A PANEGYRIC TO THE King's most excellent Majesty, UPON HIS HAPPY ACCESSION TO THE CROWN, And His More FORTUNATE MARRIAGE.  
By Sr. F. F. K. B.  

Imprimatur.  
Ex Aed. Sab. 28. jun. 1662. Geo. straddling S. T. D. Rev. in Christo Pat. Gilb. Episc. Lond. Capel. Domesticus.   
LONDON, Printed by W. Wilson, for Henry Herringman, and are to be sold at his Shop at the Anchor in the Lower Walk of the New Exchange. 1662.   

Illustrious and Renowned SOVEREIGN,  
THere is none so great a stranger to your Virtues, but knows, with how gracious a Candour, and Equanimity you receive the vows and acclamations of all the World, and the bolder addresses of some particular Persons: So accessary is your goodness to your own disquet: And as offences are m●reast by the encouraging permission of Superiors, so is this the only Crime your Sacred Majesty ever favoured with your Connivance, by the unjust Martyrdom of your own Patience making an Atonement for the rude sins of those aspiring Invocations. But w●r● this time less pregnant with examples of your Indulgence, or your Subjects Importunities, yet I should hope, that this transgression might be venial, and be interpreted an unrestrainable effusion of his joys, who chooses rather to disclose his resentments of our public felicities by this affectionate presumption, than to smother your virtues' and his own admiration by too scrupulous a silence. Many have applauded the miraculous, though long expected change of your Fortune, and with early Salutes, like the Persians, ran out betimes to catch the first glimpse of your Sun rising out of the Sea of affliction, not considering whether your clear morning might be overcast with the dark vapours of ill Government drawn up too frequently by the actractive heat of prosperity; but now that by your long Continuance in this our Sphere, we see, and joyfully admire the Constant and indistempered serenity of your Justice, and find by undeceived experience, that the influence of your increasing Perfections warms, no less, than the splendour of your Greatness enlightens us, it is no wonder, the most contemptible of those Worm●, that creep upon this your Earth, should be drawn out at last, and inspired with an unusual alacrity to the discharging of a duty which he finds as impossible to be omitted, as to be well performed. Then Royal Sir, since Heaven has smoothed the brows of these latter times, and filled up the deepest wrinkles that War ever entrenched in, let us admire how partially the Divine Providence was pleased to signalise your glorious Restauration at the same moment, when it seemed only to satisfy the complaining World, with some proportionable, though not equal benedictions. Th●re was, Great Sir, in the time of your return, as in Augustus', an Universal peace, and let us ever boast the same conjuncture of affairs, brought down a Saviour, which re-inthroned a Sovereign, and no unlike occasion too: for as he gave the earnest of Salvation to our Souls, so you now give us the assurance of our Lives and Fortunes, like him, absolving us from an universal guilt; So that you seem not only born to give Laws upon Earth, but to confirm the Decrees of Heav●n itself, and to be the joint Conveyancer of our most gracious Charters, our Lives, Liberties and Possessions: From that moment we began to live, and we owe more to you for our Lives than to our Parents, more to you for our Fortunes, than to the Industry, and pious transmission of our Ancestors. You are the individual Soul and Genius of this great Nation, solely appropriated by Nature to actuate, and inform its praedisposed Organs, and it is no wonder there has been so long a suspension of your Animating faculties, and a kind of Political trance in these three Kingdoms, since the chiefest vessel● of Life and Motion in this your Body have been obstructed by many crude and depraved horrors, whil●● the nobler and more Vital Parts, having lost great quantities of Blood, suffered under a Loyal Lethargy, and were almost extinguished: But when an overruling Providence, according to its just and even measures, had c●ose a season fittest to remove the fatal symptoms of this expiring Body, and had swept, and cleansed this defiled House for your reception, you came back to the Nat●on, and the Nation came back to its self, you returned after so tedious an Eclipse to the ancient Splendour, and Dignity du● to your Sacred Majesty by a triple Title, your Birth, your Merits, and the Desires of your People. Then let the Worl● forget the records of Antiquity, and r●ad no Lectures, but on your Actions; Let men be convinced of their Cruelty and Barbarism, that see your Humanity and Compassion; of their Rapines and Oppression, that look upon your Justice, and Impartial distribution; of their Dispirited and grovelling Souls, that have seen, and heard of your Active and Passive fortitude, your Magnanimity in the Dubious decisions of fortune, and your greater courage in the Support of its highest indignities, in those frowning times, when nothing was left you that was invincible but yourself, nothing that was impregnable, but your own Firmness and Constancy. We have lived a●ongst the ●n●mies of mankind, and yourself, and heard them ever celebrate your too Prodigal valour in that unsuccessful though not inglorious day, ●n which you did at ●nce oppose both Fortune, Treachery, and unequal Numbers, in which the sec●●●y of Heaven entrusted by your fa●t●full servants, miraculously laid up for our future use the greatest treasure of the English Nation: and if you did no sooner dispossess those bold usurpers, it was because you had designed to reinstate yourself more gloriously, and make the World confess you w●re more necessary to England, than England to you, piously resolving, though your suit was depending longer, to overcome your own Subjects by Law, and your other Enemy's by Arms. It was by those well managed adversities you ●ad occasion to make your Greatness more illustrious, and as th●re could no doubt arise of your Title, and priority of degree, so you endeavoured there should be none at all of you● superiority in Virtue, and peculiar aptitude to govern. For many Princes placed in an advantageous l●ght, and at that d●stance, which Majesty requires 〈◊〉 have appeared like Pictures in perspective, more profound, and capacious, more wise and virtuous than a ●loser inspection would have rendered them: and though that Virtues (as one says well) have their false resemblances, as Divinities have their Idols, yet your accomplishments are real, and unquestionable, and have past the touchstone of adverse fortune, shining through the darkest of calamities, and owing nothing to the glittering varnish of success. To your Fortitude you have annexed her constant associate Clemency, which is so eminently conspicuous and admirable in all your Actions, and so congenial to your Heroic soul, that it seems to be your Darling virtue. Never Prince at once converted, and absolved so many sinners, pieced together so many inconsistent Factions, so many dissonant Religions: You are the first that ever found out the preternatural art of uniting Contraries, of making fire and water join without the destruction of one Species. The Harmony of your Government is made more sweet and musical by the friendly discord of several Parties, and you handle so dexterously the char●ing Instrument of Peace, that like Orpheus, Wild-beasts and men do equally follow you. You have tamed the bellowing Independent, and the bleating Presbyterian: the barking Quaker, and the biting Anabaptist. You have united Pulpits and Tubs, Surplices and Cloaks, limber Preciseness and starched Formality. You have reconciled th●ngs of the greatest Antipathies, our Ears to Drums and Trumpets, our Eyes to red Coats and Crosses, our Hands to Swords, and our Purses to Money. In your absence we were more naked than the Indians, because unarmed, it being more necessary to repel the injuries of men, than those of the weather: but in some kind of Justice they proportioned our strength to the share of Riches they left us, and having nothing to lose, we had less need of defending ourselves. But since that now we bless those Miseries that have received so glorious a Consolation, we may with as much freedom as integrity assert a ●ruth which was a Paradox in the late equalizing times, that a Glorious Court under a Righteous King does ever make a wealthy Nation, and that the Plentiful Hospitality and splendid Bravery, formerly called the Luxury, and Vanity of the Gentry, are the most indispensable Actions and essential Virtues of a Political Government, if according to the maxims of the Republicans themselves, the increase of Trade, the relief and employment of the Poor, the depression of the Nobility from too monstrous an increase, and the elvation of the Commonalty may be reputed the chief interests of a Nations happiness and security. For whereas wealth before was retired into solitary Creeks, and had no reflux into the Community, it is now derived through bountiful Channels upon the lower grounds, and Conveyed to fertilise all barren places according to their necessities: so that there is not only a mutual communication of Riches, but frequently a transmigration of Estates, and to make Fortune have some equity in her change●, out of the ashes of one family arises another, and each one takes successively the●r vicissitudes of Plenty. There is indubitably in the body Politic no less, than in the Natural, a Circulation: and treasure, like Blood, must first be conveyed unto the Nobler Parts, then to the Rest, else there will ensue a Putrefaction of the whole Mass, a Decay of Commerce, and general Poverty. If then the Emperor ●aligula, fearing an oblivion of his Name, could wish himself the happiness of having his Government signalised to Posterity for some public Calamities, how much more Glorious an Immortality may your Majesty promise to yourself, whose prosperous Reign, though your Virtues were silent, would be to all ages recommended as the Golden season, and pregnant harvest of England's most transcendent and diffusive felicities? Your Majesty's Thankfulness to your Friends is no less eminent than your Mercy to your Enemies; nor are your favours to your Servant's (as was said of a Cardinals) like those of Eunuches to women, that they never grow great by them, but such as fully satisfy the most arrogant and Complaining merits, and make them pregnant in Affection, and Loyalty, and productive of good services to your Majesty's honour, and the public Utility: but since that benefits to ungrateful men, or undeserving, are like great sums of Money thrown away to unthrifts, you give your larger talents to your better Stewards, making your moderation obvious to Posterity, in having raised up none unto the Peerage, but such as have been instrumental to your Return, or inseparable in your Sufferings, judging rightly, that a numerous Nobility, is like the fixed Stars, whose multitude makes them severally less considerable, but few and choice ones are like the Planets, every one of which has some proper excellency, and remarkable motion. But amongst the well chosen objects of your Judicious Liberality, we find the chief to be the two great Pillars of your Kingdom, your Cato, and your Fabius, your Cato is that grave Senator and Skilful Pilot, who in the Roughest Seas, though your Majesty ever held the stern yourself, yet helped to guide your course so right, that you never struck upon the shallow Promises of foreign Princes, but kept still even in the safer channel of your Subjects Affections, and who in this season of Tranquillity, advises your Majesty not to be becalmed, but still to make some orderly progress in your motion to glory. This is our Atlas, upon whose shoulders lies the burden of these three Kingdoms, in whose head are conserved the Axioms of eternal truth for the Government of this Nation, and in whose breast lodges the universal equity, or the mitigated Justice of our Severer Laws. Your Fabius is he, who by his prudent and prosperous Cunctation restored the ancient Glory of the English World, who finding himself not able to grapple with the monstrous Whale of the Co●mon-wealth, baited, tickled, and played with her so long, till at length the Tides forsook her, and left her to his mercy on the dry Land. 'tis he, who when the wearied Arms of long contending fortune could no longer support your unsuccessful Standards, recovered the Ark out of the hands of the Philistines, which those bold Rebels who would have touched or pried into, like Uzziah perished, and with a most religious caution resigned up faithfully to your Majesty your most sacred and incommunicable Throne, absolving at once, and glorifying the English Nation. We owe to him, more than ourselves, that is, your Majesty, and this bankrupt Nation must ever be indebted to him, since it has nothing to give him of equal value with that inestimable Present. Some Princes have made use of their Ministers to be Skreens of envy from their People, yours are the Receivers, and tasters of their affection, since there can be nothing Commanded by your Majesty, which your Subjects wishes do not prevent, nothing wished by your Subjects, which your Majesty's commands do not Confirm. Nor does the favour they obtain from the People, by thus humouring them with your pleasing injunctions, impair at all, or lessen the People's endearments to your Majesty, since their love is as overflowing, and inexhaustible, as the Sources of it, your Royal Virtues, and 'tis almost a Paradox to think we are no more in love with Virtue, since we are so much with You. When your Majesty had thus sacrificed to your own Gratitude in the remuneration of your Friends, to your generosity in the absolution of your Enemies, and to your wisdom in the re-establishment of your disordered Realms, when you were I say by these heroic Steps arrived at the supreme point of single felicity, what remained there to the accumulated measures of your temporal enjoyments, but the possession of a Person of such rare endowments, that in the adorning of her, Fortune and Beauty have been emulous competitors, in the presenting of her to your Royal Bed, her Birth and Virtue passionate Rivals, and there is nothing left to terminate so intricate a dispute, but the Concession of her universal excellencies? for as each man's soul is to his human nature, so she is yours in all, and yours in every one. She is the only Person in the World, whose merit is proportioned to the happiness of being enjoyed by you, and whose transcendent accomplishments exceed the measure of any other Prince's pretensions. 'Tis she alone that can return you one perfection for another, exchange Contentments, and mingle Virtues. For Marriage, which is Nature's truest multiplying-glass, makes us not only see ourselves without loss of quantity divided into numerous progenies, but causes too a mutual transmigration of a●l Con●ernments, and does so perfectly collect the scattered Beams of Virtue, Fame and Greatness, that what before was singly glorious receives by it a double illustration, and by reflection on Posterity renders us those duplicates of happiness innumerable. And how could penitent Fortune after the noble present of a Kingdom ●mprove her Liberality but by con●●rring on you a greater gift, A Glorious Queen? For Nature too seems to have been so carefully intent in the premeditation, and contrivance of this great Match, that like an over-busied Housewife, she forgot all other affairs in this our Island, and left us in the greatest disorder and confusion that ever was since the Chaos was in labour of the Creation. Live then and enjoy those ravishing sweets that are the sole Antidotes to Adverse Fortune, and the chief ingredients of the most flattering Prosperity, without which the insipid World has nothing that relishes to the elevated taste of man, to which all other lukewarm pleasures are but as Dreams, or the slumbering remembrances of our Mortality, little constrained motions to keep ourselves awake from the sleep of Eternity, exercised with as much indifferency as they are accomplisned with dissatisfaction: whilst Beauty, the most uniting cement both of Souls and Bodies, associating herself with Friendship to give duration to her effects, entertains, and foments the Lethargy of this benumbed Life, with a most Medicinal fountain of ardent desires, boiling up perpetually into the chaste and celestial delights of never-surfeting Fruitions. It is the fate of Virtues, as of Friends, sometimes to be at odds with one another, and though their cause and end of Action be the same, yet in their mediate operations, they do not seldom seem incompatible: but since that vulgar Impossibilities are but Heroes easy Recreations, we may observe, that as your Majesty has the blessed Art of reconciling Factions, and self-opposing Vice in others, you have another no less glorious to join all differing and unacquainted Virtues in yourself: for there appears to be in the heavenly frame of your mind, a Constellation of endowments rarely sociable; Acuteness of Wit, and Solidity of Judgement; Gravity of Aspect, and Pleasantness of Humour; an unrestrained Power, and a most tender Civility; an early Apprehension, and a mature Prudence. You have a fervent kindness for your Friends, and no inflexible hatred to your Enemies: You are a passionate Lover of right, and as calm a Forgiver of wrong. You enjoy the nakedness of truth by Contemplation, and clothe it in the most ingenious Ornaments of Discourse. You have a Soul richly furnished with heroic Passions, and an incredible temper in their Government, and Order. You have many Pleasures that are your Favourites, but none that misled your Virtue, that is their Sovereign. In fine, your Judgement never errs, but when it is Seduced by the powerful imposture of your self-injurious Clemency, and your Goodness so disciplines and tutors your Greatness, that we never taste of the sharper streams of Justice, till they have run through the Royal Correctives of Tenderness, and Humanity. Yet after all these Excellencies, and truly Royal Prerogatives, give me leave to tell you, you have left a general discontent in the hearts of all your Subjects, I mean a disquieting and tormenting desire to attempt a thing they can never accomplish, A perfect Copy of your Virtues. For men must propose you as a pattern for their Wishes, not their Hopes, and 'tis a loyal Virtue to Imitate those perfections, which 'tis a rebellious presumption to think to Parallel. What need then those superfluous Oaths of Allegiance, and Supremacy? wherefore should they so solicitously bind our preingaged affections? Those are but feeble props to tottering Monarches, but to your Majesty who is so unremovably fixed in the very Centre of our hearts, the Lawgiver, and the Law itself, the Precept, and the Pattern of these three Kingdoms, what needs there any greater security than those praevious Oaths, and voluntary Resolutions, that every one has made within himself, to make your Service the most ambitious aim of all his actions? Since the same rule that makes you our Superior, Commands us at once to Obey your Person, and Imitate your Virtues, and the Divinity itself has included in one duty, both his own Veneration, and your Obedience.  
Auspicious Prince, whose Clemency gives us Innocence, whose Moderation Tranquillity, whose Prudence Instruction, and whose Virtue Example; whom to See, and not Admire, is to be Insensible, whom to Admire, and not to Reverence, is to be Rebellious, whom to Reverence, and not Adore, is to be Profane, and whom to Honour, Obey, and Venerate, is the most unalienable Concernment and complicated Duty of our Religion, our Allegiance, and our human Nature.  
GREAT SIR, Fame's Darling, Favourite of Time,  
Now Fortune's Credit, as you was her Crime,  
To see You here, and Tyranny Expired,  
Who could have Hoped, who could not have Desired?  
Thus when a blasted April-Bud has lost  
It's proper season by untimely frost,  
If we again in Winter see it sprout,  
Our Startled reason puts our sense in doubt:  
Your Crowns once withered flowers though now you bear,  
Our Joys can scarce Divest Habitual fear,  
And we're like those who coming out of Night  
At first are blinded with too great a light.  
Fortune sometimes makes use of good deceits,  
Despair and Hope were ever equal cheats.  
As when th' encountering Rain and Hail and Snow  
With cloudy brows do threaten us below,  
Whilst they contest and justle in the Sky,  
And still their self-opposings keep us dry,  
A Northwind comes and blows them all away,  
And re-invests the Monarch of the day:  
So when your meteor Rebels raised by you  
Had you obscured, and in their Gloomy Crew  
Tempestuous mischiefs had designed to pour  
Upon our heads, their quarrels stopped the shower,  
Then Boreas made our Air thus pure and thin,  
The same wind bl●w you out, and blew you in.  
Nature's improved as well as is the Nation,  
Our Seas have after storms no Agitation,  
But smooth and eeven like your Royal mind  
They keep their Bounds by God and you assigned.  
No Libelers can tax such times as these,  
Those men that kill in Vizards whom they please;  
Nor giddy Tumults to your Palace swarm,  
Leaping, like Porpoises, before a storm.  
Your well-composed harmonious Actions keep  
Wonder awake, and Envy lay asleep;  
And though the Sea, our Guardian, us immure,  
Your inland Virtues make us more secure.  
Let men rejoice at this mysterious hour,  
That Mercy can enslave them more than Power.  
Your Birth entitles you unto our Throne;  
But Hearts by Conquest, you have made your own.  
Live and improve in might, possessing still  
Unbridled Power, that has a bridled Will.  
Distinguish men, and make your Friends to feel  
Their spleens are Cured with Gold, your Foes with steel.  
A King that stoops to Subjects when they frown,  
Gives them th' advantage-ground to reach his Crown.  
Thus when the Humble Sun the Pole draws near,  
And creeps upon the earth for half a year,  
His low Familiar Beams, that warm not them,  
Make men the Glow-worm Planet to contemn;  
But when ascending both in height and power,  
He o'er their heads does more directly Tower,  
And with his Rays can warm, and scorch, and fire,  
Then men with pleasure, and with fear admire.  
FINIS.