Bristols second Address, As it was presented to their late Members in Parliament, at their return from Oxford.  
To THE RIGHT WORSHIPFUL Sir RICHARD HART, Knight, Mayor of the City of Bristol, and THOMAS EARL, Esquire, our late Representatives in Parliament for the said City and County of Bristol.  
I. THAT you may see the short life of the late Parliament hath not influenced us to Change by altering our Duty to our Sovereign or our respects to You; We now receive You into this City with the same Loyal affections that we conducted You out on Your journey to Oxford.  
II. We are neither Presbyterians nor any of those Sects, who presuming to pry into God's secret Counsels, are the less to be wondered at, that they saucily canvas and dispute all the Actions of his Vicegerent. And therefore we enter not into the Reasons moving His Majesty unto this sudden Dissolution, but humbly acquiesce therein with Duty and Loyalty becoming honest and peaceably minded Subjects.  
III. Whatever the Author of Vox Populi or other factious and seditious Scribblers have with very ill purposes and designs of late falsely insinuated into the People: We are sensible that the Power of Calling and Dissolving Parliaments at pleasure, is one of those inseparable Prerogatives of the Crown, which (no less necessary for the Subjects Safety than the Prince's Grandeur) We in the third Article of our former Address assert and defend against all Opposers.  
IV. We are abundantly satisfied that our gracious King, who hath hitherto made the Laws the measure of his Actions and Proceedings, will still continue to us the same just practice; And being assured by our former experience and His Royal promise in His most Excellent Speech at the Opening of the late Session, That he himself would neither use Arbitrary Power, nor suffer it in others; We therefore take it for granted, That he saw no less just cause for the Dissolving this than the preceding Parliament.  
V. Had this Parliament continued a week longer, We had not (as now) wanted an opportunity of vindicating our Election of You our true Representatives to the great Dishonour of Your Competitors, in the Refutation of the many scandalous and notorious falsehoods contained in the Petition presented (as is said) by Sir Robert Atkins, Sir John Knight, and others, to the late House of Commons.  
VI And (here) We cannot but return you our hearty thanks and acknowledgements for Your Courage and Resolution shown on this Occasion, and doubt not but You will still retain the same constancy and steadiness.  
VII. We desire, That You will be ready and prepared with Us with lives and fortunes to stand by His Majesty and the established Government both in Church and State, doing in Your respective Stations what in You lies. And wherein Your Power shall fall short, praying from His Majesty assistance and encouragement, countenance and protection for the due Execution of the Statutes in being, particularly that of the 35th Eliz. made upon most deliberate Counsels (as the History of those times attests) against all Recusants and Dissenters whatever, their Prosecution being in our Opinion the only means (under God) to preserve the King's Person, our Religion, Liberty and Property from the secret machinations and hellish conspiracies of the wicked and ambitious, whether Papists or fanatics.  
VIII. And in this blessed Union, let us all with heart and hand join as one man, and let all honest people heartily say (as we do) God save our good King Charles the Second; let His and our Enemies be confounded: but upon Himself and His lawful Successors, let the Crown be for ever established and flourish, Amen, Amen.  
Bristol the first of April 1681.  
This was subscribed by most of the Aldermen and Common Council of the said City, and by several hundred more (Citizens and Freeholders there.) As likewise was their former Address, notwithstanding Langley Curtis had the impudence in his Protestant Mercury (Number 24.) falsely to affirm, that the said former Address was a forgery, and an abuse put upon the said City, and that they were altogether ignorant thereof: And thereupon took occasion to vilify Mr. Thompson (a reverend Minister of the said City) in scurrilous language peculiar to such Common-wealth-Protestants; which said former Address (with this now presented) is and will be owned not only by those who subscribed them, but by all other his Majesties truly Loyal Subjects within that City.   

London, Printed for Henry Broom, 1681.