A SERMON Preached at HOLYROODHOUSE, January 30. 1681/ 2. Before Her Highness the Lady ANNE.  
By THO. CARTWRIGHT, D.D. Dean of Ripon, and Chaplain in Ordinary to His Majesty.  
EDINBURGH, Printed by David Lindsay, and reprinted at London, and sold by Walter Davis, 1682.   

TO HER HIGHNESS THE LADY ANNE.  
Madam,  
HAving had the Honour to be serviceable to your Devotions, by Preaching in your Royal Chapel, on the Anniversary Remembrance of your Royal Grandfather of blessed Memory; and received your gracious Approbation of my Sermon then, and your Commands since to publish it, for the benefit of them who could not crowd in to hear it: It would be a Protestation against that Obedience which I pressed upon others as their Duty, if I should not readily give up it, and myself, in all Humility, to your Service.  
As many as shall think fit to peruse it, will here find recommended two of the greatest Examples of Zeal and Piety; of Patience and Constancy; the first Christian Martyr St. Stephen, and the first Christian Prince who ever sealed his Religion with his Blood; concerning whom, I hope I have said enough to convince the Reader, that Death and the Grave have no power over his immortal Name; that the sharpest Sword of his most malicious Enemies cannot wound it, nor the venom of Adders poison it. His Body lies buried in a peaceable obscurity, but His Fame is Immortal like his Soul, and his righteousness shall be had in everlasting remembrance; and that his Enemies are now as ridiculous and vile, as they would have rendered the Christian Religion. God hath showed them to the World, to be the very Persons they were, and the subtle Artifices of their wicked Contrivances, upon which they wrote his Name, to be the Suggestions of their Father the Devil; he hath rescued his, and the King's Glory, out of their Hands; nor shall they be able again to invest Impiety and Injustice with the Titles of his Providence and Spirit. I hope, we shall never live to see the Defender of the Faith any more destroyed for Conscience-sake, as we did that Glorious Martyr, of whom the World was not worthy. His Blood does still run in your Royal Veins; and you have proved yourself to have such an eminent share of his Piety hitherto, that we have no reason to question, but you will continue a Glorious Pattern of the same to your Lives end, and remain constant in that truly Catholic Religion, for which he died; for your adherence to which, your Fame is already so deservedly Great in these Kingdoms; in which Faith, that you may steadfastly continue, until your Graces be Crowned with Eternal Glory, you have the daily Prayers of,  
MADAM, Your most obedient and dutiful Servant, Tho. Cartwright.   

A SERMON Preached at HOLYROODHOUSE 30. January 1681/2.  7 Acts. Verse 60. 
And he kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge, and when he had said this, he fell asleep.  
IF when Anthony brought Caesar's bloody Robe into the Marketplace, the People were observed by the Orator to be in a tumult, and so passionately affected, ut non occisus esse Caesar, said tune maxim occidi videretur, that they looked not upon his murder, as a thing already done and passed, but as if he were now bleeding under the Parricid's hands; then sure, if we are not that Durum genus which Ovid fancies, nor those Children which were raissed up to Abraham of Stones; it will not be possible for me to mention without horror, nor yet for you to remember without astonishment, that execrable thing which was as on this day done among us. That, which we are now met to commemorate, is the greatest victim which was ever sacrificed to divine Vengeance, since Christ himself, in so ignoble a way: for the most Glorious Sun that ever shone in the Firmament of the British Throne, was this day turned to blood; the mortality of our most Gracious, Sovereign Lord, CHARLES the First, Crowned with Martyrdom; the relation whereof (if I could suppose it were not still fresh in your memories) though but weakly performed, would certainly be a very forcible argument, to engage you to that humiliation, which is justly to be expected from you; But, alas, I may easily be confident, that you have all sadly felt the incomparable smart of that fatal blow, it being the heaviest stroke that ever did light upon a distracted Kingdom, and of such pernicious consequences, that the Children that are yet unborn, may have abundant reason to curse those unparalleled villainies that gave it.  
The Noble Army of Martyrs is the supreme of all Orders in the Church, both Militant and Triumphant; and he who was lately Ours is now a Prince of them, whose passion we are now met on this fatal day to celebrate, as that which deserves: to have the greatest price set upon it, next to that of our Saviour, for as no volleys of persecutions (though discharged so thick as God knows they were against him) could drive him from the maintenance of his Subjects Rights and Liberties; so was he a Defender of the true Catholic and Apostolic Faith indeed, for he went with it to the Staffold and took his death upon it, and I persuade myself; I am now speaking to those, some of whose pensive Souls have not yet left off their Close mourning for it.  
He humbled himself to death, even to the death upon the Block, for the joy that was set before him he endured the bloody stroke of the Axe and despised the shame, in the hope and comfort of a blessed resurrection he laid down his head and died in the Lord and for him, 
14 Rev. 13. 2 Heb. 10.  the Royal Martyr followed the Captain of our Salvation, that he might be made perfect through sufferings; and as Christ, though he could, with less than a word, have dispatched his Offenders quick into Hell, yet never so much as opened his mouth, save only to pray that they might be forgiven, and that the extreme act of their malice might be the only means of their Salvation: so, though the King had a Spirit not to be outbraved with the Terror of an Execution, yet did not their cruelty, exceed the measures of his charity, who called for no fire from Heaven, but that of Divine love, to burn up his unnatural Subjects hatred and animosities to each other; this great and Christian Antidote he had against their malice, and what a Royal revenge his charity gave him upon and victory over his enemies, let some of his last words convince you.  
I bless God, I pray not so much that this bitter cup of a violent death may pass from me, as that, that of his wrath may pass from all those, whose hands by deserting me are sprinkled, or by acting and consenting to my death are imbrued in my blood.  
Whilst therefore I am to discourse, of these last words of the first Christian Martyr St. Stephen, who was one of the 70 Disciples, chosen by Christ to be a Coadjutor to his Apostles, in the work of the Ministry, a Person every way qualified with Zeal and Piety for the service of the Church, whose Crown of Glory is plaited in his name; I am sure, I shall not be to seek for a Parallel.  
His case was this, his enraged Enemies not only sought his blood, but with an impatient and misguided Zeal they shed it, and yet he not only pardoned them himself, but with bended knees and ane loud voice (arguing the intention of his Spirit) he prays to God to pardon them; which speaks him full of Faith and the Holy Ghost: Our Saviour did the same before him, our Sovereign of blessed Memory, since him. And he kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge, and when he had said this, he fell asleep.  
I have a large Field, to lead you over, and that an Aceldama a Field of blood, a Tragical Theme to discourse of; in which I shall make no longer stay, then only to show you these following particulars, reducible to 3 general heads, the Preface, the Prayer and the Date of it.  
1. In the Preface there are 3 things observable.  
1. The Petitioner, to whom the Pronoun He refers us, St. Stephen, whose honour, I have not now leisure to blazon, nor yet to make that just report, which another time might challenge me to do of him, who first passed through the red Sea of Martyrdom, and suffered for our Saviour 3 years after him; the most glorious performance, of which a creature is capable, and the most advantageous too: For if he who gives a Cup of cold Water shall not lose his reward, no doubt but he shall find it who gives a draught of warm blood, and that his heartblood too; and therefore the Primitive Martyrs counted it as their highest preferment.  
2. The Humility of his posture; 
Us. 59  when he prayed for himself he stood, but as if his Enemy's Souls were dearer to him than his own, our humble supplicant falls on his knees for them; and he kneeled down.  
3. The fervency of his Spirit argued from his hearty and zealous outcry. His voice was not so low before for himself, but that 'tis now as high for them; he had need cry aloud indeed who intercedes for the Pardon of such a crying sin as theirs: for he who bottles up his Servants tears, will undoubtedly make an account of their blood, the Tongue whereof is always hoarse. Abel's cries still, (so I fear does the Kings) nor will St. Stephens easily be silenced at his greatest instance: And therefore when he kneeled and prayed for his murderers, it was, said in the Text, with a loud voice.  
2. In the Prayer we must also observe 3 things.  
1. Subjectum cui, the party to whom it is directed, to him who had so lately suffered for and before him, to his and our Lord, the Lord Jesus.  
2. Subjectum de quo; the persons for whom he intercedes, when he could scarce gain time to think of his friends, he is praying for his Enemies. Lyramus saith, that in some copies 'tis added, for they know not what they do; but for the most part they were moved (like the King's Enemies) more by passion than ignorance, and even that ignorance of many was pravae dispositionis, caused by a preceding malice: For they were cut to the heart, they gnashed on him with their teeth, and they stopped their ears (and so they also did to the gracious Messages of the martyred King) and ran upon him with one accord and stoned him; and yet he knew not how to be angry with them, for taking away his Temporal, because they hastened his Eternal happiness. Eternal Life was the Crown of such a suffering, but Eternal death the wages of such a sin; which that it might not be the portion of their cup to drink he prays; 
11 Psal. 6.  nor was his prayer lost: For Saul who was a principal person in it, had not this sin laid to his charge as himself witnesseth, 
1 Tim. 1. 13.  but was gained to the Church by St. Stephen's prayer, says St. Augustin, Si Stephanus non sic orasset, Ecclesia Paulum non haberet; 
Aug. Serm. 1. de S. Steph.  So many, no doubt, were to their Loyalty by those of our Martyred Sovereign.  
3. Subjectum circa quod, the subject matter of his request, or that which he craves in their behalf is Pardon. Lay not this sin to their charge. He does not pray to God, not to repute it a sin, it were impossible for the just Judge to justify such an unjust action, but that he would not impute it to them. God is not like men, apt to forget sins, as soon as they are committed, he beholdeth mischief and wrong, and he writes bitter things against them, 
10 Psal. 14. 13 Job. 20.  nor will he quickly blot them out of the Book of his remembrance. And though he do not always let lose his Thunder to strike those men of blood, to whom his severest Vengeance is due; yet we know not upon what Strappado their souls are sometimes tossed, in what a continual Alarm that fury keeps their Consciences, and what an Hell they have within them; nor will God, who now walks upon the face of the waters, that his footsteps are not seen, suffer this his forbearance to pass for a payment, for when he makes inquisition for blood, 
9 Psal. 12.  he will remember it. St. Stephen knew, that whilst his Enemies continued in their wickedness without repentance, it would be in vain to dream of any device to tie the hand of an Almighty Vengeance, from seizing on them. Christ hath not born the sins of the impenitent; they themselves must: he therefore prays for their faith and repentance, that so they may be restored to God's favour, who were under his wrath, that the hand-writing which was issued out against them might be cancelled, and that God in Christ would in mercy reconcile them to himself; this in Heaven is called a not imputing of sin, and in the Souls of sinful men, 'tis a reconciliation of their rebellious natures to truth and goodness.  
3. Lastly we are to observe the Date and timing of his Petition; 'twas in the extremity of his Passion, for when he had said this, he fell asleep, Obdormivit in Domino— hominem exuit, he willingly puts off the Flesh, as a weary man does his , and composes himself to rest. The hard Stones are a soft Pillow to his innocent Head. Death is but the body's Bedchamber in which it sleeps, till the Soul return to awaken it at the Resurrection.  
These and more incidental Circumstances are full of such variety with which I might pardonably entertain you at any time but this; to wear out any part whereof, in such unnecessary diversions, as might call me off from this melancholy solemnity, would, I am sure, be too gross an abuse of your patience, and of this solemn day of Humiliation; in which if I shall chance to give you Epimetronti, something more than the measure of an ordinary Sermon upon such an Extraordinary Theme and Time: at least, when your patience gives me over, endure the rest as an easy Penance for the heavy Sin of the day.  
And I hope you will not think that I shake hands with my Text, whilst I take this just occasion of showing you, how well it does accord with the Time, comparing the Eternal stain of this day, with the Sin of that, and the guilt of the Regicides, with that of the Jews; by which we may be the better convinced, that, as the King himself of his Princely Pity to us did, so had we need to cry aloud for our Pardon, humbling ourselves, and renouncing that abhorred murder, of God's Anointed Servant, and our lawful Sovereign; lest when he come to make inquisition for Blood, his innocent Royal blood be still justly required of us and our Posterities.  
Now though the Charitable Martyr hid his Enemy's sin, in such a terminus diminuens, as the close Phrase of this sin; yet, the faithful Minister may not: 'tis for him, to search it, that he may see, whether it be not like that of Cain, greater than could be forgiven.  
The sin therefore, though but expressed in two words, must be explained in many more, 'tis a comprehensive Villainy, its name is Legion; never any sin had so great a train of Hell as this; it is like a Mathematic Line divisible, in semper divisibilia; I shall but reckon up its Aggravations, as the unjust Steward did his Master's debts, of a thousand, set down but fifty: and yet I expect to tyre myself and you too before I leave it.  
Gentle Language does but water Sin, and make it grow again; and he who treats it civilly, is guilty of its increase: which I would be loath to be of Rebellion; and yet should we strain courtesy with this, the most plausible term we could give it, would be Murder; a sin which like an armed Giant, will first or last set upon its Authors, and rend them with inward torments. And 'tis therefore above all other sins, so hedged about with Thorns, even in this life, 'tis ten to one but Vengeance meets it. 'Tis scelus infandum, a wickedness too great for any expression.  
The Act it self is abominable, but the Object makes it execrable; a sin out of measure sinful; such a stupendious Villainy it was, as our posterity will hardly find Faith enough to believe. 'Tis the Murder, not of a private man, but of a King, the best of men. And if Alexander's killing of Calisthenes, was in Seneca's Judgement crimen aeternum, what shall so damnable a Parricide, this Regicide, be in ours? If ever any Corpse deserved to swim in Tears, 'twas his. And if ever any Villainy did match that of the Jews, in the Crucifying of Our Saviour, 'twas theirs, in the Beheading of Our most gracious Sovereign: For he was not such a Pharaoh to us, as to change a Kingdom of Freemen, into an House of Bondage. He neither enslaved: us in our Persons, Labours, Possessions nor Understandings; (and 'tis a great Truth, which may be said without danger of Flattery, that His Son walks after him) nay so much greater was His care for us than himself, that how much soever our encroaching fingers itched to be tampering with his Prerogative; (as they still do with His Son's) he took care, we should be abridged no liberty of the Subject, unless it were a Licence of destroying ourselves: (of which we in this Age seem as fond, as in the last,) and so far was He from invading our Rights, that none was ever so forward to part with his own, (in which, I pray God, His Son, Our gracious Sovereign walk not too much after him) diminishing it in so many particulars, as left him open at last to the losing of all the rest.  
Witness the Petition of Right, passed by him, in June, 1628. An Act of such Royal grace, as might easily have put us into an ecstasy of admiration: In so much as that when he passed that Bill, he almost dealt with his People, as Trajan did with his Praetorian perfect, put his Sword into their hands, and bid them use it for him, if he ruled well, if not, against him; he acted rather like a Steward for his people, than a Lord over them; and so would his Son do too, if we would let him.  
Had he without any trial of Law, made his pleasure pass for Sentence, and lop'd off these rebellious Members, and the rest of the Senators heads as Tarquin did Poppyes. Had he made them feel such times as Tacitus describes, where no man durst be virtuous lest he should be thought to outbrave his Prince; and yet to complain of their hard usage had been Capital, and had his Subjects like Naboth been stoned for their Vineyards, they might have used the Church's arms, Prayers and Tears, not Swords or Guns, as they did against him: but God knows, so far was he from bearing justly the vast load and guilt of all that blood which had been shed in our unhappy Wars, which some men would needs charge upon him, to ease their own Souls; that he was evermore afraid, to take away any man's Life unjustly, than to lose his own. He resisted our enemies to the blood, and chose to lose His own Head, rather than one hair should fall from ours: So that next to God and his good Angels, we were most beholding to him for our safety. Rerum prima Salus & una Caesar. He was indeed the Tutelar Angel of his 3 Kingdoms, whom when God called to himself; he quickly sent a destroying Angel among us.  
And yet such was the touchiness of those times (and it more than gins to be the same in these) that, though he intended, not only to oblige his friends, but his enemies also, being persuaded that he could neither grant too much, nor distrust too little; yet his matchless favours did rather exasperate than win them, their poisoned hearts turning all into venom.  
The Martyr saw it clearly before he died, and His Son cannot choose but see it now: that malice is not abated by time, nor appeased by any good turns: 
M●…chiav. l. 3. c. 6.  And that the Prince who would be wary of conspirators, should be most jealous of those, to whom he has afforded most savours. With what monstrous ingratitude was his indulgence repaid? whilst it forced him to observe, that his letting some men go up to the pinnacle of the Temple, was a temptation to them, to cast him down headlong; and that others hydropicke insatiableness, learned to thirst the more, by how much the more they drank: in so much that the fountain of his Royal bounty could not satisfy them. An Epidemical disease it is, which rages as much among the people of this age, as of the last. Nor is it any wonder, that he did not answer the unreasonable expectations of these people: For the least they expected from him, was to sacrifice his Honour, break his Oath, and to give up the Government, and with it, his fastest friends as a victim to the fury of his fiercest Enemies, and to violate his conscience in the breach of those Laws, which he had sworn to maintain; which were to have made himself second in a fault, which the impartial world condemned in them, as the first and principal offenders.  
Cast but an eye upon his concessions, and you shall quickly perceive, that never any villains were bribed into murder, at so cheap a rate, and with so little colour of provocation as they. (I must always except their impenitent offspring.)  
Was their quarrel commenced for the true Protestant Religion? So was his to the death, when he proved himself to have Defender of the Faith among his Titles, more by desert than inheritance. Was it for the Privileges of Parliament? he thought nothing too honourable for them but Majesty, and 'tis to be hoped, they will be taught to be content without that still. Did they aim at the liberty of the Subject? So did He: Unless they meant the licentiousness of the rabble, which opened the floodgates to that impetuous torrent, which carried down the Government of Church and State, of Sovereignty, Prelacy and Peerage. Did they stand up for the Laws of the Land? So did he, and fell for them too; so will neither they nor their offspring do. Was it for the right administration of Justice? Where and when did they ever know it in greater perfection than in his Reign? If peace and plenty could have stopped their mouths, Heaven had prevented their clamours against him: for in no King's Reign were the Commons in greater wealth, the Nobility more honoured, or the Clergy less wronged. And if liberty of Conscience was the thing they struggled for, (the common Vouchees of all National quarrels) when he himself wanted it, he was most ready to give it; and so might have said in these points to them, as St. Paul to the rest of the Apostles, that in all these things he had laboured more abundantly than they all, for which, he will always have his Chair of State in every Loyal breast.  
He was indeed a Prince, 
Heb. 11. 38.  whose supereminent Graces were such, as became God's Deputy; of whom the World was not worthy, I am sure, not these ingrateful Islands: whether he were a better King or Christian, more innocent in his doing or patiented in his sufferings, is not easy to determine. Natus erat in Exemplar, he was born for a Precedent of goodness, his Great example was both a Law and a demonstration, and his chaste life a daily Sermon against his lustful Enemies. His Parts and Piety, his Reason and Religion were beyond any but his own expression. Nor did ever any Age, since our Saviour's Passion, furnish the World with so great an example of Patience and Constancy, as that which he this day set us.  
But why should I praise him to you, who are so much the more miserable in the loss of him, by how much the more you knew him? What Gifts and Graces were in him, as he used them, so let us ascribe them to the King of all Glory.  
We have seen, how seldom Excellency is in any Kind longlived, and how rarely the men of this World can endure any supereminent goodness. It had not else been possible for the Sons of Belial, for any but the Devil and his black Angels to have been incensed against such a meek and harmless Prince as this, much less for his own Subjects to have murdered him; for them who were hatched under the covert of his wings, to pick out his eyes, for such Cuckoos to devour him, from whom next under God, they received their well being, is a Prodigy. Cannot Caesar be butchered, but Brutus must proffer the Stab? Cannot Christ be betrayed, but one of his own Disciples must be the chief Contriver? Cannot St. Steven be stoned, but by his Countrymen? And must so Gracious a King become the white object for the squint-eyed malice of his own traitorous Subjects, to dart those spleenish Arrows at, which they had drawn out of the Artillery of Hell? Can there be a greater Piacle in nature? Can there be a more execrable and horrid thing? Transanimated Devils was a stranger Metempshychosis than ever Poets fancied; and yet Maximilian you see was little less than a Prophet, in styling the King of great Britain a Prince of Devils, because of his Subjects frequent insurrections against and depositions of their Princes. We have had the best Kings, and been the worst subjects in Christendom, to our shame be it spoken.  
Who can stretch out his hand against the Lords Anointed, and be innocent? Can his own Subjects do it? how came the feet by any authority, to judge the head, or subjects to sit upon their Sovereign? Does the King hold this Crown by indentures from his people? As much as the Father does his Government, by a Covenant with his Children. 
Prov. 8. 15.  'Tis by me (sayeth God) that King's Reign. Shall those that are of his making be of the people's marring? shall Children condition with their Parents upon such and such usage to be acquitted of their duty and obedience? and must they expect to exchange Authority with them? and shall they govern by the wills of their sons and Servants or by their own? Of what enchanted Cup had they drunk so deep, as to forget themselves to be subjects, and that it was for them to do their duty, and the King his pleasure? If they were above him, how was he Supreme, and how they his subjects? or was his supremacy to be torn off by the hands of ●…ormation, a rag of popery? or if they were his subjects, how came they to be his Judges? and if no judges, how could they be his Avengers? and if no Avengers, why were they not quiet? how dared they lift up their hands, or indeed open their mouths against him? Tacitus said right, even in Machiavels Judgement, that men should wish for good Princes, but whatsoever they are, endure them, and verily he who does otherwise (let your Whigs and our Dissenters say what they please) ruins both himself and his Country. God made him King, and us Subjects, we were wedded together at his Coronation; and so we should have continued like Man and Wife for better for worse: our obedience being not to depend upon his good behaviour, but upon God's Ordinance; and yet notwithstanding this close tye of Heaven, and their manifold Obligations to him, his own Subjects, and the scum of them, destroyed him.  
Those who were immanitate scelerum tuti, Secured by the greatness of their crimes, were the men who made use of the insolency of the rabble, and the Midwifery of tumults to bring forth confusion, on Church and State. They are now taking the same methods a second time, pray God, send us better Success. These were those Sainted Salamanders, who courted a combustion and a scramble: because their fortunes were as desperate as their designs; which they could not drive on without grating upon all the Extremes imaginable. It must be by an Error of Humanity, if we take such ingrateful beasts as these, for men, it being directly against the radical principles of nature, and no less than a demonstration of bestiality, for any to destroy those to whom they own their self preservation, and to sin with so high an hand, against their principal benefactor.  
But yet if He had not been sufficiently secured from their violence by the Law of nature, yet certainly he was by the Laws of our Nation; which have abundantly declared that neither the Lords nor Commons, nor both together in Parliament (much less a Stillborn house of Commons) not the people collectively or representatively, nor any other persons whatsoever, have or aught to have any coercive power over the person of any King of our Realm: who is so far Pater Patriae, the Father of his Country, that a Woman may as well get a Child upon herself, as both Houses of Parliament produce any Law, till the King's consent first pass upon them. Omnes sub eo & ipse sub nullo, nisi tantum sub Deo, saith Bracton, who was Lord Chief Justice in King Henry the thirds time; so that their crime was both unnatural and illegal, even by that very Law, by which they intended to hold and defend their own lives and liberties.  
Nay so it likewise was, by that Eternal Law of God, to which most of them have already, and the rest must ere long submit their souls; and of this I the rather speak, because the Devil of Rebellion transformed himself into an Angel of Reformation, and is beginning to play the same Game over again, and many were so desperately seduced by that grand impostor, as to shake hands with their allegiance, under pretence of laying faster hold on Religion and Reformation; as if Christian liberty did lose the reins of civil Government, and Saintship give them a Privilege against the interest of obedience: which they who undertake to maintain must sharpen their Weapons, at the Philistines forge, go to Rome for arguments; whose Schoolmen endeavouring to thrust the King below the Pope, thought it their surest way to advance the People in some cases above him; these seeds of Rebellion must be fetched from their School Divinity, from whence Christianity received its bane. Rebellion under pretence of Religion, is the vertical point of Jesuitism, the top branch of Popery, and Jack Presbyter was over familiar with the Whore of Babylon when he stole that Doctrine out of her bosom; 'tis indeed more like a piece of the Alcoran than of the Gospel, an Article of the Turkish not of the Christian Creed. Let us not therefore for fear of losing our Religion, without fear or wit, presently jump into Rebellion: for Christ never taught the sword of the Spirit, to make way to the conscience, by cutting through the flesh; nor did he ever authorise subjects to plant or water his Christian Doctrine (much less their own fanatical devises) in the blood of their Sovereign, and fellow Subjects. He mentions some who took the Kingdom of Heaven by violence, not any who by violence imposed it upon others. Nay the Prophet tells the Jews, that in the day when they found themselves oppressed by their King, they should cry out for redress unto the Lord, 
Deut. 17. 18.  as the only Arbiter and Judge of the Deeds of Princes, against whom there is no rising up; 
Prov. 30. 31.  and when the Jews asked Christ, whether they should pay Tribute to Caesar or not? de did not ask them, whether there were any Statute against it, nor advise them to defer their payment till the People should agree upon it: he only looked upon the Superscription of the money, and told them to whom it was due; and his practice was answerable to it, when he chose rather to fish for money, and to be at the expense of a Miracle to pay his Taxes, than to offend the Higher Powers. And that he might teach submission to the worst of Kings, 
John 16. ●… 11.  he acknowledges even Pilat's Power to be of God; this I am sure was the Judgement of Christ, and the former of one who lived long before Antichrist. Our blessed Saviour obeyed unto death, under the Reign of Tiberius, and his Disciples under Nero, Claudius and Caligula. And when Julian from Christianity fell to flat Paganism, you shall find the Christians whom he loaded with Persecutions, not entering into any Rebellious Associations, but fitting their Necks to his Yoke, and teaching one another postures, how they might stand fairest for the stroke of death: and that, not because they could not help themselves (for the greatest part of his Army were then Christians) but because they were convinced, that no man could become a Traitor, who had any relic of Grace in him; and that he who shakes off this Sacred Bond of Obedience, hath first resigned Heaven, and made shipwreck of Faith and a good Conscience. He who faltreth in his Allegiance to the King the Deputy, does manifestly revolt from God the Deputer. If the King oppress his Subjects, 'tis the abusing of that Power which is in him, which is to be reserved for a Divine Judgement; but if the People take up Arms, 'tis an usurping of that Power which belongs not to them, an Act of Injustice against God, an invading the Right and Prerogative of Heaven, and a levying War against God's Ordinance; which ceases not to be Sacred when 'tis wickedly employed; and for this, God hath appointed the King to punish them, and not to bear the Sword in vain. And he took the Kingdom from Saul, not for being too tyrannical to his Subjects, but for being too merciful to his Enemies, in sparing Agag; Let all Crowned heads take that for a warning.  
And yet this was no rub at all in our homebred Rebel's way, who had neither Faith enough to make them true Christians, nor yet so much Hypocrisy, as to make them plausibly seem so: (and yet they had more of that, than did themselves or others good too, and so have their Offspring) for after they had sworn Subjection to him and his Heirs, in the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance, and in another which deserves to be named no more amongst us, being first unlawfully taken, and after, more unlawfully kept by too many, after all the complicated Protestations of the sincerity of their intentions to him, they perfidiously destroyed him; Judas was just such another Saint as they, and much of their complexion and persuasion. There was not a Petition, not a Message, not a Declaration they ever sent him, in which they did not oblige themselves by the Faith of Christians (they meant of Devils, who never keep their words but in malice) to have a tender regard for his Sacred Person, and to make him a great and glorious King; and yet they were never so good as their words, till they first plaited him a Crown of Thorns, and then made his way to a Crown of Eternal Glory: one would think, they still had such another under the Anvil, for his Son. How much respect soever they acknowledged to be due, they never paid him any; unless like the worshippers of Hermes, they thought the hurling stones at him to be the best instance of their devotion. Their Trojan horses which they sent him, were consecrated indeed to Pallas without, but lined with an ambush of armed Enemies within; and their foul Projects the more horrid, for having such a disguizing lustre perpetually put upon them. Was the Parliament, to which, they pretended such a zeal, to bring him, held at Holmby house, or at Carisbrook castle? Was S. James', the High Court of Justice, or the Scaffold the place in which they meant to debate with him? Did ever men give themselves the lie so loudly, as these? Or did they ever mean (do you think?) to run the hazard of being honest, whilst such down right knavery as this would serve their turns. Their wickedness was not spun with so fine a thread, but that it might be discovered; nor have they taught their Children to mend the matter. They had better have used no pretences at all, for their disobedience, than such frivolous ones as they did: so easily was their nakedness betrayed through their fig-leaves, when they thought they had stitched them together to the greatest advantage. We do not now want sufficient evidence to prove that Rebellion may be in Maskarade, aswel as Popery.  
But the Beast, which hath two holes to his den, can stop or open either, as the Wether sits, and they commenced their quarrel so cunningly, that as their interessed zeal taught them to clip the King in sunder by a State distinction, separating his Person from his Power; so that they might the better disguise their more dangerous secret, they made the specious pretence of fight against his Evil Councillers, to stalk before it. And who would not willingly offer himself a Sacrifice to so good a Cause? Who would not lift up his hand against them who intent any Evil to my Lord the King, either in his Person or Government? if his Sacred Life be in danger, all good Subjects will hazard theirs to save it. These were those words of Enchantment, by which the unthinking people were so unusually enticed into their own Thraldom, and a great part of that dismal spell, which raised the Spirit of discord, to walk so long among them; and I pray God he be not conjured again by the same methods.  
But alas, how soon was this Mask of Hypocrisy laid aside, and the face of their dark design overspread with a Rebellious Leprosy? How soon was Jacob's voice betrayed by the palpable roughness of Esau's hands? Was there any one motive by which they were induced to sight, made good? And which I pray of his Evil Councillers, when they had Him in their power, did they labour to destroy, unless they took his Good Conscience for one?  
But when Faction hath bend her bow, she never wants some Bolts to shoot; they who resolve to pick quarrels, know at least, how to feign suspicions and jealousies, and upon no better foundation than this did they raise the quarrel: so that the King's real wrong was to join battle with their weak surmizes; for the Injury and Invasion, of which they complained, was only contingent and conjectural; a Plot wrapped up in the womb of some dark Cabinet Councils, which engaged them by a Preventive and Anticipating War, to take up Arms against the King, not because he was, but because he possibly might be a Tyrant: which that they might the better induce the credulous rabble to believe; they dealt with their minds, as melancholy men use to do with the Clouds, raised monstrous forms and shapes to fright them, where no fear was, as Time, (the best Interpreter of men's intentions) did convince us. By such black Arts did they raise up those turbulent Spirits, which they would afterwards, have been glad they could have conjured down again; but armed Petitioners were not so easily disbanded as listed.  
Their security consisted in scaring the People, who are a sort of timorous Dear, and as wild as Bucks, whose heads when they are once flyblown with the buzzes of suspicion, the Vermin multiply exceedingly, and one jealousy begets another. Many were the Birds of prey which they threw off from their fists, to devour his reputation; (the same which now fly at his Son's, our Gracious Sovereign) the place of whose breeding was so well known, that they might have ventured to have floun them without varvels, for their owners might have been found in S. Stevens Chappel, without the help of a cunning man. Lord, what weak, groundless and improbable conjectures did they raise, of the King's adherence to the Church of Rome? And how many such bastard creatures of their own corrupt fancies did they lay to his charge? As if it had been part of their Religion to revile him: whereas if they would have spoke their conscience, and not their spleen, they must needs acknowledge, that, He had done more for the suppression of Popery, than any Prince before him. Witness his Answer to the Parliament at OXON in the first year of his Reign, concerning the suppression of Popery A.D. 1625. To the Petition of the Third Parliament, A.D. 1628. and his Proclamation, in farther pursuance of it, 3. Aug. An. Reg. quart. Witness his Confirmation of the third Canon made in the Convocation, A.D. 1640. for suppressing of the growth of Popery. Witness his Protestation which he made near Wellington, in the County of Stafford. 19 Septemb. 1642. Whereby he engaged himself in the Presence of Almighty God, to live and die (as he did) in the true Protestant Religion, as it stood in its Beauty in the happy days of Queen Elizabeth, without any connivance at Popery, and to the utmost of his power defend and maintain it. Witness his Confirmation of that his Sincerity, before his receiving of the Holy Eucharist at Christ-Church in OXON, A.D. 1643. and his Latin Declaration of it to all Foreign Churches in May 1644. and his Conference with the Marquis of Worcester at Ragland Castle, A.D. 1645. And yet for all this, the Popular Maxim prevailed, That, the King was not to be trusted; and so 'twas his, 'tis his Sons and the misery of the best Princes, when they do well, to be evil spoken of; Our Saviour himself was crowned with reproaches aswel as thorns, and if these things were done in the green Tree, what shall be done in the dry? No wonder if they whet their Tongues like a Sword, and shoot for their Arrows such bitter words as these against the King, 
Psal. 64. 3. Psal. 11. ●.  who was so upright in his heart.  
Their Antimonarchical Spirits had filled them so brimful of gall and venom against the Crown, that it was not strange, their mouths should run over, with such poison of Asps, against the person of the King. Alas they set their ●…its on tenter-books, to find out matter of accusation, prying into every corner for an imputation whereby they might with some colour bespatter him and lay his honour in the dust, making it their business to load him with dirt before the people, because they hated to see him clean, and why did they hate him but because they had abused him? Naturale est edisse, quem laeferis, and must heap injuries on whom they had wronged, that the latter might add some countenance to the former. And this was that seal of degrees, by which they ascended to his Murder, as the Jews did to S. Stephens. Nemo repent fuit turpissimus, first they disputed with him: 
Us. 9  (so they did with the Royal Martyr, about Prerogative and Property) than they despised him, and at last they destroyed him; they begun with arguments and concluded with stones: some few perhaps there were to pity, but none to protect him: And such was their matchless malice to our Martyred Sovereign, whom they destroyed by piece meal as if they had intended, not to cut off but to unravel the thread of his life. God send his Son our Gracious Sovereign, fewer Enemies and more Friends, than his Father; and us, no more such fatal days, as this in our Calendar. They stripped him in his own person, of all the usual comforts of his life, burying him alive, among Seas and Rocks, hunting him as a partridge on the mountains in continual danger, hurrying him to and fro from one prison to another, and thereby depriving him of his natural liberty as he was a man; of the Society of his Loyal and Dearest Consort, as he was an Husband; of the Conversation of his Children, as he was a Father; of the Attendance of his Servants, as he was a Master; of his Chaplains, as he was a Christian, of his faithful Counsellors when he most needed and desired them; of his Crown, Sword and Sceptre, even of all his Royal Prerogatives, as he was a King, Et quid plus velit ira? They deprived him of all comforts which he could possibly miss, but that of a good conscience, which was out of their reach, (afflictions so sharp that no patience but his could have conquered them) carrying Swords in their mouths against his reputation, aswell as in their hands against his person, and all who durst be guilty of so much Loyaltyas to attend or assist him, plundering him of all enjoyments, which might make life valuable for a blessing; and then to complete those calamities into which the Elder faction had thus accursedly plunged him, the Younger proceeded on this dismal day, to the utmost essay of malice, they murdered him.  
This ended his Passion, this continued ours, till Our Sovereign's miraculous Restauration, and that especially considering with how much heat and boldness and with how little remorse they did it, not ruining him by accident and besides their intention, but with propensed malice. It was no fault nor virtue of theirs, that their bullets did not dispatch him before in the battle, if Providence had not to a miracle secured him, he had fallen long before by their Swords, but seeing that would not do, they took farther council and resolved at last upon that horrid, that bold and insolent sin, which we are now met as becomes us, to lament; and indeed we have the more cause to lament it, because they did not, but with an inhuman delight and ostentation prided themselves in the performance of it, and though a deed of the greatest darkness, the foulest of crimes, yet so strangely were their consciences stupefied, that they committed it presumptuously with an unheard of impudence, at noon day, in the sight of the Sun, without any care to cover the conspicuous marks of their own shame. Faux would have smothered it in a dark Lantern, and hatched that plot in a Cellar which they brought forth upon an open stage. Nay they made the Place of his Royalty the Seat of his Execution, they conducted him through his greatest room of state to that bloody Theatre of inhumanity, and murdered him on a Scaffold before the gates of his own Royal Palace: so far did the Devil prevail with the Ambitious humour of those irreligious miscreants to drive on such prodigious and preposterous purposes.  
Nay so hot was their Zeal, and so cold their charity, that he must die the third day after his Sentence; a short time for a King to set his house in order, and to take his leave of three Kingdoms; and a shorter for so Notorious a sinner (as they would have made the world believe he was) to repent in. But persecutors are always in haste, they will neither tarry God's nor the King's leisure, their feet are swift to shed-blood, nor can they sleep till those that offend them have slept the sleep of death.  
Nay that which does yet more inflame and aggravate their sin, extracting out of it the quintessence of Villainy, is this, that Justice itself was courted in a compliment to own it, and his Judges (who were also his professed Enemies, and persecutors) clothed in Scarlet, that the people might the more admire them; it was done with a mock show of pretended Law, and the bloodthirsty Representatives endeavoured to make their fond admirers believe, that they took council of none but of the Holy Ghost, for the management of this their Successful treason. 
Psal. 91: 5.  Because none of the sagittae volantes; those arrows which for their speedy Execution are said to fly by day, did pierce them in their Villainies, as they had done Ananias and Saphyra, who only lived to hear of their sins and immediately to die for them; some unresolved men of little loyalty and less Religion were tempted with Cato to question, and others with Diagoras to deny an overruling Providence, and to say as Diogenes did of Harpalus a notorious but prosperous thief, that it did 
Ci●. de. nat. Dei.  Testimonium adversus Deum dicere, stand up as a Witness against the allseeing eye of Heaven, and they themselves gave out that God owned their proceeding, because swift destruction was not the immediate catastrophe of their disobedience, nor did God presently arise, to vindicate the King's injured innocence.  
They would have made men believe that they could not follow their Saviour without forsaking their Sovereign, and that they were inspired to murder him; they first seek God, and then they find it expedient, to slay his Vicegerent, which was megiston Adikema, the greatest villainy, of which men have been guilty, for above 1600 years; and those who swum to their desired Haven, in such a full stream of Royal Blood, deserve to be stigmatised, at least once a year, for such their Prodigious and unparallelled Enormities.  
And yet the Grand Actors in this our National Tragedy, were all this while the greatest Pretenders in the World to Loyalty and Religion; which set them up with such a stock of Reputation, that upon the bare credit thereof they might run freely on the score, to the commission of such horrid Crimes against both the King and the People, and yet not have their names once called to an account for any injustice. But we have too much cause to say of the Spawn of these Bloodsuckers, 
Gen. 49. 7.  as Jacob did of Simeon and Levi, Cursed be their Anger, for it was fierce, and their Wrath for it was cruel; I mean the Worshippers of that Scythian Diana, which was once fed with so many inhuman Sacrifices, and to which, as to another Molock, so many men of Parts and Piety, of Courage and Loyalty (aswel as Children) were compelled to pass through the fire. Not to swim along with the stream of their Rebellion, was present drowning, Crede, aut jugulum dabis, might have been their Motto, considering how many men's lives and fortunes were sacrificed to their revenge and passion; there was no need nor noise of liberty of conscience when that Religion was rampant. Now if these were Saints, who were Scythians? If these were the Children of God, which are the Sons of Belial? If these were the Failings of the Righteous, which are the Crimes of the Wicked? Let them wipe their mouths as clear as they can, they were taken bloody handed, and their treachery deserves to travel in a Proverb to the end of the World, till they can wash either their hands or mouths in innocence from this great Transgression. Some of the more moderate men (if indeed there can be any moderation in Rebellion) perhaps if they had not found it easier to lay on their Hounds than to rate them off, would have desisted sooner, but yet they remembered so much of their Practice of Piety, (I mean of Machiavel's Instructions) that they would neither stand, so close to the King (as well as they loved him) as to be oppressed with his ruin, nor yet so far off, but that when his ruin came, they might be able to rise upon some parts of it.  
They pretended to deserve aswel of the Traitors and Usurpers then, as they do now of the King, and as Godly as they were, the Crown and Church-lands, were a great Gain to them; they thought it a mortal sin to rob either, but not so much as a venial one to buy the stolen goods. But to think that any Reasons of mine, or Convictions of their own, should make them believe, that this sin might be laid to their charge, were to entertain a better opinion of their Piety, and my own Parts, than either of them deserve.  
Never was any Parricide committed with so high an hand, as this, it was done by the joint agreement and contrivance of the two Imps of Rebellion, those Brethren in iniquity, whom Faction coupled, and Interest divided: for they struggled together in the Womb of Ambition, till the elder was indeed craftily supplanted by the younger, who carried away the long expected Fruits of the others Plots and Practices.  
This made them so very busy when the work was over, to shift off the guilt of this execrable Act, from the one to the other, and whether of the two Harlots was indeed the true Mother of this Monstrous Birth, you will best know by attempting to divide it. Solomon would have judged it to belong to her who would rather part with it all, than accept of half, and then the Elder Brother is the principal Murderer. Their case in short was this; The One granted Commissions to fight against the King, but yet they would be thought to have provided for his Personal Safety, in a Parenthesis of fair Words, they could not sleep in their Beds for fear of the King's being murdered, and the other judged it as lawful to behead him. The one gave the Council, and the other the Stroke. The one laid the Train, and the other fired it. The one devoured the Prey, and the other gave a Blessing to it. The one carried on the Rebellion in the four first Acts of the Tragedy, and the other were the bloody performers of the fifth. The one sharpened the Axe, and the other stroke with it. The one brought his Royal head to the block, and the other severed it from his shoulders. The elder of the Twins bound his Father, and the Younger butchered him. The one first murdered the King of Great Britain, the other the Person of Charles the First, Vel neutrum flammis ure, vel ure duos, they run at least parcel guilty, and both of them certainly washed their hands in his blood, how desirous soever they have been since to wash them of it: But to whether of the two, the sin is more properly chargeable, I had rather, a better Casuist would resolve them. Between them I am sure, they have brought the greatest scandal upon the Protestant Religion, and the English Nation imaginable, making it as much the Scorn and Reproach, as before it was the Envy and Glory of the World. 
Pudet haec opprobria nobis,  
Et dici potuisse, & non potuisse refelli.  God grant, our Posterity may learn to be ashamed of those Actions, which have brought such an obloquy and disgrace upon us, as to make us the sole object of public execrations and curses.  
And that especially considering, what a vast Treasure they squandered away, to purchase his destruction, who was the chief Instrument of their preservation, and in fine their own destruction too, for Quid tu si peream ego? What became of the Peerage, when Prelacy and Kingship were run down? Then was a time when Actaeon-like they were worried by their own Hounds, till they had learned that, Nemo gratis malus est, that they had bought their iniquity at a dear rate; and better they had never been born, than that the guilt of their iniquity should lie so heavy upon them, and the punishment devolve, as it did, upon so many thousands besides them.  
But like blind Samson, so they gratified their own revenge, they were utterly regardless how many they destroyed, in plucking down the glorious Fabric of Church and State about their ears. No calling drank so deep of this bitter cup, in that unnatural War as ours, the State's loss was not to be expressed, but the Churches not to be imagined: for our Privileges and Revenues were not only taken from us, by those Jews, who would have Crucified Christ himself (as they did his Vicegerent) to get his Garments, but our office itself lay ableeding, and was drawing to its last gasp, if a Miracle of Providence, had not sent us such a Sovereign, such a Nursing Father, as God hath now blessed us with, to revive it.  
Now if when so many frightful circumstances meet together, to wring tears from our eyes, at the resentment of such an inconceivable loss, do not engage us in a serious lamentation, and if our sobs do not grave the remembrance of our Martyred Sovereign in our hearts, in Characters as great, as was the Crime of His Murderers, we are more insensible of God's Deal, and our own Demerits, then becomes us.  
There were more Judass than one, who Sinned in betraying this Innocent Blood. I wish they had learned so much ingenuity from him as to confess it, and so much wisdom from God's long suffering, as to see it betimes, not dreaming that, a general guiltiness will amount to Innocence in Heaven, as it does sometimes on Earth. I shall deserve your pardon, if I value your Souls, which cost the Blood of Christ at more than a words speaking, There being no flattery so fatal, as that of the Physician and the Divine. I shall esteem your amendment so much above your favour, as to have more respect to your happiness, than to suffer you to live any longer in a mistaken opinion, of your own innocence, even as to this Crime. And what I speak in this place, will I hope, be the better taken, because 'tis out of a desire to convince all; and not to shame any of you; unless I shame some few by accident, in refusing the glory of true Repentance; for I am fully persuaded that the major part of you are already satisfied that you can never be sensible enough, nor repent too much of this sin.  
Let us therefore, not any longer inveigh against those notorious Villains, whose faults are written in their fore heads, but come by a particular serutiny to inquire into ourselves, whether we can plead not guilty to that Crime, for which we have heard them indicted; and shall not rather be forced to say with Aeneas, 
Et quorum pars magna fui.  That we have a great share in his Iniquity. There is no beguiling of the pangs of our own Consciences. 
Haret lateri lethalis arundo.   
Our guilt will stick as close to us as Deianira's poisoned shirt did to Hercules. Let us therefore have mercy on our Souls, and not be so desperately foolish, as to flatter them unto destruction  
'Twas the wickedness of our Sodom, which provoked God to send his Angel, to fetch that righteous Lot from among us; and had we kept God's Commandments better, we might have kept his Vicegerent longer: who like an abused mercy, was in great Justice taken from us, upon which we may use the Prophet's language, 
Dan. 9 12.  And he hath confirmed his words which he spoke against us, and against our Judges that Judged us, by bringing upon us a great plague, for under the whole Heaven hath not been the like, that hath been brought upon our Jerusalem. 
Dan. 9 7.  O lord, righteousness belongeth unto thee, and to us open shame, as appears this day. Had we not lulled ourselves asleep in the bosom of those vices, to which our souls were so affectionately wedded, but writ them a bill of divorce, and not suffered them to come any more under our roofs, God would never have visited us with so severe a chastisement; But let the burned Children dread the fire, for if ye do wickedly, you shall be destroyed both you and your King, 
1. Sam. ●… 25.  and if we say that we did not and do not so still, we deceive ourselves.  
But I doubt this Sin may be laid to some of your charges much nearer than so, who might be partakers of it, some of these following ways.  
1. By Consent and approbation, or taking pleasure in them who did it. Thus, if many people by joint consent set upon a man and Kill him, though one only give him the deadly wound, yet they all are guilty of the murder, because they all intended it, did something towards it: for their number was the cause of his terror, and of the abatement of his courage, and an occasion to make him despair of defending himself, and by consequence that terror was the cause of his receiving his wounds, and the wounds the cause of his death, and so their malice is to be judged equal by their conjunct attempt. Thus Saul was guilty of St. Stephen's death; Thus thousands were of Our Sovereign's, even as many as ever drew their Swords, nay as ever opened their mouths or purses against him.  
2. By Council and Advice, for Qui monet quasi adjuvat; 
John 11. 49.  so Caiaphas had a hand in the blood of our crucified Saviour; so as many as instigated, encouraged, or abetted the rebellion, had, in the blood of our Martyred Sovereign.  
3. By appointment and command, so Pharaoh and Herod slew the infants; so David, Uriah; so these infernal Judges did the King.  
4. By Commending, Applauding, Defending, or Excusing the murder, for woe be to them who call evil good, who put light for darkness and sweet for bitter.  
5. By partaking with his murderers, in the fruits of their Villainies; 
Isa. 5. 20.  and so all sequestrators, committee men and purchasers of the Crown or Church lands were guilty.  
6. By concealing the treason when it was hatching; for as good lay thy hand on the Lords anointed, as lay thy hand on thy mouth and conceal the treason, so foul a thing is it to hear the voice of conspiracy and not to utter it: and yet 'tis hard in our days to avoid the hearing of it almost in all places.  
7. By unseasonable silence, and neglect of the Christian duty of reprehension. Qui non vetat peccare, cum potest, jubet, He who is unactive for the King does passively rebel against him; and he bids who does not forbid such outrages and violences to be committed against the Father of his Country. The mischief intended by a Soldier against Croesus, gave his Son a tongue, who never spoke before, to cry anthrope me kteine Creson, man kill not Croesus.  
Now according to the degrees of your will and choice, and the tendency of your affections to this disastrous event, will your own Consciences be best able to measure out your fearful expectations; which I the rather council you to do, because men may die an Eternal death, for that, upon which, our most indulgent Sovereign hath not thought fit, to inflict a temporal. Men may be damned for those very sins, which are pardoned by an Act of Oblivion; the authority of the King of Heaven, being above any Act of Parliament.  
Some thousands, I believe, there were, both in your Kingdom and Ours, in the diminution of whose guilt, we may truly say, that through ignorance they did it, and that their crime lay more in their heads than in their hearts, and what they did, was, rather by the instigation of others, than any inclination of their own; being drawn into it by those juggling Impostors, who upon the receipt of other men's livings, sealed and delivered up their own consciences to the Rebel's service, and paid them with the interest of as many more as they could seduce.  
Examine your consciences therefore, whether you did not perceive some reluctancy then, for those grand impieties, into which you were inveagled, some remorse for them since? And do you not by so much the more abominate and detest the seducers, by how much the more they had deluded both your reason and conscience? Dare you not remember your Rebellious engagements without displeasure! If not, though you at first entered into a compliance, even at the gate of Zeal, yet you have some reason to hope, that God will not lay this sin to your charge; But harken to the King's own prayer for you, which was, That God would bury this and all other their sins in his Grave, that they might never rise up again to work their desperation in this World, or their damnation in the next— That when God makes inquisition for blood, he would sprinkle your polluted yet penitent Souls with the blood of his Son, that his destroying Angel might pass you over: for says the Royal Martyr, As I doubt not but my blood will cry for vengeance to Heaven, so I beseech God, not to pour out his wrath upon the generality of the People, who have either deserted me or engaged against me, through the artifice and hypocrisy of their Leaders.— That my temporal death unjustly inflicted by them, may not be revenged by God's just inflicting of Eternal death upon them; for I look upon the temporal destruction of the greatest King, as far less deplorable than the Eternal damnation of the meanest Subject.— Though my destroyers forget their duty to thee or me, yet do not thou, O Lord, forget to be merciful to them, though they deserve, yet let them not receive to themselves damnation, but let the voice of thy Son's blood be heard for my murderers louder than the cry of mine against them.  
Repentance is above half way to innocence, it changes the person with whom God is angry: Let us not therefore flatter ourselves in any impenitent security, but bewail our engagements in that fatal quarrel, and that the sooner and the more, by how much the longer we have continued in it without any sense or feeling: Let us lay the Sin to our consciences for our amendment, that God may not lay it to our charges for condemnation, nor the King's blood be upon us, and our Children.  
And let us repay with interest that Obedience to the Son, which was due and in arrear to the Father; Submitting ourselves as becomes Good Christians and Subjects, to our now gracious Sovereign Lord King Charles the Second: Who is Heir apparent to that Love and Loyalty, which His Royal Father paid so dear for, as to entail it upon him this day, by a deed of Martyrdom. Let us pray to God, that he may be Trajano melior, & Augusto faelicior, more virtuous than Trajan, and more fortunate than Augustus, and that the most righteous Judge of Heaven and Earth, may not make us drink so deep again of such a cup of trembling, nor leave us to ourselves and our Sins, nor impute His blood any farther to us; than to convince us, what need we have of Christ's blood, to wash our Souls from the guilt of shedding His. O Lord, we beseech thee let not his Blood outcry his Prayers, but let those that spilt the one, obtain the benefit of the other; That by their Convictions and Repentance, his Innocence may receive the happiest attest; Our Religion be Vindicated from the Scandal of so horrid a fact; Our Nation be secured from the vengeance of that Blood, and the shedding more of the same Kind; and thy mercy glorified in the Conversion of so great Sinners, and all for Jesus Christ his sake, to whom, with thee O Father, and the Holy Ghost, be all Honour Power and Glory, now, and for ever.  
Amen.  
FINIS.