A SERMON Preached before the University OF CAMBRIDGE On the 9th of September, Being the Day of Public Thanksgiving for the Deliverance of His MAJESTY'S Sacred Person, His Royal Brother, and the Government, from the late Hellish Fanatic Conspiracy.  
By MILES BARN, D. D. Chaplain in Ordinary to His MAJESTY, and Fellow of St Peter College.  
Published by Authority.  
CAMBRIDGE, Printed by J. Hayes, Printer to the University; for R. Green, Bookseller in Cambridge. 1683.   

A SERMON Preached before the University OF CAMBRIDGE.  St Luke 19 v. 14. 
But his Citizens hated him, and sent a message after him, saying, We will not have this man to Reign over us.  
WHich words are part of an eminent Parable spoken by the King of the Jews in his Triumphant Procession to Jerusalem, which had raised great hopes in the Disciples, and others his Countrymen who accompanied Him in that Glorious March, that the Kingdom of God, which they had so long expected, and so earnestly desired, should now appear, that the Kingdom should even now be restored unto Israel, i. e. in their carnal conceits, that He would now in a most solemn manner proclaim Himself a Mighty Monarch, make Jerusalem the Chief Seat of his Empire, promote them to the Highest Places of Trust and Dignity, and that they should enjoy all the measures of Softness, Ease, and Plenty under his most Peaceful, Prosperous and lasting Reign. To correct the Vanity of this fancy, in his more immediate Approach to this Famous Metropolis, He tells them of a certain Nobleman, i. e. One born Heir to a Crown, who went into a far Country to take Possession of a Kingdom, of his returning again to his Countrymen in an Eminent manner, and in the mean time of his commiting to their Care a certain Fund of Money, which they were to employ in the way of Merchandise, that so He might receive an improvement, and they a suitable Reward. The far Country spoken of sufficiently confuted their Error in thinking Jerusalem should be the Chief Seat of his Empire, and by making his servants Factors and Merchants in his absence, and requiring an improvement at his Return, they had little reason to dream that his Kingdom should privilege Sloth and Idleness, or secure the enjoyment of carnal Pleasures.  
The words of the Text give the reason why He went into a far Country; because his Citizens hated Him, and manifested their Hatred in that Sullen undutiful Message, which they sent after, saying, We will not have this man to Reign over us. Stat pro ratione voluntas. Which well enough became the mouths of such Turbulent, Rebellious Citizens as the Jews were in General, but is yet better suited to the rude humour, and ungoverned Zeal of the Pharisees in Particular, who towards the latter end of the Jewish state, and at the time of our Saviour's Appearance upon Earth, had worked themselves into the Management of all Affairs both Sacred and Civil: nothing of moment passed, but was directed by their Counsels, nothing of weight but was influenced by their assistance: and what trusty Managers they were appeared by their involving their miserable Citizens into the most deplorable Calamities which ever befell a People since the Creation.  
The Jews were always a moody headstrong People, impatient of any kind of Government. Theocracy itself could not please them; for they murmured against Moses and Aaron who had wrought such wonders for them in the land of Egypt, led them through the Red Sea, as upon dry ground, and fed them with food from Heaven in the Wilderness. They made not suitable returns to Joshua for conducting them into the promised Land: they were prone upon all Occasions to impeach their Judges. The Votes and Decrees of the Sanedrim were not always so dutifully received: at length having forced God by their importunities to give them a King after the manner of the Nations, they soon repented their Choice▪ grew weary of Him, before He was well settled in his Throne, or had exercised any remarkable Jurisdiction over them. For their frequent Murmurings, Tumults and Rebellions God often punished them with Wars, Pestilence and Famine; with inbred Distempers and Foreign Captivity. At the time of the Messiah's appearance these ungrateful Citizens had forfeited all their ancient Charters, all the Privileges they could challenge in the Right of Abraham the Faithful, and were become Tributaries to the Insidel Romans.  
The Messias appears as Moses had done before in this great juncture of Hardships. They adhere to their Oppressors, and shamefully reject their Saviour; by libelling his Government in General, by throwing contempt upon his Person in Particular, Is not this the Carpenter's Son? by traducing his Life and Conversation, making Him a Wine-bibber, a friend of Publicans and Sinners; by making base Reflections upon his Disciples and Chief Ministers; by undervaluing his Doctrines, as inconsistent with the Pomp and Grandeur of the Roman Empire; by making him an Innovator, a Disturber of the Established Religion; and lastly (as the height of their Malice) by Proclaiming Him a Traitor and Enemy to Caesar, as having sinister Ends to set up a fifth Monarchy, in Opposition to the fourth.  
But when our Saviour by his Exemplary Life, Peaceable Doctrines, and Mighty Miracles had overcome all these False and Malicious Accusations: When by his willing submission to Authority, the painful Agonies of the Cross, his patient Comportment under them, and the terrible Prodigies which accompanied his giving up the Ghost, He had convinced the Centurion and others that He was a just man and no other than the Son of God. When their sealing the stone and setting a Watch could no longer detain Him in the Grave; when their Sham-Plot in giving out that his Disciples came by night, and stole Him away whilst they slept, could no longer obscure the Glories of his Resurrection; in short when in the grief and anguish of their tormented Souls, they perceived that He was gone into his far Country, there to be Invested with Majesty and Dominion far above all Principalities and Powers, then to let the world see, that Citizens will be Citizens, Jews Jews, and Pharisees Pharisees still, when all their Pretences were baffled, and they reduced to the last Effort of obstinate Rebels, to own Rebellion for Rebellions sake, than they Magisteriously resolve themselves into the Sovereignty of their own Wills, and conclude against all Government in a direct Nolumus Hunc, We will not have this man to Reign over us.  
But was it then in their choice whether He should Reign over them, or not? Infatuate Rebels! thus to oppose their own impotent Wills against the Counsels and Determination of Heaven, where it stood Recorded in the Books of Eternity, that his Sceptre should be an everlasting Sceptre, and his Dominion endure throughout all Generations. This mad Decree than could only show the folly and impiety of these Rebellious Citizens: for the King whom they rejected did Reign over them. 1. In his Mercies, in the Conversion of 3000 of them at one Sermon of St Peter their Prime Apostle, and Principal Teacher. 2. In Judgement, at his second Advent, but first Eminent judicial Return, after his Glorious Instalment in his far Country; in the Destruction of Jerusalem, when these Rebellious Citizens, or their Descendants suffered all the Extremities of temporal Calamities. 3. He shall Reign over them at his third and last terrible Advent, when He shall come with all the Solemnities of Majesty to judge the world, pronounce Sentence upon these wicked Citizens, and make them the Vassals of Eternal Vengeance, the certain Doom of all unrepenting Rebels.  
From this short Illustration of the Text I hope it appears how well it suits with the Business of the Day, a Day of Public Thanksgiving for the Deliverance of his Majesty, his Royal Brother, and the whole Government from the Hellish Conspiracy of Fanatical Republican Rage.  
I shall therefore, 1. Show the Hatred of these Citizens to Monarchical Government in General.  
2. Insist on the several ways they pursued in the carrying on this damnable Conspiracy in Particular.  
3. Take notice that when these failed, like the desperate Citizens in the Text, they betook themselves to desperate means, and wickedly resolved that the King should not Reign over them.  
4. And lastly show the folly and impiety of such mad Resolves, for the King whom they devoted to Destruction does and shall Reign over them.  
First, The Hatred of these Citizens to Monarchical Government in General. You have been already told that the Jews were always a Rebellious Generation, but never so bad, as when the Pharisees had got so much the ascendent over them. I am sorry to tell you that the frequent Tumults and Insurrections which have infested the Reigns of our British Kings, gave occasion to that Sarcastical saying; Rex Angliae, Rex Diabolo●um; but you may tell yourselves that these Devils never acted more like Devils, than since they were possessed and guided by the Turbulent Spirit of our Modern Pharisees the Presbyterians; who are the very Citizens that from their first Institution have shown their Hatred against Monarches and Monarchy. And they must be content, which perhaps they Glory in, to bear a Principal part in most of the unnatural Wars and Commotions, which have happened in Christendom, since they took upon them to carry on their Blessed Work of Reformation. The rest of the Schismatics are but their Spawn, and consequently included in this Denomination, though like a Cadmean Progeny, they have always fought against one another. And to the eternal honour of Presbytery be it spoken, that John Calvin confirmed his Discipline the same year, that Ignatius Loyala the first Founder of the Jesuits, was chosen their first General in a solemn manner; and that as He founded his Presbytery in Treason and Rebellion, the Citizens having prepared his way by expelling from Geneva their Lawful Prince and Governor, which violent Act was encouraged, approved and confirmed by Calvin; so has it ever since been carried on by Schism and Sedition. Never was it received into any Church, but it presently dissolved the Catholic Unity of Faith, and broke the Bond of Peace; never into any State which it did not embroil and throw into very dangerous Convulsions; never into any family which it did not divide, and set at variance; never did it get possession of any single man, whom it did not strangely transform with Pride and Moroseness, made him unfit for civil Society and common conversation. Are not the Writings of the Leaders in this Schism, not only stuffed with irreverent and reproachful Language against the Sacred Persons of Princes, but likewise with dethroning Principles, and King-killing Doctrines: witness several passages in Calvins Institutions, and other his Works. That pestilent Pamphlet entitled Junius Brutus or Vindiciae contra Tyrannos, supposed to be written by Beza, his Successor; and to mention no more, Knox's Appellation to the Communality, and buchanan's Jus Regni apud Scotos; a Book which for subtlety and wicked position scorns to give place to the Jesuit, which nevertheless He had the impudence to dedicate to King James.  
In these you may find Dignities evil spoken of, Majesty reviled: that a Sovereignty is erected either in the People, or the subordinate Magistrate, that they are the Original of all just Power, that the Supreme Magistrate is prostituted to their Lusts, that wicked and irreligious Kings, i. e. all whom they please to call so, may be questioned, and consequently dethroned, sentenced and put to Death. If it be said that these are but the Doctrines of private men, and therefore unjustly chargeable upon the whole Order; I answer, that Calvin and Beza were more than Private men, they were leading Foundation Apostles, their Authority was as great, and held as Infallible at Geneva, as ever the Popes was at Rome. Besides this is the very same argument which the Papists use to clear their Church from the Gild and Scandal of Bellarmine, Mariana, Sanctarellus, or any other deposing King-killing Jesuit. For we do not find that the dethroning Power, which these frontless Flatterers have seated in the Pope, is either made an additional Article to Pius' Creed, or tricked into the Canons of the later Editions of the Council of Trent: besides, this Deposing Principle of the Jesuits, has been publicly censured and condemned as erroneous and impious in several Foreign Universities, written against by Men of the Romish Communion, and is most solidly and unanswerably confuted by Barclay in his excellent Book de Potestate Papae, etc. which Book is dedicated to Clement the Eighth. But have the Presbyterians in any of their Synods censured or condemned the pernicious Tenets of Calvin or Beza? has any of them had the Grace to disown or write against their dethroning Doctrines? if they have, their Books have proved very ineffectual, for if we pass from their Principles to their Practices, we shall find that the Presbyterian has always been a Turbulent Imperious Bloody Religion: that it has embroiled all the Kingdoms and Estates in Christendom, where it got footing, with Rebellion, Civil War and Misery, from its first Rise at Geneva, to its remove into France, from thence into the Netherlands, from thence into Scotland, and from Scotland to its unfortunate Arrival into this Island. 'Tis not expected I should enumerate the several wicked Plots and Designs▪ of these Hypocrites, during the Reigns of Queen Elizabeth, King James, and King Charles'. This is the business of an Historian, and is already faithfully done to our hands, by the Reverend Dr Heylin and others who have writ the Histories of Presbytery and Calvinism. I shall only at present lay to their Charge all the Blood that was shed, all the violence that was acted, during our late unnatural Wars: that they were the Dethroners and Murderers of their Glorious Sovereign under a cloak of Justice, and Mock-formalities of Law. A Villainy of so deep a Die▪ that the Roman Conclave blushes at it▪ and was never debated and resolved, but in the Deep Infernal Counsels of a Presbyterian Consistory: and is there not at this day great reason to charge them home with this Masterpiece of all Iniquity, since they have taken such great Advantage of the late Popish Plot, that the guilty Papists had almost made them innocent? and there have not been wanting some Church-Trimmers, still retaining a fellow-feeling for the Cause, who from the Pulpit have endeavoured to clear them, and lay the Gild of that Horrid Murder chiefly upon the Popish Priests; though they cannot find the name of one Papist in the whole List of true-Protestant Regicides. But supposing the Jesuits did invent and direct in the Tiring Room, what they acted on the open Stage: This will be so far from excusing, that it adds to their Crime, and makes them pass for what they would be loath to be thought, fools as well as something else. For no man dares say a Presbyterian is the less dangerous for being influenced and guided by Jesuitical Counsels. May we not now expose their Bloody and Treasonable Practices to the world, since almost five and thirty years have expired, since the perpetration of that execrable Parricide, and they have not yet Repent? Since almost four and twenty years have run out, since His Majesty's Happy Restauration, whom these abandoned Citizens forced into a far Country, not to receive a Kingdom, but to be exposed to all the Hardships and Miseries of Exile and Banishment, and they have not yet Repent? Since all this time they have owed their Lives, too plentiful Fortunes, and dangerous Liberty to a Gracious Act of Oblivion at first, and repeated Acts of Indulgence since, and they have not yet Repent? Since all along His Majestics Merciful, Peaceful and Godlike Reign, these Ungrateful Vipers have been warmed with the Sunshine of his Favours, some of them received into places of Trust and Dignity, and they have not yet Repent? An Obstinacy and Ingratitude not to be met with, but in an apostate Angel who cannot, and a Presbyterian who will not Repent. Lastly since they were even now Acting the same dire part over again, and we are (God be Praised) in the very Act of offering up our most solemn Praises and unfeigned Thanks to God Almighty for the Deliverance of His Sacred Majesty, His Dearest Brother, and the whole Government, from the Hellish Conspiracy of these Sons of Perdition: which brings me in the 2d place to consider the several ways they tried to carry on this Devilish Conspiracy in particular.  
First, Then, as His Majesty observes in His Declaration, this Malevolent Party for several years last passed made it their business to promote Sedition by false News, Libellous Pamphlets, and other wicked Arts, whereby they endeavoured not only to render His Government odious, His most faithful Subjects suspected to the people, but even to excite a dislike and hatred of His Royal Person. And this is the common Engine, which they have always played against the Government. They have always had Martin-mar-prelats and Marvels to sanctify Lies, Scurrility and Railing to the service of the good old Cause. But of late we have been infested with swarms of Pestilent Libels, which like Locusts overspread the land, poisoned the minds of the people, devoured all the little remains of Duty, Allegiance, Civility and common Honesty; which swelled their Breasts with Discontents, Jealousies, Revenge and Cruelties, and fitted them for the most Desperate and Barbarous undertake.  
Secondly, They took the Advantage of a Popish Plot, and made an Army of Pilgrims, with black Bills in their hands, as formidable as if Hannibal himself had been at the Gates. However pernicious that Design was in itself, it was by them improved into more fatal Consequences, and they soon made no other use of the Popish Plot, but as of a stale to carry on a Fanatical Conspiracy. For these Masters in the Trade were not now to learn what has been long since observed, that the Prerogative never suffered, no great Statesman has ever been disgraced, nor the Church of England itself (nay the Liberties of the people) ever wounded, but a dreadful Outcry of Popery has still preceded. And indeed Hin● illae Lacrymae. For this Popish Plot, though from its first Discovery prosecuted with a very severe and rigorous Justice, was nevertheless under pretence of a partial prosecution thrown upon the King, the Council, all faithful Ministers of State, Judges of the Land, and Loyal Clergy of the Church of England, nay at length the Government was brought into the Conspiracy for its own Dissolution: in short, no man could show his fidelity to the Monarchy, by opposing their antimonarchical Projects, but He was presently blasted with the odious Title of a Court or Church-Papist.  
Thirdly, By this means they secured to themselves Factious Elections for succeeding Parliaments; and none were now thought so fit to be entrusted with our Liberties and Properties, as either Old Commonwealths-men, who had formerly been the shameful Betrayers of both, or else such as by their untoward carriage in later Sessions, had manifested their Discontents and Hatred to the Government. The unwarrantable proceedings and Seditious Votes of the late Commons are well enough known to you all, yet you must give me leave upon this Occasion to bring some of them to your Memories. And I shall begin with their pragmatical intermeddling with the Succession, a thing too Sacred to be touched by their unhallowed hands, their Saucy, iterated pressing it upon His Majesty, after He had so often declared it was a point which in His Royal Judgement, so nearly concerned Him in Honour, Justice and Conscience, that He could never consent to it. And great Reason was there for His making that Resolution, since 'twas always suspicious, but is now manifest that the Disinherison of His Royal Highness was carried on with that Violence, to facilitate the Dethroning of the King. To say nothing to the rude form observed in the penning of this Bill, that 'twas drawn up by a Person since accused of High Treason; to pass by the Ingratitude of the Contrivers, against a Prince of such Eminent Virtues; who has ventured His Royal Blood as frankly for the good of His Country, as the meanest Subject in it, and who was even then Actually manifesting His unalterable Loyalty and Affection to His Sovereign in reducing Scotland to their Obedience; and we have at this hour great reason to be thankful to Him for His Wise and Prosperous Conduct in that Affair; take the Villainy of this whole procedure from this one instance; the chiefest arguments which I have hitherto met with, for the Excluding a Popish Successor on the account of his Religion, are stolen out of Doleman the Jesuis, which Book was written designedly to hinder King James a Protestant Successor's coming to the Crown. Flectere si neque●nt superos. And I do here publicly declare, what was always my judgement, that I do believe no humane Acts or Power in the world can de jure hinder the Descent of the Crown upon the next Heir of the Blood, which is his unalterable Right by Religion, Law, History and Reason.  
Next call to your minds their strange Illegal Votes. That if the King should come to any violent Death, they would Revenge it to the utmost on the Papists. Whereby they both prompted any bold Enthusiastic Hone to commit the Execrable Parricide, and irritated the Rabble to the Massacre of innocent Persons. That whosoever should lend the King any money upon the several Branches of His Revenue, should be adjudged to hinder the sitting of Parliaments, and be responsible for it in Parliament; whereby they not only took away all hopes of necessary Supplies, tied up, as much as in them lay, the hands of all Loyal Subjects, but moreover, as His Majesty complains, would have reduced Him to a more helpless condition, than the meanest of His Subjects. Their resolving that the Prosecution of Dissenters upon Penal Laws was grievous to the Subject, an encouragement to Popery, and dangerous to the Peace of the Kingdom, whereby they assumed to themselves a Power of suspending Acts of Parliament, of licensing Riotous and Seditious Conventicles, and added strength and boldness to the Leaders of the Faction. If any Loyal Member, though never so Eminent for his Talon in speaking, and other Abilities, stood up in the Defence of his King or Country, He was either rudely hissed at, or run down with a Train of clamorous Speeches. How that they would have made use of an Impeachment to have rescued a Professed Papist, and a notorious Traitor from Punishment. How importunately they Addressed His Majesty for Pardons and Pensions for a pack of Prosligate Villains, whom they kept in pay to accuse any man that stood in the way to their wicked Designs. How they Voted several Eminent Persons Enemies to the Kingdom, without Process of Law, hearing their Defence, or any Proof, so much as offered against them. Lastly, How that at the same time when they amused the People with Jealousies, and apprehensions of Tyranny and Oppression, they assumed to themselves an unpresidented▪ Arbitrary Power of taking into Custody their Fellow-Subjects, for Matters no way Relating to Privileges of Parliament. How they had an Intercourse with Traitors, a Correspondency with the common Agitator for the Conspiracy. A Villain who declares King-killing a Glorious Act, hopes to see Regicides Rewarded by Parliaments, Statues Erected to their Memories, and they styled Liberatores Patriae, i. e. in the Blasphemy of the Modern Style Saviour's of the Nation. And all this time we must be born in hand, and accursed for Tories and Papists if we will not believe them to be true Patriots, the only Assertors of our Religion, Liberties and Properties, that they alone provided for the Safety of His Majesty's Sacred Person, and the Dignities of the Imperial Crown.  
Fourthly, These audacious Proceedings having forced His Majesty to an Interval of Parliaments, They obstruct the ordinary Course and Methods of Justice, by packed Ignoramus Juries, whereby Faction and Treason became secure and frontless, being now above the reach of the Laws, an Impunity was Proclaimed to the greatest State-Malefactors, the Principal Conspirator was Rescued out of the Hands of Justice, and Triumphant Medals dispersed for his Deliverance: such a bare-faced Affront to Authority as can scarce be Paralleled. To accomplish this Matchless Violation of Justice, Notorious known Dissenters are brought to the Communion and Sacraments of the Church of England, to Capacitate them for Places of Trust, and take Oaths to Conform to the Government which they intent to Destroy, and so become Perjured in the very Act of swearing. And for this they have the Resolution of their own Casuists, that an Oath obligeth not in the sense of the Imposer, but the Taker. A more sure and Compendious way of Ruining our Church and State, than the Jesuit with all his Equivocations, and Dispensations hath hitherto Attempted. For it is now no longer an open Enemy, but a Familiar Friend that hath done us this Dishonour.  
Fifthly, By their Republican Clubs, Riotous Rambles, and Descents into the several Parts of the Nation to number the People, and try the strength of their Party; whilst their Chief, like another Absalon, takes his Glorious Progresses, addresseth to the Populace, and receives their Caresses, insinuates himself into the Minds of the Discontented, and alienates their Affections yet farther from their Obedience to their Lawful Prince.  
Sixthly, By Bandying themselves into an Accursed Association, which was neither better, nor worse, for worse it could not be, than a transcript of the old Scotch Covenant, as that was of the Holy League of France, which laid three Kingdoms in Blood, murdered the King, and dissolved the Monarchy. These were the Principal Methods which they pursued in the carrying on their Traitorous Purposes; but these failing, and their Villainies rendering them every day more and more odious in the sight of all good Men, and the Unanimous Addresses of all Loyal Subjects from all Parts of the Kingdom, Proclaiming a Detestation and Abhorrence of their wicked Proceedings, and giving the greatest assurances of Fidelity and Affection to the King and the Established Government, by a free and Generous Proffer of their Lives and Fortunes in the Defence of Both, they became desperate, and resolving to trust no longer to the slow Methods of Sedition, betook themselves to open force.  
Which brings me to my third Particular, that when these means failed, they resolved with the desperate Citizens in the Text, Nolumus Hunc, We will not have This King to Reign over us. And this was to be effected either by raising an Army to master His Guards and seize His Person, or by a Barbarous Assassination, and both these Designs were carried on by several Interests at the same time; the Particulars whereof are so Plainly and Methodically set forth in His Majesty's Declaration, which has now been twice Publicly read, that it supersedes any further Relation.  
I shall therefore very briefly consider the Quality of this Hellish Conspiracy, and then set before your eyes that Scene of Horror and Desolation which had overspread and blackened the Land in case it had taken Effect.  
If we consider the Quality, it is compounded of so many Malignant Ingredients that it looks more like a Confederacy against Religion, Morality and the common Sentiments of Humanity, than a Conspiracy against the Frame, Constitution and Administration of the Government. Ambition, Avarice, Revenge have often bewitched men and led them into Treasonable Associations; but this seems to be the sole Result of Abstracted Malice, of men abandoned to the Curse of a Reprobate Mind. For what would they have enjoyed, which they had not, or what could they have desired, which they might not have had? Was not the Chief of the Conspiracy in the quiet Possession of all Places of Trust, Profit, and Honour, which could make him either Happy in himself, serviceable to the Government, or Grateful to the People? Did not many of the Rest owe their Forfeited Lives, and raised Fortunes to His Majesty's Grace and Bounty? Were not all of them even glutted with the Blessings of Peace, Plenty and Liberty? Here then is an unparallelled Ingratitude against a Prince of the Highest Bounties towards them; whose whole Reign hath been so mild and merciful, that He hath even Exceeded our Saviour's Precept of Loving His Enemies, and doing good to those who despitefully use Him. We want not some few Examples in History of some Enthusiastic Ravilla●, or other Bloody Assassin, who not regarding the Sacredness of Majesty, has made his way to the Heart of an Imperial Monarch. But for so many Flagitious Villains to Complot the Murder of their Lawful Prince, His Dearest Brother, the Hopes of the Succession, to Design the utter Ruin of the Loyal Interest, to carry this on for so many Years, in so many deliberate Cabals and Consultations, in defiance of Heaven, and so many Providential Disappointments, to continue all this while without any discomposure of mind, or Remorse of Conscience, the Assassination to be performed after such a Barbarous Butcherly manner; this is such a Villainy and Obduracy, not to be met with in the Christian world, but in the more obdurate Hearts of fanatics, blasted under the Curse of an unconverted Saul, that all this time they thought they did God good service; but amongst fanatics whose Loyalty is Rebellion, whose Religion is Treason, and whose very Gospel is the Mystery of Iniquity; lastly, but amongst fanatics and Atheists transformed into malicious Fiends by the Hellish Divinity of that Monster of a Priest the Author of Julian the Apostate, whose whole Book is as great an Apostasy from the Practice of the Primitive Christians, the Precepts of Obedience delivered by Christ and his Apostles, and Christianity itself, as ever the Apostate Julia● was guilty of, and is indeed no other than the very Platform of this Hellish Conspiracy, and aims as directly at the eternal Ruin of the Conspirators, as the temporal Death of the King, and the dissolution of the Monarchy.  
Secondly, Set before your eyes that Scene of Horror and Desolation which had overspread the Land, in case this wicked Treason had succeeded. The King, His Royal Brother, the Ministers of State, Judges and Principal Magistrates all slaughtered after a most inhuman, Savage manner; the Government dissolved, our Altars polluted, our Liberties enslaved, our Properties wrested from us, and all things laid open to the Violence of implacable Men. And indeed who can say, had that Tragedy been begun, how far it would have gone, or where it would have ended? For in case of Opposition it must have been seconded with such a Devastation of Fire and Sword, as never before had been heard of in this Nation. Our streets had been filled with the Cries of Widows, and the Fatherless, with Murders, rapines, Incests, Adulteries, Sacrilege, Massacres, and Conflagration. No Cruelties would have been thought Cruel enough to satiate the Revenge of Fanatic Rage upon I Papists and Tories. A sudden Dispatch had been the greatest Favour we could have asked, or received from the hand of so base and merciless an Enemy. For what satisfaction would it have been to any Loyal Subject to have survived the ruins of the Church and State, to have lived in a Land polluted and stained with Royal and Noble Blood, to have had daily before his eyes the dismal Spectacle of his enslaved undone Country, and to have lived in perpetual fears of being made a Sacrifice himself. But it pleased that God who allotteth to Atheists and Rebels a portion with the Hypocrite, to Rescue His Majesty from the Paws of these Bloody Miscreants, and to lay both Parties of the Conspiracy under the same Fate and Disappointment.  
Which brings me to my fourth and last observation, the Folly and Impiety of Treasonable Attempts. For notwithstanding their Nolumus, He whom they devoted to Slaughter does and shall Reign over them.  
That good Kings should be the more immediate Care of God, seems agreeable to the Oeconomy of His Providence, and is confirmed by Examples in all Ages. For They are His anointed, His Vice-gerents, set over us by His Appointment, and in theirs is involved the Fate of particular men. And therefore their public Sacred Character entitles them to a special Right in the Divine Providence. Of this truth, our Gracious King has been a very rare Example through the whole Course of His Life; never did any Righteous King receive more strange and miraculous Deliverances, nor He himself ever a Greater, than this last, when Mercy was turned into Judgement, and the Dreadful Fire at Newmarket, became to Him a Tower of Salvation. Which consideration alone was enough to have deterred any, but such bold Sons of Anak, who were not afraid to become Fighters against God, from attempting the Life of a Prince, who had been hitherto so wonderfully preserved.  
But He shall Reign over them, First in Judgement; in a legal Execution of those Bloody Conspirators who would have murdered Him. They must suffer, or He cannot be safe: Mercy would here prove Cruelty, Pardon an affront to Justice, and the highest Ingratitude to Heaven. They are now under the command of those Laws which they would have destroyed, under the hands of those Judges whom they had destined to Slaughter; and every Judge must remember that He is the Minister of God, a Revenger to execute wrath upon him that doth evil. That which seems truly deplorable in their Fate, is the execrable Treason for which they die, and the Hardness and Impenitence which accompanies them at their Deaths. And woe be to those wretched Guides, who led them into both; those Betrayers of Souls, who instead of disposing them to Christian Confession, Repentance and Resignation, have caused them to Publish such Justifications as seem written with Design to incite their Accomplices to do the Work of the Conspiracy here, whilst they are answering for it in the other world: this consideration makes the Hearts of all good Christians ache. For never did any Criminals suffer for a more Flagitious Crime, upon clearer Evidence, fuller Conviction, fairer Trial, juster Condemnation, or fall under a more merciful Execution, one of them receiving that mitigation of his Sentence, which He had formerly denied to be in the Power of the King to grant. And therefore we must believe those men are given over to believe a Lie, who impudently cry up their Innocency, and boast their Martyrdom. This can only demonstrate the Incorrigible malignity of the Faction, and awaken the Magistrate into a vigorous Execution of the Laws against such Boldness, as in the very Discovery and Prosecution of a Fanatic Conspiracy, dares justify Treason and Canonize Traitors.  
And therefore Secondly, He shall Reign over them, in making a right improvement of this great Advantage which God hath put into His hands. The wonderful Deliverances He has already received, do plainly say, that He is still reserved for some extraordinary Work in the world. And from His last miraculous Escape, we may easily Presage what mighty Acts He shall perform for these Kingdoms in Particular. Now shall it be in His Power to subdue that Pestilence of Puritanism, which for above these hundred Years has raged in this Nation, to crush the Seeds, and destroy the very Principles of Schism. To Him it is reserved to bring the Church of England up to those Glorious Heights, that She shall appear the Envy of Rome, and the Terror of Geneva. To settle the Monarchy upon so firm a Basis, that it shall be no more shaken by Republican Rage. His Sacred Person shall be no longer liable to Violence, nor His Subjects to Oppression. No more shall Majesty be affronted by the Saucy Votes of a Seditious Senate, nor we made Prisoners by our Representatives. But long and secure shall He Reign in the hearts and Affections of His People, and when He returns late to Heaven, leave the Blessing of Peace, and a well Established Crown to His Successor; Posterity shall Praise His Memory, and Generations to come shall call Him the Father of His Country, and the Mighty Defender of the Faith.  
And it remains that we render unto God Almighty our most Solemn Thanks for the Comprehensive Mercy we this Day Celebrate, in the Deliverance of His Sacred Majesty, and the Government from the damnable Conspiracy of Fanatic Rage. And we must pray that as God in His infinite Goodness has hitherto discovered and defeated their Hellish Devices, so He would every day more and more confound their Wicked imaginations. That Justice may overtake those Traitorous Fugitives, whom Mercy could not Reclaim. And let us never more be so far transported with the fears of a Popish Plot, as to think ourselves secure from a Fanatic Conspiracy. This one false step had like to have led us into Destruction. They are both formidable Enemies, and since we are placed between two Extremes, common Prudence bids us have a watchful Eye over both, and not to give a palpable Advantage to the One, by applying all our Force against the Other. At this time the Dissenters appear to me the most Dangerous. For the Papists are comparatively contemptible as to their numbers, their Interest is broken, we have severe Penal Laws in force against them, and those Laws in no danger of a Repeal, since both their Peers and Commons are made uncapable of Sitting in Parliament. But the Dissenters are formidable as to their numbers, they boast themselves in their strength, they are Restless in their Attempts, and Implacable in their Dispositions. And it is very memorable that we should on the same day of the Month observe a Day of Thanksgiving for the Deliverance of the Church and Defender of our Faith from a Fanatic Conspiracy, on which the Rebellious Commons in 41 first published their Order in Derogation of the Common-Prayer Book, and for the suspension of the Laws Ecclesiastical, of which Violation our late Martyred Sovereign of ever Blessed Memory so often and sensibly complains in His Declaration of Aug. 12. 42. Wonderful art thou in thy ways O God and thy Paths are past finding out.  
In a word then, as we are thankful to God for the Preservation of His Majesty hitherto, so let us implore His Protection over Him for the time to come, that He may daily receive fresh Accessions of strength and Splendour, and be recompensed for the times, wherein He hath suffered Adversity▪ And let us evermore pay to so Gracious a King, and so much Beloved, of our utmost Expressions of Duty, Love and Obedience. Let us Esteem and Honour Him as the Gift of God, and receive Him as a new Present from Heaven.  

O Lord save the King,  
And Bless thine Anointed;  
Send Him help from thy Holy Hill,  
And evermore mightily defend Him.  
Let the Enemy have no Advantage over Him.  
Nor the Wicked approach to hurt Him.   
Which God of His infinite Mercy grant through Jesus Christ our Lord, To whom with the Father and the Holy Ghost three Persons, and one God, be given all Glory, Praise and Dominion henceforth and for evermore.  
Amen.  
THE END.