination ) being most precisely confined , to that of religion , and reason , I presume , that if by a few sober reflexions , I break that common silence of my Nation ( which seems to proceed rather from a deep amazement , then any other consideration ) I shall not therefore incurre the censure of singularity ; but if the fate of truth , shall neverthelesse expose me to the hatred of any , all I wish them , is , as little prejudice from their mistake , as I intend of particular advantage by the following representation . The subject then that moves me to this undertaking , is , briefly , the allarume of war , that soundeth every where , the tendency of the French. Armes , against the united Netherlands , and the apparent conjunction of the King of England , with the French , in this their invasion . What may be the pretenses of the French , just or unjust , since conjecture ( of all things most dareing ) hath not hitherto adventured upon the discovery , it were in vaine for me to attempt the research : It is known , that the Estats most interessed , did addresse their inquirie unto the French King , who certainly knoweth best , and that upon the fairest account , viz. all just and reasonable satisfaction , and yet , had no other returne , save a slender notice , of their acknowledgement of the favours received from his Antcestors , with a structure , upon their omission of his owne good deeds ( no doubt the dividing of the English Fleet by Beauforts imaginary assistance ) and then , a hint at late innovations in trade , visibly declining reason , by ane insinuat reference , to a neutral arbitration , without so much as a condescendence upon the subject , notwithstanding of the satisfaction offered ; concluding , with a scrupulous formalizing at the Estats desire , to be cleared , about their evidently well grounded apprehensions , of his Majesties extraordinary preparations , as if it were boorish incivility , to demand reason abroad , from a Prince that makes his will to satisfy at home ; so that the King of France his tendernesse to abuse truth , and unwillingnesse to derogat from the confidence of his great power , by searching after a colourable pretext , where there is none to be found , appeares to be the most favourable account , that his procedour will admit of : It 's true , the advance of his Romish superstition doth occurre , as a very probable incentive , but , as both justice doth repugne , and Policy disswade from declaring it to be the cause , of this apprehended war ; so , I confesse the manifest decay , and neglect of religion , every where , this day in the earth , with his Majesties not our addiction to his passions , and interests above all other ingagements , do rather incline me to think , that it is the insolent Tyranny of these imperious Lusts , pride and avarice , that doth thus derobe a great Prince , of his solid glories , and pleasures , and in lieu thereof , with pain and hazard to himself , and injury to his neighbours , render him a slave to the motions of his insatiable appetit : But , though the candor I am resolved to use in this Discourse , doth make me thus figure to my self , the French King's incitements ; yet , I am very far from thinking , that the matter of religion is no more interessed in this war , then intended : To knit the consequences of war , and victory , either to the declared causes , or influencing reasons of the undertakers , is , an error , that both reason and the experience of all ages doth abundantly disprove ; but why should I here make any profusion of reason , where common sense may be so convictive ? Can Popish Armes prevail , and not establish Popish superstition ? Can this Popish Superstition have power , and not both prosper and persecute ? These are consequences so natural , and evident , that it were superfluous , either to challenge one instance dissonant , from the thousands , that confirme them , or to reminde what , and how successefully , the present French King hath ( what by force , and what by policy ) practised , in his own dominions : or lastly , to adde , that as the genius of Popery , hath ever been most bent , to seek to reenter where it hath been ejected ; so it cannot but in this invasion be animat , by a great accession of vigour , in the hope , thereby to triumph in the conquest of the main fort , and bulwarke of the Protestant interest : And verily these things are of themselves so obvious , that I almost blame their conduct , ( if onely designed for clearing of this point ) who of late have caused Print , a Letter to the Estats , from their Resident in Vienna , acquainting them with the King of France his intentions , as by him communicat to the Elector of Mentz , viz. to daunton the pride of the Estats General , and compel them to the restitution of Ecclesiastick Lands , and goods , and that assurance hereof , is long since given to the Pope ; As if the manifest hazard of the Protestant Religion , from the French Armes , and their approaches , and its infallible prejudice in their successe , not onely as to this restitution , but the subversion of its truth and purity , did need the accession of such a conjectural proof ? But it is indeed to be regrated , that such at present , should be the reguardlesse indifferency , in the matter of religion , of the neighbouring Protestant Princes and Estats , that neither the undeniable evidences of all appearances , nor all the arguments whereby they may be seconded , seem sufficient , to awake them , from this dangerous slumber : The time was , when religion , as the most precious concerne , was also , the most endearing bond , of mutual alliance ; so that whereever it happened to be attacqued , neither distance , nor separation of other interests , did exempt , or excuse , from the common defence ; But men have long since , both in their hearts , and lives , cast it downe , from its excellency , and if there it hath lost its power , and influence , no wonder , that it be little operative on publick transactions : Whether for this cause , the Lord be now arisen to contend , first , with these united Provinces , and thereafter with all the Churches , is no doubt a question , which every man hath reason to move with trembling ; my hearts desire is , that as God by his dispensations , is threatning to punish , aswel by the lose of temporalities , sinfully overvalued , and abused , as by the removeal of his Gospel , unworthily undervalued , and dispised ; so , his people may thence be warned , and instructed above all things , to seek his face , and peace , and thereby to engage him , to stand on their side , both on his own , and their behalfe , then shall the Lord who waits to be gracious , exalt himself , that he may have mercy upon them , and joine his judgement to the justice of their cause , to scatter the proud & put downe the mighty , that men may see and say , Surely there is a God that judgeth righteoush in the earth . But is it possible that matters standing thus , betwixt the French and Dutch , and religion being so much concerned , in the event , the King of England should incline , to take part with the French , so manifestly contrair to righteousnesse and religion , yea to his faith , honour , and interest ? And really all these ( the maine , if not the onely determinations among rational men ) doe so directly oppose , and disswade this strange resolution , that , I sincerely professe , it is only from the surprise , and distrust of my reason , and not in the least from any purpose , to amaze men into my sentiments , that my wonder doth expresse itself , in this interrogation ; which , if any man doe still judge , to be an anticipation ; let him only forebeare what he censures ; and I hope , be shall be quickly satisfied . That I may therefore proceed clearly in this odd rancountre of affairs : Although I doe heartily wish , that my supposition may never exist ; yet , seing it is the ground of the ensueing discourse , he who doubts its probability , may consider the following passages . First , the King of England his refusal upon the Estats their just and reasonable demand , to give assurance for the performing of his part of the Triple Alliance . Next , the known ordinary discourse of his court , pretending high provocations . 3. Sir George Downing , his late Embassie , with the unusewall reserve by him practised , in the exposing of his demands , his sudden recall , and his refusing to receive the Stats their answer , unto the memoire he had given in , about the flage 4. the straine of his Majesties returne to this answer , when thereafter presented to him , whereby he plainly intimats his displeasure thereat , signifying that though he be willing to observe the Triple Alliance , yet he doth not judge himself thereby obliged , to suffer them to doe what they please , to his prejudice , nor to wrong their neighbours , in the matter of trade : asserting peremptorily , his soveraignity in the seas , and withal , demanding their positive answer , whether they will punish Van Gent for his not striking to his Flage : And lastly the extraordinary correspondence entertained , betwixt the Courts of England , and France , with their late Treaty : the several millions of money it hath brought from France to England , & the designed expedition of the Duke of Monmouth , with some thousands of Auxiliaries , into the french Campaigne ; which passages being joined to the great and fervid sea preparations , wherein England is now bussied , doe in my opinion , sufficiently resolve , that the Dutch are the marke whereat they are levelled , whether justly or unjustly comes next to be handled ? And certainly , if they have no other motive or end , then the french assistance , whatever injustice may be , in their causelesse invasion , or whatever detriment Religion may suffer by their successe , doe fall upon the King of England , as an assistant , with higher aggravations , then can be fairly named , before that I doe first propose , and examine , the proper provocations , that he pretends : That , therefore reason and truth , may have their full exercise , and right , my endeavour shall be , to give an impartial and sincere , account of all , that fame or report hath hitherto communicat on this subject . That the King of England hath of a long time acclaimed , the soveraignity of the Brittish seas , and therein also been universally acknowledged , by the formality of striking , is notour over all : and , as it is not my duety , willfully to diminish or impugne the former , so , the latter is expressely agreed to , by the Dutch , in the last treaty of peace : But the difference at present , arising from this head , seems to be twofold , the first in matter of fact , viz. that the King of England accuseth the Dutch , of an injurious affront , both against his right , and the late treaty , in as much as their fleet , under Van Gent's conduct , did of late , refuse to strike sail , to one of his Jachts , bearing his flage . To which the Dutch answer , that the Kings right being drawn unto the Treaty , for its better confirmation , it must thence take all its measures , and it being thereby only provided , that all dutch ships , shall strike to the King's men of war , in the British seas , as the cleare termes of the Treaty in the 19 Art : thereof , and the quality of the Jacht , being onely a pleasure boat , and no man of war , doe furnish a defence for what is past ; so , by their answer above mentioned to Sir George Downings memoire , they offer , that if his Maj. will observe the Triple Alliance , they will still agree , that all dutch ships shall strike to his Ships of war ; but the King not herewith satisfied , desires the Estats , to be positive , whether or not they will inflict punishment on Van Gent ? as we have heard : The other branch of this difference toucheth the point of right , the King of England asserting peremptorily , in his above mentioned answer to the Estats , his dominion , and soveraignity over the narrow seas , and the Dutches , hitherto silently forebearing , either to debate , or consent to the claime : The next ground of provocation discoursed of , in the King of Englands court ( for as yet it hath proceeded no further ) is the making & publishing amongst the Dutch of certain scandalous pictures , and pamphlets , to the King's dishonour , whereof some , at least one , viz. the picture dedicat , and affixed by the towne of Dort , in the Stadt-house , to the honour of Cornelius de Wit , in memorie of his attacque at Chattam , bearing the draught of the thing , with certain Lines of Elogy subjoined , ( all no doubt contrived with the lustre of advantages sutable to the designe ) licensed by authority , and the rest onely of privat authors , but publickely permitted , and of this kinde ( as is reported at court ) a pourtrait of the King of England , surrounded by some ladies of pleasure , bussied in picking his pockets , is most noticed , and talked of : the third pretense for war , intimat by the King of England's last answer , above spoken of , wherein he saith , that though he be willing to stand to the Triple Alliance ; yet , he is not thereby obliged , to suffer , either things prejudicial to his own honour , or them , to doe what injuries to their neighbours in matter of trade , that they think fit ; which last passage , is no doubt to be understood of the same innovations in trade , complained upon , by the King of France , his letter , as we have said : but what these are , is alike obscure in both , and remain's yet to be explained . This being the summe of what I have learned , of the King of England's provocation : Their import , and merit , is in the next place to be weighed : To discourse then first the alledged incivility of Van Ghent ; I know , it would be thought ridiculous , for me to endeavour , to accommodat this mistake , by these Gospel rules of simplicity , meeknesse , and divine goodnesse , to offer to square the actings of Princes , and Stats , in such emergents , by that deference , forebearance , and readinesse to pardon , held forth ; in its high and heavenly precepts , in prejudice of their grosse , and vain politicks , would be in the construction of these delicat Spirits , and refined witts , ( which deceive themselves and others , to the foolish admiration , and esteeme of things of no moment , ) to trample upon the tender point of honour , and dissolve the noble frame of interest : neither shall I at this time further urge , the difference pretended by the Dutch , betwixt a man of war and a jacht ; impartialitie must certainly graunt , that the refusing to strike to this vessel , ( if in the Brittish seas ) which ten yeers agoe the Dutch had not scrupled to honour as a man of war , and not much above a hundred yeers , might possibly have served for their Admiral , could onely have flowed from their late successe , and elevation ; but as it is aboundantly evident , that , nothing save a fatal misfortune , could engage either party , to forme a quarrel upon this only occasion , and that without the influence , of far different considerations , the King of England would not therein , have shewed himself so uneasie ; so , it must be acknowledged , that in so light an offence , not destitut , at least of a colourable excuse , the Dutch their offer of good performance , for the time to come , is as much as in reason , can be expected : the next point that occurres , is , the King of England's soveraignity , over the Brittish seas , whereof at present he appeares to be very jealous , and questionlesse if his Majesty doe not content himself , with the formality of striking , as his sole prerogative , but holds it only for a marke of due recognisance , asserting withal , his soveraignity indefinitly , as to all effects , that such a title may import ; it 's value , doth not more deserve his jealousie , then it's consequences may justly , excit all , to inquire into his pretenses . I shall not here table the debate , an mare sit liberum an clausum , the reasons of those learned men , who have managed it , pro and con : doe , in my opinion , very happily compose it , in this reconciliation : that , as the nature , and end of the seas , doe plainly appeare , incapable of dominion , so , in as far as they are destined , and doe serve , for common use , the expresse or presumptive consent of one people , may qualify , restrict , or renounce the same , in favours of another ; and , thus we see , that wherever dominion over particular seas , are acclaimed , their effects are not onely precisely limited , but almost every where different , so , to one is given thereby the sole benefit of fishing , to another a certain tribut , to a third the power of jurisdiction , and so forth to every one , as restrictedly to the condition of his right , as to its respective bounds , either of which , if the owner should happen to transgresse , his dominion would be in so far , reput , an insignificant plea ; so that this maritime dominion , not being of the nature of terrene propriety , of it self absolute , unto all intents , ( unlesse diminished by law or the owners concession ) but meerly , a certain priviledge , or servitude , established by consent , in that which of it self , is , as the air , reserved for common use , it 's evident , that the consent , and possession , which constitut the right , doe in like manner define it's extent : And that upon the pretext of some particularities conceded , to arrogat an unlimited soveraignity , would , both in reason , and in the event , prove an insupportable usurpation . Hence it is , that for all England's glorieing , in this , our dignity , and for all the power , ( wherewith no doubt , we both did acquire , and doe continue it ) yet , it hath not to this day , been further recognosced , even in the Channel , ( it 's principal seat and subject , and where it hath alwayes affected it's maine Parad : for as to the other brittish seas , which are onely , the neerest circumambient parts of the wide Ocean , the Law of nations doth onely attribut to England its common priviledge ) then by the bare ceremony of the first salute ; neither in the last Treaty , wherein the King of England was greatly concerned , and no lesse solicitous to cleare this title , was there any thing else agreed unto , as I have already marked ; and without all peradventure , if his Majesty in the conceit of his dominion , should once offer to exert it , though but in very ordinary effects , such as the assuming of jurisdiction , or imposing of tribute , whereof the Sound and Adriatick do exhibit cleare precedents ; he would soone be made to understand his error , not onely by the reclaming dissent , but also , by the vigourous opposition of all his neighbours : I might insist to disprove this pretense of an indefinit dominion , from the far more rational judgement , of the ancient Romans , who not only reckoned the sea with the air , Inter ea quae sunt nullius ; but , though by reason of the encircling of their vast Empire , they might have acclaimed , even the whole Mediterranean Sea , jure diverticuli , & in many parts thereof , had indeed several powers , and priviledges ; yet , were they so far from captating this vaine and groundlesse title , that one of the greatest Emperours , begins a rescript , with relation to this same subject , in these words , Ego quidem munai dominus , lex vero maris : thereby manifestly holding forth , that , as he judged it incapable of dominion , so it 's unstable nature , and common destination , could only be regulat , as to humane concernes , in so far , as Law , and consequently , condition or consent , did determine : from all which , I conclude , that as the Dutch , doe fully satisfie , all that in justice , the King of England can demand , by their offering to strike , conforme to the last Treatie , and have good reason to repugne , either to his indefinit soveraignity , or any further preheminence , for which nothing anterior to the said last Treaty , can in reason be obtruded ; so , his pressing them further , in this affair , is , both captious , and unjust , and he might upon as good grounds , refuse them the liberty , of a free passage in the channel , as exspect of them a consent , to adominion , which if not cautioned , by a particular explication , might assuredly be thereto extended . The second ground of offence mentioned , is , that of the scandalous pictures and pamphlets : but as every sober person , may justly apprehend , that , that prudence , which often adviseth a connivent dissembling , of things of this nature , at home , will far more restraine , any such contentious inquiries , as may advance unto a challenge abroad ; so , in case it should here prove too feeble , for the provocation pretended , it is evident , that only such of those pictures , and pamphlets , as are indeed injuriously reproachful , and are licensed , or openly countenanced by the Stats , their authority , can warrant the King of England's charge ; by which rule if any man please to examine , the above mentioned condescendence , he must of necessity rest satisfied , that on the one hand , the picture dedicat to De Witt , being onely a true , and honourable representation , rej gestae , containing nothing more , then the most ordinary , and easie reward , and encouragement of heroick atcheivements , and consequently free of all shaddow of reproach , and on the other hand , that picture of his Maj. with his paramours , being at most ( if any such thing was at all ) a wanton privateer timeously enough suppressed , when noticed , and so not chargeable upon authority , until once questioned , do no wayes amount to a sufficient verification ; whether there be any other pictures , or what there may be in those pamphlets , I must confesse , that for my own part , all the matter of this Article doth appeare to me so light , and slender , that my curiosity hath not hitherto been tempted to an inquiry : This onely I am assured of , that if injuries of this kinde may be compensat , by a counter-charge , the Dutch may quickly ballance this account , the English disdain of the Dutch is an infinit theme : It 's true , either its excesse , or some other cause , hath hindered it , to shew it self , in the ingenuousnesse of pictures , and the like phansies ; but he who judgeth this , to be a want , may easily finde it supplied by ane immense overplus of pride , and contumelie , in their discourses , and descriptions of that People , both old and late : One thing I may further adde upon this subject , that for that picture instanced of the King of England , and the Ladies , even interest and policy seeme to absolve the Estats of any advice to the Painter , or other accession unto it . The 3. ground of provocation , intimat by the King of Englands last letter to the Estats , is , That his Majesty thinks himself not bound to suffer the Dutch , to do what injuries they please to their Neighbours , in matter of trade , which if we consider , with a respect to the King's acknowledgement , of the Triple Alliance , and with this onely import , as if he did not judge himself thereby bound , to concurre with , and assist the Dutch , in their injustice , is no doubt fair & righteous , & when made out , cannot but excuse him , to abandon the Dutch , in any such unequal controversy , they may fall into with the French , or any other ; Although , whether it may , in like manner , warrant him , to passe froma neutrality , and take part with their adversaries , when there appeares no ingagement of his own proper interest , may still remaine a question : But seing the circumstances , and whole straine of that letter , togither with it's coincidence with the King of France , his complaint of the Dutch innovations , doe visibly hold forth , a quit other tendency , in the expression , and in plain English , that his Majesty presuming upon his Soveraignity of the seas , or some other ground , known to himself , would have the Dutch to submit to his arbitration ; upon whatsoever difference , the French may alledge : such an officious interposing , without so much as the pretext , either of a solid title , or real occasion , is palpably void of all colour of right ; so , that in effect , the challenge here couched , in place of a declaration of a just offence , doth only exhibit , to the construction of ingenuitie , his Majesties compliance , with the French resentments , and his resolution , to second their armes just or injust , and procure their satisfaction : As to the innovations , or injuries in trade , generally hinted at , when their Majesties , are both so reserved , who can be expresse ? The increase of the Dutch in this matter , is indeed very extraordinary , both to the prejudice and envie of all their neighbours ; but , seing it is so assured , that all the Dutch their advantages in trade , are the Pure effects , of their own greater industry , and sobrietie , that neither of the Kings have as yet , thought it fit to acquaint the world , with the particulars of their complaint , it is cleare that these murmurings , so like to the repineings of profuse debauches , equally covering and lazie , to the proportion of their immense riot , against men of vertue , and diligence , can never amount to a justifiable quarrel : I know , injuries in the remote parts of Africk and Asia , have been discoursed of , and in special , that the Dutch doe there , either secretly instigat , or by compact , oblige the natives , to exclude all others , and principally the English , from commerce in their bounds , ( and this was also the great pretext of the last war ) but , whither this be only an invention , simulating to come from far , the better to cover it's groundlesse contriveance at home , or , that the Dutch by a more happy , and dexterous addresse , in these many lawful wayes , and methods , that may be practised , doe indeed prevail , and carry the affection and trade of these countreys , to the neglect and dammage of other adventurers , I am not inquisitive ? Onely , as there hath not hither to been given , any satisfieing information , in matter of fact ; so , I am very confident , that if artifice , and covetousnesse , were sufficient , to compasse such a priviledge , neither English nor French , in these parts , had been at this day , short of those , at whom they thus unreasonably grudge : I need not here much notice , the grievance talked of , by some , against the Dutch , for their excessive transportation of Gold and Silver , to the East Indies : that the thing is an abuse in it self , draining Europe , of it's best substance , to the languishing of trade , and Arts , and the occasioning of many miseries , and that in such a measure , as even the treasures of America , which Europe hath lately devoured , are not to be known , but , it 's leannesse rather greater , then before , and for no better returne , then that , of spiceries , drugges and other the like superfluities , is , too too visible : neither can it be denied , that the Dutch , their East Indie Company , who suck our much of the substance of Europe , as the English their Company doth impoverish all England , are , deepest in the transgression ; but , seing , beside what may be alledged , from the absolute power , and liberty , competent to every Prince or State , in these matters , the restraining of this evil , is so far from being the ground of the controversie , that on the contrair , the contest , is much animat , by the envie at , and desire of the same pernicious profit , it is evident , that the King of England's plea is nothing thereby bettered . Having thus weighed and rejected the King of Englands proper pretenses , I am sorry , that such a soul conclusion , doth so fairly present , viz. That , his Majesties present concurrence with the French , against the Dutch is , not onely a manifest partaking with them , in their injustice , and violence , but accompanied , with such circumstances , as doe render the accessory , an hundred fold more guilty then the pall : which that I may more distinctly explicat , I shall breifly reduce , what remains , to the heads proposed , viz. That this assistance , of the King of England , is aggravat on his part , from no lesse opposition , then that of religion , faith , honour , and interest : the dearest and highest of all concernes . And first for Religion , it is evident , that it's disswasion , cannot be called in question , by any , who doe not doubt his Majestie to be a Protestant ; for , seing the truth and protestant cause , are unavoidably threatened , by the French successe , what rational man can think , that a protestant Prince should second them , in the interprise ? And really , the connexion of these things , is so obvious , that , it cannot but be grievous , to all his Majesties wel wishers , to heare , and understand , how , that his present proceedings , have so much every where brought his affection to this interest , under debate : I need not here mention , the specious title , that he assumes , of defender of the faith , it's engagements , hitherto , have proved so insignificant , that such as before did hesitat , doe now begin to say openly , that his resentment of gratitude , toward the sea of Rome , that conferred it , do in effect seem to preponderat all it 's reall import , and that Henry the eighth his scribling against Luther , which procured him from the Pope this title of the faith's defender , was not in any proportion , that way so considerable ; as Charles the second his present arming against the Dutch , may very justly entitle him , with all true protestants , to be the faith's betrayer : whether he will hold on the paralel , and disappoint all appearances and their feares , as the same Henry did the Pope his author , the event will testify , and that he may , is my hearty desire ? The next head that prohibits this apprehended assistance , is , that of faith , and in this togither with the more common assurances of humanity , Christianity , and protestanisme , doe conspire the special engagements , both of the late Treaty , and Triple Alliance , whereby , the King of England , and the estats , are expressely bound to keep true , firme , and inviolable peace , and neerer , and stricter Alliance , and union , from that day foreward , &c. All which , if he should now breake , strangers may indeed exceedingly wonder : I say strangers , for as for us , his subjects , sad experience hath aboundantly instructed us , that all our part in this matter , is , to wish , that where neither religion nor faith have availed , yet at least common honesty , and good fame may be prevalent . The third disswasive that offers , against this concurrence , is honour : And certainly , where religion and faith doe claime so great a part , honour cannot but have a very large share ; but because these succumbeing , no doubt their concomitant will evanish , as a shaddow , it doth therefore present , upon a distinct ground , and pleads from its own peculiar merit . That the English Nation sometimes masters , and ever equal to the French , should not now , be degraded unto a base and mercenary subserviency , it vvould be of moment , vvith a generous person , to suspend , even a real , let be , a groundlesse provocation , rather then to resent it , snakeingly , against his partie , under another's disadvantage ; but , neither can policy be exacted to these rules , nor doth the present case stand upon such a punctilio : Our substance and power , with the noble ascendent , that the genius of this nation , hath alwayes had , over that of the French , do upon more solid grounds , equally disdaine , both the Switzers service , & Munsters hire , and that the King of England , should become a Pensionary of the French King , is a novelty , that hath hitherto had no precedent : But it may be said , that however we may thus calculat , on the one side ; yet on the other , if we remember the bussinesse of Chattam , and the Dutch their late exaltation , these cannot but chock every true English heart , and to such at least , as are tenderly sensible of this delicat point of honour , excuse us , to embrace any occasion , whereby we may soonest , and best , retrive that of our nation , unto it's former splendor : I graunt indeed , that , that affair of Chattam , was a high affront , turning in effect England's glory , & the worlds terror , unto the contempt & scorne of a feeble defence , and in our estimation , delivering , what was as Neptun's throne , to be dragged in Triumph , by poor distressed fishers ; so , as I suppose , that it may be truly affirmed , as the fairest account of his Majesties displeasure , that his resentment of the Chattam-Attacque , is at the root of all : Which as on the one hand , it hath been notably improved by the french caresses , wherewith it is known , that they have plied , both his Majesty , and his favourits , at all points : so , in all probability , the envy of the Dutch prosperity , the irritation of Van Ghent's Goe-by , and the opportunity of the French invasion , with the temptation of their money , have heightened all other grounds of misunderstanding , and advanced the indignation unto this present menacing posture : And thus I confesse things may stand , on the King of England's part : But , seing the surprise of Chattam , was on the Dutch their part , a fair act of hostility , rather advanced , then obscured , by the Treaty , begun with the warning of an expresse proviso , of no cessation , it cannot but be graunted , that all these circumstances of his Majesties disgrace , did onely redound , and accumulate , to the Dutch their honour ; so , that now , after the thing is voided by an ensueing peace , and so long after , to meditat the revenge of that , which we had neither the providence , nor courage , in it's season to have prevented , nor perhaps durst yet notice , if the conjunction of the French , did not thereto prompt ; besids it's injustice , is an impotency , more shameful , then the cause that provocks it : nay when I reflect upon the Dutch , their then successe , togither with that pusillanimitie , and distresse , that appeared in our court , and that confusion and consternation , which at that time , did seise not onely London , but the whole nation , and withal consider , how little the Dutch did presse these advantages , either by an irruption into that feareful breach , continuance of the war , or shewing themselves more uneasie , in the dependent Treaty , I cannot but judge , that the Dutch their so singular moderation , and disposition to peace , when England was in its lowest State , ought to be a most powerful mitigation , and utterly to efface all rancour against a people as generous in their carriage , and condescensions , as valarous in their atcheivements : as for the Goe-by given by the Dutch Vice-Admiral and Fleet to a pitieful pleasure-boat , it is allready examined . The fourth and last head , that opposeth the King of England's resolution , against the Dutch , is , that of interest : and this indeed is so much the more to be pondered , that not onely for the most part , it hath the greatest sway in humane affairs , but in this present bussinesse is in effect , the cheife inducement , wherewith many of this nation flatter themselves , and would delude others ; for , seing , that the Dutch , are the only people , who can compet with the English in naval forces , and that of late , they have in a manner rendred themselves Masters , of the whole trade of the world , to the prejudice of England , and all others , and thereby doe alone hold the ballance , against us ; it , must of necessity be graunted , that the dominion will prove England's exaltation : and as to the feare of too much aggrandizing France's naval strength ( for as to their power by land , while England retains the command of the seas , it is not to be reguarded ) it is aboundantly excluded , both by the assurance we have , of the Dutch their readinesse to accept of peace , at our pleasure , and of the French their remedilesse want of seamen , and their nurseries , wherewith England is so richly stored : But , though this reasoning , doth appeare plausible , yet , how quickly is it dashed , by this one short , and obvious supposition , what if the English Fleet be beaten ? Which as the righteousnesse , and omnipotent power of the great God , the Lord of Hosts , the injustice of our cause , and the dreadful wickednesse of the land , the judgements of plague , sword , fire , and wasting consumption , which we have already felt , without repentance , his Majesties Motto Jer. 22. 30. which hitherto hath not failed , and the injury offered unto the Dutch , with their inclination to peace , and forced necessity to war , doe render many degrees more probable ; so I am sure , that the known distractions , and greivances of the nation , oppressed , by both court and Parliament , and yet these two divided one against the other , the strange difficulties , and courses taken , in the out-rigge of the present Fleet , perverting right , and starving trade , by the stop of the exchecquer , and trampling upon the nations honour and interest , by that base and dangerous supply from France , doe thence portend most sad and funest consequences , and these , so much the more assured , and terrible , that they seem infallibly to depend , not on the disasterous successe of a long war , but on the very simple miscarriage of the first rancountre , and if thereby all the flatteries of our vaine hopes , be not infinitly overballanced , let all sober men judge . But not alwayes to ominat the worst , admit we doe overcome at first , doth not our late experience , sufficiently teach us , that we by our courage , may gaine fights , and yet by reason of want of stock , lose and be inferiour in the war : Next , when we are superior in the war , where are our solid advantages , and who can finde out , and establish that midds , whereby , neither the French on the one hand , shall reap too great benefit , by the Dutch their ruine , and so be rendered a more powerful competitor ; nor the Dutch , on the other , recover all their former habitudes , and successe in trade ; seing in effect , both their present increase , and our decay , are from causes altogither inward , as we may heare ? Thirdly , doe we willfully shut our eyes ; and will we not understand , that the French , first with the Dutch , and now with us , will againe tack about to the Dutch , in case , that we do prevaile : And this leads me to wonder , at the emptinesse and insignificancy of the consideration , opposed to the just feares of the French their rising greatnesse : if the late extraordinary beginnings of their sea forces , do not convincingly assure , a sutable advance ; yet , their Kings first joining with the Dutch , to quash and weaken the English , and now turning to the English , to suppresse the Dutch , may palpably discover his designe , either to be himself Master of both , or at least , to suffer neither of them , to overtop him : Now as to the nurseries we boast of , the Thames , our far more happy side of the Channel , New-Castle trade , and forraigne plantations , are no doubt brave conveniencies ; and yet a man may well think , that the French , their many sea ports , and rivers , great trade , and also plantations , with their money that answers all things , may in short time , become more then equal : While Spain had the ascendent , the maxime for the English and Dutch , was , in the embleme of two bottles , swimming together , with their motto : si concutimur , frangimur : that it should be antiquat , upon the French their far more formidable prevalency , I wish the event do not too late discover the error : O how happy might the English be , if but wise , to advert , how that their recovery of trade , strength and riches , could not possibly misse , by a far more easie expedient , and that in brief ( for I may not enlarge ) consisting , in the simple reforme of three things , viz. first , of our excesse , in respect of the Dutch frugality , who by their sobriety and hard fare both by sea and land , do evidently facilitat both manufacture , and transport , to the underselling of all others , and the great advancement of their gaine . Of the luxury of our Court , vvhereby thousands , specialy of the youth , are debauched , from all vertue , and those summes , vvhich might be a great accession , to the trading stock of the nation , turned out of that channel , to the maintenance of prodigality , and that beggarly villanous traine , vvherevvith they are attended : And 3 , of our Church & Clergy , by vvhose jealous persecutions , irreligious neglect of their office , & sacrilegious consumption of their benefices , and Church livings , so many sober persons , have been , and still are , ruined , or discouraged , so much vice and idlenesse continually fomented , and so great a treasure of money improfitably imployed , and wasted . But though the words of wisdome are all in righteousnesse ; yet , knowledge is onely easie to him that hath understanding . I might here further adde , how far more glorious and profitable it would be , for the King of England , in this conjuncture , to show himself Protector of the protestant cause , and thereby , not onely gaine the more cordial and intense affection , of all his subjects , and the esteem and honour of all the reformed nations , and Churches ; but more powerfully binde the Dutch , to all his reasonable demands , to containe himself in peace , and let his subjects , so much the more plentifully gather it 's sweet fruits , while others in their miserable contendings , doe neglect them : And lastly , to hold the ballance , and in its season absolutely umpire it , amongst all his neighbours , when wearied , and broken by wars , to the restoring of Peace , setling of right , and the high advancement of the interest of the English nation : But who is so blinde as he who will not see ? His Majesty is abandoned to his humors , and the solidity of the English nation , that hath ever had a very sound discerning and noble misreguard of the airienesse , & instability of the French , is at present , exposed , by the cheat of their complements , to the worst designe of their policy . The Dutch , to gratifie the King of England , have , of late , advanced the Prince of Orange , and he who questioneth the ingrediency of this motive , I am sure , may quickly be satisfied , by an easie reflexion , upon the Late Prince his odd extravagancies , and what ensued ; this Prince his relation to the King of England , with the influences , that thence may be feared , and the tempting occasion , that the continuance of such a command , after the wars , may give ; yet , is not this like to prove a diversion : It is further certain , that the generality of his Majesties subjects , both from the conviction of the reasons above exposed , the increase of grievances , which they begin to feel , and the visible insolency , whereunto a restlesse Popish party , in our own bowels , are already encouraged , doe , from their heart , equally detest the French conjunction , and dislike this breach with the Dutch : But neither is this a more promising disswasive , so that after all the serutiny I have made , in this affair , I must professe , that by such a combination of most important , and evident disswasives , my thoughts , in the apprehensions of this fatal war , are quite run up to this one , for a rest , that the thing if it fall out , is from the Lord , and what he hath determined will quickly appeare . It remains now , for conclusion , that I at least name the duetie , to which all this discourse hath so full and fair a tendency , and that all the lovers of truth , his Majesties , and England's wel-being , would be earnest with God , to turn the King from this evil course , and direct him , unto better counsels , is , I am sure a warrantable , seasonable , and Loyal part ; but if God in his holy providence shall permit him to proceed , his Authority , cannot warrant our obedience , unto such a sinful concurrence : I know , that of late , that Apostolick position , It is better to obey God then man , hath been much decried , as fanatick , and seditious , and that for me to insist on such an exhortation , would be derided , by many , as vain and ridiculous canting : but , however men receive it , I am sure with the Apostle Paul , that the judgment of God , is according to truth , against them which commit such things , to render tribulation and anguish , unto every soul of man that doeth evil , to the subject as wel as unto the Prince , and that with God there is no respect of persons : neither is the insufficiency of this plea , of the authority of Princes , in opposition to the Law of God , yet to be determined ; Ephraim but walked willingly after the commandment , yet was he therefore oppressed , and broken in judgement . The time was , in England , when men , rather then to betray their civil liberty , to the will of arbitrarie orders , did chuse to suffer the imprisonment of their persons , and ruine of their whole estats , when , they might have redeemed both , by a very small voluntary payment : shall we then now , so far degenerat , as not only to give our moneyes , and estats , but surrender , and sacrifice our blood , lives , and souls to the carrying on of an unjust war , against both religion , and righteousnesse ? God forbid : Now if it be asked , what then should we do ? I am no furious fanatick , my answer is plain and safe , onely sin not , by any direct accession to this unrighteous war , and if ye therefore be put to suffer , remember , that , blessed are they who are persecuted for righteousnesse sake , for their's is the Kingdome of heaven , and he is also faithful who will not suffer us to be tempted , above what we are able : But if men say , nay , but we will obey our Prince , be avenged upon these insolents , recover our honour , and restore our trade ; let them be doing , and be strong for the battel , God may make them fall before the enemie , for he hath power to helpe the injured , and to cast downe the proud : Once more , therefore , be warned , and remember , and feare , lest if ye still doe wickedly , ye be consumed both ye and your King. POSTSCRIPT . After I had digested the foregoing discourse , I confesse the evident improbability , of the King of England's grounds , did make me subsist in the conviction , that , either I had superfluously laboured , to prevent a vaine feare , or at least , might expect , some far more weighty reasons , then any I have mentioned ; but behold , a new surprisal both to me , and all that heare of it . The Dutch menaced by the French Kings power , and forces , are not only willing to comply with all reason , for the establishing of a good understanding with the King of England , and the obtaining of his favour ; but , by a new Embassie and very obliging proposals , are courting him , if he cannot keep faith , and the late Alliance , at least , to the safe and advantagious part , of a fair neutrality ; when on a sudden , his men of war , are sent out , and in open hostility , set upon the Dutch merchants , returning thorow the Channel , looking for no such thing , but on the contrair , wholly amazed at the rancountre , and there sink , and take what they are able : Now , when , or where was ever the like heard ? That the King of England , a King , and a great King , a man in appearance , and a Christian by title , and a protestant by profession , should not only , contrair to all the manifest reasons above adduced , combine to assist the French , and Popish armes , against an oppressed protestant State , desirous of nothing more then Peace , and quiet : but become himself the first invader , and that in plaine piratick violence , without any preceeding denunciation of war. I shall not now repeat any thing that I have said , nor in effect add much , in a matter so palpable to the meanest discerning , it is certainly a matter of sad regrat , to see both our Court thus wheedled by French illusions , and againe the nation forced , and driven , by the Courts influences , to become the principal party , in a war , wherein , their assistance was more then was expected , and hounded out , to the first attacque ; whereas their instigators resolutions , were not published : If ordinary reason did not suffice , to governe our passion , yet a man may well think , that at least our experience , and knowledge of the French their politick and safe procedoure , in their last assistance promised to the Dutch , might have restrained this precipitation , which I am sure , is so absurd , and ridiculous ; that if the French should also hover ( though that is not now to be supposed ) and suspend for this yeer their invasion , in the pleasant observation , of the happy successe of their designes , in the mutual contentions , and ruines of the two nations , in whose overthrow , they must apprehend their advantage to ly ; Nay , in the end , should lend their hand , to setup the Dutch ( if brought under ) for continuing the war , it would undoubtedly prove , as much their advantage as recreation . But suppose we would on any termes fight the Dutch , are we indeed so blind with rage , as to have omitted the premising of a publick declaration , which in such a case , the law , and custome of all nations , and ages , doth manifestly require ? or if the equity of this promulgation , founded in that cleare rule , omnia prius experiri quam armis sapientem decet : And confirmed , both by reason , and the Law of God , Deut : 20. 10 , could not move , yet , should not the positive necessity of this formality , as to the honour and effects , at least , of a solemne vvar , and for hindering the Soveraigne of the seas from becoming the Archest of pyrats , have prevailed upon us ? I graunt , it had been a difficult task , to have said any thing handsomely , let be reasonably , on such a subject ; and yet , on the other part , I am confident , that if some remains of natural shame , had not opposed an expresse confession of our folly , and vvickednesse , vve vvould rather have ventured upon the vvorlds lighter censure , then incurred their detasting horrour . But vvhy do I inlarge ? Or vvhat do I exspect by reasoning ? Nay , quid vota furentem , &c. That the Dutch their small lose , through this treachery , is infinitly compensed , by the gaine it brings , of all other nations favour , and an accession of as much more confidence in God , and firme courage , as the King of England hath added of dishonour to his violence , is too too evident : How much more it may excit my countrey men to the dueties , whereunto I have exhorted , I leave it to the perswasion of the thing it self , which needeth no words either to illustrat , or enforce it . Ambrose tells us of the primitive times , Julianus Imperator Apostata , babuit sub sa Christianos milites , quibus cum dicebat , producite actem pro defensiane Ret publicae , obediebant ; cum autem eis dicoret producite arma , in Christianos , tunc agnosceb●● Imperatorem Coeli : Which passage , doth here so exactly quadrat , as I am assured , that every one , who reveres the same great God , must acknowledge its force . But our God is in the heaven , he will do whatsoever he pleaseth . A More particular Reviewe of his Majesties Declarations for his War with the Dutch , and Indulgence to Tender Consciences . OBserving in the Postscript to my former , that the King of England had taken up armes , I thought , that there I had also laid down my pen ; but since it hath at length , pleased his Majesty to appeare in print , in a Declaration of war , against the Stats General , &c. and likewise in an other of indulgence to all his loving subjects ; their relation to my former discourse , hath likewise inclined me , to a summar reviewe of both : And because the war is now certain and formed , I suppose it may conduce , to a more satisfying understanding of the whole , that by way of preface I briefly resume it's progresse , unto the present period . There are not yet many moneths past , since the Dutch , of a long time threatned by the French King , his preparations , and approaches , did solicite the King of England to their aid conforme to their Alliance , which though by reason of former resentments , and late displeasures , was indeed hopelesse ; yet , most men thought , that the singular benefit of peace , in the midst of our neighbours wars , the greater likelyhood of the Dutch their condescendence , and submission , in the hope of reliefe , then in desperat hostilitie , with the assured satisfaction , either of an easie revenge , upon the Dutch , continueing refractory , by the hand of the French , or of the advantageous glory of umpireing it betwixt both , would undoubtedly determin us , to subsist , in an attentive , and well prepared neutrality ; but the French their addresse , and advance , prevailing upon our inconstant passions , and debauched penury we proceed , notwithstanding of the Genius , inclination , and interest of the nation , and the dissvvasion both of reason and religion , to Ballance to the French assistance ; vvhich vvas the occasion of my first discourse : And neither in this shevving more fixednesse , the precipitancy of error and fury still driveing , vve on a sudden , in the very time , that the Dutch had sent an extraordinary Ambassadour to propose their utmost condescensions , for appeasing us , vvithout any promulgation of vvar , fall upon the Merchant ships , returning , & striking to us , in the Channel , destroying and taking all we could , as I have remarked in my foregoing Postscript , and thereafter we emitt the declaration of war , which cometh now to be examined : Wherein ( suppressing the Date , as being ashamed to confesse our anterior piratick violence ) his Majesty , beginning with the attestation , of his own zeal , for the quiet of Christendome , hopeth , that the world will beleeve , that it is inevitable necessity , forceth him to Armes : I shall not question the truth of his Majesties confidence , in this insinuation ; though I heartily wish , that he could have appealed to some more known , and credible proof : He tells us indeed , that after his restauration : ( which was in the yeer 1660 ) his first work was to establish Peace with his neighbours , and to conclude a strict league with the Dutch : But as this was at best , nothing more then a convenient formality , in such ane exigent ; so , we know too well the horrible subversions , and persecutions , wherein , contrair to his solemne Oaths , and promises , both old and late , he was at that time exercised in , at home , to conclude from this his short and necessary abstaining from forraigne disturbances , that reguard which he pretends for Christendomes quiet . As for his sudden rupture with the Dutch , in the yeer 1665 , he foreseeth the objection , and would lay it upon the Parliament , moved thereto , by the Dutch their injuries , and oppressions , and justifieth it , by his preceeding endeavours , of a reasonable accommodation ; But will the world receive this naked affirmation , when as it neither then had , nor is it ever like to have , a distinct , let be a satisfying account , of that matter ? And even England is convinced , that nothing save a maligne envy , influenced , by the sinistruous designes , of a corrupt Minister , and a vaine royal Company , did pousse us on , to that extravagance , and with what tendernesse of Christendom's peace , we in the prosecution thereof , hired the Bishop of Munster , to a land invasion , needeth not my pen to make it be remembred : As for the shameful , and disastruous event of that war , I should not have mentioned it , the Dutch their braving it , upon our coasts , in the end of the yeer 1665 routing our whole fleet , in 66 , sole Masters of the sea , infesting our ports ( to the very beseiging of the nation ) firing therein our best ships , and leading our Charles in triumph , in the 67 , are things too sad , and recent , for a true English man , to think on , without confusion and blushing . But seing his Majesty is pleased , to say , that his victories , and the Dutch losses , were memorable enough , to put them in mind of being more faithful : I cannot but regrat , that the nations , from such a reference , should have such ample ground , both to condemne us , upon our owne allegations , aud flout us , for our vaine effrontry : But to let passe this pitiful transition , we are in the next place told , that the last Peace was no sooner made , but the Tutch returned to their use of breaking Articles and supplaenting our trade : As for instance foresooth , the Stats were Particularly engaged , by an Article of the Treaty at Breda , to send Commissioners to London for regulating of the East-Indie trade ; But they were so far from it , that on the contrary , our Ambassadours were by them slighted , and no forebearance of farmer wrongs obtained . A man might have thought , that such ane open challenge of perfidy , and fraud , would certainly be followed , by a weighty and liquid condescendence , and that in place of the accidental misgive of a meeting , not peremptorily appointed , instance might at lest have been made , in some on or other , of those wrongs complained of , specially , seing , that his Majesty , in the bussinesse of Surenam , is very positive , and in another lesse material particular , even to the noticing of pictures and meddals : But the truth is , there are no wrongs , that we could alledge ; all our old pretensions , though in this declaration , several times remembred , were buried in oblivion , by an expresse article of the last Treatie ; and since that time , none have occurred : Besids , it is so notour , that all the Dutch their advantages , in point of trade , which we terme wrongs , do proceed directly , on their part , from their sobriety , and industry , and on England's part , from our idlenesse , and Luxury , that men should be ashamed , by such groundlesse accusations , to discover their invidious murmurings : What further remains here , in matter of fact , the Stats will , no doubt , fully cleare it : One thing I may adde , that , as the Printed Articles referred unto , do onely beare , that both parties were content , that Commissioners on both sides , should meet , as soon , as might be , after the peace , for the regulating of commerce , and navigation , and do neither mention London , for the place , nor the East-Indie trade , for the subject ; so it may easily be supposed , that for any other appointment , of this nature , that might have been made , the Stats have either been alwayes , willing to keep , or were at present , able to excuse the delay , & ready to observe any new appointment , upon demand . From this his Maj. goes on , to accuse them , of another breach , in the West-Indies , about the restitution of Surenam ; and truely , he is in this so expresse , and plaine , that as his passing from it , to more uncertain alleagances , and on these rather stating the present controversie , gives me a shreud suspicion ; so , the businesse consisting mostly in fact ; I intirely referre it , to the Stats , their answer : Who , I am sure , will thereto returne a direct , and undeniable contradiction . But it 's no wonder ( saith his Maj. ) that they venture at these outrages upon our subjects , in remote parts ; when they dare be so bold , with our royall person , and the honour of this nation , so neer us as in their own countrey ( Boorish animals , in the conceit of their popular soveraignity , forgetting the respect due to soveraignes ! ) and there almost every-where setting forth abusive pictures , and historical meddals , and pillars some of which , have been exposed , by command of the Stats themselves even when we were united with them , in counsel , for the support , of the Triple Alliance I have been already , so full upon this objection , that here I need add nothing ; let the matter be thorrowly searched , and I am persvvaded it vvill be found far more disgracefull , in this unvvorthy , and impotent resentment , then , in all the malice of our adversaries ; & as this complexed quarrel , doth unquestionably resolve it self , either in the contemptible luxuriancy , of petulant witts , which the Stats did never daigne to notice ; or the warrantable commemoration , of laudible atchivements , which they may very justly own ; so , certainly , the most noble redresse for the future were , manfully to remove the occasion , or at least despise the scorne , which our feminine weaknesse , hitherto , hath so plentifully furnished : And hence is it , that , although his Majesty doth judge , that this alone , were cause sufficient of his displeasure , and his subjects resentment ; yet , not being ignorant of the advantages given , and knowing well , that Englands glory , was of late , so highly advanced , under a sober and solid government , ( though both usurped , and odious ) as that the alterations , which now expose us to contempt , cannot be made any just ground for engageing us , into this war , he doth not rest upon it ; but ( saith he ) we are urged by neerer considerations , and the safety of our trade , the preservation of our subjects abroad , and the Hollanders dareing to affront us , almost within our ports , are the things which move our just indignation , against them : And as to the first two grounds , though , his Majesty doth adduce nothing , not before answered , to demurre my progresse ; yet , when I consider , the mortal repugnancy of war to trade , and safety , the sensible grievance , and retardment that the former hath already suffered , by the late stop , on the Exchecquer , occasioned by our preparations , and the many other burdens , losses and distractions ; wherewith , war is necessarily attended ; I cannot enough admire , by what artifice , our present methods , can promote our designes : I reguard not justice , or injustice ; if even by killing , we could hope to possesse , it would in some measure , satisfie ; But in this event , the French , so manifestly present , as I am forced to say , that unlesse his Majesty intend , as the plague doth , to encrease our trade , and riches , by diminishing the number of the proprietors , and minde our preservation , by hideing us , in the grave , and deepths , lest we should live to see our selves miserable , I see no other possible issue , of these his specious incitements : But , their dareing to effront his Maj. is , the thing , we can least digest : The right of the flage , was one of the first prerogatives , of our Royal Antcestors , and ought to be the last , from which , this Kingdome , should ever depart ; It was never questioned , & it was expressely acknowledged , in the Treatie at Breda , and yet , this last summer , it was not onely violated , by their commands at sea , and that violation afterward justified at the Hague , but it was also represented , by them , in most Courts , as ridiculous for us , to demand : Although , I have said so much already , on this subject , as is sufficient , to free the Dutch from all breach of Treaty , and more then enough , to make it evident , to sober impartiality , that the offence is rather fansied , and imaginary , on the part of the complainer , then really given , by the party complained of ; yet , since his Majesty will needs fill the World , with a noise , about this nothing , that the cry of the injustice of the war , may not be heard , and will by the force of imagination , magnify it , to the height , and quality , of such an insufferable injury , as if it alone ( if not expiat with the blood of the offender ) were more then sufficient , to drive him to the sad and inevitable necessity , of covering the Ocean with ships , to the emptying of the nations treasure , & dying the sea with the blood of his subjects , to wipe off the staine of this affront ; I am necessitat to take up ballance again , and weigh the just import of this provocation : Nor doe I preoccupy the judgment of any , if I premitt this , to what upon the most accurat , and impartial search , I have found , that , whosoever weighs this deed , in the Ballance of sound reason , must be forced to say , that nothing save implacabile malice , could have seduced any , to have laid it , in whole , or in part , as a foundation , on which , the weight of such a war , was to be laid : If any judge otherwise , let him , for satisfying himself , consider these things : First , that , whatever past in this rancountre , betwixt his Majesties pleasure-boat , and the Dutch fleet , was so far from being done almost within his Majesties ports ( as is affirmed ) that , it was not within the Brittish seas , the place , to which alone , the Treaty tieth expressely , the Dutch , to this formality of striking to our men of war ; for , at this time , the Dutch Fleet , were riding at Anchor , upon their own coast , which never yet was , nor can be called , the Brittish seas : where now is there ground for accusation , let be revenge ? Hence secondly , though our Court , would represent the Dutch , to the world , as such morose clownes , who deserve to have their head cut off , for not capping to a pitieful picture of a man of war ; yet I am almost surprised , at the generous excesse of civility , which appeared in the obliging carriage , of that Gallant Gentleman , Mijn Heer van Ghent , who not onely saluted the English lady , whom he knew to be aboard that boat , with a volley of great guns , but went also aboard , to complement her ; so that it might well be questioned , whether , he being a person of such trust and command , they had greater cause of quarrelling him , at the Hague , for having done too much , or complaining of him at Whitehal , for having done too little ? What English man , may not blush , to think , that the Dutch , are not onely like to carry away the trade from us , by their industry and sobriety , but to outstrip our courteours also , in courtship and civility ? Will we in our fretfulnesse , needs pick quarrels , where humanity would prompt and instigat us , to the revenge of gratitude ? And this leads me to a third viz. That the world may rather wonder , that the King of England , did not expresse his gratitude to the Dutch , for being at so vast a charge , as to equippe , and put to sea , a Fleet , sufficient to guard , against any attempts from the French , ( he being by the Triple Alliance , equally engaged with them , to have prepared , and put forth , in order to that defence , a considerable number of men of war ) then , thus without cause , to quarrel , and meditat revenge : must the Dutch have no other thanks , for bearing the burden alone , without putting us to bear our proportion ; shall they have no other interest but blowes , for having laid out such vast summes , without urging us , to doe , what in honour we could not deny to be duety ? Is it not matter of blushing , that his Majesty , should so expose himself , together with the Nation , to the upbraidings , of a sober people , and the world 's just censure of high ingratitude . But why do insist ? though his Majesty with a great pomp , and parad of words , would precipitat the World , into the beliefe of his being , in this particular , injured by the Dutch , adhibiting the utmost of artifice , to give it , the appearance of an injury , I hope , upon the Consideration of what formerly was said , and is now adduced , I may assert , without all hesitaton , that his Majesties right of the flage , as acknowledged , in the Treaty , hath neither been questioned , nor violated by the Dutch , far lesse represented , in the manner mentioned : all the bussinesse is , that one of his Majesties pleasure-boats , passing through the Dutch fleet , lying at Anchor , upon their own coast , had not that honour payd to her , which the Dutch , are onely obliged , to render , to his Majesties men of war , in the Brittish seas : Which account if it be indeed so true , and unanswerable , as to have moved neighbouring courts , to laugh at the peevishnesse , of our offence , and doth novv amaze the vvorld at the rage and violence , whereunto it hath transported us , are the Dutch therefore to be accused ? No , no , his Majesty himself judgeth otherwise , and therefore , he subjoins , An ungrateful insolence , that they should contend with us , about the dominion of the seas , who even in the reigne of our royal father , thought it , an obligation , to be permitted to fish in them , by taking of licenses , and for a tribut : And here lyes the great discovery , the right of the Flage is all , that is drectly pretended ; but , dominion of the narrow seas , under the colour of a sophistical equipollency , is the thing mainely intended : I shall not repeat what I have above adduced , for distinguishing , this prerogative , from the dominion aimed at , and explicating this whole matter ; but as his Majesties covert insinuation , doth aboundantly verify , even his own diffidence , of his absurd and insupportable claime ; so , if we go about , thus to renverse nature , and subvert humane liberty , the Dutch are the first ; but neither the greatest , nor the last enemy , which we are to apprehend : As to the license to fish , here instanced ; since I cannot set down what is truth , in matter of fact , considering the confidence , wherewith it is asserted , without a reflexion , which I by choice forbeare , I leave that to the Stats their vindication : But , suppose it had been sought , and graunted , within that space of distance , from our coast , which the positive law of nations , and consent of mankinde , hath in a manner every where appropriat , to the countreyes respectively adjacent , it signifieth nothing to his Majestie 's purpose : What is then the Dutch their ingratitude , and insolence , that provoks his Majesty , to an exclamation ? let all men judge : It 's said , they owe their being and wealth to our protection and valour : But , as all the world knowes , that , as interest is the loadstone of policy , and policy the onely director of State transactions ; so , I think , I need not amuse my self , to shew , either , how that the English in former times , did not supererogat , in any higher degree of charity , toward the Dutch , above the perswasion of their own advantage , or that in all probability , the Dutch would be yet more ready to repay us , if we should be reduced to the same distresse , and circumstances , which is gratitud's just retribution . To these things , his Majesty addes , that , notwithstanding all these provocations , he patiently expected satisfaction , not being willing to expose the peace of Christendome , for his own particular resentments , whilst , the Tutch ceased not , to provoke the most Christian King ( though a small elogy , yet an unbecoming title , from the faith's defender ) against us , of which , they thought , themselves so secure , that for above a twelvemonth , their Ministers , have here threatned us with it : Now , for the commendation which his Majesty affects , I remit it unto the impartial judgement of the same provocations , and patience , whence he would derive it ; but as to what ensues , are we so vaine of , and intoxicat with , our French , or most Christian Alliance , that we have lost our senses ? or hath the world seen with their eyes , for above these two yeers , the French and Dutch in hostile preparations , and mutual defiance ? And on the other hand , the French and English , in continual complements , and embraces , and yet , are they all deluded ? And the Stats the most dull sots , or empty politicians imaginable ? If ingenuity would permit , I sometime incline to think , that it must be the Dutch representations at our Court , of the danger of discord , and the advantage which the French may thereby gain , that is here so strangely misconstrued , and abused ; but why should I straine ? I beleeve verily , the words are like their Author , wholly unaccountable The next passage telleth us , of his Majesties Last Ambassadour , and how to his pressing memorials , he could receive no answer , untill he had declared his revocation , and then , they offered a paper to this effect , that in this conjuncture , they would condescend to strike , if we would assist them against the French ; but upon condition , it should be no precedent , in their prejudice : And as to this Embassie , though I might easily bring to minde , the difference , about the method of proposals , the Ambassadour tabling onely his demand about the Flage , and the Stats upon the rational consideration , of the then appearances , desireous to hear all , that he had to require , before they would give answer , and thence excuse , the Stats their delay ; and though I could also exhibit , such an account of the Paper of return , as might aboundantly cleare , that , as the Dutch , did onely qualify their offer , of a new engagement to strike ( which they had all reason to do , having , as it 's like they will , in it's season , make manifest , stretched their condescension , the more to fixe if possible , the King of England to a stedfastnesse beyond what could have been wrung from the termes of that Treaty at Breda ) with the condition of our reciprocal performance , of the Alliance , so it was this novel sea dominion , and not the formality of striking , against which , they did precaution , for the future ; yet , it being a matter of pure fact , I chuse rather to leave it , to the Stats their proper vindication , then further to dive in it . In the last place , his Majesty , telleth us , that , the Dutch did lately send an Extraordinary Ambassadour , to him , who in a most extraordinary manner , hath given him to understand , that he can offer no satisfaction , until he have sent back to his Masters : But seing the surprize of his Majesties late hostile attacque of the Dutch merchants , before any intimation of war , and just when this their Ambassadour , was making ready , to expose his offers , was in effect such , as might have made him , not onely to stop a commencing , but to break off , a very far advanced Treaty , is it not strange , to see , a great Prince , shut up his declaration , emitted for publick satisfaction , with so little reguard to all mens Knowledge , and apprehensions , and as it would seem for the pedantick affectation of a running repetition , scorn the world , with a dissimulation that hath no pretext ? But I know the Stats are in case , to give such a reply , and to cleare up all those matters of fact , alledged by him , to justify his present engagement , ( and represented to all men , as such insolencies , and injurious effronts , which have constrained him , over the belly of his own inclination , to engage in this war ) that will be so plain , and perfect a contradiction , to all his pretended reasons , as will not onely prove , that there was never a more just defensive war on their part , nor unrighteous invasion upon his , but by a naked representation of truth will amaze the world , at the confidence , where with these things are asserted , and put it with all sober persons , beyond debate , that their is a mistery of iniquity , lurking at the bottome , and masked under these pretenses . These being his Majesties reasons for our war , that they do nothing relieve his resolution , of that verdict I have given upon them , specialy , in respect of their contrariety to righteousnesse , & religion , is undeniably manifest ; but because his intentions as to the latter may now be more clearly observed , in that second declaration of indulgence , above mentioned , I shall in like manner shortly peruse it . And that his Majesty , in the remembrance , of the rigours and persecutions , wherewith the sober and godly . in his dominions , have hitherto been sore vexed , may not onely in time be admonished , to feare the inconveniencies , which may thence necessarily arise , and provide a remedy , by a fair indulgence , but also , in the serious conviction of the evil of his wayes , and just apprehensions of divine wrath , thorowly converted , to breake of his sins by righteousnesse , and his iniquities by shewing mercy to the oppressed , is certainly , not more the desire of all his faithful subjects , then it would infallibly prove , the lengthening of his tranquillity : But , seing in place of any thing of this nature , the declaration under our hand , hath quit another tendency , and both from the intimation of all circumstances , sufficiently laid out in my first discourse , and from it's whole composure appeares , to be nothing else , then a cunning device , to secure his Majesty , from the dislike of good men in this sinful combination , against the protestant interest abroad , and in the mean time , to foment and promote the Popish party and cause at home , until , that , in the righteous judgment of God , if we foresee it not , truth should again be benighted , by the darknesse of Popish superstition , and all it's lovers , exposed to that Tyranny , the most pernicious poison of ease , which we have here presented , under the no lesse plausible tentation of the Gospel's liberty , doth without question , so much the rather oblige all concerned , to a more intent , and accurat disquisition : Which , that I may the better performe , it is in the first place to be noted , that , albeit the conception of this paper , doth generally include all sorts , of Non-Conformists , and recusants , and that the liberty therein graunted to Popish recusants , seems to be much more restricted ; yet , if we may subject his Majesties inclinations ( or rather plain intimations ) to the judgement of reason , all appearances do evince , that , whereas to protestants , they are the meer constraints of policy , unto Papists they are indeed the spontaneous motions , of a propense favour ; for , seing our present engagement against the Dutch , the nature of an indulgence , an involuntary dispense against standing lawes , and his Majesties plain profession , do obviously hold forth , that the license , is in effect , extorted , by extrinsick pressures , it 's extension unto the Popish party , who thereunto do adde no moment , doth aboundantly argue it , in this reguard , to be an act of free choise : I need not here remember , how much , this hath alwayes been his Majesties byasse , what cherishing connivance , Papists have quietly enjoyed , to the great increase of their numbers , and insolence , since the yeer 1660 whilst other Non-Conformists , have been tossed , with continual vexations ; it hath not been the least ingredient in the bitternesse of these grieveances ; neither are there many yeers , since he emitted , in their favour a proclamation , of such ample grace , that even his present most obsequious Parliament , did , by an unanimous addresse , interpose for it's revocation ; so , that , things being evenly weighed , viz. his Majesties unsatisfiable displeasure at , and causelesse jealousy of , the Protestant Non-conformists , with his constant good opinion , and affection , witnessed to those of the Roman communion , his present groundlesse wars against the protestant Stars , and sinful , and foolish conjunction with the French , not more regrated by the better sort , then rejoyced in , by the other , the comprehending of all in the same indulgence , may , not onely perswade the inequality of favour by me remarked , but further very rationally induce , to beleeve , that the more apparent latitude , conceded to protestan : dissenters , is , onely the better to cover , the real advancement of the Popish interest , the Principal designe of this contriveance , and therefore in conformity to these grounds , if my reflexions shall be also different , seeming to straiten on the one hand , and to enlarge on the other , discovering the protestant to be onely tempted , and snared , and the Papist favoured , and honoured , I hope , the palpable agreement of this procedoure , to his Majesties own intentions , will easily defend me , from the censure of malice or calumny , For preface then , his Majesty with the fame truth and confidence , wherewith we have heard him assert , his zeal for quiet in his declaration of war , commenceth this his indulgence against the truth , by telling us , that his care and endeavours , for the preservation of the rights , and interests of the Church , hath been sufficiently manifested to the world , by the whole course of his government : O unhappy care , that hath wrought such dismal alterations ! The true rights , and interests of the Church of God , are , the purity of his worship , and ordinances , the protection of his Ministers , & the advancement of true Godlinesse : Now , that in exchange , for any measure of these blessings ; which , we formerly enjoyed , since his Majesties return , we have onely seen , God's worship corrupted , into vaine imposed formalities , and the vilest of the people , made priests , in their place , and wickednesse exalted , by the most avouched perjury , & profanity , that ever was known amongst men , is a truth , under the sense whereof , every serious soul doth groan ; but in effect , his Majesty hath been , and is still , so entirely bended , to advance against the Lord , proud supremacy , and set up in the Church , a wicked prelacy , a debauched elergy , and superstitious liturgy , thereby to moddel , and subject , all the concerns of Religion , to his own lusts , and humours , as I am confident , that all the lovers of truth , in lieu of being abused , by this pretended care , will onely reguard it , as a seasonable warning , to take the more diligent heed , to the snare that may be , and is couched , in all it's proposals : Thus , for a demonstration , he subjoins , the frequent coercions he hath used , upon dissenters , and for composing differences , in matters of Religion : and whether this be more concludent on his Majesty's , or on my behalfe , I leave it to the impartial discerner : However , we may well observe , that since his Majesty , even in his gracious humour , thinks his care of the Church , principally commendable , by his former severities , which after the manner of the primitive persecutions , are at present onely intermitted , from feare , and policy , when these restraints are over , we cannot but expect , that he will resume his wonted methods , and that , with all the irritation , wherewith his inward fretting at a forced liberty , may probably impresse him : But ( saith he ) it being evident , that there is very little fruit of these forcible courses ( a fair conviction , if well followed ) we think our selves obliged to make use of our supremacy : And truely if he were seriously minding reformation , and thereto applying his royal power , which can never be more properly , nor gloriously imployed , we should the lesse scruple , the error , though he should mistakingly ascribe , the extraordinary call of the present pressing exigence , to the warrant , of a pretended perpetual prerogative : But , seing we may here manifestly perceive , that , that power , which at first , did onely acclaime the Clergies civil dependence , and then after , becoming vaine of the Reformation , wherein it was honoured , did excresce , & exceede to the ordering of Church-Rites , & Goverment , under the notion of externals , doth at present presume to license , and authorise , all Rome's superstition ; do we not discover , the wickednesse of that usurpation , which pretends , to as absolute a dispose , in matters of Religion , as was ever arrogat , over worldly propriety ? Thus wee see the Scepter wristed out of the hand of his Christ , and swayed in a perfect opposition to him , & designed subserviency to his grand enemy the Anti-Christ , which as it ought to make our eye affect our heart , while we see that Scripture fulfilled in our eyes , that the Kings of the earth , shall give their power unto the beast , and make war with the Lamb ; so it concerns his Majesty , while he invadeth the Mediators scepter , to remember , that he hath also a rod of iron in his hand , to secure his scepter and avenge himself of such , as do not strike to him , in recognisance of his absolute supremacy . In the next place , his Majesty addeth his motives , viz. that he issues out this declaration , aswel for the quieting of the minds , of His good subjects , in these points , inviteing of strangers , in this conjunsture , and the encouragement of all , to follow their callings , as also , for preventing the danger of seditious conventicles . Blessed is the man , whose minde is staid , trusting in the Lord , for there is nothing here sincere , what quietnesse , from such a self-destroying assurance ? I do not mention it's mutability , though all men know , that the first meeting of the Parliament , would remonstrat all this grace to nothing , but , vvhen to the establishing of ever jealous , and persecuting prelacy , the licensing of pernicious plotting popery is adjoyned , certainly , if we be lulled asleep , with such a charme , we deserve , the sleep of death , which , it 's poison menaces : As for the inviting of strangers , French caterpillars we may indeed expect , and swarmes of Romish locusts ; but to others , who might have found some allurement in this liberty , hovv much is it to be feared , that our violence shall prove more disgustful then the motive attractive : And as for Trades encouragement , can any man be so infatuat , as to beleeve , that , that vvhich in it's onely season of peace , could never have vveight , should novv be truely minded , by such , vvho have so little cared to involve us , in the confusions , and burdens of vvar ? What a golden indulgence must it be , that vvill yet erect our trade , under all these pressures ? But , his Majesty doth indeed fear seditious Conventicles , and may be something worse , nam mala mens , malus animus : And although I neither knovv , nor designe to increase his grounds ; yet , in my affectionat desire for his vvelfare , I earnestly vvish , he vvould remember , that in all ages , a prince , his ovvn inconstancy , and oppression , have proved his greatest adversaries , & are most to be feared , and that they are indeed so fatal and funest , that neither force , nor policy could ever yet vvard of their mischiefe , for he is above them vvho gives the blovv . But I have too long retarded his Majesties benevolence , vvhich in the first place declares his expresse resolution , meaning and intent , to be ( so that we may blame our selves if vve be mistaken ) that , the Church of England be preserved entire in its Doctrine , discipline and goverment , as now it stands established by law , and that this be taken , to be , as it is , the basis , rule , and standart ( vvhat place he assignes to the Scriptures of truth I knovv not ) of the general , and publick worship of God , and further , that the conformable clergy , enjoy their revenues , and that no person , be capable of any benefice , who is not exactly conformable : I need not enlarge , upon the import of this passage ; what the Church of England here meant , is , and hath done , wee all know , if any man think , that these roots of bitternesse , prelacy , and superstition remaining , they will not again spring up , into all that persecution , vvhereof some may novv fancy themselves to be discharged , he is but ill acquainted , either with their nature , or practises : He who desireth to be informed , may consult experience , which will aboundantly satisfy , hovv much better , and more free accommodations , have , thereby been disturbed , and frustrat : Hovvever , there is one part of this Royal resolution , vvhich I cordially close vvith if candidly meant , and that is , that , the doctrine of this Church , may be effectually preserved , I may not here stay , to explain my reasons ; but , he vvho shall be pleased , to peruse our old homilies , and compare them , vvith that doctrine , vvhich doth novv very much boast itself , both in pulpit , and print , he vvill quickly understand , our former profession , to be so sadly depraved , vvith Socinian , Popish , and Arminian Errors , that , this alone , vvere enough , to bring upon us , all our feares : As for the exclusion of all persons , not exactly comformable , from benefices , although it be without doubt a mighty diminution of the favour of a just indulgence , since it depriveth both of the encouragement and conveniency due , to the ministers of the Gospel ; yet the master of these labourers , having pledged his alsufficiency for their supply , and the Church of God having alvvayes , been truely richest when poorest , I confesse , it is a matter whereon I shall not spend my complaints , however it be just matter of his repentance . In the next place ( saith his Majesty ) wee do declare our will that the execution of all manner of penal lawes , in matters ecclesiastical , against whatsoever sort of Non-conformists , or recusants , be immediatly suspended , and they are hereby suspended , &c. And this is the great jubile , a proclaimed liberty , to Atheists , Socinians , Papists , Jesuits , seminary priests , Arminians , Sects of all sorts , and the grossest hereticks , to contemne Religion , commit idolatry , impugne truth , Blaspheme , seduce , and destroy souls , uncontroulled : It 's true the conscientious Non-conformist , hath also his part , in this exemption ; but , as God did send forth his Gospel , into the world in weakenesse , and foolishnesse , destitut of all humane advantages , and onely , by his owne grace and presence , did sustaine , and advance it , against all the opposition , that the malice , or violence , Potentats , Authorities , or powers of the earth , could devise , or execute against it , to the effect , that neither our faith , nor his truth , should stand , in the help of man , but in the power of him , who hath promised , to be with us , unto the end of the World ; so , I am perswaded , that no man fearing and beleeving , the same Lord God , will judge , all the favour that men can shew , valuable at this rate : I graunt , the excesse of this indulgence , doth not so corrupt the just relief , that tender consciences may finde in it , as , to hinder them , to partake lawfully of it's benefit ; but sure I am , if my censure be right and true , as certainly it is , men should be so far , from being deceived , by the flattery of carnal ease , either to embrace , or acknowledge it , as a favour , or pursue it , by any active compliance requisit for it's accomplishment , that on the contrairy , they should look upon the act in it self as a high provocation , against God , a feareful exposing , and opposing of his truth , and under the colour of a pitiful enlargement , and reliefe to tender consciences , a real and designed betraying , of the Protestant interest . But his Majesty proceeds to declare , that to the effect , there may be no pretense , for the continuing of Conventicles , he shall from time to time , allow , a sufficient number of places , as they shall be desired , in all parts , for the use of Non-conformists ; But for a correction , it is his expresse will , and pleasure , that none presume to meet , in any place , untill , such place , be allowed , and the teacher of that congregation approved , by him : And lest , any should apprehend difficulty , in obtaining , this allowance , and approbation , he further declareth , that the same shall extend , to all sorts of Non-conformists , except Popish-recusants , to whom , he will in no wayes , allow publick places , but onely indulge them , as to the common exemption , from penal lawes , and the exercise of their worship , in their privat houses onely . This being the summe of his Majesties concession , over and above , the release of penal staruts , it were as ill nature , and worse manners , to offer to criticize upon my Princes bounty , as it were folly , to be fain of nothing : And therefore , I shall onely , candidly represent , such things , as do obviously occurre , and cannot be hid : And , 1. It is evident , that there is nothing as yet graunted , but onely a purpose declared , which being in it self alterable , and in the present case , in order to the innocent Non-conformist assuredly elicit , by our forraigne wars , and domestick feares , of what endurance it is like to prove , may easily be resolved : Secondly , it is obvious , that the effect of this indulgence , is presently to cut of from , and deprive all the faithful Ministers , and people , of the benefit of meeting , either in the places where they have hitherto met , or in their privat houses , for the pure worship of God , ( for these are the expresse words of the declaration ; To the effect , there may be no continuing of conventicles , &c. and afterwards , it is our expresse will and pleasure that none presume to meet in any place , &c. ) until these meetings , be cast in this new mould , and , if the truely tender and conscientious Non-Conformist's , dare not for the feare of God foresake , the assembling of themselves together , nor discontinue their meeting , for worship , till the Court be at leisure , or think it convenient , to make that assignement , or if they should scruple this conveyance , as no doubt , a faithful minister , will be far , from an active compliance , with such an enacted abomination , then , such have nothing to expect , but the utmost of severity ; and thus wee see , these bowels , and the tender mercies of this declaration , are unmasked cruelty : Thirdly , the places are to be desired of and first allowed by his Majesty , and , that this allowance , may be lawfully sought , upon the grounds of that duety of protection , and assistance , which his Majesty oweth to the Gospel , without pleading this dissolute indulgence , I make it no queston : but , on the other hand , that this , first , maketh all still depend upon his absolute pleasure , both as to number and continuance , is no lesse evident : yea secondly , this very thing , is enough , to make the whole insignificant : for , many , especialy those Non-conformists , who are persons of estate , or quality , will be unwilling to be thus exposed to the view of the Court , as a dissentient party , reachable by law , and moreover , the people , perceiving the increase of popery , and what countenance and encouragemenr , they have from authority , whereby they are become insolent , and terrible to the people , may begin , to be jealous , that this course is onely taken , to the end they may when met together , the more easily be swallovved up at once , by those popish Cannibals ; the things vvhich are past , and the things vvhich are dayly practised , may creat a shrewd suspicion amongst the people , of such a designe , upon which considerations , the assignement of a place by the Court , is very like , to affright men , from following ordinances , or frequenting worship in those places : But , fourthly , the Teacher must also first be approved by his Majesty ; and that all the liberty here promised , if it vvere ten times more , vvere too dearly purchased , by this surrender , every one that knovveth the sufficiency , and necessity of our Lord 's Mission , will easily acknowledge ; I graunt , that , every Minister should presume , and be very sensible of his Majesties approbation , & as it were rudenesse professedly to undervalue it , so the power that he hath , over our bodies , may in many cases render it absolutely necessary ; but , what is all this , to the previous expresse approbation , here required ? Certainly , if our Lord's Authority , be a Minister's compleat warrant , and the duety it layes on , such , as may in many cases oblige him , to beare his Master's name , before Kings and Princes , for a Testimony against them ; the subjection of the Ministry , that the compliance with this condition , doth import , is , a manifest impingement , against both : I might in the fifth place observe , the extension of this concession , every whit as large , as the foregoing exemption , except in order to Papists , and whereby all the blasphemies , and extravagancies of all other errors , are , not onely tollerat , but offered to be encouraged , but the thing being so obvious , it were superfluous , to offer , to make it more plain . Sixtly , this indulgence is thus further restricted , and cautioned . If any shall ( saith his Majesty ) presume to abuse this liberty and shall preach seditiously or to the derogation of the doctrine , discipline or Government of the established Church , &c. Wee do hereby givs them warning and declare we will proceed against them with all imaginable severity . I shall not stand to observe , how there is more here , then an insinuation , that the preacher , in order to his being approved by his Majesty , must previously engage to this forebearance : it s but all reason , that he who giveth the Commission , should also give the instructions , set bounds , and limits , to it 's excercise , and define the sphere of it's activity , according as his Majesty , ( that the world may the better understand , the just extent , and native import , of that headship , vvhich he arrogats over the Church of England ) in his letter to the Arch Bishop of York , prescribeth , what doctrines are to be taught , what not : If we will be preachers created by the Court , and Emissaries of this supremacy , we must be Court-parasits and court-pleasers too ; but , then let us remember , that wee cease to be the servants of Jesus Christ : But the thing I mainly marke here , is , that by this artifice , they are sure , either to make the indulged betray the cause of Christ , by an unfaithful silence , or expose themselves to what the all of that imaginable severity , wherewith they are menaced , will amount unto : It 's true , the same politick considerations , which have moved them , for quieting of the minds of the people , to mock them , with this shadow , maytye them up also , for a season , from executing , this all imaginable severity against such , who will be found guilty , of abusing this favour ; yet , considering , how the places must be all of publick appointment , the preachers and people also known , and that those places must be patent , and free to all persons , viz. amongst the rest , to a knot of informers , who will no doubt be designed , for each place , faithful men , who will acquit themselves , as the Ambassadours of Jesus Christ , and so carry , in the exercise of their Ministry , as they may have , their Master's approbation , of wel done good and faithful servants , may exspect , as the Court is at leisure , and have freed their hands of other work , that they will make such then , after they have sleeped under the deceitful shadow of this indulgence , while the Court being liberat from feare of any trouble from them , was concurring with those who were destroying the Protestant interest abroad , buy this indulgence , at an after . reckoning , with the lose , if not of life , and liberty ; yet of estate ; for his May. will be judge , of what is seditious preaching , and praying , &c. Hence , if a faithful Minister , pray for the United provinces , now unjustly invaded , by a Popish Prince , that they may not be destroyed , and that he may not give up , the beloved of his soul , the reformed Church there , into the hand of such an enemy , who would again turn these provinces , into a land of graven images , if also , he should disswade all who heare him from such a sinful conjunction , and regrat before the Lord , as every faithful protestant hath cause , that English-men , professors of the same faith , should be employed , as instruments , to destroy the faith they ought to defend , and that our hands , should be made use of , to shed our brethrens blood , with whom , yea for whom , we should rather die , in the defence of the reformed Religion , and if he should weep himself , and excit the people to weep , because his Majesty is seduced , into this conspiracy , and abandoned to such pernicious counsels , and courses . as at this time , and in this juncture , to concurre with a popish party , against a Protestant State , the now visible bulwark , of the Reformed interest , not onely without any just provocation , on their part ; but contrary to all engagements and obligations on his : And moreover , if in stead of an unfaithful silence , a Minister should seek , to deliver his own soul , by regrating , that his Majesty , is not onely left , to break his Covenant with the most high God , in reestablishing abjured prelacy , and superstition ; but also , in countenancing , and promoving of popery and idolatry ; which as no Godly man , who considers the times , and what the Israel of God ought to do , dare forebeare for himself ; so he dare not , though he should die , for doing so , forebeare , to perswade , beseech , and obtest , the People of the Lord , to pray with all manner of prayer and supplication , that the great God , would appear , to confound the counsels and crush the undertakings , of all the men , and Monarchs of this conspiracy , against his great interest , and precious People : If , I say , a Minister of Jesus Christ , should preach , exhort , and pray to this purpose , would his Majesty hold him innocent ? or forebeare to lay hold , on the first opportunity , of dealing with him , as a seditious person , yea a Traitour ? and adjudge also all who had been his hearers , as guilty at least of misprison of treason ? The case is so cleare , as it discovers plainly , the whole of this indulgence , to be rather a Court-Trape , to catch , extinguish , and crush the faithful remnant , then the least ease , or reliefe , to such as dare not , for feare of the Almighty , foresake the truth , and prostitut the precious ordinances , of Christ , to the lust of an Exotick Lord , or dare not shut their eyes , and be silent , when they see courses taken , declarative , to conviction , of a formed designe , to establish the abomination of popery , and destroy the reformed Religion , at home and abroad . The last thing , that remaineth , is , the exception of Roman Catholicks , from this allowance , of publick places ; But lest this should grieve them , the former discharge of penal lawes , is not onely repeated , in their favours ; but , they are further expressely , indulged , the excercise of their worship viz their idolatrous mass , and all their other impious superstitions , in their privat houses , and that without any limitation of number or other restriction : I cannot here stand , to expresse , all my just regrat ; the mass again restored in England , should no doubt be as much our deep affliction , as it is the Papists exultation : As for their astriction to privat houses , I say first , why is not the like favour graunted , to the truly Godly and Conscientious-Non-Conformist , who may very justly scruple to sue for the favour of this indulgence , because of it's conveyance , and upon other momentuous enough considerations ? Shall he who dare not for feare of making himself guilty , of Lese Majesty against Jesus Christ , by accepting a favour , which in its conveyance , establisheth , in the person of the indulger , a supremacy onely competent to the Son of God , be lesse capable of this favour , then he who denys this Supremacy , to be competent to his Majesty , and holds it to be proper , to that child of perdition , the Anti-Christ ? Yea , he is not so capable of our favour , as our Catholick subjects are : I am sorry for it , but why ? What 's the matter ? His Majesty gives you the reason , of the inequality of this distribution ; because forsooth , they are seditious conventicles , and therefore , liberty to worship God in privat houses , must not be permitted to them ; but their is no feare of Sedit●on from Papists , ( good men ! ) we understand one another better , then to feare any harme from such bosome friends : well , it may be so ; but , it 's time , when the Popish party , are thus professedly , the darling of the Court , and all it's conclusions , are so exactly calculat , to the meridian of that interest , for the poor protestants , to remember , the yet recent massacre of Ireland , lest , Brittain drink of the same cup , and become the stage , whereon , this same funest Tragedy , or a more bloody one , be acted over again : Secondly the Papists are confined to privat houses ; that is to say , Whitehal , St fames , Somerset-house , and the greatest , and most capacious palaces in England , while , the poor Non-Conformists , may not make use of their own houses , and are not like in hast , to build upon the lubrick base of this indulgence , other houses : Thirdly , that this restriction is no incumberance to the Papists , is aboundantly cleare ; nay , if we advert , to man's strange curiosity , especially after error , the attraction of this privacy , may in all likelyhood , prove more advantagious to their interest , then , if their Godlesse , and ridiculous mummery , were set up to open view , and derision , in Publick Churches : Seing therefore , that the Papists recommended by no necessary , or convenient reason have , ( notwithstanding of their grosse errors and superstitions , with the many important and ancient lawes that stand against them being considered ) obtained , the greatest benefit by this indulgence , whether the favour designed for them , be not it 's , principal motive , and aime , I leave it to every man's discerning ? Now what our present conjunction with the French , in an unrighteous war , against the Protestant Stats abroad , with this licensing of idolatry , and encouraging the Popish faction at home , may produce ; The Lord in his mercy prevent : And as I have plainly laid out , the insincerity , insufficiency , and uncertainty of this indulgence , in behalfe of conscientious Non Conformists ; so , I am very hopeful , that neither the present allurement , of carnal ease , nor the deceitiul confidence , of simulat favours , shall ever make them abandon , that solicitous care , and zealous concerne , they ought alwayes to beare , in their hearts , and be ready to witnesse , when thereto called , for the glory of God , and interests of truth and righteousnesse , both at home and abroad . Having thus particularly considered , and weighed the import , of both these his Majestie 's declarations , and having found nothing in the one , which upon a sober search , may justify this war , ( whereinto we are precipitat ; nor in the other , that can quiet , or satisfy the truely conscientious Non-conformist ; but on the contrair , much in both , which may fill the mind , of all the fearers of God , with terrour at the apprehensions , of what shall be , the dismal and dreadful consequences , of such an undertaking , against our confederats , and such uncandid dealing with God , I designed in this review to have subsisted . But yet I hope , every true-hearted English-man , will beare with me , if , while I see the interest of the English nation , dragged at the French heels , and sold to a base subserviency to their aspiring greatness , I take liberty once more , to evince and insist upon what in my first Paper I touched more brieflly viz. the perfect opposition , which this conjunction with the French , hath , unto the welbeing and true interest of the nation : Let it therefore be supposed , that the English Fleet should beat the Dutch , quit off the sea , and at the same time , the King of France with his numerous and potent army , assisted with his Majestie 's thousands under the command of his son , should invade , destroy , lay wast , and make desolat , all the places of the United provinces , whereever he cometh , and the Dutch by this defeat at sea , and invasion by Land be brought , to such confusion and perplexity , that they shall neither be in case to set presently to sea again , nor able to encountre this Potent enemy by land , ( which is the thing designed and desired , and that , to which all the vigorous endeavours of these confederat Kings are directed ) well , let us make this supposition , that their designes are thus far accomplished ( though , graunt not O Lord the desire of the wicked , further not their wicked device , least they exalt themselves , ought to be , and no question is , the desire of all , who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity through the earth ) and that the Dutch in stead of being able to deal any longer or debate with these Kings , by open force of Armes , be reduced to the necessity in this exigent , of making the best , and most advantageous peace they can : Is it to be imagined , they will betake themselves to the King of England , and come under his shadow and protection for shelter , from the French fury ? It 's true , amongst the rest of our fooleries , whereby we embolden our selves , in this engagement , this is laid down for one , which we judge will not fail us , viz. that we can alwayes make Peace with the Dutch , when we have driven them to desperat distresse , at pleasure ; but they are wiser men , then to court us any longer for kindenesse : For , first , the experience they have had of the impossibility of fixing us , or making us stand firme to our engagements , and Treaties , will utterly alienat , discourage , and disswade from this , where there is a choice : Secondly , his Majestie 's having laid down this for a Principle , and the endeavours which have been , to instil it in the minds of such , who could be impressed by Court-suggestions , that , if England would floorish , Holland must , if not utterly destroyed , yet be reduced to a state of slavery , and bondage , nothing inferiour unto the Spanish yoke , ( for the dominion which we affect over the seas , would be stretched to a length , that would knovv no bounds , or limits , but our ovvn lust and our Courteours avarice ; and what encouragement , they may have to come under the shadow of men of these principles , wise men may judge ? ) Thirdly the cry of his Majesties oppressed subjects at home , and the consideration , how the Court hath sucked out and swallowed up the substance of the nation , and drained , all it's treasures , and yet are still lean ( for all they have devoured , hath onely made them more insatiable ) will make the Dutch , judge very rationaly , unlesse they vvere able , to turn rocks , seas , and sand into Gold , they could never by giving , satiat the appetit of the English Court : And vvhile they see , contrair to all honour and true interest , how , a stop is at least put upon the exchecquer , which was the onely thing remaining , to preserve the credit of the nation , and leave merchants in some case to trade , they cannot but easily foresee that such will make no bones to suck out all the marrow , and then gnaw the bones , of these provinces : And to all these add , in the fourth place , how they must needs look upon the King of England , as the principal author , and unhappy instrument , of all these imminent and incumbent calamities , and may very rationaly conclude , if he had not in this juncture , conspired against them , with the French King , that either , the King of France , would not have undertaken the war , or if he had , that they in an ordinary providence , could have defended themselves , and their just liberties , against all his force : When I say , they must needs look upon the King of England , as the spring & source , of all that calamity they feel , or feare , and perceive his propensnesse , to ruinethem , and how that , contrary to all Covenants , Treaties , rational offers of satisfaction , even to pretended injuries , condescensions , & stretches beyond the just exigent , and tenor of any Treaty , or transaction , yea & obligations heaped upon him , in advancing the Prince of Orange , ( which , as it was made the great argument , to determine those , who were a little reluctant , to consent to his advancement ; so , it made the most rational infallibly conclude , his assistance , upon that advancement , against the French attempts ) how , I say , that notwithstanding of all these bonds , of honour , interest , faith , Religion , righteousnesse ; and obligations , he could not so much , as be gained , to an easy neutrality ; but , as if , the utter ruine of the Dutch , and their extirpation , or reduction , from a stare of liberty , to a state of bondage , had the closest of connexions , with his satisfaction , he , to the prostituting of his honour , leads the way , to the French King , and as if malice and blinde fury , were the sole conducter in this affair , draweth the first sword , and forgetting to consult his own fame , with a pyratick violence , anterior to all intimation of war , falleth upon the Dutch merchant-ships : As these things put together , with many more of the like nature , must make the Dutch conclude him , the most enraged adversary , and implacable enemy ; so , it must of necessity , alienat their mind from him above all mortals : And now upon the forementioned supposition , ( which I hope shall never exist ) that they must put themselves under the Potection of one of these two , they will certainly be ballanced , towards the French Alliance , as the more placable enemy , the more sure , and advantagious friend : And as it is more then probable to wise men , that the King of France hath conduced the King of England , to such an unworthy breach of Alliance , upon this very designe , to drive the Dutch , if possible , to this sad necessity ; so it is equally obvious , how the French King endeavoureth by all means , so to influence the conclusions of the English Cabal , & manage the advantage he hath thereby over the King of England , as may render him most hateful to the Dutch : For having prevailed with him , first , to draw him to this shameful breach of Treaty with them , he driveth him thereafter to make such a detastable attempt upon their merchant-ships ; and observing likewise how in his declaration for war against the Dutch ( wherein also he will have the King of England to preceed , that he may know the better how to forme his so , as may best subserve his designe ) he alledgeth many injuries , and pretendeth to such a dominion over the seas , as is subversive of the liberty of the Dutch , and utterly inconsistent with the prosperity of the Provinces , because destructive of their trade ; he then emitteth his declaration of war , wherein there is nothing mentioned or adduced for a cause , save a French floorish , for his Honour : Yea he giveth the Dutch to understand , that he doth not envy their greatness , nor designe the prejudice of their provinces ; nay on the contrair , that he hath a favour for them , and how all his quarrel is confined to some particular persons in the Goverment , against whom he hath a displeasure : And perceiving withal , how the King of England hath not onely made himself the common detestation of the Dutch , by this late act of manifest pyracy but as if no bonds , no Treaties , neither reguard to his own reput or renown in the World , could be of sufficient weight and value to tye him up from doing them all the injuries , which his power maketh possible ; he addeth to the former violence , the injustice of seising upon and detaining all the merchant-ships , which were in his ports at the eruption of this war , expressely contrair to the termes of the 32 Art. of that Treaty at Breda : The French King ( I say ) perceiving this , that he may commend his fidelity , clemency , and friendship to the Dutch ( as he doth his honour to the World ) above the King of England's , as he hath done no act of hostility against them anterior to his declaration ; so he graunteth them six moneths time , to remove all their Merchant-ships and goods out of his dominions , without lose or molestation : By all which he seemeth to intimat to the Dutch that he is neither so ingrained not implacable an enemy against them as the King of England , yea there is a tacit invitation couched , even in his denunciation of war , to accost him for kindenesse , with hope of acceptation , ( and well may he , for hereby he maks himself master of both , and doth more certainly triumph over the King of England , and ecclipse the glory of that nation , then over the Dutch , and so hitteth the marke he aimed at indeed , viz. the French honour ) Now as the preferablenesse of the French Alliance , things standing thus , will be demonstrable to the Dutch from their own interest , and advantage , for by this means , though , they may lose somewhat of their former lustre ; yet they will easily see , that it is the interest of the King of France , to have them a floorishing People , when they are so much his ; so , on the other hand , will any doubt , but all reason of state and Policy , will make the French ready to listen to a proposal of accommodation from the Stats , and abandon the English , as having now served himself sufficiently of them , when they have sweat out floods of English blood and treasure , to rowe his French Majesty to his port : For , first , he knoweth very well , though he have at present debauched the penurious and profligat Court of England , into this conjunction vvith him , against the Dutch ; that , yet , the spirit of the English nation can never be debased into the same compliance , with his designes ; the prudent part , yea the generality of the nation , retaining still , their noble ascendent over the French , and that antipathy unto them , that , though the Court party are sunk below men , and cease to be Patriots , ( not careing for the reput , and honour of their nation , whose renown , together with their own fame , they have shipwrack't ) yet , at this very instant , they would , if at all necessitat to have a war , notwithstanding of all the artifice and endeavours of the Court , to enflame them into a rage against the Dutch , with much more cheerfulnesse , alacrity , and readinesse of minde , draw their sword against the French in defence of the Dutch , then be dragged by the Court , to so unrighteous , and dishonourable a war , against their friends and brethren : The certain knowledge I say , that the King of France hath , that this is the genius , and pulse of the English nation , to abhorre as death , the holding of the French stirrop ; yea , the rational grounds he may have , to perswade beyond debate , that if these very men , whom he hath charmed , by his aurum potabile , into an oblivion of their own honour and nation's interest , be once awaked out of this golden dreame , ( which doth not imply a contradiction but they may ) they will abandon , with a blush at their own basenesse , his interest , and by an after strenuous opposition , seek to wipe off the staine , of so base a compliance , and be avenged upon him for their two eyes , will make him ready , to close with the Dutch , being , together with the world , convinced , that , he hath in this , obtained the utmost of advantage , he could have proposed or promised to himself , by engaging , or rather seducing the Court of England , unto his assistance , and judging , as he hath reason , that he is hereby sufficiently repayed , for all the French Millions , which that Court , hath swallowed up : Secondly , as this will make him readily listen , to a proposal from the Dutch , so , it will make him willingly condescend , to give them easy , and honourable conditions , ( though I hope God shall prevent such a dishonour to them ) yea , he will argue himself , into a necessity , ( contrair to the particular insolent domineering humour of the French ) to maintain them , if not in the same degree of honour , liberty , and lustre , yet , in their full strength ; it being obvious , that by having engaged them to him , he hath fairely paved his way , to an easy conquest , of this part of the world : The Spanish Netherlands , will fall into his hands , nor will the Emperour be able , to make head against him : Spain also must follow their fate ; and poor England , having spent their strength and treasure , to advance him to this greatnesse , must bow their neck , to the French yoke : What is then become of our foolish supposition , that there was no cause for England to feare the French greatnesse ? Why ? France ( saith the Court ) having no nursery of sea-men , we will maintain our dominion of the seas , non will cope , or compet with us , if once we had the Hollander , under hatches ; and while we retain our dominion by sea , it were ridiculous to feare , the French by land : But alas , have the French , so blinded the Court , with the dust of their Gold , that they cannot see , one inch , before their nose ? Do they not easily foresee , the misery and bondage , they are bringing upon the nation , and how , they are selling the honour , and liberty of their countrey , to it 's inveterat enemies ? Well , the French have not a nursery of sea-men , comparable to the English : Be it so , but , when the English by their unrighteousnesse , folly , and inconsideration , have driven the Dutch to the necessity of becoming one with the French , have they then no nursery ? England knoweth , to it 's cost , that Holland hath : And if ever France be in case , to reckon them his ( which , as death , is to be deprecat ) then , the King of England must resolve henceforth , to quit all his pretensions to the Flage , and be at a point in this , that his men of war must strike , to the French pleasure boats : the Nation at home , must tremble , at the French greatnesse , their walls the shiping of England , will not then hold him out , he being now in case , to force his passage , thorow them : our forraigne plantations must signify as much to us , as the French and Dutch in a conjunction , will permit , either something , or nothing : Our honour , and renown , which we have had amongst other Nations , must be buried in the gulfe of contempt , and lye expiring without hope of a recovery , under the French insolence : who will then compassionat the poor English Nation ? Nay , who will not say , that it is a righteous thing with God , since , we who would needs in a blind rage , run upon our friends to ruine them , without cause , should be insnared , in the worke of our own hands , and tumbled head-long in the ditch , which we had digged for others ? Who amongst the nations will pity us ? Or if our distresse should move compassion , who dare offer to help us ? Oh poor England , how do thy Rulers , post thee to thy ruine ? We have fallen once under the hand of the Dutch , and our disgrace , hath accresced to their glory ; but now , we must fall , into the hand of the French , & instead of wearing the flowre de Luce , in our scutcheon , the King of France must have our Lyon , and Vnicorne in his : And thus have we debased our selves and entailed bondage upon the Posterity : And , if the Dutch were a People given to revenge , what ever griefe and regrat , their dependance upon France might be to them , yet , they would not onely have this satisfaction , to see those enslaved , who had designed their bondage , and whose hands had been made use of in wreathing the yoke about their neck ; but , see themselves chiefly made use of , and maintained by the French , to force the English to serve him : And withal the Dutch should see themselves , freed from the slavish feare of the King of England's vaine pretensions to the dominion of the sea , and set at liberty , to follow their trade without trouble ; and as the trade , would then be cerainly taken from England , in these parts ; so it would be at the French & Dutch their option , whether to rase , and root out , name and thing of all English Plantations abroad . Though , these be things to be entertained in their possibility , by all the lovers , of Religion , righteousnesse , and the nation , with horrour , and detestation , and I pray and hope shall never have any being , beyond what a supposition may give them ; yet , he must blind his eyes , and abandon his reason , who will deny the nativenesse of the connexion , betwixt the worst of all these supposed miseries , and mischiefs , and the King of England's engaging , in this war , with the French , against the Dutch : The ruine of the Protestant interest , this day , through the World : The ruine of the liberty , honour , trade , precious and deare concerns , of the English nation ; the ruine , of the Prince of Orange his interest , yea the ruine , disgrace , and perpetual infamy , of the actors themselves , is wraped up in , and connected with , this shamefull war : have we not now by our deep Politicks , bravely bowled away the honour of the nation , vvhile the French , both give ground , and byasse ? These are our nevv unhappy politicks , they tend to this , and may end here , if the Lord in mercy do not interpose , to prevent it : so , that , though men vvere turned meer Gallio's , as to the interest of Christ , and Religion in the World , yea turned enemies thereto ; yet , no man representing things to himself as they are , and vveighing these tumultuous transactions , in the ballance of reason , or considering their obvious tendency and import ; if he retain the spirit of a true English-man , if he consult the honour of his nation , if he truely love his Majesty , and wish the stability of his throne , but must , not onely look upon himself , as obliged to withdraw , from all concurrence in this war ; but interpose in his station , to deliver King and Court , lapsed into this moral madnesse , from the occecation of this fury , whereby , in their indeliberation and rage , they are pulling ruine upon themselves and the nation , by drawing the sword . I know very well , in all I have said upon this head of Interest , I shall , be looked upon as grossely mistaken in my hypothesis ; because , what I account interest and the thing to be chiefly reguarded , and earnestly contended for , hath not a being at all in the Albe of our new politicks : nay , something is substitut in it's place , as inconsistent with , so natively destructive of it : And therefore all these disswasives deduced from the head of Interest as I have stated it , must with the hypothesis evanish as of no consideration or weight , to disswade from our present enterprise . It will be readily graunted by all , that if the old Interest of England , viz. the preservation of Religion , in it's reformation , whereto by the good hand of our God upon us we had attained , the safety and good of the people , the ancient splendor and glory of the Nation , the just freedome and liberty of Parliaments , the desireable harmony betwixt his Majesty and them , to the doing of all things ( especially things of such moment , as a war , wherein there is an association with an old enemy to the English Nation and Interest , and an engagement against our ancient friends , deprecating , with all the submissenesse which became a State , our displeasure , and entreating in a most obliging manner our covenanted assistance , against an enemy , by vvhom , if he conquer them , we are crushed , our posterity also & all our precious interests are exposed unto the danger of utter ruine ) with joint consent and mutual satisfaction , whereby the cheerful concurrence of all his Majesty's subjects is assured , by which means also , he himself is beloved and honoured at home , feared and reguarded by the nations abroad , the security , satisfaction , trade & treasure of the nation , is ensured & promoted , &c. If Interest be considered as comprehensive of , & constitut by these & the like ; then no doubt , it must be yeelded , that the considerations evincing the manifest opposition of the present engagement to all these , have a sufficiency of weight , to disswade from a further progresse in this unhappily begun war , yea perswade a retreat ; which were certainly a more glorious victory , because demonstrative to the World , that our lusts and passions had not the ascendent of our reason , then if our sword were bathed and our hands embrewed in the blood of these against whom it is now drawn and stretched out ; yea this were a more certain way , to a safe victory over them ( I mean an overcoming them with kindenesse to a cheerful condescendence unto , and a ready compliance with all our just demands ) then ever we can expect , as the issue of so unrighteous and irreligious a war. But if somewhat else be substitut in the place of that , which the vvisest have hitherto judged the Interest of the nation , I must graunt , I have missed the marke at vvhich I aimed , and confesse , that my considerations are not apposite dissvvasives , from vvhat is novv driven . But vvhat can this be ? Some may think the thing aimed at , vvhich with it's seeming desireablenesse hath dazeled us into this distraction , hath by our procedour so obviously discovered it self , that it can no longer escape observation : It 's plain his Maj. aimeth at being absolute and designeth to rule the nation , independently from the advice of Parliaments , which are now looked upon , rather as an encumberance to him , in the exercise of his royal goverment , and an ecclipse of that glory , which he judgeth competent for a Prince , then any real support to his royal authority and greatnesse : In plain English , the French Goverment is affected by our English Court , which we suppose can never be sufficiently illustrious , while there must be such an unbecoming dependence upon Parliaments , for pitiful subsidies and summes to be raised by their order , to maintain our royal grandure : This which hath been so insupportable a yoke , upon the neck of our royal Ancestors , whereby they have been bound to the good behaviour , tyed up , restrained , yea often , to gratify their subjects humor , in order to the gaining their consent for a subsidy , have been necessitat , and compelled to crosse their own royal inclination , and commit a rape upon their pleasure ; this yoke , we say , must once for all be burst and broken , and this badge of limited soveraignity , be buried in the final discharge of such Parliaments : The dispose of the Treasure aswel as the Militia of the nation , must be in our own hand , then , and not before , will we be in case , as becometh , to live in royal splendor , to give suteable rewards for signal services , without being obnoxious to have account asked of us , or the question put , how we spend our treasure ; to keep under and crush petulant insolents at home , and chastise proud enemies abroad : In a word , Stat pro ratione voluntas in state affairs , as we have arrogat it , in Church , matters ( which is the more wicked and most dareing attempt of the two ) is the great interest , and that which we will and must have : This is the darling and Diana of the Court , to which all the other true interests of the English Nation must be sacrificed . If so , the scheme I graunt is changed : But is it credible , that infatuation itself , can fixe us in this resolution ? Truely the Universe of reason doth reclaime : The desperatnesse of such an enterprise hath made wise men shut their eyes , upon all probabilities of it's intendment , and stop their eares , at all reports and suggestions which were assertive of the Court 's hatching such a cockatrice , as calumnies ; since reason did repugne and abhorre it , as the greatest deviation from it's conduct , and most desperat course , in the undertaker , imaginable ; but yet men cannot alwayes shut their eyes , he vvho stoppeth his eare at the reports of another , cannot with the same facility , abandon or give the defiance to his own reason . It is not necessar for my present purpose , to make a perfect enumeration of all things , which may perswade and put beyond debate , that this is the Court aim ; but if it must needs be graunted , by what hath been said , that there is a cleare and undeniable opposition , betwixt engaging in this war with the French , against the Dutch , and all the true interests of England , sacred and civil ; then our precipitation into this engagement , giveth a shrewd suspicion , that vve are onely prevailed vvith , and overcome by this consideration , to assist the French against the Dutch ; that we as a requital , onely commensurable to that service , may have the French assistance , sor rasing the foundations of England's liberty , and substituting our ovvn lust , in the place of it's Magna charta : This designe hath made all essayes for peace on the Dutch their part insignificant , and hath persvvaded above all other considerations , unto this association vvith the French : And truely the things vvhich at first vvere onely groaned under , as acts of male-administration , vvithout the suspicion of a further designe , then vvhat the impetuousnesse of our lusts , cileing the eyes of our reason , drove us to , will novv vvhen reflected upon , and collated vvith present practices and future appearances , amase men at the maligne aspect they have upon England's liberty . I need not involve my self into the labyrinth , of recollecting all things in the Court's procedour and practice , since his Majesties return , unto this present day ; or compare them vvith this project , and consider the nativenesse of their tendency to the production of this monster . Let his Maj. carriage , in reference to his Parliament be a little inquired into , and see , if it vvill not put the thing beyond debate . At his first entry ; the Parliament which called him home , must be dissolved , and in lieu of another reward for that great service , they are dismissed with this complement , viz. his May ; will have them known and honoured to posterity , by the name , of , Beati Pacifici : well then , Englands blessed Parliaments have their period and exeunt , at his May : entry to his royal Goverment : What then cometh next ? ( it 's fit to be silent , where experience speaketh that , which if it were told in it's most sober dresse , might argue the speaker to be prompted by malice ) But what could be the cause of this dissolution ? It 's obvious enough ; for whatever excesse of loyalty appeared in hastening home his Majesty , and installing him in the Goverment , without sufficient security for Religion and liberty , ( an error in the first concoction ) yet there were many amongst them , who being good Patriots , and worthy Statsemen , could never have been overcome , to a compliance with such a designe , nor to the countenancing of our other extravagancies ; and therefore as an unfit tool for our work they must be laid aside , and a new one called . The Court in the mean time perceiving , how vaine expectations of Halcion-dayes , had besorted the nation , into a deep inconsideration of what did belong to it's Peace and Prosperity , and observing , how there were none now to peep or move the wing , against the Court current ; But whatsoever the King did , either pleased all the people , or the more prudent were under a necessity in this universal distraction , to dissemble their displeasure , and suffer , without saying or doing any thing to the contrair , dangerous encroachments and breaches to be made upon their liberty , though the purport of these was manifest ; forgetting the old maxime obsta principiis , &c. The Court I say perceiving this to be the temper , or rather giddinesse of the nation , do not stick at breach of priviledge , in the election of members for the following Parliament , which was so palpable and grosse , as of the bulk , when gathered together , it might well have been said , that in stead of our old renowned Parliaments without a parallel in the world , for free-spirited noble Patriots , we had got a Court-juncto , and the privileges of the Peo-People , and interest of the nation , put in the hand of those , who would be prodigal & profuse , to a boundlessenesse , as of the Estate and Treasure of the Kingdome , so of it 's more valuable liberty & precious concernes : Now I shall be loath , to trace them in their wilde deviations and odd extravagancies ; but the nation must behold with the teare in their eye , ( & it may be , some of the instruments of their miserie , being cured of their former Frenzy , & awaked out of their lethargy , by the cryes of the oppressed , & the noise of the ruine of the nation , in vvhose rubbish they themselves are like to be buried , as a recompence of vvhat they are guilty of , against the honour and interest of their countrey , sigh out their had we wist ) their liberties and estats in the hand of such , as resolve to run to all the excesses , to which the Court-riot will drive them : There , is without more debat , a surrender of the Militia to his May : And though they seem to retain the key of the Nation 's treasure ; yet it is not so much to lock it up , and keep it in the possession of the just proprietors , as in effect so to squise the Kingdome , as if the sole purpose of their convocation had been , to fall upon inventions and finde out middes , how to extract all the Spirits of the nation , and leave it a caput mortuum , wherein they shewed themselves such Masters of Art , that no man can remember , how they drained the Kingdome , to the drieing up of it's substance , and what vast summes were collected and extorted , vvithout judging the determination difficult , vvhither their monstruous folly in giving , or the Court 's prodigious and incredible profusenesse , in lavishing out , vvasting and throvving avvay that treasure , be matter of most amasement ? Hovvever , as this is sure , if England had been invaded by a forreigne enemy , they might at a lovver rate , have bought themselves into a State of liberty , from the conquerours bondage , then vvhat hath been exacted of them , for no other purpose , but to make their bonds strong ; so this is also certain , that if the summes collected for the Court , vvere computed , and the total compared , vvith their present pinching penury , it vvould together vvith the nation , astonish the vvorld , hovv such a treasure , in so short time could have been dilapidat ; unlesse on purpose shoveled in the sea , or svvept avvay by an invisible curse : But the thing vvhich I mainly marke here , is , the connexion this carreer of Parliament hath , vvith the advance of our projected absolutnesse : The nation finding themselves thus exacted upon , and betrayed to the Court's avarice by the guardians of their liberty , do universally hate the Parliament , as betrayers of their trust , & sacrificers of their Interest , to an insatiable lust : Thus , that vvhich used to be the darling of the People , is become the common detestation of the nation ; vvhich the Court perceiving , and knovving hovv this did hasten their designe to it's maturity , having set them a going , keep them in motion : The generality being by these means grieved and vexed , some fevv , vvho shared the spoil , onely excepted ; and the more prudent and Religious part of the nation , vvho could have digested vvith more patience , the losse of their estats , must , to complet their misery , finde themselves by these mischiefs , vvhich vvere framed into lavvs , deprived of purely dispensed ordinances , and robbed of their faithful Ministers , reformation overturned , vaine abjured Prelacy , vvith all it's concomitant plagues reintroduced , thousands of faithful Ministers , driven in one day , from feeding the Flocks of Christ , they and their people exposed , to the implacable malice of the Court , & debauched Clergy , vvhereby the Parliament drew upon themselves , as the enacters & decre'ers of such abominations and cruelties , the hatred of all the lovers of Religion and righteousnesse : This being brought to passe , some Court-Trappans , are prompted , to deal vvith the fanaticks ( as they called them ) of several perswasions , some must passe for great friends to the Presbiterians , others to the Independents , &c. And the work of these is , to represent his Majesty , as very propitious and favourable to men of tender consciences , and that what he did , was not so much from an innate propensenesse to persecut good men , as from a forced and necessitat compliance , with his more rigid and implacable Parliament , from whom , unlesse he went alongs with them , in passing such acts as they were pleased to make , and give way at least to the execution of them , he could not expect that they would appeare zealous and foreward in the supply of his wants : yea , his Majesty was represented as so reluctant to execut these severe laws with rigour , that he was in hasard , by an excesse of lenity , and indulgence , not onely to fall under a mistake with his Parliament , prejudicial to his affairs ; but by the same means , to expose his own , and their Authority to contempt ; and that these things might not appeare , what they were , indeed pure fictions ; some of the leading men of these parties , are admitted to kisse his Majesties hand , and have something with a smile suggested to them , whereby they went avvay , giddy and intoxicat with vaine expectations . Now it is , our good and gracious King , but our evil and cruel Parliament : Thus the sujects , in stead of being render , as of old , of Parliaments , begin not onely to be little solicitous , what contempt the Court cast upon them ; but can behold with satisfaction , these trampled upon , who had trode under foot the honour of the nation : Now men begin to think and say , it were better for us , to be under , and beare with the infirmities of one King , who is placable and exorable , then under the maligne influence of such a conglobat constellation of Tyrants , from the scorchings of whose rigours and rage , the shadow of our Prince , even when he interposeth , is not a sufficient shelter . The Court with much satisfaction observe these male-contents and murmurings , as exactly quadrating with their designe , and laugh amongst themselves , to see the poor people terrified and tremble , at the meeting together of our Parliament , as of a company , who had conspired their ruine and bondage : Well , after they have served the Court , in pillaging the Kingdome , and brought it to poverty ( which carrieth alongst withit , a basenesse and lownesse of spirit ) and have in a few yeers , squandred away and sucked out , for satiating the court , more of it's substance and treasure , then had been bestowed upon all the Kings , which have reigned in England these hundred yeers ( beside the manifold miseries , which during this time , befel the nation , by Pestilence , sword , fire , inundations , the decay of trade , &c. ) are not onely hated by the nation , as the Vulture which hath torne out it's bowels , gnawed it's noble parts , and having ( by dishing up their countrey into a consume , for curing the Court of it 's desperatly incurable leannesse ) turned the whole into a complete skeleton ; but also despised by the Court , when they can set nothing before them , to satiat their appetit , but the drie bones of adistressed nation , drained of all it's marrow & moisture , are , without the peoples regret , prorogued with a frovvne . Yet such vvas the knovvn penury of the Court , as every one began to think , since the extremity of their vvant called for a present supply , that necessity vvould ( because they could not call them together before the time appointed ) force his May : to dissolve them , and emit vvrits for calling a nevv Parliament , when , behold on a sudden , to the amasement of all men ( excepting such vvho vvere privy to the mystery ) there is a nevv prorogation , in all it's circumstances ( vvhich for brevity I passe ) so declarative of our designe , that the Parliament it self , by vvhose means the nation vvas novv reduced to this miserable condition ; must at length avvake , and see themselves laid aside , as a broken vessel , vvherein , he vvho formed them , had no more pleasure ; and together vvith them , vve have a fairvvell to Parliaments : In a vvord , our designe must at last set up it's head , and discover it self , things are come to their just maturity : Novv vvise men see , that a vvar vvith the Dutch , and a conjunction with the French , as the sole and proper expedient , to finish what is brought to such ripenesse , is inevitable : If the millions , for vvhich vve are become stipendiary to the King of France , vvill not serve the turn , we will both give the nation , a foretast of vvhat vve intend for them , by shutting the exchequer ; and vvhen Parliaments can do no more , make a trial , vvhat the unaccustomed vveight of absolute soveraignity can squise from them ; and also furnish our selves , with a sufficiency , for carrying on our designe : If a project of absolute foveraignity be not fairly deduceable from these courses , and if his Majesty be not engaged beyond a retreat to hold on , vvhen he hath run so great a length , as he knoweth even this Parliament ( how much more a new one ) would declare against , condemne , seek how to redresse what is past , and effectually prevent such exorbitancies for the future , let wise men judge . But suppose the designe be , from these and many such things , demonstrable beyond denyal , do not the difficulties , yea moral impossibilities , which seem to lie in the way of it's accomplishment , perswade to a surcease , phohibit the attempt , and secure the nation from the feare of so fatal-like an enterprise ? Sure , the funest consequences of windeing up soveraignity a pegge too highe , are too fresh and recent , to be quite foregotten ; and can these be remembred , without foreseing what is like to follovv upon our graspeing at , an every vvay absolute soveraignity ( little different from a Turkish Tyranny ) over a free-spirited people , generously emulous above all other Kingdomes , of the glory of a free nation , vvhich hath been worthily contended for , and nobly maintained by our Antcestors ? It can neither be hid from his Majesty , nor the men of this contriveance , hovv this cannot be fixed upon and followed , without resolving , not onely to involve the nation once more in a bloody war ; but to delete and extinguish all true English-men , without leaving a man , who retaineth , as more valueable then his life the noble disposition of the nation , unpatient of Tyrranny , because above slavery : Yea , suppose the French King should , in lieu of our gallant souldiers now sent , or rather basely sold to support this Tyranny , and subserve his further designes , after we had destroyed our ovvn subjects , send us over thousands of his French paisants , born under this yoke , to be a seed of bastard-English slaves , he is not sure but the nature of the soile and Clime might change their quality : But laying aside the desperatnesse of this designe , and the considerations of the cruelties it would drive us to , before vve vvere so setled , that we vvere beyond feare of being shaken , doth nothing of danger to the contriver , appeare in the undertaking ? The men of this counsel , cannot be ignorant , that if a war be raised upon this head , it must end in the perfect and final overthrow of one of the parties ( and are they invulnerable ? ) especialy , considering , that the subjects are now made sensible , how vain it is any more to trust Court-Oaths , covenants , or any assurance of the like nature , which will , or can be given , and that not onely because of a practical breach of faith ; but because , it is become a Court maxime , and a principle in our new politicks , that no Oath , covenant , or promise , given by , or elicit from his Maj. by his subjects , in a time of war betwixt them , bindeth him longer , then he is in case , with his own safety , to tell them , it was rebellion to require it , and to make them know , and finde he is able to break it ; yea it may be , to make all strong , and free him from the guilt of perjury for doing so , nulla fides cum haereticis , may be made use of in it's season . But these things seem to be digested with us , and as they have been of no weight or merit , to disswade from the contriveance ; so , if they should demurre us in the execution of our purpose , it would argue an irresolution , pusillanimity and lownesse of spirit , whereof we resolve not to be guilty : Rubiconem trajecimus , jacta est alea , the stravving of our vvay vvith the dead bodies of such insolents , as dare mutter their dissatisfaction , or more manifesty seek to marre , or set themselves to oppose this glorious designe , of pure absolutenesse , is resolved upon , and if vve be necessitat to open our vvay vvith the sword , to this domination , vve are sufficiently provided , and in case for it ; so that on all accounts vve may promise our selves , either no opposition , or so vveak , as vvill rather encourage ( having thereby some colour of justice to cut off at once & for ever , such , vvho dare attempt to crosse our royal inclinations ) then , be able to advance their opposition , to a making of our enterprise difficult , let be desperat : What should dissvvade or divert , where there is nothing of resistance to be feared ? for first , the Clergy of the nation having prostitut their Conscience , to serve ourlust , that , without more bebate , our royal pleasure is to them the law , even in things sacred , and knowing their dependence upon us , in esse and operari , they will be so far from crossing our pleasure in Civils , that we have ensured their assistance , in enslaving the nation ; and as they have benummed their conscience , into an acquiescence to our will , in the matters of God ; so we can easily command them , in despite of reason and Religion , to palliat , whatever of rage may be in the prosecution of our designe , with some colour of either necessity or justice . As for the fanaticks , the division which Julian the Apostat endeavoured to creat and keep up amongst Christians , ne unanimem timeret plebem , is , an easy work for us : Their own mutual animosities , jealousies , diffidence and strivings , give us rather matter of encouragment , then feare : But besids , we have under colour of grace and favour , drawn off , some leading fanaticks , to accept of our pardon , whereby , as the multitude of their old followers , have not the same confidence , to communicat counsels with them , about creating us any disturbance ; so , the persons thus decoyed , have more reguard to their own safety ( knowing how easily we can novv reach them ) then either to speake , or suffer themselves to be spoke to , in these matters : And for the generality of the fanaticks , our late indulgence will so far attain it's end , as to charme them into a sopor , whereof we are put out of doubt , by these solemne acknowledgements , which have been made , and thanks vvhich have been given us , for such an expression of our royal bounty , and clemency ; ( poor dreamers ! ) & vvithal , for a perfect security , from the counter-vvorkings of the fevv more restlesse and implacable sort of fanaticks , vve have , by the Ministrie of some of the same Spirit and temper , ( for this very purpose , on our part , admitted to our favour ) made sure , that nothing shall be hatched amongst them , vvhich shall not be heard by us , so , as vve may crush it ere it can crawl out of it's shell ; seing the persons admitted to this grace , must maintain the credit they have got , by giving us notice , at least when enquired at , of all they knovv ; and as each of these ( being persons of different persvvasions , and because of their old and late grudgings and jarrings , easily emoulous of one another's court ) will endeavour , to recommend himself unto us , as most worthy of our favour , by striving , who shall bring over most of his party , professedly to accept of our pardon , when we are at leisure to give it ; so , they will be careful to commend , and make themselves considerable by their intelligence ; for which end , we not onely allow them to entertain their old familiarity , and known intimacy with their party ; but we maintain and keep them in case , to have each his instruments , by whom , he may be fully informed , of whatever passeth amongst his old associats : And the jealousy , that each of these two principal agents , hath , that either his court and credit with us , will fall lower , then the other's , if he mantain it not with an equality of service ; or that the other might , in order to the making of himself most considerable , reveal some things , not onely of his own party , that dependeth more directly upon him ; but of what were a doing or designing also , in the party , and amongst the intimats of the other , will make both very open hearted , in discovering the utmost of what they know : As this , I say , will be the procedour of these persons ; so the certain knowledge hereof , will create such distrust and diffidence amongst the more prudent of the fanaticks , as will cut of all communication of counsels upon this head ; since they will be jealous , that there may be , in the most select number , some , whose service in discovering what ever passeth , is ensured to either , or both of the tvvo , vvhom vvee vvould never daigne to see , if it vvere not , that with their eyes we might see into the bosomes of their fraternity . As for the Ancient nobility and Gentry of the nation , most of them being old or worne out , who would have counted it more honourable to have died in the quarrel , then to have survived the liberty of their countrey , which must be now swallowed up in our absolut soveraignity , and the few who remain , seing the disease desperat , are more like , in their despondency , to chuse , to sigh out the rest of their miserable dayes , in such a lot , as our absolutenesse will carve out for them ; then expose selves to certain ruin by appearing to oppose , when there is neither hope nor humane probability of putting a stop to this new setlement : And for the young Nobility and Gentry , can grapes be gathered off thistles ? We have not onely secured our selves from their opposition , but ensured their assistance : For care hath been taken , to traine them up , and habituat them , beyond a retreat , to all manner of lewdnesse and licentiousnesse of life ; so that morality , is the matter of their scorne , hatred and detestation , as high and unheard of flagitious practices , are the matter of their boasting : Now can it be expected , that such who count it a glory to be delivered from the bonds ( or as they judge it the bondage ) of morality , will strugle for the liberty of their nation , and contend for the preservation of Religion , especialy knowing , that if the nation were again , what it once was , they would either be constrained , to relinquish these wicked courses , to which they have devoted themselves ; or be looked upon , and carried towards , as the filth and offscouring ; of the generation , onely fit for the dunghill ? No , we are sure of these beyond hesitation : As our play-houses have been Accademies for Satan , wherein this young generation of Gallants , have commenced his Disciples , and mancipat their souls to his yoke , blessing themselves in this subjection , as true liberty ; so , they have laid aside and lost by the same means , all sense of true honour , vertue , and love for the prosperity & real privileges of their countrey . Now giving and graunting , there are a considerable number of persons , neither tainted with vice , nor wholly laid aside by the former considerations , whom we can never gaine to a compliance with our designe : yet , we are sure they will not move nor dare to appeare , to prevent or oppose us , in the prosecution of our purpose : seing they know , that upon the least surmise or whispering of this nature , we would pretend a present necessity to go to Armes , and they are not ignorant , how by our providence and foresight , for securing the successe of this undertaking , we have put our selves in a capacity , to sacrifice to the designe of our absolutenesse , the lives of all who will run the risck of opposing it . And this leadeth me to speake a little to the care that hath been had , and the courses which have been taken , to secure the end , before an open entry was made in the way leading to it : First , all places of trust and power , are put in the hands of such persons , as will by choice and obligation be true to our interest ; knowing , that we cannot succumb in the enterprise , but they must sink and be crushed with us : Secondly , we are not onely sure of the assistance of all our loyal and faithful subjects , our bosome confidents , the Roman Catholicks , but as they are beyond beleef numerous , by the courses we have taken to encourage them ; so they are provided , and in such readinesse to rise , that vvith difficulty they are kept back ; and the assurance they have of our being true to our designation , viz defender of their faith , and to our Ghostly father's interest , who signalised his son's fidelity , with this title , maketh them as intirely ours , as they know us to be theirs : Thirdly , our new magazine at Windsore Castle , our faithful and loyal subject that Irish Papist , vvhom we have made real governour of the Tower ( for Sr. John Robinson , is an insignificant nominal ; but the lesse significant , the better , when joined with a second , designed for sole significancy ) our new fort at Gravesend ( built upon another pretense ) will all serve to keep the city , ( if it be thought fit to save it from being burnt the second time ) the head of all the insurrection , or trouble we feare , either quiet , or vve vvill be in case to liberat our selves of our feares , by cutting it off ; and to guard effectually , against a may be of a miscarriage in this enterprise , we have made sure the power of France , whereby we will be easily able , to over-power , what might prove too difficult for us , to overcome by our selves : The great predominant consideration , which hath contrair the perswasion of all the old interest of England , determined us to a conjunction with them , in this war against the Dutch ; whose landing we have secured in our cheife Cinque ports ; and now the mystery of Plimouth fortification is unridled : Their setting foot on English ground is made easy ? not onely , because they have our English Fleet to convey them , and one of the chief strengths of England to receive them ; but under colour of guarding the coasts against our Dutch enemies ; we have raised so many forces , as will serve to welcome our French friends , and they together , will give an opportunity for the rest , who are impatient of a delay , to draw to a head ; so that , what with the number of Atheists and Papists vve have already vvithin our selves , and vvhat by their daily encrease ( for vve expect a flovving in upon England , as a Torrent , the scum of the Popish vermine , out of all nations abroad , in ansvver to our invitation of strangers , especialy , seing , vvhat vve have hinted of liberty and protection to the Popish Religion , in that our declaration , vvill be very vvell understood by our sagacious friends abroad , as it is at home knovvn to be a plain declaration of our purpose , to setle Popery , as the publick profession of the nation ; from vvhich , nothing hath hitherto vvithheld us , but vvant of power ) we are sure ( I say ) with these not onely to make our selves formidable , to all who would oppose us ; but also to be able , to cover almost in one day , the very face of the nation , and cut in peeces at once , all whom we suspect , to be guilty of an inclination contrair to our royal pleasure ; and vve are sure , the execution of our commands , shall be in the hand of such , who with a tygerish keenesse , vvill execute our vvill : What then can appeare able to stand in the vvay , or put us to a difficulty , in effectuating our purpose ? I knovv the more prudent in the nation , vvill readily apprehend , vvhen they consider , vvhat a vast treasure the Court hath devoured , and hovv they have so habituat themselves to this prodigious profusenesse , as they may assoon cease to be , as cease to change their way ; And when withall they perceive , how , vvhile they are such , that all vvayes of satiating this boundlesse appetit are impossible ( for Parliaments can do noe more ; yea this very Parliament , if called together for that purpose , hovv probable is it that in stead of a nevv stretch to give more , not onely the disgraceful receiving of the French millions but the Court 's medling with the treasure of the nation , and destroying it's trade and credit , by that stop , without a precedent , put upon the Exchecquer , vvould be resented by them ) that the Court is engaged and resolved to lay them aside , and usurp for the future , a pure absolutenesse : They have created to themselves this necessity : For it is not imaginable that a vvay novv can be found out , besids this desperat expedient , hovv both his Majesties debts shall be payed , and the Court maintained , as it hath been these yeers past ; ( though vvith much lesse lustre , then the illustrious Courts of England , famous formerly through the World , for their magnificent plenty , sumptuous entertainment , and numerous retinue ; vvhen the revenue of the crovvn vvas scarce the halfe of vvhat it novv is : Neither were these Kings treasures empty ; so that the vastnesse of our present yeerly revenue , beyond what former Kings had , with the incredible summes , which have , partly been given , partly exacted and squised from the People , the penury of the Court , while it's bill of fare is abridged almost to a basenesse , make men stand agast and inquire at the wayes , how this treasure is spent ? Whether it be hoorded up , as some suspect , or by the vvhirle-vvinde of an invisible curse svveeped avvay vvhich many beleeve ) if any remaine still obstinatly incredulous , notvvithstanding of vvhat is said to discover this to be the designe , and hovv , vvhat vve are novv doing , is , in order to the bringing of our purpose to passe , all the evil I wish him , is , that the Court to vvhom he hath so much charity , do not cure him of this distemper , by destroying his ovvn , together vvith the nations interest . There is one thing vvhich maketh all that 's said , for convincing incredulity it self of this Court designe , not onely passe for a groundlesse conjecture , but for the malicious product of some fantastick , & a bold forgery of a petulant male content viz. That suppose his Maj. if he knew how handsomely to accomplish it , were passionatly desirous to lay aside Parliaments ; yet considering what assistance he behoved to have , in dissolving that happy frame of government , under which the nation hath floorished so long , to the envy & terror of all it's enemies ; yet his Maj. cannot but foresee , how that by making use of such a mean , in stead of attaining the proposed absolutenesse , the crown doth really fall from his head , and he precipitats himself into the ditch of a most base and abominable servitude : For since the instruments chiefly to be made use of , for carrying on this desperat designe , must be the Roman Catholicks at home and abroad ; their fidelity and assistance cannot be assured at a lower rate , or upon any other termes , then by setling the Romish Idolatry as the publick profession of the nation ; and if so , then his Maj. in stead of an absolut Soveraigne , becometh Rom's Tributary , holding his crown precariously of the Pope : Nor can his Maj. be ignorant how he is not to expect , to be in the same condition of servitude with other Popish Princes ; England being more purely the Popes Patrimony then other Kingdomes , Peters pence must be payed in recognisance of his superiority , whereby King & Kingdome is debased to hell : This one obvious consideration I say , hath made wise men ( though never the wiser for that ) judge it impossible , that ever the designe of absolutenesse , could transport his Maj. into such a mistake , as to accomplish his end by this midds , there being so close and cleare a connexion betwixt turning the nation into a province , the Prince into the Pop's deputy or substitut , & setling of Popery as the profession of the nation : It 's true all persons of understanding in the nation , did with surprise & amasement behold how Papists were encouraged and countenanced , how their profession seemed to qualify them for places of trust , and commend them to our favour ; nay good men behold with grief and horrour , how the favours heaped upon the Irish Rebells did amount to the height , of more then an interpretative owning , of that horrid massacre in Ireland , whereby the guilt of so much innocent blood is brought upon the throne , and his May. exposed also by this , to share , in all the wrath and vengance , which shall fall upon the head of of the shedders of that blood , as a return to the cry of the souls under the Alter , from him who not onely maketh inquisition for blood , but in whose eyes the death of his Saints , is so precious , that he engageth to give them blood to drink , who have shed their's ; yea it hath added astonishment to their horrour , to see popery so publickly professed in Ireland , that the Popes Primat is as publick there , as his Majesties ; nor are their scooles lesse patent , or their meetings for their idolatrous worship lesse publick ; but whither , what hath been lately done in England , doth lessen or highten the amasement , is a question : Every one thought he had so much reason to disbeleeve a designe of setling Popery , that the nation was abused into a supine negligence & deep security , even while they looked on & saw it excresce , to the contemning of law , & overtoping of all other intersts ; insomuch that men for feare ( forsooth ) of losing the repute of wise and prudent , fooled themselves for company , either into a sameness of apprehension , with such masters of reason , as judged this enterprise , on the Court's part , the height of folly , and the jealousy of it in others , a shallownesse of apprehension at best ; or dissimulation of their feares , vvhich hath been plagued vvith a vvretched reguardlessenesse , hovv it vvent vvith the interest of Christ ; and if novv and then they vvere pulled by the eare , and bid look about them , ere it vvas too late , by such as compared the courses taken , to propagat that abomination , and promove the Popish interest at home , vvith his Majesty's carriage vvhen abroad , hovv he remained inexorable notvvithstanding of all entreaties , nor could he , by the most ardent and earnest beseechings of the protestants , be overcome to a compliance with their desires , of being present at their worship , frequenting in the mean time the mass , in Paris , Brussels , Cullen , &c. Which with other things , was the ground of that assurance we had from abroad , that his Maj. had renounced the protestant Religion , the Papist's boasting everywhere very openly that his Maj. was turned Catholick , and making use of it as an argument to prevail with others , whom they endeavoured to seduce into the same abomination : The Protestants vvere grieved and sad at the certain persvvasion and foresight of vvhat would follow , ( though we were fooled into a fearelessenesse ) to the prejudice of the reformed Religion , upon his Majesties restitution ; yet they would reason themselves into an obstinatnesse in their first opinion , and though they neither did , nor could deny his Majesties carriage abroad , to have been such , nor yet shut their eyes upon what they saw acted at home ; they would still , graunting all their monitors premisses , which , being matters of fact , were manifest by their own evidence and light beyond a denyal , reject their inference , and upbraid for the brutishnesse of such a feare , seing such a setlement of popery , was inconsistent vvith policy , and utterly destructive of his Majesties interest ; supposing that whatever favours he heaped upon these unhappy men , would not excresce to the prejudice of that , but be confined within the limits , vvhich his own honour , ( to say nothing of what the Oath of God required of him ) and the liberty of the nation , should have set to his liberality , yea for confirming themselves in this their tenaciousnesse , they would both give and graunt ( but without ground ; for he who will be false to the true and living God , vvill readily be true to a false ; because this is inflicted as a part of their punishment , yea a dreadful part and plague it is upon such as make Apostasy , that they should be mad upon Idols ) that his Maj. in his exile and distresse ; might not onely , in order to the engaging of the Popish party , to endeavour his restitution , and secure a maintenance to him while abroad , frequent their mass , and openly decline the protestant assemblies and worship , but had besids , given the Pope all possible assurances , of enslaving the nation to Idolatry , upon his restitution , and in the highest and most ample formality , had renounced the Protestant Religion ( being indulged for the interim , upon a politick designe , and in order to the more safe and certain performance of his promise , to retain in his family the English service book ; whereof one said well , that it was an ill said mass ) giving , I say , and graunting all this , yet the evidence his Maj hath given , that with him it is a light matter to break covenants , Oaths and most solemne engagements , whereby his own soul , together with the souls of the whole nation , vvere most explicitly and formaly bound to the most High , as alteri parti contrahenti , under the pain of his dreadful displeasure , when the adherence unto , or the performance of these vovves , seemed to interfere with his other designes , or were apprehended ( o sad mistak , vvhere the error exposeth to the ire of him , who cuteth of the Spirit of Princes , and is terrible to the Kings of the earth ) to be inconsistent , with his other interests ; this I say , gave them ground to over-perswade themselves ; and because they would have had it so , flatter themselves into the beleefe ; that such promises would not be looked upon as obligatory , when they were discovered to be so manifestly destructive , not onely of all the deare and precious concerns of his subjects , but , to conviction , a total ecclipse of Royal Majesty ; being really the debasing of his person , and prostitution of his imperial crown , to be trampled upon , and trode under foot by that Romish Beast . But if I can do no more , for awaking such to weep over , what their security , and the dreamings of the nation , make now almost humanitus impossible to prevent ; ( onely with God all things are possible ) I would desire them , in the first place , to consider , that for Kings to be blindfolded and hurried headlong into this slavery , is nothing else , but what we have expressely foretold by the H. Ghost ; and is it any thing else in him , to follow the drove of those , who , in like manner , have over the belly of the same perswasions to the contrair , shut up themselves in this house of bondage , and subjected their consent to the dominion of this beast , this Mistresse of witchcrafts , who entiseth the Kings of the earth , to commit fornication with her , and having made them drunk vvith the cup of her abominations , vvhich she propineth them , they submit their neck , to take on her yoke , & give their power , to maintain her Grandure , in opposition to Jesus Christ , whose servants are slaine by their svvord , to gratify & satiat the cruelty of this scarlet coloured vvhore drunk vvith the blood of the Saints and Martyrs ? Yea the Kings of the earth , are so bevvitched into a complacency with her fetters , & intoxicat vvith her cup , to that height of madnesse , that they vvill vveep & cry , Alas , Alas , at the sight of her smoak & burning ( soon may he and the rest of the Kings of the earth see it , & vomit out at their eyes , the satisfaction they have taken , in sheding the blood of the Saints ; if nothing else will be a curbe to their rage , against the Lord and his servants , & cure them of this madnesse , he is the Lord who will hasten it in it's time , and make her & them finde , that the Lord who judgeth both , and avengeth the blood of his servants , is strong , when he taketh vengance , and meeteth them not like a man ) But secondly , I judge , as to us , it would be more prudence and Religion too , to be lesse confident in our politicks , not onely because of the expresse prediction of this infatuation ; but when we consider , what ground there is of feare , that his Majesty , in the righteous judgement of God , be abandoned to the advance and setlement of this abomination , contrair to his own and the nation's interest ; these revoults from , these insurrections and rebellions against , the most High , these deliberat and shamefull breaches of solemne Covenants , and sacred vovves , whereof he hath made himself and his dominion guilty , may rather make us wonder , if the Lord do not leave him to follovv these courses , then to see him given up unto them : Is it not a righteous thing vvith God , since he hath broken his Covenant with the most High , wherein as he was bound to nothing , but to walk with God in his Kingly capacity , and rule for him ; so in the same Covenant , his subjects in a just subordination to the Lord & his Christ , were solemnely engaged to obey him , to be religiously tender of his honour and interests , and himself , together with the world , knoweth , that it is to this Oath of God , whereby his subjects found themselves obliged in Conscience , to endeavour his restauration , that he oweth his crown and peaceable restitution : I say , is it not a righteous thing with God , since he hath broken such a Covenant , whereof he hath reaped so much advantage , to leave him to such courses , and the making of such confederacies , as shall make the world see , feare and tremble , at the revelation of his judgments , because of a broken Covenant . It were as superfluous for me , to offer the nation an account , of the manner and methods followed , in breaking this Covenant , as it might seem to savour of a malicious designe , if matter of fact were represented , with some of those most obvious aggravations , which made the sinfulnesse of it reach heaven , and is like to cause God remember this iniquity : But sure each soul , who hath not sinned away all conscience , of the sacred obligatorinesse of Oaths and covenants , especially these , made , not onely before the most High as a judge , but vvith him , as with the party contracting , cannot remember , with what solemnity , this covenant was entered into , and vvith vvhat insolence , rage and spight , it hath been throvvn in the fire , and trampled upon , and made treasonable for any to assert it's obligation ; and hovv , to this day , vvhosoever dare not for feare of the Almighty , do the same abominable thing , which his soul hateth , maketh himself an offender , and exposeth his person to the lash of the mischiefs , framed into a law , against the asserters of this obligation ; ( o daring insolence against God , and base ingratitude against men , thus to destroy the men , who were the sole instruments of restoring his Majesty ! ) But , as he must perceive , the contrivers and framers of these lawes , abandoned of God , to vvalk in the vvayes and imaginations of their own evil heart , so he needeth not wonder , if persons so judicialy left , to courses , destructive of their eternal welbeing , and the onely valuable interest of their soul , be also in the righteous judgement of the Lord , left to such courses , as are truely destructive of their temporal interests ; the not receiving of the love of the truth , especialy the opposing and persecuting it , may not onely be punished , with a being given up of God to strong delusions , to beleeve a lye , that they may be damned ; but also to a being given up to strong delusions , to beleeve a lye about all their worldly interests and concerns : O that it might be given unto his Maj. as his mercy , which were a favour , every way preferable to the Empire of the Universe , and as the mercy of this poor nation , to remember his ovvn evil vvayes , and to turn to the living God , that so he might turn avvay from the fiercenesse of his anger , and then establish his throne , upon the solid base of Religion and righteousnesse . Thirdly , let such over-wise politicians , awake out of this dreame , to consider , not onely , the facility of this establishment , but hovv it is so really and upon the matter already setled , while vve sleep ; that the prevention , of a formal establishment , seemeth onely in his Power , who laughs the wicked out of their project 's , and bringeth the counsel of the heathen to nought ; to say nothing of the unmasked confidence , and plain peremptorinesse , wherewith the Popish party amongst our selves , have , of a long time , boasted in terminis , hovv their plot was so laid , that it could not misgive ; nor of their insultings abroad , upon the same grounds of assurance : Let it be considered , first , to what number , strength and Power , the Popish party amongst us , is arrived , partly by the secret encouragement , partly by the open countenance they have had , since his Majesties return : As for their Power and prevalency at Court , the current of affairs is demonstrative , that they are the only cabal , who spirit and animat all our motions ; for it had been impossible else , ever to have engaged and involved us , in this war against the Dutch , in whose designed overthrow , the destruction of the Protestant interest is intended : And as to there number , besids the swarmes of those locusts which cover the face of our Court and city , and overspread the whole land , and that inundation , which , like a torrent , floweth in upon us from forraigne parts , as if Rome had opened it's Sluce , to drown us with that deludge , or rather the dragon had cast these waters out of his mouth , to cause the woman thereby to be carryed avvay , and svvallovved up , vvhich lately had brought forth , the man child of such a reformation : Is it not found by experience ( for regis ad exemplum totus componitur orbis ) that , not a fevv persons , of quality , are gone over and seduced into the Romish perswasion , of whom , no such thing was feared or apprehended ; insomuch that he who is not tainted himself with this wicked contagion , beginneth to doubt , what person of quality , may be concluded , to be realy fixed in an opposition to this wickednesse ; there seemeth to be nothing , but a fit opportunity , vvanting , to make an incredible discovery of persons , vvho yet think it convenient , to goe under the name and disguise of Protestants : And as men vvho knovv the Romish principles , and hovv ordinary it is for them , to tranforme themselves into every shape , that , while appearing like Angels of light , they may with lesse observation , and more certainty , carry on their work , and establish their Kingdom of darknesse , may very rationaly judge that they are numerously lurking , under the garbe even of the manifold and various perswasions , which seem , in their principles & practices , most remote from , and opposit to Popery ; ( I need not mention , how they svvarme amongst , and are served by our Episcopal Clergy ) so it is very vvell knovvn , in vvhat numbers , they have hid themselves , and hatched their vvickednesse , under the dottage and disguise of Quakerisme ; insomuch , that sober and discerning men , from the consideration of these mens priciples , their desperat enmity , especialy at the Stanch Protestants , and more eminently godly Non-conformists , together with the good understanding , which is between the leading persons of that party , and the Court , do rationaly inferre , if ever there be an opportunity for these men , to discover what they are at bottome , the bulck of them , will be found , vvith the utmost of irrational and brutish fury , to adjoine themselves to the Popish party , or rather discover , hovv being already their 's in heart , they onely judged it most convenient to dissemble , and lurk under this shape , till vvith most advantage to Popish Idolatry , and danger to the Protestant interest , they might appeare , in the true shape of the locusts , vvho are like horses prepared unto the battel , Rev. 9 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10. having for their King and Captain Abaddon or Apollyon 8. 11. But then as their number , may give the facility to this setlement , an obvious probability ; so it is more assured from their posture , and present readinesse for action , and warlick capacity for puting all the mischief that is in their heart , in execution , and with a rage peculiar to the dragon's followers , runing dovvn whatever would offer to stand in their way , or oppose this setlement . I need not here repeat that which is already hinted , what of our visible military strength , is in their hand , and how our forts , forces , armouries , Magazines , with all manner of warlick-provisions , seem to be destined and devouted to that service : But have not wise men , with feare and amazement , observed , how , that since his Majesties return , the Popish nobility , gentry , yea to the most ordinary of the common people of that persvvasion , from the one end of the nation , to the other , have , being prompted and put on by these restlesse ring-leaders , the Priests and Jesuits , been preparing their slaughter weapons ; so that he vvho considereth their present capacity and posture , cannot escape this conviction ; that there was never in England , so numerous , and so well appointed an army , lying ready at a call , as there is , at this day , of Papists , whose blind rage against God and his truth , will prompt them to the height of cruelty , against all ranks , sexes and ages ; hence are these dayly boastings at home , of apprehended impossibility of the misgiving of this setlement , and these insultings abroad , at it's certainty , the Papists not standing to say , that novv , they see no rub in their way , if the United provinces were once ruined . Secondly , the difficulty of accomplishing this their wicked designe , will evanish , if these two be further considered ; first , how the persons of quality in the nation , are utterly debauched , ( for , Alas , they who are chief , are chief in all abominations and unexampled impieties ) especialy the young Nobility , and Gentry ; secondly , what a constant and known transition there is , from Atheisme & all Profanity , to Popery , the mother and nurse of all abominations in practice : He , I say , vvho considereth these things , vvill be so far from expecting an effectual opposition , to the setlement of Popery , from a generation , vvho seem rather , to have been brought forth and educat in the Stewes of Rome , then borne vvithin the Pale of the visible reformed Church , that he vvill conclude , a liberty to live as in the suburbs of hell , vvill make them vvithout difficulty , professe themselves the Childreen of that mother , vvhom they do so perfectly resemble : Will these , vvho can glory in being beasts , and boast themselves of their prodigious wickednesse , these , who in the whole of their way , carry , as if they had nothing in them , above the swine , having buried in that dunghil and pudle of sensitive delights , wherein they wallow , the consideration of their immortal souls , contend for the faith once delivered unto the Saints , or resist unto blood , striving against this wickednesse , even when under the countenance and encouragement of Authority ? If any will persist , in his obstinat incredulity , when his Majesty's indulgence is ( after all the other favours he hath heaped upon them ) extended , to the seting up of their idolatrous worship , throughout his dominions , that the introducing of Popery is not designed , and that there is nothing , in this our conjunction vvith the French King , against the Protestant Stats , declarative of this purpose , or continue impersvvadible of a possibility to compasse it , he is like to be knokt in the head , for a cure of this distemper , and may be certainly concluded , by puting far away the thoughts of such a day , to be given up , that he may be swept away , in this dreame , to a spirit of deep sleep and delusion : If we be men , and have not so mancipat our reason , that no reasoning will be prevalent to bring us to our right minde , we cannot deny a conclusion , inferred upon such premisses : But withal ; if we be Christians , and add to all the above adduced evidences , that both this is upon the heart of adversaries , and a competency also , yea overplus of power in their hand , to effectuat it , the consideration of our sin , and wrath presaging security ; we may with trembling , entertain ourselves , with these thoughts and fears , that God , in his righteous judgement , because of our abuse of his glorious Gospel , and impenitence , under most cleare and crying calls to repent , and receive instruction , lest his soul be seperat from us , be about the taking away of his Kingdome from us , and giving it to a nation , which will bring forth the fruits thereof , and render them to him in their season ; and because we have not loved to walk in the truth , he deprive us of that truth , and in taking away his candlestick , write our sin , and his displeasure upon our Punishment : And here , I cannot forbeare to tell , how with feare and anxiety , I have heard some of our good Ministers , tush at the expressions of their brethrens feare of a designe to setle Popery , as if the thing were a pure impossibility ; but I judge , they did so , rather because they would have it so , and partly from a peece of inadvertency ; then from the due & serious weighing , both of what we have done to deserve it , and what the adversaries , are designeing and doing ; for , if these were represented to us , as nothing should be found , in the dispenfations of God , so nothing in the disposition of his own People , or of his and their adversaries , which would not presage sad things , yea minister matter of terrour , at the thoughts of this very thing . But without insisting , by a superfluous deduction or enumeration of particulars , further to demonstrat these things which are past all peradventure , with them , vvho vvill be at the pains to reflect on vvhat is past , and set , or suffer themselves to understand , the genuin sense and true import , of vvhat they novv heare & see acted , I shall ( as the thing aimed at in the whole of this discouse ) shut up all in a word or two , with a more direct reference to what I humbly judge , to be the duety of all the persons in the nation , who desire to be approved of God in such a day of triall , temptation , rebuke and blasphemy : And first , do not these things , my brethren , say , that now it is high time to awake out of sleep : Let therefore the consideration of what we see acted and aimed at , at home , and the joint tendency of the tumults and combinations abroad , drive us out of our dreaming security , to consider in great seriousnesse , what danger the work of God amongst our selves , and throughout the world , is in ; shall we sleep as do others , while his precious interests and People are in such hasard ? shall the Lords voice be crying to the city , to the countrey , to the nation , to all the Churches of Christ in the earth , and shall not we be so wise , to see his name , and understand the language of this his terrible rod , held over our head , and the designe of him who appointeth it ? It 's high time to awake , when we are liketo sleep the sleep of death , if we sleep long . Secondly , it is not every inquiry into the emergents of the present day , or observation of the sad posture of affairs , that will prove us to be men of understanding who know the time ; If we could dive into the depth of all our enemies secreets , and make a perfect discovery of all their desperat designes ; yet unlesse we consider the things , which are like to overwhelme us in their procuring cause , unlesse we set our selves to search out the accursed thing that is with us , and what are the national , yea personal provocations of his sons and his daughters , for which he is like to give up the dearlie beloved of his soul , into the hand of his enemies , and into the hand of such as hate them with cruel hatred , all is lost labour . It would draw me to a length beyond my designe , to reckon up in order our provocations , or represent them with their high and hainous aggravations , time would fail for such an undertaking ; who is sufficient for this thing ? we may , with great certainty , say , upon a very overly search , that our wickednesse is great , and our trasgressions infinit ; it 's well for us , they want this of simple infinitnesse , that they can be swallovved up of infinit mercy : But there seemeth to be some special provocation , comprehensive of all the rest , pointed at by these manifold and multiplied dreadful calamities , under vvhich this poor nation hath been crushed , and by all these more formidable things , vvhereby , utter destruction of our persons , posterity , and of all our interests , both sacred and civil , is further threatned ; this is the thing , for which he is mainly contending , and this is that dangerous enemy , that domestick enemy the destroyer of the Church and Nation , after which our inquiry should be : and having discovered this enemy , if we would have Peace with God , even that Peace which passeth understanding , peace in life and death , Peace in our borders , and on the Israel of God , we are not to let him , when found , go in Peace ; a revenge here , vvith the height of hatred and indignation , is not onely lavvful , but in order to the preservation of soul and body , Church and Kingdome , Religion and liberty , simply necessar , and indispensibly duety ; If vve do not search this out , he vvill seek out our vvickednesse till he finde none , and then vvoe unto us ; or having found it , if vve make light of the matter , then we engage him to let us know , that it is a bitter and an evil thing that we have forsaken the Lord our God , and that his feare hath not been before us ; if we would have his eye spare , our's must not : But what may this Provocation be ? I must professe my self helped in this inquiry , by calling to minde , what an eminently faithful Minister of Jesus Christ said , preaching at a fast upon our anniversary day , kept for the burning of London ; after he had insisted upon many sins , which might be pointed at by such a remarkable stroak ; but , said he , the strangenesse and stupendiousnesse of this judgement , seemeth to point at some one sin , which is by the head and shoulders taler then all the rest , ajudgement , the like whereof was never in the nation , seemeth , to point at a provocation , never before in all it's circumstances , nationally committed ; what can this be ? Truely , said he , we need go no further to finde it out , here it is ; God burnt , or permitted in his anger this City to be burnt , because in it , by an order of King and Parliament , ( horresco referens , be astonished O heavens at this ) that solemne Covenant , entered into with the most high God , about things which had the most cleare connexion with his glory , and direct tendency to the advancement of the Kingdome of his Son , in the nation , and in the souls of men , wherein also the temporal , aswel as the eternal welfare , of each and all the persons contracting vvith the Lord God , ( as his Maj. vvho ovveth his crovvn and establishment to it , may say ) vvas provided for , and secured ; even this Covenant vvas burnt in our city , by the hand of the common Hangman ; this , said he , is a punishment in it's greatnesse and strangenesse , some way proportioned to the sin pointed at , whereby it vvas procured : He spake like a Seer , and one who had the minde of Christ , that said it : O that all ministers of the nation , spake the same things , at least on those dayes , appointed for weeping between the porch and the alter ; and that all the professing people of the nation , who have come under the bond of this Covenant , might , in order to a right mourning before the Lord , be like minded ! However , in this discovery I subsist : It was fit ; it was an act of holy righteousnesse in the judge of all the World , that the nations abroad , who had heard of the burning of this Covenant , and had observed , how , in this , our rage against God , his vvork , way and People , had reached unto heaven ; by which act also , he being the great and glorious party contracted with , we gave him , with all imaginable fury and formality , the defiance , should also heare , hovv , this glorious Lord God , thus dispightfully and dareingly provocked , had burnt that City , and sent as it vvere fire dovvn from heaven upon it , to consume the place , vvhere such a prodigious vvickednesse had been committed . Truely , my brethren , it concerneth all of us , in this day of his contendings with us , and in this yeer of controversies , to call to minde a broken Covenant , and a burnt Covenant , vvhereby , vve , our King , our Parliament , and the vvhole nation , stood unalterably engaged , to make our selves happy in holinesse , in vvorshiping the living God , according to his ovvn vvill , and in walking before him , in our particular stations and relations , like the vvorshipers of the true God : vvhose main designe in the World should be , the adorning of his Doctrin , and shewing forth his vertues in all things : This Covenant , I say , which bound us to our own blessednesse , in binding us to the good behaviour towards him , was broken , and these cords were cast away from us , this pale , whereby we were onely hedged up , from falling into everlasting burnings , was plucked up : Now Brittain , novv England lay it to thy heart , for this , the hand of the great God hath smitten , for this thing , it is still stretched out : Will we not take warning ? will we harden our selves against him , & prosper ? May not the things , which have overtaken us already , make us know , that it is a feareful thing , to fall into the hands of the living God ? Oh , inconsideration hath hardened us into impenitency , and ripened us for judgement ! Will nothing awake us , till the terrors of God take hold on us as vvatter , and a sudden tempest of indignation , steal us avvay in the night ? It vvill be too late then , to think of fleeing out of his hand , when he hath begun , to cast upon us , and not spare , when he hath vvhet his glittering svvord , and his hand hath taken hold of vengeance : Dreadful may the expectation of our hearts be , in the consideration of the things , vvhich , for this wickednesse , are coming , if repentance prevent it not ; our not having mourned for this abomination , our siting to this day , with vvhole hearts , beside the matter of so much sorrovv , may make us meditat terrour least he tear in pieces & there be none to deliver . Let us consider , what judgements and plagues follovved upon the avouched and enacted breach of this Covenant , that vve may know , hovv he hath contended , and will contend for this , if vve return not : In the first place , there is no man , who is not under the plague of spiritual occecation ; nay , no man vvho retaineth so much of morality , as will distinguish him from a beast , but if he vvill consider the practice and conversation of the men , vvho framed this mischiefe into a lavv , yea and of all vvho rejoyced in that day , and said , Aha , so would vvee have it , this is the day we looked for , we have found , vve have seen it ; but it must extort this testimony from him , in despight of all palliatings , and covering vvith those coverings , vvhich are not of his spirit ; that since that day and time , never vvas there a race of men , never vvas there a generation , more remarkeably given up of God , to vvalk in the wayes of their ovvn heart , & that is hell-ward ; as there were never men , who have more manifestly declared their sin as Sodom , or have been lesse solicitous to hide it ; so there was never a Nation , never Princes , never People , who might have been more justly expostulat with , in the same terms , that his People of old were upbraded for their wickednesse , Is. 1. 10. Hear the word of the Lord ye Rulers of Sodom , give ear unto the law of our God ye People of Gomorrah : As never People did cast off , so blessed and honourable a yoke , with so much malice and dispight ; so never was there Nation or generation , who did more advisedly and deliberatly take on Satans yoke , seting themselves to vvork wickednesse in the sight of the Lord ; insomuch , that we are become a by-word , a hissing , & an abhorrence , as the very border of wickednesse , for our prodigious , & unheard of impieties , to the Nations about us : Oh , whither , since the day of our breach of faith with God , have we caused our shame to goe ? We have spoken and done evil as we could , and as if we had raked hell , to find out new methods of sinning , we have surpast the deeds of the heathen ; and as we had been onely delivered , to doe all these abominations ; so vvith a displayed banner , have vve fought against God , glorying in wallowing in the very kennel of hell , boasting of vvearing Satan's black colours , and thinking it onely manhood and gallantry , to fight under his banner : Let the records of former times be searched into , and let the practice of this generation , be compared with the greatest , and most universal vvickednesse , vvhich at other times had overspread the Nation , and I am confident impartiality must say , that since the day of our solemne revoult from our svvorn subjection to the most High , Satan hath been let loose more manifestly , to open as it vvere the very sluce of hell to the drovvning of the Land , vvith a deluge of profanity , even after that the knovvledge of the glory of the Lord , especialy upon our entering in that blessed Covenant vvith him , had covered the land , in a good measure , as the vvatters cover the sea : From that day forevvard , Alas , did the Lord poure out his plagues , upon the hearts of the men of that conspiracy ; so that he who did run , might have read this engraven upon their practice , that as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge ; so God had given them over to a reprobat minde , to doe those things , vvhich are not convenient , being filled vvith all unrighteousnesse , fornication , &c. After they had broken Covenant vvith him , they added , this iniquity of burning it , to that sin , proceeding from evil to worse , which had more of displeasure in it , then if they had , upon passing this law , been stricken dead with a thunder bolt from heaven ; for this was to be left , to act so , and doe that wickednesse , vvhich being considered in it's complexe , and with all it's circumstances , had never been done under the whole heaven before , let be in the Nation ; ( I graunt the the like was acted in our neighbour Nation of Scotland , where the causes of wrath were burnt , containing an acknowledgment , of sin for the breach of this Covenant ; but as this was an act of the same abused power ; so it was of a piece , with this monstruous impiety ) so that I may very rationaly doubt , if ever there was , a more solemne and acceptable Sacrifice offered unto Satan , upon the earth , then to have the Nations Engagement with God , so opprobriously cast into a fire : I know , all the ten Plagues of Egypt , to a gracious heart , who looketh upon sin as the worst of evils , if they had together fallen on the Nation would not be remembred in one day , with this cleare and undeniable evidence of the displeasure of the Lord ; that the Nation should be left to commit such a wickednesse ; Satan who had fled seven wayes before the fire of that zeal , which was found amongst the people of the Lord , in the day when they entered into this Covenant with him , & tooke on them these vowes , knew well , that now a throne would be erected to him , & that he should without controul , exerce a soveraignity in the Nation , & we have seen it so : Hovv , Alas , hath he since that day , exerced as a Prince a dominion ? & how hath that spirit , wrought in the childreen of disobedience ? But secondly , because the generality did not observe , this dreadful evidence of his displeasure ; and were not sensibly affected vvith the vvrath , that vvas vvitnessed against men , by leaving them to post in the vvayes of perdition , and run according to the drivings of Satan ; he tooke other vvayes , to make the most stupid of the nation sensible of his anger from that day ; to say nothing ( vvhich yet speaketh the thing so distinctly , that idiots may understand it ) of disapointment of our hopes , and blasting of our big expectations ; for vve dreamed of nothing , but , upon his Majesties return , that vve should be the head , and all other nations the tail , that vve should then floorish in trade , and increase in treasure and strength , to the suppressing and overawing of all , who would offer to compet with us ; now in stead of this expectation , wherein we blessed ourselves , and whereof we boasted , as if already arrived at our hoped for harbour , our substance is consumed , there is a moth in our Estat , he bloweth upon what we had , and bloweth it away , we lose our flesh and fatnesse , our mirth is turned into mourning , and our organ into the voice of them that weep , the whole nation filled with murmuring and complaints of penury , and , which is a prodigy , the very Court that eat up all , cryeth out , my leannesse my leannesse : To passe these things , I say , without insisting upon them ; let us , by a few crying evidences , remember , how God remembred this iniquity , and visited us for this sin , with judgement : And because , England had never nationaly so dared him to his face , as in his own sight , in the sight of Angels and men , to burn that obligation by a decree ; wherein , the nation had obliged themselves to be his , to be no more their own , to be no more at the dispose of others , but in a due subordination to him as supreme ; he giveth order , to a destroying Angel , to fall upon that City , where this wickednesse was decreed and perpetrat , and then the chief Actors must flee for it , and seek another seat and city ; I need say no more of this , but as never Prince , never Parliament , neither the Nation or City , had been guilty of such outrage , and Rebellion against the Lord , so never did plague rage in the same manner , nor did the destroying Angel get a command to put up his sword , till such heaps , were laid upon heaps , and so many thousands upon thousands ; that all who heard thereof , behoved to observe , and say , never was there such a plague in England ; and , if resolved into it's true cause , we must say , righteous art thou O Lord God injudging thus , we are worthy , for never was there such a provocation in England . One vvoe is past , and behold another vvoe cometh quickly ? An evil Spirit from the Lord , entereth into our counsels , & precipitateth us into a vvar vvith the Dutch , soliciting a peace vvith us ; ( I forebeare to mention , the unrighteousnesse of it , vvhich vvas a greater plague upon the contrivers and actors , then all that followed upon it , though the shame and losse , will make a great total ) in the beginning of this war , we were plagued with so much successe , as made us encourage our selves in this evil matter , victrix causa diis placuit thought we ; and yet in that little seeming succcesse we had , any discerning person might have observed , how the hand of the Lord God of hosts , was gone forth against us ; for , though our enemies did flee , yet as being deprived by the Lord , of both counsel and courage , we did not follow , vvhen we had them , even for the taking up ; so that if our effrontry make us boast , of this bout as a victory , we may , with blushing , remember the greater shame , that the Lord poured upon us , in depriving us of the Spirit of conduct , that we knew not , how to improve the advantage over a beaten enemy ; so that the Lord by this successe , did seem onely to lift us up , that he might , with the greater shame , noise and observation , throw us down ; and truely , whoever remembereth that action and day , may confidently affirme , that the Lord fought for Holland and against England , seing he so observably interposed as a rere-vvard : But before this Angel have done his vvork , that vve might have a nevv proof of the displeasure of the Almighty , and that he might make the World see , hovv he himself , and not men , did cast us dovvn ; he sendeth a fire into our chiefe City , before this war be ended , vvhere vve had burnt that Covenant ; ( I passe all consideration of the immediat instruments ; let us give and graunt , it was done upon designe , even this , maketh the judgement demonstrative , with a witnesse , of his wrath and indignation ) and as this fire , seemed to take wings , or be carried from house to house , and street to street , by a destroying Angel ; so those , who were employed to quench it , ( O it 's ill quenching , where he kindleth , except with teares ) were deprived of all wisdome , and discretion ; or rather , as if in the righteous judgement of the Lord , they had designedly set themselves to obstruct the quenching of it , and so it burnt till the bulk of the City was turned into ashes ; That as the Nations abroad , had heard of our rage in burning that Covenant , so they might hear of an act of holy revenge , and be witnesses to the righteousnesse of his judgement , in giving us fire for fire ; and as the like fury , had never been witnessed against the Lord before , so he had never kindled the like fire in the Nation before ; Nay , nor almost the like in the World , since the burning of Jerusalem ; and truely the parallel , between the judgements , may put us in minde of a parity , betwixt the provocations ; as the crucifying of the Son of God , and putting him to an open shame , burnt the City of that bold abomination ; so the crucifying of him again , in shedding the blood of his servants , and puting him to such a shame , in burning a Covenant made with him , ( which is an unheard-of indignity , amongst Princes and Stats , even when after the violation of Leagues , they fall in open hostility ) kindled this fire , consumed the City of our solemnities , and buried it into it's ashes . But for all this , as we do not turn away from the evil of our way ; but in stead of stoping , and taking notice of the hand , that is gone forth against us , we continue in puting forth our hand to iniquity ; we become more insatiable in sinning , rushing foreward in our course , as the horse doth to the battel ; every bit and bridle , that 's put in our mouth , is too weak to hold us ; so his anger is not turned away , but his hand is stretched out still . The Angel who had drawn the sword , in stead of puting it up , seemed onely to have been furbishing it , while the flame was consuming our City : As we were become a frovvard generation , Childreen in vvhom was no faith ; so he continueth , in his righteousnesse , to heap mischiefs upon us , & to spend his arrowes upon us : We goe on with the war ; now , that God , who deprived us of wisdome hovv to improve our former victory , first , leaveth us in the pride and haughtinesse of our heart , to the folly and infatuation , of dividing our fleet , and then he mustereth the host of the battel that cometh against us ; and so vve are foiled and put to flee , before that enemy , of vvhom vve had said , vve had no other regret , but because engaged against an enemy , unvvorthy of our spirit and courage ; novv are the Dutch their prisons filled vvith English prisoners : But vvhy doe I insist ? The close of the vvar , is the confusion of England , and a perfect Ecclipse of it's glory , our English vvalls are broken dovvn and burnt , vvherein the hand of him vvho judged us , vvas so visible , that the actors themselves doe not mention it othervvise , then as the doing of the Lord , vvhich vvas mervellous in their eyes : Novv is our Court confounded and distracted , because the Lord , against vvhom they had sinned vvith so high a hand , made bare his holy Arm , in the sight of the nations , by fighting against them ; novv is the nation , in an universal consternation novv is London seised vvith a panick feare , to that height as it had been easy for the enemy , to have burnt the remainders of our City , that had escaped the former fire : And vvhereas , vve vvould have a vvar , on any terms , vvith our peacable neighbours ; novv vve must post avvay our order , to accept of a peace on any termes , and ( vvhich is remarkable ) be forced to passe from those pretensions , on vvhich vve had founded the equity of our vvar ; thus are vve stript of our glory ; and the crovvn , vvhich vve had vvorn for many yeers , in the sight of the Nations , falleth from our head ; ( alas , that vve should have forgotten to have said , woe unto us that we have sinned ) England vvho had upheld these Provinces , against the pride of the Spanish Tyrranny , England vvho had conquered France , and at the same time , vvere victorious over the Scotch their confederats , must novv finde the nation perfectly besieged , by them , vvhom , in our pride , vve thought not a people ; our ships burnt , in the most secure harbours of England , and vve necessitat , when under the feet of these whom vve had despised , to accept of a peace ; which they might have made us condescend unto upon lesse honourable termes : Which things befell us , that when the present generation shall consider , and the succeeding ages inquire , into the cause of this disaster , and aske the question , how vve vvere so vvonderfully brought down ; It may be answered , because in stead of keeping the Covenant with their God , they burnt it , therefore , that they might read their sin and rage in their judgement , ( or , if they would not , others might ) as he had formerly burnt their City , now he burnt their ships , not in the sea , but vvithin their harbours ; and thus he called the Nations to be vvitnesses , to the heat of his displeasure , in burying our glory : As their was never such a sin before committed in the land , we were never thus put to shame , and spit upon , in the sight of the nations ; our being made base & contemptible , in the eyes of them , vvho honoured us , and had us in estimation , must be refounded upon our bold sining against the most high God ; and our trampling upon his honour and interest , vvith such evidences of contempt , hath made us be greatly despised amongst the Nations , and caused him , against whom we had lifted up our selves , trample us under foot , as the mire of the streets : Well , wee must now beare our shame , and finde our selves sunk in the gulfe of ignominy , whereby the Lord was in a manner , trying us , if vve would turn from the evil of our way : But , Alas , that , which was the observe of the Holy Ghost upon Ahaz , was manifestly verified upon us ; so that it might have been , with the same evidence and certainty , said ; this is that Court , this is that Kingdome , who being rebuked so remarkably , did , in stead of accepting the punishment of their sin , trespasse yet more and more against the Lord. In this interval , wherein we seemed to have tranquillity from enemies without , the plague upon our heart , is more evident , by the evil that was in our hand : vve had some quiet it 's true , ( vvherein he gave us space to repent , and accept of the punishment of our sins ) but it vvas not so much a true peace , as the dravving back of the hand of the great God , that he might fetch the sorer blovv ; for in stead of humbling our selves under the mighty hand of God ; as if vve did meditat revenge against heaven , vve not onely continued in our former unchristian practices ; but , vvhat our imperial crown had lost of it's lustre , vve think to make it up , by appending the Mediator's crown to it ; and therefore , though we fall before others , yet we will , as we began , continue to fight against God ; and in this interval of peace from forraigne enemies ; as we had burnt the bond of our subjection to Jesus Christ , so in prosecution of the same quarrel , we advance our supremacy , to the degrading and exautorating of him , by whom Kings reigne ; and carry with that height of insolence , as if we had , not onely resolved , to out-do all , that ever led the way to us , in this opposition to Christ as King in Zion ; but further , to give the defiance to all , that ever should come after us , to make a law , vvhich being considered in it's most plain and obvious meaning , can , without straining , speak this more explicitly ; that , this man , this one Jesus , who calleth himself a King , shall not reigne over us , we have no King but Caesar : we stated the question de finibus Imperii mediatoris , and decided in our ovvn favour , once for all ; making a decree , to take the house of God in possession to our selves ; yea , and as if , vve intended to eternize our enmity and opposition to the son of God ; vve , together vvith the imperial crovvn of the Nation , transmit a legal right to our successors , to the crovvn and scepter of Jesus Christ ; as if it vvere a satisfaction for us , to lie dovvn in the grave , vvith an assurance , that his crovvn should not floorish upon his ovvn head ; by vvhich one act , all our former insolencies were reacted , vvith this addition ; that , vvhatever vve please to do in the house of the God of heaven hereafter , must be legal : And thus , the Church hath got an exotick head , and vve have filled up the measure of our iniquity : O that it might please the father of mercies , to give repentance to his Majesty & the Nation , and to preserve both from reaping that harvest of grief and desperat sorrow , vvhich such a seed-time presageth : In the mean time , the consumption , of the nation , is visible in it's countenance , it 's soul and substance is consumed ; ( as vvas excellently laid openin that first & second discourse of my Lord Lucas , before the house of Lords , in whom alone the ancient gallant spirit of the English Nation did shew it self and shine forth , & who , by that heroick act , hath erected to himself a monument , in the heart of all true English-men , & proposed himself as a worthy paterne of imitation , to all who affect the glory of being true Patriots ) yet , while the Nation is in this low and languishing condition , vve are ploting and contriving a new war against the Dutch , and therefore vve pick quarrels vvith them , to give our own designes some colour of justice , having resolved upon the vvar , let them offer , what rational satisfaction they can ; yet , as if the Lord , from heaven would openly rebuke these secret mischievous contriveances and works of darknesse ; he in a manner giveth a commission , to that very element , the stage on which we designe to act this wickednesse , to fall upon us , sink our ships at sea , sweep away a considerable part of our remaining substance , and svvallovv up our Land ; and as upon Pestilence , fire and svvord , this had been vvritten , by the finger of the righteous judge of all the earth , never the like before seen in England ; so of this tempest , this turnado and inundation ( vvhereby the sea vvas become difficult and dangerous for passage , in reguard of broken ships , filled also vvith the sad spectacle of drovvned men , driving to and fro in it , the land overflovved , houses , beasts and men , having one common burial place ) it was also said , never , did the Lord witnesse at once , so much of his displeasure against the Nation , by any sea-storme ; hereby particularly pointing at and plaguing the Kingdome , both for our breach of Covenant vvith the most High , and our former , and again resolved upon breach of Covenant vvith our neighbours , as also our foolish pretension , to an absolut dominion of the sea , to vvhich vve could set no bounds ; if that by taking notice of the displeasure of the living God against our iniquous contriveances vve might be stopped in this unhappy Carreer ; but all in vain , forevvard we vvill goe . And the thing that maketh the anger of the Lord , more manifest against us , and our French confederat's , in this dispensation , was , that remarkable passage of providence ; vvhile much havock vvas at the same time , made upon the French coast , aswel as upon ours , the Dutch fleet , against which we were making most fervid preparations , did ride all the time safe at anchor , as it were in the centre betwixt the two , without any lose ; God thereby in a manner manifesting , that he had taken these , whom we , in designe and endeavour , had devouted to destruction , into his own immediat protection ; a happy Omen ; and who knoweth , but it is a speaking prognostick , of what he intendeth , further to doe for them and by them , to the frustration , and disappointment of our projects & preparations ; & how , because we would not behold the Majesty of the Lord , nor see , when his hand was listed up , nor listen to the voice of such a dreadfully menacing disswasive , he mindeth to make us see , and put us to shame , for our envy at his people , and cause the World take notice of it , when he maketh the fire of his enemies to devour us . Now , my friends and brethren , my designe in this deduction , and the assignement of it's cause , is not to lodge the provocation alone with the Court , and leave it at their door , as if we were innocent , and in case to plead guiltlesse ; no , for besid's that we have made it our ovvn , for not mourning as we ought , for this horrid abomination , our shareing so deeply in the punishment , pointeth at , & proveth us to be , deeply guilty in the provocation : That vve may therefore , by repentence , prevent the vvoeful day , & by remembring vvhence vve have fallen , renew first love , and return to first vvorks , before he remove the Candlestick , vvhich is the terrible judgement , vvherevvith vve are this day threatened ; let us consider , hovv justly he may proceed , to the utmost of holy severity , and observe , vvhat of spotlesse equity , hath been manifested , in all the smoakings of his vvrath against us , in all these blovves of his hand , whereby our beauty is consumed ; let us think , hovv guilty vve are , for not having been stedfast in his Covenant , and for not performing our vowes to the most High , before he make a full end , and smite us so , that affliction shall not spring up the second time : As it is neither possible for me , to enumerat all those wayes , how we have made our selves guilty , of a contempt and dreadful misreguard of that Oath of God , whereby vve were so expressely , so solemnly & indispensibly engaged in our several places and stations , to walk before him to all pleasing , minding and advancing , above all earthly concerns , reformation and Religion , witnessing and shewing forth it's power , in our conversation , that , the Nation might have been called by that name , Jehovah Shammah , that so the reproach of Egypt ( the untendernesse , I mean , and profanity , which was amongst the multitude , kept under superstitious ignorance for a great part , before our late reformation ) might have been rolled away from us ; nor to accent and sharpen these challenges , with their just aggravations and edge , that they may cut us at the heart , and make us cry out ; men and brethren , what shall we do , to be delivered from the approaching destruction and impendent ruine , whereto , we and our posterity , for the breach of our Covenant , and backslidings , are exposed ? so , I do purposely passe and forbeare it ; lest I should seem to exprobrat these to one party as more guiltie , while I passe by another as more innocent ; but I am sure while all are charged with this guilt , every gracious heart will suspect himself , and say , Master is it I ? And he is like to be found deepest in the transgression before God , who is most ready to make light of the matter , and with a supine misreguard of his own backslidings and Gods anger , dare in stead of puting his mouth in the dust as guilty before him , wipe it , and say , What have I done ? Let us not onely witnesse our repentance by a personal reformation ; but by a serious minding in our place and station , the reviving of his work : Let us set ourselves to weep over the dust and stones of Zion : Let us give him no rest , till he return and build his house , and fill it with his own glorious presence , making thereby our gates salvation and our walls praise : God seemeth by all the dispensations of the day , to put us , without more debat or delay , to chuse whether we will bleed or weep ? And if we be sparing of our teares , justice is like to be prodigal of our blood : If our eye do not trickle down without intermission , at the sight of the desolations of the sanctuary , and at the danger and distresse of all the Churches of Christ , till the Lord look down and behold from Heaven , he is threatening to bring distresse upon us , that we shall walk like blind-men , both because of our sining against the Lord , and our security ; and to pour out our blood as the dust and our flesh as the dung : Do we not see the Church and Nation ready to be devoured , by the fire of his jealousy ? Do we not perceive the men with the slaughter weapon in their hand ? Why then do we delay to gather our selves together ? Why do vve not retire within our selves , that we may return to the most High with rops about our neck , as sentenced persons , upon the sight of the plague of our own heart , & the iniquities that are in our hand , but particularly our woeful departings from , and breaches of Covenant with our God , before the decree bring forth , before the day passe as the chaff , before the fierce Anger of the Lord come upon us ? As A none such hath been written over the head of these judgements , which are already come ; so we may certainly conclude , that A none such , to make the ears of all that heare it tingle , and strike their hearts with amazement and terrour , at the report thereof , shall be written upon the wrath and woes , that he will bring upon us for these breaches if not mourned over : If the Lord employ the French , Irish and English Papists , which stand ready girt with their sword upon their thigh , breathing out cruelty , and thirsting after blood , to be the executioners of his displeasure , for a despised Gospel , and to avenge the quarrel of a broken Covenant , and punish us , as our congregations have heard , for our impenitencies and unperswadablenesse by all that hath yet come upon us , so to make our prayer before the Lord our God , that we might turn from our iniquity and understand his truth ; then may we conclude , that the nation shall be made a Golgotha , a place of dead mens skuls , and that not onely the Massacre of Paris , Alva's murther and blood-shed in the Low-Countreys , the murthers and villanies committed in the valleys of Piedmont , with all the Marian bloodshed & persecution in our own nation , but even that more bloody and barbarous Massacre of Ireland , shall either be quit forgotten , or mentioned as light things , vvhen compared with the havocks , bloods , murthers , fire and faggot , whereby to the satiating the malice , fury , and revenge of her that must be drunk with the blood of the Saints , and to the blunting of the edge of her instrument's rage , keen to the utmost of cruelty , the land shall be laid wast and made utterly desolat : If we still sleep on , after he hath done so much to awake us , after so many voices of word and rod , after he hath been saying unto us , Shall I not visit for these things ? Shall not my soul be avenged upon such a generation as this ? Then there is no hope but that we shall be made a generation of his wrath ; nor is there another expectation , but that he will accomplish his anger , and cause his fury to rest upon us , and be comforted : O for grace to awake & prevent this woeful day , before he cause darknesse , and before our feet stumble upon the dark mountains ! Let us therefore while it is called to day , beware of hardning our hearts ; let us consider one another , and every man himself , to provok unto the excercise of repentance , Let us think on our backslidings , and breaches of Covenant , that we may return unto the Lord our God , before he cause his anger to fall upon us : Let us hast while there is a may be of hope , while there is yet a , who knoweth , if the Lord will return , and repent , and turn away from his fierce anger , and think upon the Church , the Nation , our selves and posterity , that we perish not . The last thing wherewith I shall shut up this discourse , is , to remind you my brethren , of what I formerly hinted , viz : That from the consideration of the manifest unrighteousnesse of this war , not so much against the Dutch , as against the Lord God , in concurring with , and assisting the sworn enemies of the reformed Religion ; yea and against our selves , our liberties , and our posterity , by strengthening the hands of the most Stated adversary in the world to the prosperity of the English nation , we may not onely be humbled , that our Court should be left of the Lord to these wicked contrivances , Religion and libertydestroying courses , and that so many of our brethren , should be dragged as slaves , to assist in this Religion-overturning Covenant-breaking war ; but , that as we would not by an association with the workers of these iniquities , and a participation in their sin , share in the remarkable punishments , and terrible plagues , whereby the righteous Lord will certainly be avenged , for this breach of faith and Alliance , for this conspiracy against the reformed Religion ; so , we would withdraw and flee from , if we would not fall into the hands of a provoked God , all concurrence in carrying on this war , directly or indirectly : Neither let us think to please God , or be approved of him , if we acquiesce in a simple forbearance , to contribut our assistance thereto ; nay somewhat else then such a neutrality is called for , in a day , when , all things being considered , there seemeth to be the most formally pitched Battel , between hrist and Anti-Christ , that hath been in many generations : We are called under the hafard of being reput and reckoned enemies to Christ and his cause ( for when he is crying so formally at this time , who is on my side who ? All that are not with him shall be esteemed enemies unto him ) while some of our brethren in the simplicity of their heart , not knowing any thing , are insnared and seduced into this quarrel , and moe are deprived of their liberty , dragged as slaves , and pressed to go fight , and sacrifice their lives to the Court , and French interest , in prejudice of all these precious things and interests , which make life desirable , and in the preservation whereof , it is glory to die : I say while it is thus , we are called to pour out our hearts together and apart on the behalfe of our distressed , shamefully by us deserted , yea betrayed Protestant brethren , that the Lord God of hosts , would make bare his strong Arm and stand up for their help : We are not onely debtors to them , when we can contribut nothing else to their assistance , while they must jeopard their lives , in contending against the mighty enemies of the Lord and his People , for all the supply and help we can make them , by our assiduous and most importune beggings and beseechings of God , for their safety and preservation , upon the account of the reformed Religion , vvhich , if they be foiled and put to the worse , must also fall with them , as to it 's visible profession ; but also upon the account of the true liberty and reall interest of England ; let the things already mentioned , to demonstrat this , upon our supposed successe against them , be considered , and it will make the matter so evident , that I am sure , as he cannot be a Christian or one who wisheth the preservation of the Church , and coming of the Kingdome of the Son of God in the World , since there hath not been for many ages , a People , whose civil interest was so twisted and enterwoven , with the great interest of Christ through the earth , in opposition to Antichrist ; so I am upon rational grounds perswaded , that he cannnot have the heart of a true English-man , he cannot be a true lover of the real good , liberty and honour of our Nation , who doth not wish well unto , and is not earnestly solicitous for the safety of the United provinces in this juncture : Alas ! Shall our brethren the Dutch , goe down into the valley to fight with the enemy , and be engaged , not onely upon the account of their own liberty , their civil interests , and the reformed Religion ; but also most evidently by an undenyable consequence , for the liberty of England , and the preservation of the same things amongst us ? And will not we goe up to the mount , & weep upon God to stand by them ? Shall they shed their blood by sea and land , for that truth and doctrine , which is according to godlinesse , that should be deare to us beyond and above our lives ? And shall not we offer them the assistance , of our utmost intercessions ? What could we say to God ? Or how could we satisfy our own conscience , in so cleare and crying an exigent , if we should , as nothing concerned in the quarrel , or it's consequences , forbeare to do this ? How will we make it appeare , that we prefer Jerusalem to our chief joy , and are lovers of righteousnesse , on whose side soever it is found , or are really desirous to do all that is in our power , to prevent the bondage of the nation , and preserve our selves and our posterity , from being sold slaves to forraigne enemies and the exorbitant lust of our own Court , if now , when there is no other work for us to do , we make it not our work , to lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens , praying and pleading by all manner of prayer and supplication , either to reclaime our rulers , from these unrighteous and violent courses ; or to preserve our oppressed brethren , and appeare their protector , when deserted of all humane help ? We would take heed how we lay our selves aside from this innocent and Christian concurrence . I doubt nothing but as the Lord will write in most legible Characters , and witnesse either sooner or later , high and hore displeasure , against all the contrivers of this war , and willing contributers of their assistance to it , and reckon them , vvho , if it vvere but by their vvords and vvishes , vvitnesse their concurrence , and shevv themselves enemies to our oppressed protestant friends , though they neither be guilty of that theiving basensse of caping , or a more formal conjunction this abominable war , adversaries to the reformed Religion , through the World , and enemies to all righteousnesse amongst men , so , I am equally perswaded , they shall make themselves guilty of a detestable neutrality , and incurre the curse of not helping the Lord against the mighty , vvho do not implore his Aid for our oppressed brethren , and stirre not up themselves to pray , that he would appeare to plead a cause that is so much his own : Let not the vain fancy of affection to the honour of the Nation , when to the height of basenesse engaged in a vvar , or lothnesse to see our countrey-men put to shame , even vvhen it is impossible to appeare in this engagement and cover our shame , de murre or foreslovv us in this duety : It 's true , our Nation ought to be deare unto us , the lives and honour of our countrey-men precious in our sight ; but we should be so much Protestants , so much Christians , as to acquiesce rather , that vve , our posterity , our name , and Nation should be delete & perish from under the heavens of the Lord , before the reformed Religion , that great interest of Christ in the World , by our successe be destroyed , or his declarative glory suffer an ecclipse . Nay let us consult either reason or Religion , and then , the thing which seemeth to demurre or dissvvade , will certainly drive us to the duety that is pressed : Let us love our Lord Jesus Christ so well , let us love the honour , prosperity and welfare of our Nation so well , let us love the reput and renown of our countrey-men so well , as to pray , that his Kingdome may come , and that the designes of these who in this engagement , are engaged against us , and our precious interests , may be defeat , and that their hands may not be able to performe their enterprise , and there is no more driven at or desired ; for , if the sword that is now drawn against the Dutch , return victorious and drunk with their blood , it will not be put up , till the yoke be wreathed about our neck , and it have shed the blood of such , who are not so much beasts , as with a tamenesse to take it on ; and if we be deprived of , and out-live the lose of our onely treasure , Religion and liberty , where then is the blessednesse we spoke of ? Where then is the glory of our nation whereof we boasted ? Happy is the man , who knoweth the times , and what Israel hath to do , while it is the plague of many , that they are as asses couching under the burden : Once for all , let us feare , and stand aloof from , yea in our place and station withstand , all these sinful combinations with such , as have turned aside unto their crooked vvayes , and designe and endeavour vvith so much vigour , the overturning of his vvork , lest God lead us forth vvith the vvorkers of Iniquity : It 's true , he must have a Church , and his interest must be preserved ; for the gates of hell cannot prevail against it ; yet if vve either join vvith these consederats against him , or forbeare to witnesse our desire of his abiding with us , by pleading with him , for the preservation of his low , his abandoned , born down , yea and betrayed interests ; deliverance shall come another way , for he is the God of salvations , against whom in this conjunction , we have lifted up the head and stretched out the hand ; but we , our interest , and whatsoever is deare and desirable to men , shall be destroyed and perish : But my brethren , as I hope for better things of you , yea for all things , vvhich may prove you to be lovers of our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity , of the Churches abroad and of our Nation 's interest , honour and liberty , though I thus speak ; so , I desire to beleeve , that not onely that poor people against whom our Court , with the French are engaged ( the second part of Herod and Pilat's History ) shall be preserved , though they may be brought lovv ; but that the destruction of the poor remnant amongst our selves , vvhich ( that the actors may at once take away Religion and liberty together with our lives ) is intended , shall be prevented ; for strong is the Lord God who judgeth the enemies of his people and pleadeth the causes of their soul : Let us therefore wait on him , and continue with him in these tentations , carrying in the duties of the present day , and amidst all the dangers which accompany , a faithful acquiting of our selves in our Masters service , as knowing , that the adversaries of the Lord shall be broken in pieces , out of heaven shall he thunder upon them : The Lord shall judge the ends of the earth , he shall give strength unto his King ( the coming of whose Kingdome , is now so much opposed by these Kings , and destruction of whose subjects and people , is so manifestly designed and furiously driven by them ) and exalt the horne of his anointed , when he hath provided carpenters , to fray the horns of these , who rejoyce in a thing of nought , and have taken unto them horns , by their own strength , to push the inheritance of the Lord : Faxit Deus et festinet , and then we have the desire of our hearts . FINIS . REader , though thou mayest sometime finde in perusing this paper , a Letter redundant , as ane for an , or it may be the same Letter twice , or a letter wanting , as of for off , lest , for least , or one letter sometime for another , as these for those , which will not make thee misse the sense , yet these few small following lapses thou mayest thus correct . P. 13. l. 16. ingenuousnesse . r. ingeniousnesse . P. 16. l. 19. sea . r. See P. 34. l. 7. do insist . r. do I insist . P. 67. l. 14. sujects . r. subjects . P. 69. l. 9. phohibit . r. prohibit . P. 70. l. ult . bebate . r. debate . P. 77. l. 33. del . of . ibid. l : 34. Alter . r. Altar . P. 84. l. 21. priciples . r. principles . P. 96. l. ult . furbishing . r. fourbishing . P. 102. l. 2. remembring . r. remembering . P. 108. l. 1. conjunction this . r. conjunction in this