THE Lord Russel's Speech VINDICATED.  
IT can be no small Infelicity to the Relations and Admirers of the late Lord Russel, that as his Body escaped not the Violence of the Common Executioner, so his written Speech and last dying Words have not escaped the Animadversions and Remarks of divers subtle and satirical Poems.  
To answer each Animadverter and Remarker succinctly, and( as I may so say) in his own way, would swell this Paper into a Volume, and make it long and prolix, and render a greater Reputation to the Authors than the Cause will bear.  
I therefore( designing Truth and Brevity) shall take notice of such Particulars only in the said Papers as seem to pinch most, and to reflect upon the candour, Veracity, and Generosity of his Lordship, and which( in Truth and Sincerity) require an effectual Answer and Confutation.  
To begin then, as to the first Fault found in this Lord's Speech, That a third part thereof is made up in Praises of himself and Family, and of his religious Education. I profess, I know not how to clear his Lordship or his Speech from this piece of Vanity, but by laving it upon the true Author; for though the Paper be under his Lordship's own Hand, there was the Brains and Pen of another Person( pretending to be a Spiritual Guide) in the compiling it; as will more plainly appear when I come to treat of his Lordship's Religion. In the mean, take this of him, that he never deserved or gained any Dignity( or Cure of Souls) in the Church, That as he infests the Palaces and Houses of Princes and great Men, so( pedlar like) he trudges up and down with his Pack to visit the afflicted, with that Industry, that even the late Elm-Board in its groaning Fits, did not escape him. And I am apt to believe, that he, foreseing he should not be permitted to preach or make his Lordships Puneral Oration or Sermon, in which he might have had opportunity to have mimick'd and lied lustily for him in the Pulpit, he put his Lordship upon the Vanity of doing it himself upon the Scaffold.  
In the next place, these Papers charge his Lordship with Equivocations, Tricks, and Evasions, and that his Lordship was very disingenious, first positively to deny the Knowledge of any Plot at all, and then in the same Breath to confess so much of it as he did. For Gods sake, Gentlemen, what would you be at? Do we not all know that the Presbyterian Zeal and Doctrine produced the very like Riddle with this Speech, I mean the Solemn League and Covenant? And do we not also know, that his Lordship had his Education under one of the chief of those that with Sword and Pistol enforced that Covenant upon his Majesty's Liege People contrary and repugnant to the Oath of Allegiance? If this be so, my Friends, and that he who compiled the said Speech and clung to his Lordship even to and at the Block, came out of the Covenanting Country, pray tell me, whether in Reason or Conscience you could expect a better Speech or more Ingenuity. And now I should have ended this Paragraph, but that I cannot but laugh to see one of these Animadverters preaching to his dead Lordship upon the Oath of Allegiance, and the Obligation that thereby lay upon his Lordship and all others to discover all Treason, &c. A most excellent Sermon I confess to the Living; but why this to the Dead? All I shall here add is, that I hearty pray that the forementioned living Compiler and his Disciples, and all others that have erred in that matter, may yet in this their day take shane to them, and repent of their former Misdoings; so as that they may deserve and obtain his Sacred Majesty's Pardon here, and be capable of everlasting Happiness hereafter.  
And now I am come to that part of the Speech which relates to his Lordship's Religion, wherein his Lordship asserts, that he dies of the Reformed Religion, a true and sincere Protestant, and in the Communion of the Church of England though he could never rise up to all the heights of many People: and herein they say his Lordship equivocates. I cannot see how this can properly be called Equivocation, though, I confess, it looks exactly like the Compiler's, viz. A Kind of a causey Religion. But pray Gent. would you have the Disciple greater than his Master? Alas! our Doctor could never get up to the height of many of his Brethren though he hath enough Spiritual Pride in him, and I believe more than five hundred of them. And to show you that this is a true Picture of him, and that he is fond of it, in a Sermon preached to a late great Assembly he takes upon him to animate them to a further Reformation of this established Church; and to immortalize his Zeal therein, he hath imposed upon this unfortunate Lord, and inserted into that part of the Speech which relates to his Religion, a whole Sentence of that Sermon literatim; and not only so, but he hath made his Lordship's Speech( as to his Religion) as mysterious and unintelligible as his own Discourses and Sermons usually are. And for all his Grimace's, his Whimprings, and Whinings, and other antic Gestures in the Pul●i●, he is shrewdly suspected to be no better a Christian than Julian the Apostate.  
The Animadverter's next Exceptions are for his Lordship's expressing his fear for the coming in of Popery. A topic they say cost many Millions of Money, and the late King, and divers of his Subjects, their Lives. Well Gentlemen, what then? Must we not therefore fear Popery? nay, ought we not rather still to fear it? Though I confess, when I consider those many Laws against Popery, and how it's the Interest as well as the Duty of all Englishmen to keep out Popery, when I consider no Papist can sit in either House of Parliament, or execute any Office of Trust either in Church or State, military or civil, to the degree of a Constable or private Sentinal; I cannot see any great Cause to fear Popery, nor can I imagine at which Point of the Compass it can possibly return into this Kingdom. But to pass that by, pray Gentlemen, Do you not know that Popery and Slavery are the Bugbears which create and keep up in the unthinking Mobile, Fears and Jealousies, with which Tools the Faction fought and vanquished the late King, and overturned the Government both in Church and State? Now if under the Umbra of the Discovery of a Popish Plot the same Factions are again at work, whetting and sharpening the same Tools in order to the Overthrow of his now Majesty and this Monarchy, Is it a Wonder if they are still industrious to lick and keep in shape their Bugbears of Popery and Slavery that have done them such Services already and from which they have such further Expectations, and without which the Good Old Cause would be crest-fallen.  
The next matter which the Animadverters find fault with, is, to that part of his Lordship's Speech which relates to the King, wherein they would insinuate as if his Lordship libeled his Majesty. For my part, I think a more charitable Construction may be made thereof, and that no such Thoughts were in his Lordship. But I confess, I admire to find his Lordship's Prayer confined to the Person of the King only; we in the Church of England pray for the whole Royal Family. But when I reflect upon the Principles of the Compiler, and of the third Article in the Covenant, the Admiration ceaseth.  
And now I have done with those Parts of his Lordship's Speech which I thought fit to vindicate; only I cannot but admire his Lordship's Charity, not only to forgive his Enemies, but to charge his Relations not to seek any Revenge: this indeed is transcendent. But it would have been further illustrated if his Lordship had discovered whom he meant by those Enemies, at least whether they were his Superiors or Inferiors. But the Compiler, I suppose, thought this would have been too plain, and have exposed his Lordship and the Party too much, and that it would be inconsistent with the rest of the Speech, viz. make one part of it intelligible.  
Now what more would you have me say, nay, what more would I not further say, if it was possible to vindicate this Lord and his Speech, though I went to Sheppard's on purpose to quicken my Fancy with a Bottle of his best Sherry? But alas, that superabundant do! I am sorry his Lordship hath himself discovered his Pretence of going to Sheppard's to taste Sherry to be a more shame. For, in the very next Paragraph, he tells us, he was invited thither by the D. of Monmouth, not to taste Sherry, but to meet their Companions, to consult how to prevent their undoing by the Lord Shaftsbury and other Hot-heads, and how to make some stirs, the quaintest Word that I ever yet red or heard made use of as a Mask or Veil to cover the Sin of Witchcraft, i.e. Rebellion.  
I agree his Lordship admits himself no Lawyer; but yet before his trial did advice with Men able in that Profession, who( as his Lordship says) would not let him tell the naked Truth. This was well advised by the Lawyers. But when his Lordship came to die, for the aforesaid Compiler to put his Lordship upon Tricks and Evasions, and a total Dissimulation with God and Man; was the Part of a Judas and not an Apostle.  
And now if Harry Care cannot be found, or will not re-assume his packets and Courants, and therein( as formerly) libel the Government both in Church and State, cry up the Modesty and Peaceableness of the Dissenters, republish his raleigh Redivivus, and bellow out Encomiums on the late ungrateful Villain and Rebel Shaftsbury, what will become of the Whiggs this Plot will leave behind?  
Lord have Mercy on them.   

LONDON, Printed for Will. Crook, 1683.